My bird is a lot of fun. I’ve had him for over a year now. He is parakeet named Charlie. I had a bird before, a canary, but he died. I got him for free before my back surgery. I was about to play with him one day when I found him on the bottom of the cage. I called my mom, "Mom, come quick! Something is wrong!" My mom said the bird was dead. I felt really sad.

After that, I didn’t get a bird for a while, till Hanukkah, about a year ago. First, my parents gave me a book about how to raise your parakeet. Then we went to a pet store and got Charlie. Me and my mom take care of Charlie: cleaning the cage, changing his food and water, and just playing with him a lot.

Charlie chirps a lot and flies around. Steve Feld made me a bird song CD. We play it all the time. We really like it a lot. It is really peaceful. Charlie likes it. He bobs his head along with any kind of music. That’s cool.

Smokey, my dog, got really close to eating him once. Charlie was flying around. He was on top of his cage. All of a sudden he flew down really fast and low. Smokey got a few feathers. I saw it happen. I was really freaked out! Now, whenever someone takes Smokey out for a walk, that’s when we let Charlie out of his cage.

I have had Smokey for about eight years. She is a West Highland terrier. She is very cute and funny. We throw a ball in the air and she sort of plays soccer and pushes it off with her nose. I guess my Mom taught her. The most annoying thing she does is bark!

How did I get her? When I was younger I couldn’t eat a lot a food. My Mom said if I could eat a whole sandwich in one sitting I could get a dog. So, I finished a sandwich one night–it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on hallah bread–and after that my Mom said, "OK, you can get a dog," and I was very excited. My grandma picked it out. My grandpa wanted to get a male dog, but grandma said, "No, a female dog is better!" So that is how I got Smokey.

Two of my fish just died. The first one died a week or two ago. My second fish died today. My Dad noticed that one of my fish was not moving that well. I think the water got dirty. I was a little sad. I don’t know if I will replace them. It is actually a lot of work to take care of them and I already have two other pets.