Fatal mistake

I screwed up.  Big time.

This morning we said goodbye to Leon, our cockatiel.  Last night I opened up his cage after dinner to give him a bit of freedom.  Instead of flying over to join us in the living room as he usually does, he stayed over on top of his cage and hence, when we went to go to bed, I forgot that he was out and I didn't put him back inside.  It's happened before.  He usually just goes back into the cage on his own and goes to sleep.

For some reason, around 6am this morning while we were still in bed he flew into the living room.  Buddy must have heard something, and roused himself from his dog bed in our room to go downstairs to investigate.  You can see where this is heading.  We heard flapping, some bird squawks, and Buddy's claws scrabbling on the hardwood.  By the time I woke up, realized what was going on and ran downstairs it was too late.

I'm not mad at Buddy.  He's never gone after the bird before and I know what happened was a combination of it being dark and there being something moving around on the floor that he didn't expect.  He was just being a dog, and I can't blame him.  But I can blame myself, which is what I've been doing all morning.  I feel horrible.  It's all my fault.  I've spent the last three hours crying.  I know when I posted about Leon back in March I made him sound pretty heinous.  But there was good stuff too.  And no matter what, he didn't deserve this.  He was our pet and he deserved a lot better.

M says he doesn't blame me, that he could have put Leon back in the cage too, and he didn't.  True.  But I'm the one who let him out to start with.  It's somehow easier to take it all on myself than chalk it up to a series of stupid little events that led to an accident.

If only he'd stayed in / on top of his cage this morning.

If only Buddy had stayed upstairs in his dog bed.

If only I'd put him back in the damn cage in the first place.