The Dog Who Healed A Family. Jo Coudert

with the brightest eyes, and when he was three months old, feathered out and able to eat solid food, she went with Pat to fetch Casey home.

      It was only a matter of days before Pat was saying to Annie, “I didn’t realize I talked so much. Casey’s picking up all kinds of words.”

      “I could have told you,” her daughter said with a smile. “Just be sure you watch your language.”

      “Who, me? I’m a perfect lady.”

      The sentence Casey learned first was “Where’s my glasses?” and coming fast on its heels was “Where’s my purse?” Every time Pat began circling the apartment, scanning tabletops, opening drawers and feeling behind pillows, Casey set up a litany: “Where’s my glasses? Where’s my glasses?”

      “You probably know where they are, smarty-pants.”

      “Where’s my purse?”

      “I’m looking for my glasses.”

      “Smarty-pants.”

      When Pat found her glasses and her purse and went to get her coat out of the closet, Casey switched to “So long. See you later.” And when she came home again, after going to the supermarket in the Minnesota weather, she called out, “Hi, Casey!” and Casey greeted her from the den with “Holy smokes, it’s cold out there!” She joked, “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

      “What fun it is to have him,” Pat told Annie. “It makes the whole place feel better.”

      “You know what?” Annie said. “You’re beginning to feel better, too.”

      “So I am. They say laughter’s good for you, and Casey gives me four or five great laughs a day.”

      Like the day a plumber came to repair a leak under the kitchen sink. In his cage in the den, Casey cracked seeds and occasionally eyed the plumber through the open door. Suddenly the parrot broke the silence by reciting, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four …”

      “What?” demanded the plumber from under the sink.

      Casey mimicked Pat’s inflections perfectly. “Don’t poo on the rug,” he ordered.

      The plumber pushed himself out from under the sink and marched into the living room. “If you’re going to play games, lady, you can just get yourself another plumber.” Pat looked at him blankly. The plumber hesitated. “That was you saying those things, wasn’t it?”