Gus: A Bird's Life, in His Own Words

Gus is a heartwarming, funny love story about how a clinical psychologist who initially rejected the 1.4-ounce pet parakeet his wife insisted on adopting ultimately wanted Gus to live beyond his all-too-brief five years. How Gus’s uncanny words of wisdom—though sometimes making the psychologist look bad to others—helped his therapy patients, himself, and his wife in remarkable ways.
This book is for anyone interested in human-animal relationships, as well as those interested in a therapist's take on his own life struggles.


Editorial Reviews

“. . . while the book’s humor is uniformly winning, its most memorable element is the underlying pathos of genuine interspecies communication; long before the halfway point, Gus no longer seems like any kind of pet but rather a smart, mischievous person . . . When Bellows declares, ‘I was fascinated by what was in his little birdy mind and wanted to learn more–much more,’ there’s hardly a reader who won’t agree.
A touching and fascinating memoir of a little bird with a big personality.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Brilliant bird! Brilliant bird!
—Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus, Oxford University

Gus: A Bird’s Life, in His Own Words is an engaging, funny, and enlightening account of how a pet parakeet, with no language training, picked up words uttered by his two human family members, who both happen to be psychologists. As a bird veterinarian, I found Gus’s verbal adventures—both at home and at the veterinarian’s office where he boarded when his humans were away— to be both amazing and believable. His ability to rearrange words into novel sentences that described various situations perfectly is an eye-opener into bird cognition. Gus is a page-turner that I recommend to anyone who enjoys pet memoirs—especially one that demonstrates why the term “bird brain” should become a badge of honor when applied to humans!
—Dr. Ann Bourke, Board Certified in Avian Medicine, Northeast Bird Clinic, Ashford, Connecticut