In the many years that I have been illustrating, pets were never a big inspiration of mine until recently. Working in the pet healthcare industry and witnessing the prevalence of pets on social media, the view of my fur and feather babies changed from ‘pets’ to ‘muses’.

This illustration features my late pet cockatiel, Freddie, who flew high to heaven almost two years ago - I still miss him every day. I created this piece to not only immortalize a silly interaction that we shared whenever I gave him a fresh batch of seeds, but to also playfully illustrate what he would have been saying if he could speak. The intentional misspelling of words and improper grammar is a reference to the online community of imaginative pet parents (including myself) who partake in humorously giving their pets voices – in a broader sense, showing their pets performing human activities. The pirate hat outline is a subtle, personal detail I added to symbolize Freddie’s favorite song to sing – the Pirates of the Caribbean movie theme. Although this piece is mostly personal, I hope that other pet parents can relate to this mundane but precious moment that I often shared with Freddie.