Debbie, Just before my husband and I got married (1969) we bought 2 budgies and named them Tweety and Sylvester. Tweety only lived @ three years but our Sylvester lived for 12 1/2 years and the veterinarian said it was extremely long for a hybrid Parakeet, that their lifespan is generally 5 to 6 years ... so, it sounds as if your budgie and mine were exceptions to the rule.
We had Sylvester the parakeet for so long and he knew his name, would whistle and say "Pretty Bird". If he was out of his cage and I called his name he would fly to wherever I was in the house. One year we were living in Va. when hubby was stationed there in the Navy and I adopted a stray cat at our apartment complex. I'm so bad about thinking up names for pets so I gave our black kitty the name Tweety. People were always telling me how we had it backwards, that Tweety was the bird and Sylvester was the cat. They always looked at me funny when I told them that we'd had Sylvester the parakeet for four years and he knew his name so we couldn't change it.
