pet stories

dog, gerbils, guinea pigs, hamster,
french lop rabbits, various fishes, dog.

that's the list, from start to finish,

of animals that shared our living quarters

during my growing up years.

the first dog, Elska, was purchased (so i'm told) when i did not appear on my due date but, instead, decided to wait about two more weeks.  what's an expectant couple to do but buy a puppy?  at the time, we were dorm-living on the campus of Vassar College, and this was just not enough room for a growing family and an energetic collie, so Elska was found a new home.

the gerbils were not, actually, ours but met their demise while in our care over a school holiday.  i don't recall if we knew the gerbil was pregnant when we brought her home over the summer break, but she duly had a litter of pups.  all was well until we left the garage door up during the night.  mama gerbil perished (a wandering cat, we surmised), & we were left with a half-dozen or so naked and blind gerbil babies.  we made valiant attempts to use medicine droppers to feed them milk; sadly, one by one, they died.

now, my memory is that we actually owned a couple of guinea pigs and that they resided in a cage against the back of our house - similar to a rabbit hutch - but it may be that i am recalling a visit to a friend's house, who was hoping someone else might like to adopt his pets.  either way, the relationship was brief and towards the end of our time in Scotland.  i think one of the guinea pigs was dark brown, but that's about all i can dredge up about them.

we had a dry spell with animals while we settled back into our American life and my mother returned to mostly full-time work (as i would come to realize much later in my life, pets of any ilk are plenty of work for....somebody).  a couple of hamsters came and went:  my brother's was inherited from a classroom & was a sweet old fellow; mine was an energetic little pet store purchase who, to my recollection, was enjoyable and short-lived.  attempts at fishes, angelfish for their flashy tails, dotted the pet landscape but never lasted more than a week or two.

eventually, my parents got the notion that a couple of house-broken rabbits would be a great addition.  i can certainly see why:  soft & furry AND you can train them to use a litter box.  what's not to like?  so, two french lop rabbits were soon hopping their cute selves around the house, using the kitty litter like pros.  until one nibbled through the sugar bag and gorged himself into an early grave (it was terrible).  we continued to, gamely, attempt to engage the remaining rabbit (who, by this time, was quite a large rabbit) in lap petting sessions; however, a large rabbit that does not wish to be thusly engaged has no difficulty strongly opposing this.  rabbits have some powerful back legs, let me tell you.  plus, he started chewing through electrical cords; so, he was returned to the rabbit farm from whence he came.

last, but decidedly not least, my parents got another dog.  dogs are the best.  they are.  it's just a fact.  you (almost) can't go wrong with a dog.  so, Tosca joined our family and was a great comfort and delight for all of her twelve-some years.  she was half-lab and half-golden; so pale a yellow she was practically white.  easy to train; so happy to see her pack come home to her (after a day alone illicitly sleeping on the forbidden couch) that her entire body showed her happiness. she was, in the end, much more my parents' dog than mine; they bought her when i was a junior in high school, and i was not much a part of the second half of her life.  but what part we overlapped was much enjoyed.

for various reasons, pets have not featured greatly in my adult life.  it's easy (isn't it?) to look back and say, "well, if only we'd gotten a dog then...but, now, well...."  yes, maybe we should've gotten a dog when we had that great fenced-in backyard and i was at home full-time with the kids.  yes, maybe we should've gotten a dog five years ago when, instead, i bought the boys two guinea pigs as a sort of compromise.  &, now, yes, maybe we should get a dog, but the boys will be largely gone and out of the house for much of the time, both of them, within five years.  because i know the work part of owning a dog is constant.  and, yes, i know the dog is (almost) always worth it.

but these days, i am feeling the slightest breeze (which will be happy and melancholy at alternating moments, i'm sure) of how my time might be spent when the boys are not living with us every day of their lives.  (i have been assured - reassured? warned? - that the process is extremely gradual.)  and i have many ideas (however ephemeral at this point) of how i am going to use that time...and, really, none of it involves a dog.  i imagine a dog might be a fine accompaniment, a fine companion, in these endeavors - but a dog is not essential to them.  they, really, besides an affable human, are the most rewarding of companions.

so many excuses, eh?  finally, in a fit of maternal guilt (children should have a pet, else they will forever be scarred!), i insisted that they needed two guinea pigs.  as is typical of resolving guilt, this was a rash decision executed swiftly the day before school commenced five years ago.  it has forever caused my husband to be slightly skittish whenever i casually say, "maybe a fill-in-the-blank would be a good idea."  so, long story short, one guinea pig died within the first week, but the other one remained quite healthy for three years.  perhaps because it really wasn't what the boys wanted or, perhaps, because i was the only one with enough animal-handling experiences, i was forever the only one in the house who could catch the pig & hold it with any ease.  she (Darwin was her name) never entirely tamed but was entirely stinky (the cage, really, not the animal).  cute, though, with her greeting squeaks that caused both her ears to flop up and down.  she quickly conditioned to respond to my flip-flops, purchased as she was in the summer, which frequently meant a fresh handful of lettuce was headed her way.

Darwin the beautiful

okay, so they continued to request a cat (Samuel) or a dog (Joseph).  the cat argument is easier, as i have quite well-documented cat allergies (which i have not challenged in some time but, i figure, are still relevant).  the dog argument is soooooooo hard.  i get it, i really do.  i've had a dog.  i enjoy dogs.  but.  sigh.

family life is about compromise, right?  i guess.  you ask for what you want; you get that which can be agreed upon.

so.....welcome to our home, as-yet-unnamed hamster!

this is, actually, hamster numero dos.  numero uno, purchased (oh, so unwisely!) at a big box pet store, was an energetic biter - cute but vicious.  after taking the entire cage with hamster inside back to the store (no way was i putting my fingers anywhere near it), we stopped at our more local pet store & found this little fellow.  he was on a slight discount (yes, i should have asked why & will, hopefully, not regret that i didn't) and immediately allowed us to pick him up and admire his serene self.  a winner, said we.  (i have since come to the conclusion that he is a mature hamster - although the salesman thought he was not more than a year - and his calm demeanor may be attributable to this.)  he has continued to be very easy to handle but definitely lets us know when he is done with it all (not with nips but with an increased 'scurrying' which makes him very difficult to hold onto and always accomplishes what he wants, which is to be put back in his cage).

& i cannot hold back the giggles when he does this:

school is about to start, so (i guess) we have survived another summer of dog-wishing and not getting.  it's so much easier to say 'no' when our lives are overflowing with activities & so much harder when the days are long and carefree.  this is a stay tuned kind of thing, but my main hope is that the hamster soon is given a name.