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We talked about getting another animal for our 10 year old son. Briefly. We already have one dog and two cats. When my husband and I married we brought 2 dogs (his) and cats (mine) together and agreed when these four-legged kids were gone-there would be no more. Our son would be in High School when they were all gone and we would be on the precipice of an Empty Nest. Why be tied down with animals then? We would be free to come and go as we pleased, no school calendar holding us back, no animals to find a sitter for. We would be close to retirement age and raring to go- to enjoy the benefits of having worked for 46 years. Our golden years.
Over the last 7 years we lost one dog (his) and inherited another (mine) from my former life. We also lost one-(our) little Pomeranian. Cancer took our little guy, he was a trooper through it all. He took great care of his girl since the were brought together and policed the cats. Our, yes they had become ours once we brought the entire family together.
I am frequently in our local pet store for our remaining kiddo's. This is not one of your giant pet super stores but a unique small animal store. They have tropical fish swimming in a giant pond and hand trained birds. They have a Rainforest aviary you can go into and feed some of the larger birds. A giant tortoise entertains at a child's birthday party along with a chinchilla, ferret,guinea pig and of course a bunny.
Each time I go in to the store I peruse the small animals, the guineas are cute but all of those smelly shavings. Ferret? No again they just never did anything for me no matter how cute they are. Mice? Um....cats.....lunch, not a pretty thought comes to mind. Fish? After Fred 1, Fred 2, Fred 3 - we really didn't want to tell Tim about Fred and just kept replacing him. and the red Beta we had at the end whose name escapes me-oh yes, Cisco. They die too quick and I am the only one that cleans the bowl. Rabbit? I grew up with a Bunny in the house-Flufffernutter, she was a lot of fun, good memories.
Each time I visited the store I would check out the bunnies, they were adorable but skittish. I was able to catch one of them each time and holding him was like being on Minute to Win It. "You need to hold on to the bunny for 60 seconds, good luck!" But I would talk myself out of getting one for one reason or another. As adorable as each one was I just didn't want to train another animal. Memories of training Boo Boo my Peach Faced Love Bird came rushing back-being up until 3:00a.m. because I could not get him back in his cage.
I realized we just were going to keep to our original agreement. No new pets. And Stephen was in agreement.
Until that one day. . . . . .
