Fringe Pets

When I was a child the only pets I had were a pair of hamsters, two rabbits and a crow.

I don’t have many memories of the hamsters.  Actually I do have one memory of the hamsters.  I went down into the basement and one of them had eaten the other one.  Immediately I called out to my older sister, “Jenny, come quickly (insert hamster name here) is dead and (insert other hamster name here) has just killed him!!”  It was a hamster homicide in the Burley Basement, film at 11.

After that I don’t remember what happened to hamster #2.  It’s possible that he was actually my sisters pet, maybe she took it to her 5^th grade class or perhaps my mom just let him escape one night.

My next pet was a pair of rabbits.  Dad built a kick ass double hutch for them to live outside and I named the boy, Clyde, after Clyde The Glide Drexler, a college basketball player.  The girl rabbit I named Georgeanne after a teacher that I really liked at the time.  The only thing I remember about the rabbits is that I would go out there and teach them how to hide when dogs in the neighborhood would bark.

Big Bird was a crow.  Now really, how many of you had, or even heard of a crow being somebody’s pet?  I remember we went to an apartment where a coworker of my father worked to pick up the crow.  If memory serves me correctly, Big Bird lived in the same hutch as the rabbits, which had since disappeared.

A couple of times Big Bird escaped and flew into neighboring trees.  How did we coax a flying wild bird back into a comically small cage?  I have no idea, but it’s a memory and I have photos of me with a crow, so it must’ve happened.    We eventually released Big Bird back into the wild, where he flew away as quickly as possible.

My father visited us recently, us with two cats and two dogs, and I asked him why we had a pet crow when I was growing up. 

‘Well, I had a pet crow growing up and I figured it’d be nice if you kids had one too’, he said in an old school kind of way.

So growing up I had fringe pets.  They were pets that were animals, true, but not really socially acceptable pets and certainly ones that you couldn’t share with other people.

Is that the reason why I went to work at an animal shelter?  Before being a stay at home dad I worked full time for PAWS Atlanta doing their communications, PR, website and fundraising.  Anybody who has ever worked for a non-profit organization can relate to the ambiguous job title and description.

Suffice it to say, I know a bit about cats and dogs, domestic animals and how they relate to everyday living.  During my five years of working at an animal shelter I saw most situations, heard horror stories and saw the best & worst of humanity on a daily basis.  Sadly, people with children were one of the main reasons why people said that they had to surrender their pet. 

Before leaving PAWS Atlanta I arranged for the filming of Animal Planet’s, It’s Me or the Dog to take place there.   PAWS Atlanta is a no kill animal shelter and the episode deals with the problems of having lots of dogs with different personalities-many of which need training, while wrangling employees, volunteers and a board of directors.  The title of the It’s Me or the Dogepisode is The Unadoptables and will air June 19, 9:00 EDT on Animal Planet. 

The filming of a reality television show is interesting.  It was an amazing experience and the animal shelter will never be the same, that’s for sure! 

Next week I’ll detail some hints, stereotypes, myths, lies and shortcuts about pets and what kind of pet is good for your home.  Pets, the right pets, can be a memorable and positive aspect in raising a child and having a happy family.  The entries will all lead up the episode of It’s Me or the Dog on June 19^th at 9:00 PM EDT.