The Pet Life
It all started with my brother and the mice. He had an affection for rodents; a childhood interest. I don’t know where this originated from, or, indeed, why it was fostered. I’m not saying this is strange in any way, if anything my interest in marine biology was, though that’s a story for another time. In any case, a great deal was always made out of my interest, though for all its perceived quirkiness, it didn’t spawn a succession of pets. This couldn’t be said of Alistair. Not like I come off scot-free- my desire for pets started manifesting later, though in the spirit of the chronological order we’ll start with my dear brother’s first forays into pet ownership.
The first pet I remember was a hamster- a roborovski to be sepecific; seeing as we lived in a suburb called Robroyston, this seemed quite appropriate. I can’t remember its name. Whilst this hamster was very cute, it didn’t make a very good pet. The main reason for this being that it would run towards thenearest shelter at very high speed as soon as it was set down on the ground.
Whenever this happened (usually by accident during the cage-cleaning process or some another similar operation), a wide-scale search mission was launched to find the hamster, before the roborovski managed to do any lasting damage by chewing through cables, or making a nest in the couch. Not like this was such a bad thing. I usually found thse drawn-out search operations to stop the hamster from destroying the house to be quite entertaining.
One time we had a friend round at the house, and I was given the express instruction not to let the hamster out of its cage, because we’d soon have to leave, and the hamster inevitably wouldn’t be found in time.
However, this friend (who eventually trained to be a vet, funnily enough) was an older boy, and, upon being shown the hamster, urged me to let it out the cage. Feeling the strong influence of peer-pressure bearing down on me, I did so, and much reprimanding was done when my mother discovered the deed. Apart from that, my memories of this first hamster are few. They consist of Alistair squeezing it so as to make its eyes bulge out slightly one time, and, ultimately, its death.
Whenever we went on holiday, we’d load the cage with an ample sufficiency of food and water so the hamster could have adequate victuals for the duration. On this occasion, we returned home to find the hamster on the floor next to its cage (this was actually a fairly tall fish tank, so it must’ve exited via the top), still alive, but lying on its back and panting heavily. The whole thing was fairly tragic. The hamster must’ve made one last-ditch attempt to escape by jumping, and injured itself on the way down.
Seeing as it was still alive when we found it, the hamster mustn’t have been there for very long, so had it delayed its stunt by a few hours, it might’ve received more immediate medical attention. Not like this would’ve made much difference probably, as our attempts to revive it were unsuccessful. Even though I call this event a tragic one, I suppose I muse confess that’s only with the benefit of hindsight. The death of Alistair’s pets usually tended to provide me with a great degree of entertainment. I had no emotional attachment to them myself, and, as they functioned as an extension of his personality, I took some great sense of glee whenever they expired. Thus, whenever this happened, my parents gave me the gravest of warnings not to make fun of Alistair over his loss, so I didn’t. Mostly.
After the roborovski experience, we decided to get a less hyperactive hamster. I’m not sure what the breed was, though it was a lot closer to a guinea pig on the rodent-spectrum than its predecessor. It had fairly long, brown hair, and, as a result, was dubbed the extremely imaginative and original name of ‘Fluffy’. However, even though Fluffy moved at a more moderate pace than his predecessor, he posed other challenges. In fact, Fluffy only lasted about a week. Not because he died (though he’ll definitely be dead by now), but because his long hair triggered a series of allergic reactions for the inhabitants of the house- so back to the shop he went. According to my mum, the only reason we managed to return him was because she had a friend at the shop who managed to pull some strings and get Fluffy quarantined before he went up for sale again. I’m pretty sure the pet retailer went into administration a few months after we returned him. Rest in peace.
Next in line was Jerry- an actual mouse this time. He was white, so the name didn’t make much sense, though it must’ve seemed a good idea at the time. I actually commend this mouse. It lasted many years (about five), even though it led quite a turbulent life. To put things in perspective, Jerry started his life in Glasgow, went on a road trip to Gibraltar, surviving a cross-channel ferry and a voyage through the corazón of Spain in the middle of June, going on to live his formative years in the Mediterranean sun. As well as his hardiness, Jerry a perfect mouse personality- he was friendly and not too fast, and didn’t give anyone an allergic reaction. Plus, five years isn’t to be sniffed at; we definitely got our money’s worth out of good ‘ol Jerry.
Once Jerry finally died, he was replaced, by a brown Spanish mouse, named ‘Euro’, because (surprise!) that’s how much he cost. My memories of Euro are very limited (basically non-existent), so we’ll gloss over him. The final pet rodent in our house actually came as a surprise for Alistair. I suspect that by Euro’s death, he’d grown out of his mouse phase, though, unfortunately for him, the rodent experience wasn’t done yet. For his birthday, he was gifted a hamster -called Richard- without having asked for one, probably because my mum couldn’t think of anything else to give him. It lived an uneventful life, though he did spawn some anecdotes.
It happened that we were getting the upstairs windows replaced with double glazing a few months later. The hamster’s cage was set against the curtains, which he’d been chewing through, unbeknownst to us at the time. As the tradesman prepared to start his work, my mum was taking the curtains down. When she saw the damage, she shouted out, ‘Richard’s eaten the curtains!’ in an extremely exaspered voice. The tradesman looked at her like she was a madwoman with his mouth open. It turned out that his name was Richard.
During the succesion of this dynasty of rodents, there was no sugar-coating of the animal fatalities in our house. There were no green fields, elysian farms or even better places. Not even a pet heaven- it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible. So when they died, that was it. There was a burial, though, carried out by my dad, because the person who’s pet had died was too distraught. I estimate that he’s had to bury five dead pets over the years. There have been worse tallies.
Now onto my story. I had a ‘triops kit’ (you probably don’t want to know what that is) -which ended up boing poured down the drain when we moved- and a sand based ant colony when I was very little, though I don’t really count those, because neither of them actually worked, so my personal catalogue of pets may as well start here.
As with Richard, my first real pet wasn’t one I’d asked for, and came about thanks to the whim of my mother. For some reason, she decided that she wanted a lovebird, so we drove to La Linea, bought one (along with the cage and assorted paraphernalia) and smuggled it back across the border in a shopping cart.
So, how did I end up with her (I’ll assume it was a girl), even though its acquisition was mum’s idea? I remember it like this.
When we got back to the house, we set up the cage with its food and water in their small tubs to the side, and the bird started eating immediately- a process which caused a great deal of mess. I remember looking at the bird with a sense of fascination- I’d never been that close to an exotic bird before. My mum asked if I wanted the bird to be mine, and I said yes. She probably cottoned on to the amount of hassle keeping the bird would cause before I did, though I didn’t mind.
She was called ‘Dathan,’ which is Scottish Gaelic for ‘colours’. It was a Fischer’s lovebird, with rosy chest plumage, a red beak, emerald wings and white-rimmed eyes. As well as being the prettiest pet we ever had, Dathan also possessed the most character. We’d let her out of the cage all the time, and she’d fly onto my shoulder, perch on people’s heads, and attempt to make nests in people’s hair, much to the disconcertion of my mother, which was unfortunate, as her hair seemed to possess the best nest-making making properties, causing Dathan to land on it at every possible opportunity. Even though Dathan was sometimes a nuisance with her singing, spilled seeds and guano, I think that everyone in the house had a real connection with her.
Once when I moved her cage outside, the bottom part fell off, and Dathan flew out into the wild. I saw her flying to the top of the garden, with a sense of shock and disappointment; this was obviously the last time I’d ever see her. At the same time as this happened, my dad went onto the veranda to take the washing in. Dathan perched on a branch, saw my dad, then flew onto his head. He went inside, with the bird still on.
This soon came to be thought of as a near miracle-level occurrence. Even presented with the chance of ultimate freedom, Dathan chose to stay. Of course, birds form extremely strong attachments to those they live with, though considering our history with mice, having a pet that actually exhibited some personality and showed visible signs of affection was a complete novelty, and I truly loved Dathan very much. Unfortunately, though, this made her untimely death all the more tragic.
My mother had gotten into the habit of taking the cage outside for the nights. I don’t know why she did this, though I suspect it was to limit the amount of mess caused by spilled seeds from the food box. One morning I came down and saw that Dathan was lying on the floor of the cage, and I could instantly see that there was no coming back. I think that day was a record for the amount of crying in our household- my mum, because she felt at fault; me, because I loved my bird, and my brother, probably because he just felt left out and wanted to join in. All in all, Dathan only spent a few months with us, though they were memorable. As per usual, dad was ready with his trowel.
I think that there’s a degree of karmic justice when it comes to pets (or when it comes to ours anyway). What I mean by this is that the distress of captivity we impose on these creatures is paid back in full on their demise; with the possible exception of dogs, though we never had one. For all the time that poor mouse was running on his wheel and gnawing on the bars of the cage, he could’ve been roaming freely in the Castillo estate, copulating at will and living life to his full potential. As payback, the higher powers-that-be inflict pain on the families responsible for his incarceration.
My cosmic theory of retribution, however, does have a slight flaw. The pets nobody cares about probably have an even worse life than their more-loved contemporaries, and their deaths obviously aren’t anywhere near as hard on the owners, so they don’t even have that as a straw to cling on to. In fact, their passing can be quite a relief. So, with that in mind, we’ll shift focus onto the rest of my pet collection.
Now things start taking a turn for the… dodgy. I’ll start with the terrapin. He might even have been before Dathan, though so little was its significance I can barely remember. My mum must’ve thought that after having graduated from the triops, I needed to ascend to the next level of weird aquatic pets, an idea which I agreed with. Enter, stage left, the terrapin. He cost five euros, and, considering how quickly he died, was probably the worst value-for-money pet we ever had. The problem was that he just wouldn’t eat. It didn’t care for the food we’d bought for it (which smelt awful) or for the assorted lettuce, vegetables and fruit we tried to coax it to eat. I estimate that It lasted a week. That being said, it probably wouldn’t have lived a very fulfilling life anyway.
Next in line was the pigeon. This bird was actually a diamond dove (Geopelia cuneat), though it just came to be known as ‘The Pigeon’. For those who are familiar with Spanish pet shops, there are often a number of small, fat grey birds sitting amongst the more regular finches and budgies. I decided that I wanted one of these birds, often choosing to observe them after our customary Carrefour shop in Los Barrios. We happened to be visiting the pet shop once on my birthday, where, as part of my present, the bird was bought for me. My dad, however, was less enthused. The memories of the noise, hassle and mess of Dathan were probably fresh in his mind. Of course, this was of no concern to me. I seem to remember my mum doing some tugging of the heartstrings, so we left Carrefour with the small grey bird. In order to alleviate the headaches that our previous feathered friend had cased, a rule was instituted: the bird wasn’t allowed out of its cage. So, from the beginning, the pigeon was set up for a fairly sad life. I couldn’t even think of a name for it, there really being no obvious name that came to mind, and that ‘the pigeon’ was what everyone called it anyway.
Eventually, as I started to mature somewhat, I became more perceptive of the pigeon’s poor quality of life, living solely in the cage, not being able to spread its wings. I actually felt a bit sorry for it, so one day, I decided to set it free.
It escaped’ I reported back to my unconvinced mother, though she didn’t exactly complain.
If you thought the pigeon was underwhelming, then brace yourselves, because it’s time for Benjamin to break onto the scene. My weakness for cute animals seemingly wasn’t exhausted, so, sometime after disposing of the pigeon, I set my heart on a rabbit. This time, it was YouTube that fuelled my desires, and I spent much time down the rabbit hole of bunny-care videos, as well as reading many articles, most of which started along the lines of ‘Rabbits are one of the most rewarding pets, but can also pose some surprising challenges’. Indeed, there were to be some very surprising challenges up ahead.
It just so happened that one of my mum’s forces friends had a rabbit, and was moving back to the UK, making rabbit transportation an extreme annoyance. So, the stars seemingly aligned, and we left to pick up this rabbit, Benjamin. The first thing that struck me about Benjamin was his size. I was expecting a Netherland Dwarf, though this seemed more like a Flemish Giant. Such was his bulbiferous girth, he was actually quite difficult for me to pick up at the time. I wasn’t deterred much, still somewhat excited by a new life of rabbit ownership. That was, until we were driving back home with Benjamin in the boot. He was running around in the enclosed space, making a frantically hellish scurrying noise, quite an appropriate precursor to the ownership experience. It was at that point, that I started to have regrets.
Soon, the harsh reality of rabbit life set in. I quickly discovered that I had no emotional attachment to Benjamin, and, as far as I was concerned, all he did was rummage around, eat large quantities of hay, and defecate. I remember going to bed one night, thoroughly demoralised and angry at being landed with Benjamin, who was an active strain and decreased my quality of life tremendously. This was the point at which I finally realised that pets were more hassle than they were worth- and my interest had officially ended, perfectly timed to coincide with the acquisition of my biggest burden yet. That night I was in bed, I told myself that I needed a Bear Grylls-style mentality of endurance, perseverance and hard-as-nailsness. Fortunately, though, I was to be saved from having to do this for much longer.
Once again, the family knack for animal allergies came to my rescue, as Benjamin soon faced the same fate as Fluffy had done all those years ago. I feebly argued that, seeing as the rabbit was housed outside in his metal wire hutch, it shouldn’t cause such a problem. I suppose I thought that I needed to pretend to want to keep him, seeing as it was because of me that he was acquired in the first place, though obviously deep-down I was celebrating. It didn’t take long to find a new home for Benjamin. Owing to his cuteness and the Gibraltarian penchant for stuffing apartments with small animals, a new home was found for him within forty eight hours of posting on Facebook. I hope he was happy in his new home, even though he wasn’t particularly missed. I don’t remember even speaking about him once after he’d gone.
Thus, we come to the conclusion of my succession of pets. Whilst there were some good moments, the whole saga was an overall negative. However, it turns out Richard wasn’t Alistair’s final pet- he was saving the worst for last. One of his friends won a goldfish (name- Rebound) at the fair, and, upon finding out that he was going to flush it down the toilet, did a USA-in-Kuwait and intervened. Much like operation Desert Storm, the campaign started out successfully, though would soon precipitate a whole world of problems.
Every time the bowl had to be cleaned, a minor battle took place, with the pet’s owner not being bothered to complete the procedure, and his mother urging him on. In the end, the cleaning process invariably fell to her. I have no clue why Alistair decided to rescue the fish, let alone why the friend decided to accept it as a prize in the first place. As boring as this goldfish was, its departure from our care was at least somewhat entertaining. Finally fed up of the constant arguing, one day Alistair decided to dispose of the fish humanely, by taking it down to Commonwealth Park and chucking it into the pond.
Bye-bye!
Looks like in the end, Alistair even had more practical involvement with marine life I did. I can’t remember anything being made of that.
