Many people today have or have had some kind of pet at one time or another. Myself, I have had several kinds of pets throughout my life. My children have followed in my footsteps, not only in the variety of pets they have had, but also in the manner in which such pets have been obtained. I have had cats and dogs, hamsters and birds, snakes and turles, and even fish.

When I was very young, my family had a black cat named "Bennie" and a mut dog with several names: "D. D. " (dumb dog), "Mugsy", and other strange names. My parents did not believe in going to the pet store to get a pet. It was cheaper and easier to simply take in a stray, or take a newborn off the hands of a neighbor, whose pet was accidentally knocked up. On a camping trip with my dad, I had adopted a turtle for the entire trip. The last day, while we were packing our things, the turtle creeped away. My parents divorced, and my mother, siblings, and I moved to Texas, but I am not sure where the cat and dog had gone.

Down in Texas, we had moved onto a small farm which belonged to my maternal grandmother's cousins. We helped with the garden, and the small orchard. In time we also learned how to care for the cattle and chickens which were bred on teh farm. I never considered them as pets. Chickens were mean and instantly earned my distaste. I never felt any guilt over eating a chicken. The cattle were slow, and stunk. My sister had wanted a pet, and my grandmother had asked her what she thought of the animals for which we cared daily. My sister answered that those were chores. My grandmother knew a lady who raised birds and purchased a blue parakeet for eight dollars.

It was not long afterwards, that one of my sister's friends' cats had had a litter of unwanted kittens. My sister was allowed to pick one out. she picked an orange Tabby and named her "Fluffy". Fluffy immediately took to the free roam of the farm, and had adjusted from a pampered indoor kitten to a wild outdoor cat. She hooked up with a stray tom, and had a litter of her own. My sister, having been disappointed at Fluffy's wild nature, picked an all white male cat, and named him "Blanco", and I was allowed to pick a kitten also. I saw a female tabby with a picture of the sun and its rays, and I named her "Sunshine". By this time, we were no longer living on the farm, but Fluffy had chosen to stay. We took Blanco and Sunshine to our trailer on the other side of town, and raised them as indoor cats. Strange as it was, Blanco had retained some of his mother's wild nature, and constantly was venturing outdoors. Sunshine, on the other hand, was content to stay inside and be pampered.

I had trained her to be a superb mouse hunter, something I would later regret. My brother adopted a wild stray alley cat, and named her "Cleopatra". This kitty was responsible for much of the damage done to the curtains and the furniture. We had to wait for her to tame down, before we could transport her to the vet to be declawed. Cleo regularly escaped, sometimes with Blanco, but always returned by morning. Blanco, consequently, was immediately neutered. My mother had gained some mixed cat from a neighbor; I don't remember her name, but all she did was shed all over the place. She was no good for playing, or mousehunting, or anything else. "The Girls" (female cats) messed with Blanco when he returned from the vet. He still had some effects of the anesthesia, and basically acted drunk. The Girls would stroll up to him and push him over. Eventually Sunshine and my mom's cat would be spayed. When we took Cleo to have her spayed, She turned out to be pregnant. Her litter consisted of 6 kittens: Roly poly and Airwolf were the most memorable. They were the last ones to be given away in front of H.E.B.

Eventually I wanted to have a bird like my sister. We came across an unwanted parakeet which was colored yelow and green. Since yellow and green reminded me of lemon-lime, and Sprite was my favorite soda, teh parakeet was named "Sprite". I don't remember what happened to Sprite, but I did not have him long. To ease my pain from the loss of Sprite, my mom took me to a pet store. I am sure this was the first time I had ever entered one. I decided I wanted to try something different. I noticed the golden hamsters were only four dollars, so I picked one. I had asked if it was a boy or a girl, but the clerk told me it was too early to tell. A few weeks later, I screamed when I thought my hamster had worms! It wasn't worms though; my hamster had been pregnant when I bought her. She was too young to care for the babies and every single one died. We removed the baby corpses and when she was a little older, a friend of mine gave us a long haired hamster. We started breeding hamsters.

The cats were intrigued by the hamsters. They learned not to injure the hamsters, and to differentiate between the mice and the hamsters, but this lesson came at the early demise of some of the hamsters who had escaped during cage cleaning. There was never any shortage of hamsters though. "Sugar Baby" and "Alf" turned out to be a good match and produced a wondrous variety of young hamsters.

The most memorable of their offspring were definitely "Cream Puff" and "Sugar Daddy". Of course, the irony fell on Sugar Daddy, who unlike his name, was never able to successfully breed. He had a testicular disorder, a sort of elephantitus, which the vet explained also came with internal issues, and possibly even sterility. But he was quite the character, and he used to play with the cats, once the hamster ball was made available. Cream Puff looked jsut like a cream puff, and followed in her mother's footsteps of breeding, except she was never monogamus in her mating. She was quite the opposite. Once she had produced a litter with a specific hamster, she refused to go near him again. In order to keep breeding her, we had to rotate her through our selection of males. Our greatest number of hamsters at one time was twenty-two.

Then a wet tail epidemic spread throughout, and killed almost all of my hamsters. I never obtained anymore. My brother was catching garder snakes by then, and would use an old aquarium, which had been cleaned out and sterilized, to house his snakes. My mother would not allow him to keep the snakes inside, and without a proper cover for the snakes, they often escaped. Finally, we had a proper cover and were learning about reptile care. Then one day the whole aquarium disappeared. Did the snake carry his new home away? No, the neighbor had stolen the snake, but in an attempt to handle the snake, the snake had escaped. The neighbor kid felt bad for losing the snake, not realizing the snake had been wild in the first place, and confessed to stealing the snake. He returned teh aquarium, and my brother continued to bring home garder and hog nosed snakes.

Somewhere in the middle my mom had adopted a short haired terrier mix named "Sport". That dog was hump crazy. He was unexpectedly strong for his size, and we had to keep getting him thicker chains, because he would get so excited, he would repeatedly break his chain at the opportunity to hump a new leg of a passerby. I honestly believe the dog was ADHD.

When I moved in with my dad, I was not allowed to bring my cat, Sunshine, and she experienced severe depression, according to the vet. She eventually died of "a broken heart". Every pet I had after that had died within the first year, and I had a few dogs. I have not been able to keep a pet more than a year since. My children have had better luck, and they just too k my frog home with them. I had the frog for six months, but current airline security measures do not allow amphibian travel.

The strange thing is I cannot stand cats to this day. Does this have something to do with subconscious lingering guilt over Sunshine's depression? I don't know, but with my kids and all their pets, I may never need to obtain my own pet again.