All things considered, all of our current pets are fairly new. The earliest one we only got 3 or 4 years ago, and the rest have been within the past year. However, we did have some other pets that have unfortunately passed on.
When I was 3, my uncle rescued a black cat from the side of the road. Having 2 already, he decided to give it to my mom, who named it Taz, short for the tasmanian devil. As soon as Taz came home and I saw him for the first time, I instantly loved him. If I could find him, I would be playing with him. And for the next 7 years, that’s how things were. Until the inevitable happened: he died of old age around midnight when I was 10. It was really hard for me, but eventually I accepted it and things are fine now.
The thing about fish is that if you’re not the one taking care of them, they can sometimes fall into obscurity, and since our first fish Couscous was in a tank in my parents’ bathroom, I don’t really have much recollection of him. I remember having fun feeding him a couple of times, but that’s all you can really do with fish. I’m not even sure how he died; I’m pretty sure Taz ate him.
Even though I occasionally got caught with a bit of despair from Taz’s death, I loved it when we got our 2nd cat Squirrel. Someone my mom knew from work was willing to let us have her, so we took the opportunity. And while she’s not Taz, I still like spending time playing with her, although she can get pretty bratty when she wants to.
My sister decided that she wanted a fish, so she got 2. Nothing really else to say, often times I forget that we even have fish.
Around the time I started high school, I became obsessed with birds. I think it started during the summer before my freshman year when my dad took me to the Mystic Aquarium, which for some reason had an aviary. I loved it, and soon after I really wanted a bird. Then, a little while after I asked for one over a year later, I got the opportunity to get my very own pineapple green-cheeked conure, who I named Sonny. Or Sunny, it depends on the gender, which you have to take a DNA test for since there’s no visible difference. I personally believe it’s a male, but we’ll see soon. As soon as you get a bird to bond with you, it’s the greatest thing ever. They’ll walk all over you, sit on your shoulder ready for a pirate cosplay, and jump around on you in very funny and impressive ways. For most of my life, I’ve been solely a cat person, and now I love birds more than anything.
Our golden retriever, Stella, is the most recent addition to the cast of pets cluttering our house, and she’s proving to be the most difficult one to care for. Before she can be trained, we have to have gates to block off where she can’t go, and she walks around you in ways that seem like she’s trying to get kicked. Things’ll likely get better as she grows up a bit, but I’m not much of a dog person, so it'll be interesting to see how all of this plays out. We got Stella for my sister, and that’s who’s gonna be taking care of her.