Survival of the Fittest

I've had several pets in my lifetime, though few have survived. I don't know what it is about my family, but we just don't seem to deal well with pets. It all started out before I was born, so I know that I'm not the one to blame--obviously it's my parents' curse. We had a dalmatian named Ashley, with one blue eye and one brown one. I have very few memories of her: she was scared of thunderstorms, she refused to play fetch, preferring to look at the ball disdainfully, she loved green beans but not peas, and she had one leg that didn't work.

The accident that cost Ashley the use of her leg happened before I was born. Dad wanted to show her (like in those creepy dog shows) and was training her at the horse tracks where she liked to jump over the hurdles. After doing a few laps, he took her up to his friend's office on the fourth floor. Ashley took one look around, spotted the open window, and jumped through it just like a hurdle. She lived, but only thanks to a stranger across the street who called animal services when he saw a dog, legs flailing, plummet the four stories to the ground. What I wouldn't give to see the expression on that guy's face! So she broke her leg to the point where it never fully straightened again. She got the hang of it eventually, even was able to run, but for a few months my dad had to carry her to the bathroom. That's dedication.

The next animal was my hamster, Snowball. I should have known things would turn out badly the moment I looked into his beady red eyes at the pet store and he bit my finger til it bled. Snowball and I did not get on well. I, admittedly, wasn't the best pet owner. I often forgot to feed him or give him water, and I refused to clean his cage point-blank. It came as no surprise when my mother and I went to go feed little Snowball one day only to find that he'd chewed his way through his plastic cage. We looked for him everyone--under the bed, behind the couch, in the closets, under the sink, everywhere. We looked until we expected to find only a tiny hamster skeleton. I wasn't too choked up about the loss.

 2 months later we found Snowball, resiliently and unbelievably alive. Behind the washing machine. He'd been living off Ashley's dog food.

So, we got a new cage and stuck him back in it. A few months later, he'd chewed his way out again. This time we didn't bother looking too hard, knowing he'd turn up eventually. Quite a while later, Mom was clearing out the back of her closet and found a tiny, chewed hole through the baseboard of the house...Snowball. Mom screamed, and I never saw my oh so beloved hamster again. He ran away; chewed straight through the house just to get away from me. I like to think that there is a herd of snow-white hamsters living in the woods behind my house, they're monstrous red eyes and talons terrorizing the neighborhood.

My next encounter with pets was birds. In my defense, they weren't my birds and it wasn't my fault. I was babysitting my friend's two birds (Sonny and Sandy, colored blue and green respectively) while she went to visit family in Texas over Christmas vacation. My dad, the jokester that he is, decided it would be super funny to let the birds out of their cage so they could fly around the house and annoy Mom. He probably should have turned the fan off first.

That's right. I walk in the room just in time to see a little blur of green get smacked by the ceiling fan and thrown into the wall, little tufts of feathers floating down in its wake. I don't know how, but the thing survived. I almost felt guilty taking my friends 'thank you' present...almost.

Then there was the cat. Nothing dramatic has happened to Shadow, but she's annoying as hell. Every morning, between 1 and 3am, Shadow decides to make some noise. I don't know why, I've never asked. She climbs into my bookshelves, and begins knocking my books onto the ground one by one. Thud. Thud. Thud....THUD! This is immediately followed by me forcibly removing her from the room. Occasionally I 'accidentally' throw her into the wall at the other end of the hallway, but she always lands on her feet.

After Shadow we got fish. A LOT of fish. My dad likes to do spontaneous things while Mom and I are on vacation. We go to grandma and grandpa's while he has to work? He buys a big screen tv. Mom goes to work and gets home late? He buys a boat. No lie, he legit bought a boat. We go to Spain for a pilgrimage? He buys a 50 gallon fish tank. It's just what he does.

So, if you have a 50 gallon fish tank you obviously need fish. We had fish of every kind (and several different batches as they all died out, but let's focus on the first). We had blind albino frogs, sucker fish, elephant fish, pretty fish, ugly puffy fish, guppies, baby shark looking things, green fish, beta fish, and tiger fish. I had one fish that I grew quite attached to, Tiger. He had a little tiger-striped tail that was adorable and he could out-swim most of the predators in the tank. It became evident pretty early on that the fish were being eaten, but rather than fix the problem and save the fish my dad decided it was 'survival of the fittest'. Tiger was one of the last to go, and I mourned him for weeks. 

The most interesting fish in our tank were the frogs. They were white with red eyes (just like Snowball) and were blind. This was particularly entertaining at feeding time, because they couldnt' see the food or the other fish, so they just swam around blindly and ran into everything. Including the sides of the tank. It was hilarious!

Our next pet was Abby, another spontaneous purchase by my father. She is a black lab-golden retriever mix that we rescued. She and her siblings were trapped in a storm drain and she was the only one who survived. She is lovable and friendly and we haven't managed to kill her yet so that's a plus. But that's not to say we haven't come close.

Dad bought an electric fence for her so that we wouldn't have to walk her anymore. We were all ecstatic. Dad and I worked together to get it all set up, adjust the perimeter and power level of the collar, and then stuck the thing on her. We were heading out to walk her around and train her to know where the fence was. We'd just gotten to the door when her collar started beeping.

 ME: "That's weird."

DAD: "Yeah." 

We ignored it and kept going. Abby got two feet before the collar shocked her...at the highest level. We had gotten the levels mixed up; we meant to put it on the highest perimeter and the lowest shock-level, but did the opposite instead. I know, we're smarties. Abby paid the price for it though. I'll never forget her little black body leaping into the air, her howls echoing down the road. We haven't used the fence since.

The next pet is my turtle, Grady Bubba. My best friend from home and I each got a turtle; hers is named Brady. They are little red-eared sliders, I believe, and don't require much maintenance or money, which makes them the perfect college pet! Grady just sits on my desk, never complaining or knocking books off. I only have to clean his tank once a week and feed him, like, twice. His low-maintenance attitude hasn't been all good, however. I kind of forgot him over Thanksgiving break...but he's still alive! Alive and well, and now my roommates remind me to feed him and take him home with me, so it all worked out.

My family also has an iguana now. His name is Marley and he lives in the empty 50 gallon fish tank. My dad bought him for my brothers 15th birthday. You could say it was an unusual present, as Richard had never expressed any interest in iguanas, but that's the kinda bloke Dad is. An unusual one. Marley is alive and normal as far as I know. He doesn't like it when you get close to his tank, but other than that he never moves. Seriously, he is the most boring present ever.

And those are my family's pets: two dogs, a cat, a hamster, countless fish, a turtle, and an iguana. I vote we go for a goat next.