‘Growing up my children had so many animals we could have been a zoo’

My husband was a science teacher, we had two sons and while they were growing up there were always animals in our house. At one point, we had three dogs, two cats, six chinchillas, two hamsters, and a rabbit.

I remember my dog Obie, from around that time. In my opinion she was the best. She loved me unconditionally, as dogs do, I guess. However, unlike most dogs she did not have a doggy odour.

The chinchillas were supposed to be good house pets. They had beautiful soft lush fur, an inquisitive, boisterous nature and no objectionable noises, but they were also reproducing at an alarming rate and one day they got loose. It was utter chaos as we chased their darting little bodies around the place.

In between the howls of laughter from me and the boys, we were able to catch them and put them all back. The dogs had an expression on their faces that was curious and quizzical, they watched us cavort somewhat bemused.

We had so many chinchillas that we had to give them away. It was quite a relief to me as the smell of these tiny creatures had become overwhelming.

We also had snakes. These were not my cup of tea, especially the rosy boa — it might be the smallest member of the Boidae family, but they can still grow to more than 1m in length. I avoided feeding time because I couldn’t stand watching them eat the mice.

I had been napping one day, when I heard an unholy scream come from upstairs in our house. One of the cats zipped by me and I heard the scream again. In its mouth was one of the hamsters. It was squealing to be saved. When I saw it, I screamed too and grabbed the nearest broom in the hope that swatting the cat would get it to release the hamster from its jaws. Thankfully it did! I scooped the very shaken hamster up and put it back in the cage. It’s hard to believe that little bugger lived for another two years after that incident.

My house had become somewhat of a menagerie of animals. My son had been given a baby bird to look after as it had fallen out of the nest. He fed the bird with tiny tweezers and meal worms. On one occasion I heard him calling for me, yelling that the bird had eaten the tweezers. I was horrified (how on earth…) and told my son that the bird would probably die with them in his stomach. Lo and behold, 30 minutes later the bird jerked and brought those tweezers up, spitting them into the food dish. I’d never seen anything like it.

The bird bonded to my son and would follow him around the house. It would hop behind him as he went up the stairs, down the stairs, into the bathroom… Everywhere. We watched him grow bigger and stronger, and then it was time to say goodbye. We had a ceremony on the back deck to see him off.

It’s fun remembering all the laughter that those animals brought to our lives.

Did you have animals around you growing up? What about when your children were growing up?

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