I have always had a pet (or more). As a child, I can remember feeding squirrels in the backyard. Yes, they were "pets" as they were tame enough to hold, but we kept them in the wild. They were supposed to be wild...that is how God created them...that is how we made pets of them.

We always had a dog. One was SUPPOSED to have a dog. They protected the children. When the mailman reached over my head to hand mom the mail and got bit; instead of a new pair of pants, to replace the one our dog put a hole in, he got a lecture from daddy about how he had a dog to keep us kids "safe" and if the mailman hadn't made that "frightening gesture" towards me, the dog would have never set teeth on him!

We had one cat. Daddy did not like cats. Mom wanted a cat. Mom finally got a cat--a pedigreed SMOKED PERSIAN cat...papers and all. (And I don't mean newspapers.) We kept the cat in the house, until bedtime. Then he had to go out in the attached garage for the evening. Until one cold night, when the car hood was warm from a trip, and the cat urinated down the vent.....

The cat went, but the smell never did. Mom poured my best perfume(s) down the vent. Didn't work. We rode with windows open in that car until we sold it....sooner than daddy had really wanted to do so!

I have had parakeets who walked through our dinner plates...one especially used to like to walk into the mashed potatoes and while standing in the middle of the pile, eat some with us! That was a real highlight of my brother and my meal...daddy made us keep the bird "caged" until after supper after that.

Mom always wanted a minah-bird. A local pet store sold us one "real cheap" because he wouldn't talk--he just quacked like a duck. They were right. He did. He learned to talk years later...in fact, he mimicked daddy so well that once daddy's' boss called, and while the phone was put down on the table for dad to go get something, the bird, in daddy's voice said "when you talk, you talk." ...to daddy's boss! Daddy's boss got very angry and hung up--showed up at our door to fire dad (I think)--and would not listen to dad when he told him it "was the bird, not him". While sitting in the living room, the bird let out an awful squawk and proceeded with "when you talk, you talk. shut up, stupid" and a few other choice things he had learned in daddy's tone of voice. Daddy's' boss almost fell over, he was so stunned. He apologized to mom and dad, and things got back to normal. Soon after, that bird was put in the paper and sold. I wonder why!

There have been many other animals which came into my life as a child. Frogs, fish, canaries, cows (my uncle had a dairy farm) to name a few. I grew up "among animals". Dad would take us for walks in the woods, watching the wildlife. Funny, the rabbits and other wildlife must have known he was not a hunter...as we viewed many a lifestyle without the wild animals leaving. My brother and I were taught to respect life--that even tho we might not LIKE the life--such as a spider, in God's plan, they were put there for a reason; if we upset the balance of nature, we would cause real problems for future generations.

As an adult, my children have been allowed to have various animal contacts. We have had dogs and cats; birds; squirrels--babies who fell out of the trees were hand-raised and fed and became too tame (be aware that you must get a permit now-a-days from the government wildlife to keep a wild animal such as a squirrel). I am the local "mommy" for some vets in the area. When a baby animal loses it's mother for one reason or another, I become the mother and hand-feed them...until they can make it on their own. The "deal" with the vet is this--I will surrogate mother the baby until it can survive, then it is up to the vet to find a home for it...either place it in an environment or set it free. We have freed a squirrel who now resides near the veterinary clinic...and visits occasionally. He has hedgehogs, lizards, minx, and from time to time, various other "weird" animal species in his building. The schools love him to bring an animal in for the children to view. We even have a local government sanctioned "cat" home here in the Grenada area. When someone buys a tiger, lion, or some other cat and it gets too hard to handle or they decide they no longer want it, we have a place here where they are turned loose and just fed. They roam wild, but are very friendly to the feeder. He will bring them into the clinic in a horse trailer for their shots, or even to be spayed and/or neutered (a must). My daughter (#2) has inherited my love of animals and works with this doctor. I have witnessed her in a trailer with the lion, rubbing his head....(ever ready to run out if he should get nasty!).

Our family has always had a soft-spot for animals...and always will. Who knows, maybe someday an emu will be a part of our backyard...:-)