To keep a pet or not…

I’ve always had pets at home when I was a kid. Not your usual cats or dogs… but some rather exotic creatures as well….

Other kids played with toys, not me. I had no toys, but I played with my pets and brothers. Best childhood ever. At times I wished that I had become a vet or something since I really like animals. Maybe I can be a zookeeper during my retirement! That can be my second career!

FYI: below is the list of animals I once had them as pets:

1) A pug, the cutest, ugliest and stupidest dog in the world. Oh, but I loved her so much!
2) Chicks. 3 fluffy, yellow, chirpy little things lived in my bathroom for a period of time. Well, until they were about to be chickens and we gave them to my aunt. And shortly after that, I remembered my aunt gave me some home-made KFC.
3) Ducklings. Yes, I once had 5 ducklings… I have no idea how or where my mum got these ducklings. But they were SO CUTE! They made the cutest little “quacks” and I had so much fun bathing with them. I remembered that I fed them little “live” fishes and spent many hours just observing their EVERY move. It was like a mini National Geographic “Live”.
4) Rabbits. In fact, we were trying to keep a litter of newly-born rabbits alive as their mother rejected them. My mum and I were taking turns to bottle feed these little bunnies. Aww… baby rabbits are the cutest.
5) Hamster. I had a really nasty one. I remembered that it was constantly biting me and my brother. Not only that, it was like a demonic little thing, always climbing its little cage, trying to escape. One day, it succeeded. We woke up one morning, and the cage was empty. We never found it.
6) Salamander. See… I bet many of you do not even know what a salamander was. It was like a water lizard, a little slimy but it was red and black in color. Really pretty… I bought it from a little obscure pet shop. However, it didn’t last very long…
7) Gold Fishes. It was actually my mum who was really into gold fish. We had a huge tank and these fishes eventually started to spawn. Unfortunately, none of the fries made it. I had a lot of fun playing doctor with the dead fishes. I happen to know exactly how the insides of a gold fish looks like.
8) A baby ball python. Ok, it belonged to my senior in college and I babysat it for 6 months or so. I was like the only girl crazy enough to keep a snake in her hostel room. Not only that, I let it roamed around my room once a while. It really liked my monitor and would always coil itself under it (During those days, monitors aren’t the slim, sexy LCDs. They were the size of a bed). Then its little pink, forked tongue would stick out with that tiny little “sssss”. So cute lah!
9) Terrapins. Ok, not my favorite kind of pets. I had more fun looking at the gold fish than playing with the damned terrapins. I hope they are still happy living at the MacRitchie Reservoir.

Currently as I am still living with the in-laws, I do not keep any pets, but my mum has 7 cats and technically, one of them is mine. I’m thinking of bringing her over to my new place once it is ready. Not only that, I also intend to keep 2 rabbits, and some gold fishes.

But my worry is…. What will happen to them when Hubby and I were to travel??!!
Argh….. then I will have to either trouble my neighbour or my brothers. That’s the sucky thing about having pets.

However, once you have pets, the urge to keep some furballs alive and kicking will always be there. I cannot wait to have my OWN furballs.