Pets

5 cats, 1 dog, 1 hamster - The number of pets I've had in the last 10 years. 0 - The number I have now. Why? Because for some reason animals don't agree with me. Or should I say, I seem to obtain mentally ill animals as pets. A pet is a good thing, they provide company to the elderly, make ideal Christmas presents (don't believe the propaganda), and are a great way of saying "I'm sorry". Especially if the pet of choice can kill. On the whole, pets are expensive, mostly ungrateful and jump ship at the slightest whiff of a free meal, a bit like teenagers. Without getting all 'This is your Life', I'll share my animal experiences, which somehow sounds wrong.

The first pet my wife and I got was a cat called Tigger, the runt of a litter, a tiny little thing we got as a kitten that stayed with us long enough to cost us money in painkilling injections at the vets due to a dodgy hip, then ran away the day we moved house. We'd already lost our second cat, Simba, a couple of years earlier, he was a big fluffy tom cat that was very friendly, but he enjoyed hunting too much, brought us loads of (dead) gifts, then he ran away. We got a dog called Cassie, a loony Border Collie who didn't like being left alone so howled whenever she was, so we had to give her up as the neighbour who worked nights had an issue with sleep deprivation. She is still in the family, my cousin now looks after her. When Cassie left we decided to get another cat and adopted a black and white cat called Patch, but didn't think that was enough so we impulse-bought 2 kittens, as you do, when promoting our youth club at a community fayre and had a stand opposite the Cat Protection League. Somehow we ended up with Brandy and Smokey. We also got a hamster called Joseph (blame my daughter) who had a death wish - he liked to get out of his cage and run the feline gauntlet. He 'disappeared' one night, Patch was off his food for a day or two afterwards. The last 3 cats moved with us to the North East, stayed with us for 3-4 months before running away. I do take it personally.

I do take some comfort knowing that our choice of pets are relatively normal, some people have stupid pets. I can understand why people have dogs, cats, rodent, rabbits and fish as pets, they interact, they can be cuddled, stroked or watched and can help relaxation as part of a calorie controlled diet. Or is that Special K? Anyway, what I don't understand are people who get snakes or lizards or spiders as pets. They do fuck all. They don't move, they don't learn tricks, and in a lot of cases they scare people and can kill. Why bother? Why spend hundreds of pounds on a glass tank, lamps, temperature controls, insurance and anti-venom to watch a snake not move for days. The only excitement is if live food is introduced - not because of the feeding process but just to watch something happen in the glass box you've spent £300 on.

Then there's the vet. The robbing bastard. There are some people in the UK, people who never leave and think that Yorkshire puddings are 'foreigh muck', who wonder what it would be like in a country where health care is not free at the point of delivery like the NHS. To experience this, buy a pet, then for full effect, run it over and take it to the vet. After the plumbers headshake, it's the bad news. "Well, the operation will be £300, then there are 2 overnight stays at £40 a night...." £40 a night? To be locked in a cage? Actually, I once spent £40 to be locked in a .... not now. The kicker for me though is "It would be cruel to let it live, the best thing to do is have it put down. I'm sorry to have to inform you of this. That'll be £120 please." Why should we pay to have our pets killed by a specialised hitman? Especially when a hammer is much cheaper.

Speaking of animal death, I heard a woman telling some friends at the bus station about a friend of hers who had a dog which sadly passed away. I say sadly, for all I know the death of the dog may have been a blessing, it could have been seriously ill, or a banker. Any way, this lady was left with the dead dog and didn't know what to do with it (less options open to us here than there are in Korea) so rang the vet and said her dog had died. The vet quoted her (the use of the word 'quote' in this scenario made me laugh, like she's having her windows done) about £400 to take the dog, cremate it and then give her back the ashes. She decided to shop around (!!!) and ended up ringing the RSPCA who said they would do it for £100. The woman agreed and asked when they would be available to collect the dog, to which she was told she would have to get the dog to the RSPCA building herself. She hung up, wondering how she would get a dead dog to the pet crematorium without a car. Her friend suggested the bus. "How can I go on a bus with a dead dog?" At this point, as I was visualising the animal version of Weekend at Bernie's, I was snapped back to the story by the sentence "You've got that big suitcase you took to Cos, haven't you?". The Weekend at Bernie's idea would have been better. But, that's what the woman did, put the dog in the suitcase and dragged it to the bus stop as it was too heavy for her to carry. She was front of the queue and when the bus arrived she couldn't lift it up the stairs. A very helpful young man offered to help, went to pick up the suitcase and realising it weighed about the same as a dead dog in a suitcase asked what was in it. The woman panicked and came out the only reasonable explanation in a situation like this - "It's a computer". "Why is it so heavy?" she was asked by the man, struggling to lift it into the luggage bay at the front of the bus. "It's a very big and expensive computer, I'm giving it to a friend". The suitcase was left at the front of the bus and the woman went to sit with a friend she had seen at the back. Ten minutes later, she got to her stop, got to the front of the bus to get her case - and it had gone. Nicked. By the bloke who put it on the bus for her as he thought it contained a very heavy expensive computer.

I still can't work out what's funnier, the thought of an old woman on a bus realising her dead dog has been stolen, but not being able to say the words "Someone has nicked my dead dog", or the look on the bloke's face when he opened the suitcase to find a dead dog. The woman tried to find it, the bus company checked the CCTV, she rang around Cash Converters and pawn shops (seriously) to see if anyone has come in with a suitcase asking for a price on the contents, then revealing a dead dog to a member of staff that, if that happened, would still be off sick now with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The woman telling the story then ran to get her bus so I don't know whether she was reunited with her dog at the finish. But what I do know is that the cat eating the hamster was simpler and cheaper.