If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I finally got my pet fox. Her name is Penny and she’s taken up residence in our upstairs neighbor’s neglected garden. She likes to sit in the sun on the patio.
I was convinced that Penny was rabid. Foxes are nocturnal and though she was doing a lot of lounging, she was still active during the day. After doing a lot of worrying about it, I decided to send my husband out to find out. My theory was that if Penny was indeed a normal fox she would run away as he approached the back gate. If she was rabid she would run toward him, knocking him to the ground, and tearing the flesh from his neck. I thought this experiment was best done during the day when the doctor’s office up the street was open.
Penny passed the test. She ran away just like a normal fox should. The only problem is that she hasn’t come back since. Too bad, I was looking forward to having a pet. I’ll just have to make due with the fat willowy legged spider under the bathroom sink. I named her Pumpkin and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have rabies.
…but I thought it was so funny that I just had to post it. Don’t worry this is not becoming a dog-themed blog–unless of course you would prefer a dog-themed blog–I just happen to be thinking about dogs these days. It’s much like my prior obsession with foxes.
I’ve never wanted a dog. Something about cleaning up poop is just unappealing to me. I see other people walking their dogs carrying a plastic bag of steaming turd and I feel kind of sick. I actually have to cross the street if there is someone on my side of the street stooping over to pick up poop. I’ve always thought that you have to have a special kind of dedication to be a dog owner.
When we stayed in Florida my heart softened a bit to the whole idea of owning a dog. We watched my sister’s house and dog for five days during our vacation.
My sister’s dog is a lunatic of an animal, but the more time you spend with him the more he seems to grow on you. There’s something about those sad brown eyes. I was giving him snacks and treats all day everyday. When my sister got home, she swore he’d gained weight.
Now I see dogs on the street and I think maybe one dog I want to have a dog. Then I see someone squatting down to pick up a hot turd and I think maybe I ‘ll get a stuffed toy dog instead.
About six months ago I decided that when I finally owned my own house I would get some chickens and a goat. This may be shocking to some of you considering my general fear of animals, especially animals that flap, hop or have horizonally slit pupils like the devil.
All of this aside, I thought goats and chickens could be a good addition to our household. We could have free eggs whenever we wanted and I like egg. We could also have free milk for making kefir and yogurt and butter and cheese and whatever else I can make with milk. I even picked out the ideal goat breed. Nigerian dwarf goats would be my goats of choice. They’re suppose to get make enough milk to feed a family and they’re small. I would have two. They would need to keep each other company.
My passion for raising goats has waned recently. Not because I realized I’d have to milk them every day–imagine me milking a goat–or because I’d have to clean up after them, or because they’re smelly and they make that goat noise all the time, but because I tasted some goat yogurt.
I bought some goat yorgurt. I like to try new things. We can eat some yogurt on out exciting Candida diet to try to get some probiotic into our systems. We can also have a moderate amount of grains so the other day I had oatmeal for breakfast. I mixed it with some goat yogurt and blueberries. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t try this at home. It was disgusting. Goats don’t make the same nice tastey yogurt like that cows do. Instead, goat milk makes something similar to goat cheese. Goat cheese is good, but it’s not good in your oatmeal.
Anyway, I’ve had it in for goats ever since they ruined my oatmeal. I’ve decided there will be no goats for me because I just can’t put up with that kind of unpredictability in my dairy products.
I’m still considering chickens. I’ve recently found out that you can tell what color eggs a hen will produce by looking at her earlobes. I didn’t even know chickens had earlobes. Maybe they have lips too.
Have you heard of domesticated foxes? Apparently, some people raising silver foxes for fur in Russia decided to try to tame them so they would be easier to raise and kill. I think I heard about this on Radio Lab not too long ago. If you don’t know about Russian domesticated foxes you can find out more about them here.
As the foxes became tame they developed features similar to dogs. Some had floppy ears or white marking or even blue eyes. They are friendly animals with the independence of a cat and the loyalty of a dog. Doesn’t that sound like an ideal pet?
When I saw the pictures of the domesticated foxes online I immediately wanted one. I used to imagine my pet fox curling up next to me on the sofa. I’m not sure what you do with a fox exactly. Can you walk a fox? Do they use a litter box? Do they purr? Is a fox more like a cat or a dog? Even without knowing the answers to these vital questions I wanted a domesticated Russian fox…until about a month ago when I realized something disturbing about foxes.
When we moved into this flat we started hearing some disturbing noises late at night that sounded kind of like someone torturing a dog. One night when the noise was particularly loud my husband said, “Maybe that’s what a fox sounds like.” Curious I looked up fox calls online and this is what I found. The noise is a fox.
If that upsetting noise is the sound my pet fox will be making, I don’t want one. My dreams of owning a pet fox are over. The pet monkey that I’ll never have can play with the pet fox that I’ll never have in my imagination. Pets are easier to take care of when they’re imaginary, don’t you think?
Since we’ve lived here we’ve received a dog and cat product catalog. It shouldn’t be coming to us. It obviously is meant to go to the previous resident. I used to write wrong address on it and slip it back into the mailbox, but more recently I’ve been throwing it into the trash. This morning I decided to take it home and have a look inside. I am not a pet owner so, I’m often surprised by the things people buy for their pets. I assume because these items are in this catalog there must be a demand for them.
I have never understood dressing animals up in outfits. There are so many dog clothes in this catalog it’s crazy. Shoes, sweater, sunglasses, pajamas, Halloween costumes–they’re all in there.
Does this dog look happy to you?
Another thing I noticed in the catalog was that there are very few things for cats. There are no cat clothes. I can’t imagine anyone trying to put clothes on a cat. I did find these lovely fake nails for cats. There was also a cat “Playpen” that looked more like a cage to me. The cats sitting in the “playpen” didn’t look very playful.
Too bad we’re moving on Thursday. I should’ve been looking at this catalog ever since we lived here. I had no idea what I was missing by not peeking inside.
Tiki Kiki Painted Lady died on October 23, 2006. She lived a quiet life. She enjoyed hunting, eating, sitting in the corner of her terrarium, sitting beneath a large piece of bark, and sinking her fangs into anything that was placed in front of her.
The first time I met Tiki Kiki, she was hunting grasshoppers named after political figures–Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, etc.. She was not as interested in politics as she was the sport of the hunt. Sometimes she didn’t even consume her prey, but kept their bodies as trophies.
Her love for the kill was taken to extremes when she killed and consumed her mate, Dada. I never met Dada, but I hear that he didn’t deserve to be eaten. Needless to say, Tiki Kiki was survived by no relatives. She had no offspring, if she did she might have eaten them too.
I remember the time I transported Tiki Kiki in my car to our new home. She chose this time to demonstrate her ability to walk up the glass walls of her terrarium–previously I didn’t know she could do that. At every red light, I twisted around to check on her in the back. The last thing I needed was for her to get loose in my car.
Tiki Kiki enjoyed a meal of crickets and a drink of possibly tainted water before shrivelling up beneath a piece of bark and taking her final breaths. While there were initial suspicions of foul play, those have been put to rest.
