Do you have animals in your life? If yes,
what do they mean to you? If no, why have you opted not to?
Yes, for those
of you who are familiar with my blog, you know that we rescued a German shorthaired
pointer bird dog about 5 months ago. And in that 5 months, our new 65-pound
liver and white running machine means more to us than I could ever explain. Because
I’ve already written several entries about our “Gun-Gun,” I will not go into
further detail about him here, but I WILL tell you about why we have a dog now
and why I haven’t since I was a teenager in high school.
Growing up,
we had fish, which I loved, parrots (they were my brothers) and a dog or two. I
always loved animals and insects of all kinds and still do. For a short time, I
wanted to be a veterinarian and sometimes still wish I had chosen that career
route. And even though I had no pets once I moved overseas, I found ways to
incorporate “pets” into our lives. When I was the teacher for the before and after
school program, we had hermit crabs as pets because it was the only thing we
really could keep in the program on the island.
In addition, my kids captured caterpillars as children and put them in
containers to watch them turn into butterflies and then release them, and
whenever we traveled back to Alabama on vacation, we’d make sure and go out in
the back yards of our “in the country” family to find and catch fireflies at
dusk.
That said, except
for the hermit crabs on Kwaj, I had no pets for 17 years. The main reason for that is because I didn’t
feel that I could properly give a pet (which would have been a dog) the time
and attention he or she would need due to our busy family schedules and so many
other factors. And having Gunner now, I
know I was right, and I’m so glad we waited until moving back to the states.
On the
island, most people take 3-4 week vacations or sometimes 4-6 weeks at one time in
the summer or at holidays and that means someone else has to take care of your
pet (and there are no pet day cares on base). What that meant for me is that I
got my pet fix by pet sitting other’s precious family members. At one house, I had the privilege of
housesitting in an awesome place right on the water while taking care of their
cat and their salt-water aquarium (which was home to a baby octopus). So cool!!
And the best part is that during that time, my children could not stay with me
(I was in a bachelor’s quarters-BQ-for three years after my divorce), so when I
had house or pet sitting jobs, they got to come stay with me and help out!!
So, it all
worked out in the end. And our dog now
is totally spoiled and completely loved because we went for so long without a
pet that he gets more love than any animal could ever hope for. And we, well, we get the joy of taking responsibility
for a loyal, sweet, exercise craving, sausage loving ball of short-haired
fur. He brings us joy, laughter, an
undeniable reason to exercise daily and get out in nature more than we ever
would without him, and a new appreciation for the warmth of a good fire and the
discovery of all sorts of wildlife right outside our back door.
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