Letting Animals Into, Out Of Our Lives

The first pet I ever had was a beagle named Snoopy. My mother, sister and I gave it to my dad at a surprise party for his 40th birthday. He was definitely surprised. But not happy.

I was four years old at the time, my sister was 12, and my mother was enrolled in college and substitute teaching. My father knew exactly who would be taking care of the puppy.

Snoopy was born to run, and run he did -- away from home just before we moved. Soon after, we bought another dog, a golden retriever named Champagne. When my parents divorced and we moved into the city, we gave her to our real estate agent and bought an urban dog -- a yappy Yorkshire terrier I named Nicky, after the theatre where I worked. (There is an art to naming animals, and I've never mastered it.) I was 13 years old. And guess who took care of the dog?

Right. My dad.

When my father married my stepmother, we were blending more than families, we were blending pets. My stepmother had an angora cat named Shayna, and we had Nicky, an untrained dog who was not self-cleaning. We found him a feline-free home.

As a parent myself now, I understand my father's ambivalence about animals. Every time we go to a school carnival or state fair, I steer my son away from all the booths that offer fish as prizes. I won a goldfish once. I remember climbing up on the kitchen counter to feed it. And feed it. And feed it. Until it was floating.

My son had fish at day care. They died too. And then he had hamsters at day care and in kindergarten. We never volunteered to keep them for holidays or vacations. There is a danger to caring for the class pet. As some friends and I were discussing this problem recently, a waiter overheard us and mentioned that he had a rabbit to give away, whichlanded at his house by way of his son's day care.

I once gave my husband a rabbit for Valentine's Day. We kept Cassidy in a cage until I was pregnant and then we gave her away. We also gave away our cat when we moved from North Carolina to Florida a few years ago. I have given away more pets than some people have ever owned.

In fact, I have friends who have never had pets: no dogs, no cats, nothing. And no allergies. They have no explanation that animal lovers would find satisfying. They just don't want pets.

Which makes me wonder whether they're the sane ones and we pet people are a bit off balance. Given how full our lives are already, why adopt more trouble?

The only time I ever lived without a pet was when I lived in a college dorm, and even then my roommate and I smuggled in a beagle purchased from a homeless man who couldn't care for it properly. Of course, we couldn't care for it properly either.

I think we "rescued" the dog not just out of a sense of altruism, but because we missed the cuddly cuteness of a pet. I missed knowing it would always be there to love and comfort me. I missed the feel, sound and smell of having an animal around. Although I think it was the smell that was our undoing.

I once said that there are cat people and dog people. Maybe there are petless people and pet people.

I know families that have lots of pets -- cats, dogs, fish. Hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs. I even know one family that just bought a hedgehog from a breeder they found on the Internet. And I know people who carry around pictures of their pets, who buy their pets clothes and special food. Is it that some of us have extra love (and money) to spread around?

Maybe it's that animals bring out the best in some of us. They remind us of how we'd like to be. Cats encourage a calm independence, while dogs give us energy and an aggressive lovability.

Me, I'm not a domesticated animal -- more like a dolphin: highly intelligent, easy to train, and a bit hard to understand. Except to other dolphins.

Julie Moos is a thirtysomething who lives with her husband and son. Her column appears every other Thursday. To read more of her thoughts, visit MomInTheMirror.com.