Interspecies Friendship

Cne of the more disturbing recurring nightmares I have experienced as an adult involves a hamster which I have forgotten that I adopted and have proceeded to neglect until it died of starvation or maybe severe rodent depression. The reason this dream haunts

me so much is because I8m not sure if it is actually a memory.

The fact is that I did have a pet hamster as a kid that I didn't 1 like very much. It wasn't unfriendly, but it sort of just did

its own thing most of the time. Which is to say that it left a tiny trail of shit and piss all over the couch that I had to

clean up =xmA®Y any time I let it out. To this day I honestly cannot remember if the sight of its still, pee stained body flopped over an empty food bowl with its tongue swollen and lolling out the side of its face is a fantasy I dreamed up or if it actually happened. I'll never know for sure if I neglected that rodent to death, and that will forever haunt me.

The hamster was the first pet that was completely my responsibility but my family had a long line of rats leading up to ite Rats are surprisingly lovely pets. My favorite rat-based past times involved tucking a rat into my shirt so that it could scurry around my

mid section. I also enjoyed building elaborate mazes out of

VHS tapes which were often short cut or completely circumvented by the wily beasts. They were incredible escape artists. Even with a stack of books on top of their cage, it was likely you'd find one in your bed some nights.

My father had a beautiful siamese cat named Thumper who's origin predated myself and thus was never information I cared enough

to acquire. I say that Thumper belonged yo my dad because he absolutely loathed the rest of us and was prone to long bouts of hide and seek inside my parent's box springs. I desperately wanted Thumper to like me because he was handsome and I liked the way he hung like a limp rag doll in your hands when you picked him up.

When my mother brought home a mangled stray kitten, I was elated by the opportunity to make a feline friend. We named him Boo Boo on account of the limb we had to surgically remove, I adored

Boo Boo, and Boo Boo tolerated me in return. This is surprising im hindsight considering my aggressive, childlike animal affection, an. my undiagnosed OCD which found me frequently pinning down the cat to pick at any scabs he had collected from neighborhood brawls. Later in life, Boo Boo would develop a habit of clawing at me throu- gh the banister any time I descended into our basement. A behavior I found baffling at hte time but have now accepted as much deserved, plotted assassination attempts.

Boo Boo wasn't the only stray we took im. My brother came across

a gorgeous but entirely indistinguishable heniz 57 of a mutt

that we ended up keeping. Her name was Kasha and she was quite

the force to be reconned with, The terms for keeping her arcund involved us kids taking her on walks.e. 1 was entirely too young and innocent to enter such a treaty, and so submit that it was unfair for me to participate in this rotation. My siblings with their advanced age and muscular development may remember this

act differently, but I didn't really take Kash on walks. Kasha took me on walks.

Kasha wasn't a fully integrated member of the family in the same way the cats were. She was relegated to living outside; something I've since realized was a form of neglect if not abuse. We cared for Kasha and made her as comfortable as one can make an outside dog, but I'm not sure any of us saw her a s anything other than

a chore. This was partially why I decided to adopt a dog of my own in my late twenties. I needed a dog-rearing redemption. I had also never been in a serious relationship and was beginning to grow concerned about my looming narcicism. I needed something other than myself to focus my atéention on.

I settled on adopting & retired racing greyhound because I wanted a large dog but still lived in a studio apartment. During my home visit the interviewer's greyhound was nervously farting a potent cloud about my living space. Embarrassed, the interviewer finally said "I'm really sorry about my dog. I forgot to bring her bed." A remark I didn't fully appreciate until I had adopted my own delicate princess.

My dog Bree came in to my life at nearly the same time my wife did. In fact you could say it was Bree that brought us together. We met online, but it was her recently adopted greyhound bugsy that gave us a connecting point. We obvicusly got on quite well on account of us being married now, but the dogs took longer

to warm up to each other. Bugsy was a simple boy that wanted

to be friends with everyone. He adored Bree and followed her every lead. Even when that lead was misdirection to distract

him from the more desireable bed. Bree was much smarter than Bugsy and mostly saw him as competition for soft sleeping surfaces. As a rescue that had been in the system for the first six years of her life, Bree took some time to open up. She was notoriously bad at playing with other dogs; usually barking loudly in their faces or hoarding the toy that every other dog wanted to play with. Her favorite game to play was "this is mine now and I'm taking it to my bed" By the end of her life, Bree had completely transformed. I've never felt more proud than the moment my senior lady instigated play time with my in-law's bichon.

Bree wasn't the only one changed by the relationship. I came out the other side a much more patient and understanding caretaker.

I regret the moments I was upset with her and tried to make her what IT wanted rather than understand who she was. She taught me what an integral part of the family a petcan and should be. Outside of my wife, Bree was my best friend. Not my accessory. That does make me retroactively guilty for my childhood pets

but also sheds a joyful light on the animal relationships to come.