Jitterball - my first gerbil. he was splotchy black and white and he escaped exactly forty times. he moved from nova scotia to manitoba with me. at one point, he escaped in one of our hotels while we were out at dinner. he used to get terrible seizures and nosebleeds, but he lived to be four, which is a relatively ripe old age, especially with a move across most of canada.
Knorrig - my second gerbil. knorrig means "nibble" in german. he was a classy black gerbil with a white streak down his chin. he never escaped. he spent most of his life destroying cages and chewing bars and smelling like ammonia. in my childish stories that i made up about my animals, he served as a head general in saffron's army. he also got terrible seizures and nosebleeds, but i pretty much expected that after Jitterball. he lived to be three, and he was never really very pleasant.
Honey - a budgie we adopted from a neighbor after she apparently killed and ate her cagemate. she sang nicely and had an adorable tendency to throw things out of her cage and scream until you put them back. she was never really hand tamed and we ended up giving her away. i tried really hard to train her, but it never took. ah well.
Portia, Jeremy and Fred - three small goldfish who all died getting trapped in the same toy. stupid toy design. before that, they all had suffered a painful ailment called tail-rot, which necessitated seclusion in a jam jar with medicated water one after the other. after all that, i bought them a new toy to congratulate their health and vitality, and then they all got stuck trying to swing up the end of the boot. gosh darn it.
Aretha - a black rat with white paws, she was my best friend through most of high school. she was always small, but very sweet. i would open her cage door as i sat down to homework, and she would run all about my desk, down my leg and onto the floor, settling into my lap for a nap after about an hour on the loose. i even took her to school once in my hoodie pocket, and she was so well-behaved that my rat-phobic english teacher bought a rat for her son thereafter. i ended up putting her down when she was three because she had developed quite a painful-sounding wheeze. i thought maybe it was the more common rat lung ailment, but when i took her to the vet, he found a lump in her lung. poor sweet rattie girl.
Pigwidgeon - my brother's guinea pig and the sweetest thing in the world. he would breep for attention regularly, and we'd play with him in the backyard for hours. he lived four years and died of no discernable problem, which is strange, because they can often live for eight or nine years.
Madonna - i couldn't be completely without animals for long in residence, and i ended up getting a betta who had a strange habit of dancing to madonna songs that were often cranked while i wrote papers. hence the name. he died after two years, probably of old age.
Petey Quaife - named for the bassist in the kinks, Petey was a red-eyed saimese-coloured rat with a strange skin condition. i was very allergic to him, as a male rat, because of the oils in his skin. his cage was a bit of an adaptation, and it never suited him well. i'd let him swim in the bathtub and run around the apartment when my roommate wasn't in, but he wasn't ever very still, and unlike Aretha, never took to comfortable naps on my lap. he would have to hide wrapped around my neck or in my sleeve, and the itching would get too unbearable, so i'd have to put him back before long, poor bugger. the only thing that alleviated his skin condition was frequent bathing with dove soap. He, along with Winton, was given to a drug-using friend of mine to care for, a man who later attempted to rob five banks in Peterborough. Shortly before this, he set them free. I doubt Petey made it out there in the wide world, but for some reason I can imagine Winton surviving.
Winton - a hooded gray and white rat, Winton was ordered especially for me from the local pet store to keep Petey company. but he was always very aggressive with his potential buddy, so they never got to be close. he was skittish from the start, though his skin bugged me much less. when i let him out, he would simply try to get back into his cage, which never worked out because it was a fishtank and he couldn't jump. we never really bonded, he and i, because i bought him shortly before the birth of my cat, and once the cat was around, i was scared to let him out for any extended period of time - not because of the teeny kitten, but because of his mother, who was always very ferocious.
Blue Razumikhin - the cat-love of my life. he was born in my shower because the neighbour's brother was brewing crack in the washroom where the mother cat was staying. the kittens, for the most part, stayed with me until they found homes, and i bonded particularly with Raz because of his dog-like charm and pushiness. he was named blue because one of the nights when they were at the neighbour's place, they dyed him blue with food colouring to compliment their leafs game. razumikhin is a character in dostoevsky's crime and punishment who falls in love with protagonist's sister. he was always very friendly and clumsy and sweet, which suited his namesake's character as well. i moved to an apartment in october with him, where he had the run of the house and a window in the basement to go in and out of. but i spent almost every night at my girlfriend's house, and one day, he just disappeared. i still long to find him, but in know it's over even if i do, because he does NOT get along with lisa's cats, who are older and settled in their dynamic. nonetheless, he was my perfect cat. he had a purr like a tiger and this lazy elegance to him, but he'd fetch little bits of paper for you and follow you around the house like a puppy. god i miss him. i'll never stop missing him.
there are others whose stay with me was too short and/or painful to mention, and i have yet to address the various dogs in my life, but these are the ones who taught me something, in one way or another, whether it be merely basic cage repairs or how to dismantle plumbing to rescue them or how to let go.
Minou cat is here, happy and, despite our best efforts, still relatively fat.
Daisy dog is happiest with her momma, even if it means up and down four flights of stairs three times a day. As she gets older and her remaining friends at the house move out and on, leaving her alone was a concern. So now here she is, and we're happy to have her.
Above and below are the two newest additions to L's menagerie - Above is Pancake, a big fluffy fat female Syrian. Below is Wall-E, a spun-out little Dalmatian Teddy Bear Syrian. Yes. They have Dalmatian. And they cost more than not-Dalmatian hamsters.
And here's Puffy, still the first and foremost of what is now a series of puffies.
And Marvin remains the Marvelous.
And Eddie remains philosophically inclined and enlightened. Hehehe.
And the girls remain my favourite girls. This is an older picture, as are some of the above, but they do this every night anyway, so meh.
