MEANWHILE, a list of Pets I have owned.
This, an exercise in memory, more for my impending AI clone I'm commissioning to haunt my Children, the undying father....
The earliest memory (one of a very few), living, Victoria, an apartment building with a balcony. I'm small, in a high-chair, I'm delighted because in my cereal ("Rice Krispies" I believe, but may be wrong) I've found the prize, a small plastic jet, red. A toy. I seem to think my Mom is a Stewardess, she's gone a lot, hence my delight with jet. On the small black and white TV placed conveniently to amuse me there's "The Wonderful World of Disney", I don't remember the episode.
Outside, sun shining, the balcony door is open, I'd been to the beach a few days before, collected a bucket full of clams and minnows and crabs, brought them home and filled my small swimming pool with them, and now, in the sun, they're all dead and turning and you can smell them wafting in....
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Moose Jaw, living at 911 1st NW, in the basement, a pet turtle. Popular in the early 70's, they came with cheap plastic palm tree and island and a tiny moat of a sea that surrounds them...
The turtle, one day it escapes, it's nowhere to be found, only a couple of weeks later we find it, far from it's moat, the island and the palm tree, dead under the carpet...
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A dog, "Mutt", small, black, forever jerking at the leash, impossible to walk, always trying to get away. One day he succeeded. I found out later that he was taken to the country by my dad and allowed off leash, where he went for a final run from which he never returned...
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"Archie", some mid-sized curly haired dog we had briefly, then disappeared, I remember as a child finding a decomposing dog over at Central School across the street that matched his description, ghoulish, victim of a traffic accident that managed to crawl off the street and find a place to die...
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"Cindy", a bitch perpetually in heat, Mom would set up with a pellet gun outside the basement window and waited to send off all her gentlemen callers. She apparently ended up on "The Farm".
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A hamster, that my mother tired of cleaning the cage for and so set free and I recaptured it in the neighbors garden only in it's brief taste of freedom it got sick and soon after my recapture died...
I never forgave my Mom for that.
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Others, a "Mugsy", named for "Mr. Mugs", a popular Scholastic Children's book, large, black and white, as well sent to the farm.
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The innumerable captured pets of childhood, frogs, snakes, a wounded bird, all to different ends, most released back where they were caught.
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Others, I'm not sure.Goldfish probably A small budgie, but I'm older now, in High School, and the budgie flew out the door one day and was never seen of again. My brother, I recall, was quite upset.
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In University, a daschund for a few days, supposedly in my keeping as the "Student Mascot" for the Arts Students Union. Not my idea, and after a few days not my problem. The dog, a lugubrious daschund, perpetually farting, incontinent, there was no way, and it went back to where it had come from...
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And in adulthood, nothing, gerbils, hamsters, mice for the children, and "Princess", a cat who made the trip to the Kootenays with me but proved to be a lousy traveler, gifted to a friends daughter who quite liked her and proved to be a good pet owner.
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And that's the carnage. You don't realize until looking back all the damage you've done, and while I'd like a dog, cat, fainting goat and a variety of others, a chance to atone the slaughter, these things will have to wait. None short of the dog would match my lifestyle, and there's no pets where I'm living.