Like a lot of Americans, I went to see Marley and Me over the holidays. Since I had read the book, I was skeptical—as I always am—that the book would live up to the written word. And in this, I was not disappointed. The Marcy Martin Movie Ratings Scale goes from “Better than Shawshank” on the high end to “I’d rather sit through Power Rangers: The Movie” on the bottom. Marley and Me falls somewhere in between. But I’m not here to critique the movie—that’s obviously been done to death. I am here to share my own animal love story, let’s call it “Kirby and Me”. And before that there was “Peanut, Sugar and Me”. And “Spanky and Me” and let’s not forget the others—“Tigger, Daisy, Maggie and Tutty and Me”. (Sorry fish—you don’t get a marquis.) They all have come into my life and left their imprints—some more profoundly than others—and taught me some lessons.
The current animal kingpin in my house is my Westie, Kirby. Because I have all daughters, Kirby gets to qualify as my son. (Although, I don’t want you to think I have elevated him to the same level of consideration that I reserve for my actual human offspring. There are a lot of people who take pet-worship just a little too far, and at the risk of losing my PETA audience, I find that a little creepy!! ) Kirby doesn’t have anywhere near the makings of a whole book as Marley did, much less a motion picture. He’s just too damned relaxed and normal. And I did not grow up with dogs, so I was not that anxious to commit to one. By my husband canoodled me into it (“For the kids!”) seven years ago, and now I’m all ready dreading the day he chases his last chipmunk.
Though Kirby is our only pet at the moment, we have had some pet overlap in the last few years. Let me just say that if I were drawing a Venn diagram that represented the total set of our family pets with each circle drawn labeled as a single pet in the Martin household, there wouldn’t be much overlapping of the circles; but where there were intersections, there was generally gnashing of teeth (and I’m being literal here!) and wailing (generally from me and/or one of my children).
Take Christmas two years ago. My youngest, Claire, had asked Santa for a hamster. My husband, the pet promoter, caved in on this request and ran out on Christmas Eve to get the hamster and one of those 5000-piece Habitrail plastic cages. After the kids went to bed, “Santa” set up all the gifts under the tree including the hamster in its cage on top of some boxes. As we collapsed exhausted in a heap “for our long winter’s nap”, unbeknownst to us the hamster began her nocturnal routine, blissfully running on the wheel in her cage beneath the festively adorned branches of the tree. She could have run noisily away until Christmas morning and the story would have had a happy ending but for one canine Grinch, his superior auditory senses and the instinctual call of his rodent- hunting ancestors. By the time I came down early on the 25th to organize the cooking before everyone woke up, I was greeted by an unusually perky Westie, wagging his tail with abandon and eyeing me expectantly at the bottom of the stairs. Immediately a chill went down my spine. As he darted into the living room, I knew before I even got there—standing in triumph, waiting for me to give him a treat and an attaboy, was Kirby, nose pointing at a soft, caramel-covered lump on the floor. Holy Mother of God—where am I going to find another hamster at 7:00 a.m.on December 25? As it turned out, the hamster was not actually dead, but severely crunched and traumatized. I laid her back in her cage and by the time Claire came bounding down to see what Santa had brought, we had to ‘fess up about the Kirbenator. Claire named her Sugar, and we placed the poor little gal in her Habitrail up high on Claire’s dresser where no stumpy-legged dog could have access. Sugar took about a week to start really looking lively again, but she did seem to have a miraculous recovery. The story should finally have had a happy ending from there, except that Sugar obviously had a death wish. She somehow escaped from her cage—don’t they always?—managed to parachute off the dresser whereupon at some point Kirby found her scuttling around the house and crunched her again, but good this time, depositing her in triumph in front of the fireplace. Her adventurous two weeks in our household came to an end, though she was quickly replaced with a surrogate hamster that Claire named Peanut. Peanut is also now deceased, though admittedly she was a geezer at the ripe old age of 18 months.
Previously, Kirby had to interact with Tigger, a stray cat we had adopted about a year before his arrival. Tigger took some time to acclimate to domestication, living at first on the perimeter of our house, and eventually working her way inside. By the time Kirby arrived on the scene, Tigger was pretty much living large at casa Martin, though we had to endure her Wild Kingdom stage for awhile. (The cat actually set up a game preserve within our home, bringing in live mice, chipmunks and rabbits to run around freely while she leisurely hunted them down…ick!) Tigger seemed to be okay at first, but after a while, her behavior started to go downhill. And frankly, we began to realize we were getting more out of the dog relationship than we were from the cat/wild game relationship. Even though Kirby never really attacked Tigger, she hated him and began to occasionally take her frustrations out in urine—peeing on a pillow, a rug, some laundry. It got to the point that we had to kick her almost completely outside except to be locked in the laundry room at night. Eventually, we had to “volunteer” her for euthanasia I’m afraid. Topped off by the fact that my husband developed some cat-related asthma along the way—allegedly!—I think we’ve seen the last of the feline persuasion.
And there were others—our first impulsive attempt to get a puppy when my first two daughters were 3 and 5 was a spectacular failure. We adopted Maggie as a surprise from the Easter Bunny. I think I gave more consideration for the ramifications of the color of pantyhose I was wearing than to the characteristics of this dog. She was half German Shorthair Pointer and half Australian Shepherd—a beautiful combination—but we came to realize that we were not the hearty sort needed for high-maintenance pets. (As I watched Marley and Me, I thought of Maggie and knew that I would have never gone the distance with a dog like Marley—I really just value the interior of my home too much.) So two months in with Maggie, after numerous garbage bags had been torn to shreds, my kitchen table had become an occasional toilet and my backyard looked like someone was digging a swimming pool, we packed her off to more tolerant owners. Try explaining that to two simpering little girls watching their first and only pet sent packing in some stranger’s pickup truck. And so we did the guilt march to the pet store and came home with not one, but two compensatory substitutes, Spanky the parakeet and Daisy the guinea pig, both also now deceased.
I’ve learned a lot watching my kids care for their pets and suffered their pain when they inevitably left us. Some were better caregivers than others, but all were pretty hands on masters with their little charges. In the end, it’s pretty hard for a parent to get worked up over a parakeet that goes toes up, but it is not hard to ache for the child who nurtured that bird. I’ve also learned not to overcompensate for these events, resisting the urge to run out and replace that hamster or goldfish. Time will pass and other interests will fill the void. But the relationship with my dog Kirby might be a little different. There’s so many upsides to a good dog—unconditional love, companionship and total devotion. I definitely was not getting that from the guinea pig. And it’s a little different investing 15 years of your life to a dog or cat versus a year or two to a rodent or fish. A dog’s tenure could amount to 20% of your lifespan. And I marvel at the people who run out and buy an instant replacement when their dog dies, often insisting on the exact same breed. I don’t think that will be me. When Kirby goes, I’ll cry real tears, not parakeet tears. I’ll grieve for him probably as much as I grieved for my grandmothers, I’m ashamed to say. But like all of us, I’ll find something to fill the void. I’m guessing by then that I, and my lint roller, will really need a break.
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