My wife had chinchillas for pets.  She worked in a pet store and brought home many rescue chinchillas from owners who no longer wanted them.  Today the last rescue chinchilla died.  We’ve been calling her old lady for at least the last 6 years.  Our best guess on her age would be 18 years.   Not quite a chinchilla record, but not bad for an animal with a ‘normal’ life span of 12 to 15 years.   For the past 6 years, this little girl was acting her age.  The inquisitiveness normal in chinchillas was almost absent in her.  We kept her comfortable and fed.

Today she left this world.  I like to think she is now with the lovely lady who saved this little chinchilla from a much earlier death.  We got her as a retiree of a pet breeding program/business.  They don’t keep them very long after they stop breeding.  We were very luck to find her. She was the second chinchilla in the house. Many more followed, but the first two were my wife’s favorites. They are both gone now.

I found a couple of pictures of this little chinchilla, so I though I would share those.

Our new pet rats are great, and Oreo is becoming a real friend.  Bobby Jack, however, seems very nervous all the time.  He squeaks and sneezes a lot, and he uses his nose to try to burrow into my hand when I hold him.  We are thinking he might be blind.  I don’t know that much about rat behavior; these are my first pet rats.  But it just seems like Bobby Jack can’t see.  Are there vision tests for rats?  I guess I have some research to do about rat blindness, squeaking, and sneezing…

Once again, we have a bit of a food chain residing as pets in our home.  When my cat passed away a year ago now, it left a hole in our household food chain.  Although it’s not quite as balanced as it was when the cat was here, today we find ourselves with a small zoo nonetheless.  Here is the roll call of pets in our house:

Charity – almost 11-year-old female Jack (Jerk) Russell Terrier / Australian Shepard mix with one blue eye and one brown eye.  An extremely feisty but lovable loudmouth who doesn’t hesitate to let you know what she wants, when she wants it.  Will even growl for petting!  World’s worst puppy = World’s best family dog.

Beesly – nearly 7-year-old cocker spaniel mix with extremely thick fur.  We once shaved her and to our astonishment, she became a much smaller dog because her fur is so thick!  She really likes it outdoors, and we call her nordic (of or pertaining to the north, where it’s cold) because she doesn’t seem to mind the cold at all – probably can’t feel it through that blanket of fur!  We adopted her from the humane society in March 2008, and we’re SO glad!  GREAT with kids and an extreme snuggler.  The only problem we have with her is her nasty dog breath!  Oh, and her uncanny ability to escape.  She can open doors and can somehow (repeatedly, not just a fluke!) unhook her way off of 2 dog chains at the same time!  Luckily for us, she always comes back.

Squawky – an 8-year-old Scarlet Macaw parrot.  After living with him for 7 years, I do not recommend parrots as pets!  He screams (and I mean ear-splitting) constantly – a repairman once asked us if we had a pterodactyl behind the door after hearing him scream.  But he is beautiful and drops gorgeous feathers all the time.  And having him has been an awesome learning experience for us and the kids.  He can talk and is very curious about everything.  His vocabulary includes: hi, here kitty kitty, hi bird, and sometimes he just mumbles nonsense that sounds like human words.  In his spare time, Squawky likes to watch The Price is Right and Animal Planet.

Oreo – one of our new rat additions.  He is gray and white and smaller than Bobby Jack.  He seems a little more curious and less picky about food than Bobby Jack.  Had a close call with Charity this morning.

Bobby Jack – off-white colored rat who doesn’t like his rat food.  He enjoys many of the treats we’ve given him, especially junk food.  Just after we got them, he was the snugglier of the two, but I think he was just tired from his journey home from the pet store because now he’s as hyper and curious as his brother Oreo.  They are 5 weeks old, and so far, we would agree that rats make great pets!  They don’t bite like gerbils and hamsters, and they don’t scurry like mice.  They are fairly clean animals who groom a lot, are very intelligent and easily trainable.  I think one of the reasons they’re not popular pets to have is because of their super-short lifespans, about 1.5-3 years only.  🙁

Francis – the ladybug I found that became my new pet before I had the rats.  I put him in a bug catcher, and then he went MIA.  Good news – today I found him.  Turns out, there was a little pocket in the bug catcher where he was hiding.  I would check the bug catcher every now and then, and today I saw that he had re-emerged from hiding!

No Name – another ladybug I found in the house.  I won’t kill any bugs I find unless they’re mosquitos – and how I enjoy killing those things!  But any other bug I try to set free, and I just can’t send ladybugs out into the Ohio wilderness to freeze to death.  No Name is in a little container in the kitchen…  I wonder what would happen if I put him in with Francis?

Mally – Ok, she’s no longer part of our family physically, but we will always remember her.  Since I mentioned her earlier, I thought I’d put her on the list.  She was a 10-year-old inbred farm cat.  My husband and I were in college, and we drove all the way out to a farm to get a kitten after reading an ad in the newspaper.  By the time we got there, we wanted a cat so badly that we got one even though the owners said the mother cat had mated with a boy from a previous litter, which is how Mally came to be.  Because of this, she was never ‘quite right’, and was always the size of a kitten.  We named her Malice as a joke, but we always called her Mally.  I was her world, and she hid from everyone else, prompting family and friends alike to joke about our “invisible cat”.  But she existed, I swear, and she was very sweet, at least with me.  She liked to lie on my pregnant belly and would ‘groom’ my hair.  I miss her a lot and wish I could get another cat, but I’m allergic.  I was allergic to Mally, but there was no way I was going to get rid of her.  I got her before any of my kids were born, and so I doted upon her and spoiled her while my husband was working in the wee beginning of our days together.  For those of you who never saw her, here is my little cat:

I’ve wanted a new pet for awhile, mostly since my cat passed away almost a year ago now.  What I want most is another cat – I love cats, and it would be the perfect type of pet for our household.  But unfortunately, I’m allergic to cats.  When I had my cat, it was a constant struggle to decide if I should pet her or not.  I always wanted to of course, but then I would itch for hours, my eyes would water, and sometimes I’d get hives.  And, my allergy symptoms were worse during my 4 pregnancies.  I just don’t want to go through that again – so no cat for us.  We have a Jack Russell Terrier mix, so any type of animal she’ll want to chase and bark at is out also – which means no rats, ferrets, small birds, etc.  So that leaves me with reptiles or bugs, I guess.  And the only reptile I’m interested in owning is a tortoise.  Those can be kind of costly and I’m not entirely sure that my Jerk Russell Terrier mix won’t want to hunt it, so I’m going to hold off on the tortoise for a little bit.  Also complicating the situation is that I really don’t have any extra time to spend with a pet, so that limits my options even further.  So lately I’ve been in limbo, trying to decide what to get.  But the other day, a new pet sort of fell into my lap.

It’s a ladybug I found in the house – normally I’d let any bugs go outside that I find in the house, but it’s way too cold out for a ladybug, and I don’t want him to suffer while he froze to death.  So I looked up what ladybugs eat, and I found out that their favorite food is aphids, which are an even smaller group of insects.  Knowing I couldn’t get any of those easily, I put a drop of honey in a little container with the ladybug.  He went over to it and started eating it!  So I put a little drop of water in there too, and he must have smelled that or something, because he left the honey and went over to the water – it was really interesting to watch.  He’s survived in captivity about a week now, and I have to say I’m getting a little attached to him as a pet.  It started out as just a fun little project, and I didn’t expect it to live more than a few days.  But he did, and I’ve named him Francis (like the ladybug from A Bug’s Life), and he is my secret pet – the kids don’t know about him.  If they did, he’d be dead already because my 4-year-old adores bugs and often smothers them with love – literally.  I think today I’ll go out and get Francis some grass for his container, because earlier when I fed him, he REFUSED to go back into his container!  I’m not kidding; he was sticking to my finger and just doing everything possible to not get locked back in there.  Finally, I put him on a Q-tip and cut it to fit in the container and locked him in.  I feel a little badly that I’ve kidnapped this ladybug, but I think I’m his only chance at life.  Outside, he’d freeze, and if I let him go into my house, I don’t think he’d be able to find food and water and he’d either die or go into hibernation until a kid or a dog got him.

So anyway, I guess I have my new pet.  I still don’t expect him to last very long, but for now it’s fun just taking care of an animal, especially since he’s my little secret.  If he’s still around in another week or so, I’ll take his picture and post it.  Say hi to Francis!

I love animals…  all animals, even ones I’m afraid of like frogs.  I can honestly say I would not want to see harm come to a frog even though I don’t like them.  I really love cats, even though I’m allergic to them.  When I was growing up, I always wanted a cat, so as soon as I moved out of my parents’ house I got one.  I had her for over 10 years, her name was Mally, and she was a sweetheart.  She passed away last January, and I miss her very much.  While she was alive, I couldn’t pet her as much as I wanted to because of my allergies, and that’s the only reason why I haven’t gotten another cat – I really like them.  Except for my neighbor’s cat.

When we moved in 2 years ago, we saw Phoebe the neighbor’s cat roaming around and we thought it was kind of cool to have a neighborhood cat.  That was before we saw how mischievous she can be.  Phoebe likes to sit on our window sill because she knows it makes the dogs crazy.  She also sits on the kids’ slide in the backyard which is just out of the dogs reach, further aggravating them.  One day, our dog Charity got loose and treed the cat.  I felt a little badly although part of me enjoyed the surprised (and pissed) look on that cat’s face when she was in the tree because she wasn’t expecting the dog to get loose and chase her.  One time, I noticed the front door was open and she was peeking in our house!  Don’t know how she managed that one; maybe one of the kids left the door open or something.  I used to have a bird house and a bird feeder in the tree in our side yard.  I would go out there and sprinkle seed, and we had a nice menagerie of creatures that would visit, giving our parrot some friends to look at out his window.  But then I saw Phoebe out there stalking the squirrels and birds that frequented the tree, and I stopped putting seed out because I no longer wanted to lure animals into her lair.  One day, I saw her playing with a baby bunny.  The bunny was alive, but not moving, so we scooped it up and took it to this lady who rehabs wildlife nearby.  Her place is really neat; she has raccoons, bandicoots, squirrels, rabbits, geese, ducks, and even a few bears!  Anyway, she said the bunny looked to be in bad shape and she didn’t expect it to survive.  Hopefully it defied the odds…

Being an animal lover, I was really sad when Phoebe hurt the baby bunny.  I was even more sad when I saw what she did the other day.  I was outside with my daughter, and Phoebe started to climb the tree in the front of our house.  I thought it was really cute, so I pointed to her and showed my daughter the cat.  But then I saw what she was doing – there were 2 doves sitting silently in the tree, and she was stalking them.  Suddenly one of the doves flew off the branch or at least tried to.  He flapped to the ground; I don’t know if he hit his wing on a branch or if he was hurt before he tried to fly away, but he landed on the ground, and Phoebe chased him.  He got lift a few more times, but he couldn’t fly.  Phoebe was chasing him until they both disappeared around the side of the neighbor’s house.  I grabbed my daughter and followed them, but I didn’t see anything.  When I got back to the front of the house, I saw the other dove in the tree, just sitting there waiting for her mate to come back.  She was there all day, just waiting, and it was the saddest thing because I didn’t think he’d be coming back.  The next day, she was gone, so I don’t know if she just gave up or what.  Maybe he survived the cat attack and they found each other again…  doubtful, but I am hopeful that’s the case because I don’t know what happened.  What I do know is that I don’t like Phoebe the cat.  She’s not even friendly; she never lets my kids pet her.  I’ve considered leaving a note on the neighbor’s door asking them to please corral their cat a little better…  but I don’t want to be one of those people.  For now, I just hold onto the hope the neighbors will move and take Phoebe with them, and when that day comes, I will promptly set up my wildlife area once again.

I would like to thank everyone who offered help to us when we recently had to face the unplanned decision to find another home for one of our beloved pets.  Our dog Scooby, had bitten one of our kids in the face.  I sent out a plea via email to everyone I knew looking for a new home for Scooby since she was not a vicious animal, just so overwhelmed by fear and tension all the time that a house with kids was not a good home for her.  Lots of people wrote back to me offering support and great tips to help find her a home, and I’d like to thank everyone.  I’d also like to let you know that there is now a very happy ending to the story.  Scooby was adopted by a board member of the humane society where we took her.  She was taken home, and the board member just fell in love with her.  She has a fenced in yard and some other dogs to play with, which is just perfect because Scooby LOVES to run and she also LOVES other dogs – it was just kids that nade her nervous.

My 8-year-old daughter is a little upset, only because we told her we could go visit Scooby and we never did.  We just didn’t want Scooby to smell us and get excited about coming with us until she had found a happy home of her own.  Now that she has, we don’t know who it is that adopted her, and my daughter is sad because she really wanted to see Scooby.  It’s gotten better for her though, and it’s tough for an 8-year-old to understand, but we’ve explained how Scooby is truly better off where she is now.

So thanks again to everyone who offered their help.  It was a heartbreaking decision, and I am certainly not one who is in favor of “getting rid” of animals…  but I think anyone in my position with 4 kids would understand how a dog with a history of biting cannot be a part of our household.  Thanks goodness she was able to find another forever home!

What a frenzied way to start off the shortened week after a 3 day weekend – it was Pet Day at my oldest daughter’s school today.  So this morning saw us trying to unload a parrot, a 19-month-old little girl and a dog from the car, all while trying to get the other dog to stay in the car – it must’ve made for a funny scene.  We had to bring our “veteran” dog with in the car since the other pets got to go out, but she was not invited into the classroom because of her nervousness around kids.  So while she stayed in the car, Squawky the parrot and Beesley the dog visited a classroom full of 2nd graders.

It went surprisingly well!  And we were very impressed with our normally shy daughter, who got up in front of her whole class to tell about her pets.  She shared information about them, and patiently called on individuals from her class and answered their questions.  Neither pet had any accidents in the classroom, and the kids seemed to really enjoy seeing and learning about the animals.  Squawky got shy and wouldn’t talk for the kids of course, he never does, though he did yell out “HI!” when we entered the school – wonder if anyone heard that or what they thought it was?  He enjoyed himself, didn’t bite any of my husband’s fingers off, and returned home in time for a relaxing perch in front of The Price is Right.  Beesley loved being around all those kids, I think her only problem was being on a leash so she couldn’t be let loose to turn onto her back and let them all pet her at once.

Now, should we try Pet Day at the preschool with my younger daughter?  I wonder how a roomful of 3-5 year olds would handle the parrot and vice-versa…  I will let you know if I get brave enough to attempt that one!

I should probably explain where the title of my blog comes from.  It’s actually a title I picked out years ago as I was musing while doing housework one day.  I thought, a story about our household should be called, “The Food Chain Gang”.  At the time, we had a few more pets than we have now, completing the chain.  Back then, we were the happy owners of 2 dogs, a cat, a parrot, and a little marsupial (animal with a pouch, like a kangaroo) called a sugar glider.  The sugar glider and the cat have since crossed the “Rainbow Bridge” which some people call pet heaven.  And, if you’re a regular reader, you’ve read that we’ve added a new dog to our family in the last month.  But the new dog doesn’t exactly complete a food chain, so I just felt the need to explain why my blog is called “My Food Chain Gang” even though we are down to 3 dogs and a parrot.

As an animal lover, I would love to add even more pets to our menagerie, however, it’s just not practical right now.  We have 1 dog with some terrier (terror!) in her, Jack Russell to be exact, and she will “hunt” any kind of small animal we bring into the house.  So, my dreams of owning a rat or 2 or 3 will have to wait at least a few years, hopefully more, since the “Jerk” Russell mix is only called that in jest – she is our baby.  My husband and I adopted her before we were married and before the kids were born.  And before you judge me, do the research – rats actually make very good pets!  Unlike many of their rodent cousins; hamsters, gerbils and the like, rats are actually pretty clean, very smart, and they are even friendly and cuddly!

Since I already mentioned wanting a rat, which many people think is a crazy pet, it should be no surprise when I say with sincerity that if I didn’t have small children, I would have a pet alligator.  Again, a little bit of research will tell you that alligators are almost nothing like (in behavior) their fellow crocodilians.  They are actually quite docile and easier to handle than you would think if you know what you’re doing of course – stress that point.  I know some about handling alligators, though I’ve only held small to medium sized ones, and I have never even owned a reptile, so needless to say, this is not an option for me right now…  but maybe someday!

I would also like a tortoise, but with 4 kids, 3 of which will be under the age of 5, I do enough cleaning up around the house as it is – don’t need a tank to clean!  Plus, we are very lucky to be able to afford some mini-vacations now and then, and any more responsibilities for the pet sitter might put her over the edge 😉 

I have always wanted a goat, and now that we live in the country, I can see how easy it is to get one – you can just open up the paper, call a number and buy a goat.  But I don’t think the neighbors would appreciate what our lawn would look like.  Something tells me our quiet residential neighborhood near the heart of the downtown of the city would not be a good place to house a goat.

I would love another cat someday, but I’m allergic.  And it all but broke my heart when I lost my beloved cat earlier this year…  I felt very guilty that I couldn’t really pet her or spend time with her as much as I (and she) wanted because of my allergies.

And talking about cheap farm animals reminds me of another realization I had after moving to the country – baby chicks and ducks are really cute AND very cheep, err inexpensive!  But again, our Jerk Russell would just try to eat any kind of animal like that.  She STILL likes to hunt the parrot when he flies in the house, even though he’s taken a nip at her more than once with his huge beak!

And I would LOVE my own parrot – I’ve always wanted an African Grey, ever since I was really little and read a wonderful book by the same guy who wrote the movie, “The Water Horse”.  The author is Dick King-Smith, and his book, “Harry’s Mad” is just a wonderful story for kids about a boy and his pet parrot.  But while I’m on the subject of parrots, let me talk for a minute about pets NOT suitable for families.  Parrots sure are beautiful animals, and they’re lots of fun when they talk, laugh, and imitate, but they are also very moody and unpredictable.  Most are not cuddly, and if they are, it’s usually only with one person in the household, and they will resent every other person who gets in their way.  Which is what happened with our parrot – he has bonded to Daddy, that’s his “mate”, and the rest of us cannot touch him, OR ELSE we have to deal with the rath of a beak that is strong enough to snap a broomstick in HALF!  Parrots are VERY loud – and there is no relief from their noise.  Their scream can rattle your eardrum, and is almost always guaranteed to make a small child cry.  And, they scream to have fun!  It’s not just when they are upset or want something, so if you think you’ll be able to quiet a screaming parrot, guess again!  Luckily, ours is about to celebrate his 7th year with us, so through lots of growing pains, we’ve learned how to make it work in our house.  Parrots can also be very dangerous, so just like any other animal, kids need to have constant supervision around parrots.  Overall, as the owner of a parrot, I would HIGHLY recommend another pet choice to anyone with kids in the house.

I wouldn’t recommend a sugar glider as a pet either.  Ours was “used” – we actually f0und her at a garage sale – and that is a testament to how often people think it’d be cool to have one of these only to decide later they’re too much work.  They are intelligent, social animals, so they require lots of attention.  However, they are also nocturnal, so you have to be available at night to take them out of their cage to play.  Light will actually damage their eyes, so taking them out at night in a specially under-lit room is required.  They can be nippy, smelly (they excrete an odor to mark their territory), and can even make loud noises all night that keep you awake.  And they require a special diet of fresh fruits and vegetables also, which can be inconvenient and expensive.

So anyway, now that I’ve recommended all the pets that AREN’T good for families, I would say that the standard dog or cat IS great for families.  Obviously, there is a lot to take into consideration when shopping for one of these, and I won’t go into that this time…  if you really need some good advice about why humane societies are a better choice than pet stores and what to look for while choosing a pet, see my previous post called, “3’s a Crowd?”.

So, now you know where the title “My Food Chain Gang” came from.  Maybe someday, I will add to the chain and have a real zoo to call my own.  But for now, I will stick with the gang we have – everybody knows their place in the chain and gets along great!

Yet another April Fool’s Day surprise awaited us when we got home tonight…  seems the newest addition to the family is a little jokester.  Our dog Beesley, who we’ve had for almost a month now, is an escape artist.  We have a little mud room in the back of the house that leads to the garage, and if we don’t lock the dogs out of it, Beesley can push open the door leading to the garage and escape.  Apparently, tonight was one of those nights when we forgot to make sure the dogs were locked out of the mud room because when we got home and opened the garage to pull the car in, out runs Beesley.  We corralled her into the car, and that’s when we saw it – a HUGE mountain of garbage in the middle of the garage, along with several smaller hills of doggie-doo.  Seems during her great escape into the garage, she decided to tear apart the garbage that was in there waiting for garbage day.  Of course, being a family of 5, we have lots of garbage, including lots of dirty diapers.  Seems little Beesley had herself such a feast that she immediately had to add doggie-doo to the mess without waiting for us to come home and let her outside to do her business.  Compounding our luck had this happening on a Tuesday, which is only 2 days before garbage day, so we had just about as much garbage out there as was possible.  I’ve been trying to convince Hubby that we need to buy one of those mega garbage cans just to store our garbage in until garbage day ever since the local squirrels discovered we have a parrot who discards nuts into our garbage.  They sneak into the garage constantly and tear little holes in the garbage bags to get at the nuts.  But at least they’re dainty about it, which is more than I can say for Beesley.  It’s just difficult to justify spending money on something that you’re going to put garbage into – it’s like literally throwing money away…  or the reverse actually, but still…  maybe now we’ll be able to justify that expense a little better.  April Fool’s – Beesley style – YUCK!

And a side note about April Fool’s Day from our local paper.  No one knows how April Fool’s Day came about.  There’s a theory that it originated when the Gregorian Calender was adopted in the 1500’s.  Seems there were a few folks stubborn about adopting the change of New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1, so others made fun of them, pranked them, and sent them on fool’s errands, hence the origin of April Fool’s Day.  That is just a theory however, but equally amusing and NOT just a theory is how the country of Scotland celebrates April 1st.  Apparently Scottish April Fool’s Day jokes often focus on the buttocks and the day is known as Taily Day.  According to our local paper, the “butts” of the Taily Day jokes are known as April “Gowk” which is another name for Cuckoo bird, and it’s believed the ole “kick me” sign gag originated with these Scottish customs.  I think I’ll stick with good old April Fool’s Day, thanks, though this year in our house, I guess you could call it Taily Day!

This is basically a practice post.  I need to see that I know what I’m doing…  It is so ironic that as I’m learning how to do a blog about how crazy life is with all these kids and all these pets, I’ve had to pause my blog tutorial several times to make lunches, quiet a screaming parrot, and change a poopie diaper!  My friend also has a blog on this site. Click here to see it.