I hear it said a lot to research your chosen pet before you bring it home. I wonder if that’s more common (and very good) advice these days than it was when I was a kid. Growing up, we had a lot of different kinds of pets. I’m pretty sure a lot of them were brought home somewhat impulsively. A fair number of them didn’t live as long as they could have or should have or would have if we had simply known how to do better for them. Sometimes, the ends they met were far less than peaceful, and if I allow myself to look back and think about some of those animals, I wish that my family, especially myself, just had more knowledge at the time about what to offer these little critters or good quality of life indicators. Obviously, my perspective is much different now, as an adult, and especially as a veterinarian, than it was back then.
I had numerous guinea pigs (and my siblings many hamsters, of various species) that lived on cedar or pine shavings in glass fish tanks. Now I know there are alternative bedding options and that better ventilation is ideal. We also probably fed all those guys way too many pellets and seeds, when they should have had fresh greens available to them on a daily basis. I know my rabbit had a terrible diet. He also lived in a hutch primarily outdoors until he was quite old. He needed more exercise than he got. He ideally should have lived inside with us, but back then, outdoor rabbits were quite common. Amazingly (and thankfully), he never got a cuterebra.
Many of the reptiles should have had larger enclosures and much better, more extensive lighting. The iguanas probably really could’ve used more humidity. For the first little iguana I had, we knew nothing about the lighting he needed. It was summer time; we thought we could figure out heat lamps when it got cooler in the fall. He didn’t make it to the fall. I very briefly had a gecko. We tried to do the right thing and give him some time in the natural sunshine, as recommended by the pet store. It was too much sunshine. We had electric heat rocks for our Texas Collared Lizards. I’d never use those now, even though we were lucky then and never had a burned lizard from them.
Even for dogs and cats, we could have done better. Our dog Roscoe used to escape from the yard all the time. I’m not certain, because I wasn’t in charge of it, but the dogs probably missed a decent number of doses of heartworm and flea/tick preventatives. All of our cats before Rickie were indoor/outdoor. If they had flea prevention on, they were probably cheap, crappy collars made by Hartz that often don’t work or can cause neurological signs in some animals. (I definitely remember returning home from one vacation and being attacked by fleas the instant we walked in the door after a week of all mammals being out of the house.) Sandy, and then Mittens, spent all day outside hunting bunnies and squirrels. At night, we closed the resident cat in the basement family room where Megan the turtle and Beauford, and then Bufu, the guinea pig(s) lived in their glass fish tanks with no lids on them. Thankfully, the cats never bothered these other pets.
These days, Justin and I live with 4 animals: Rookie, Magic, Elliot and Felix (a box turtle). I am much better and consistent at caring for them than I was for many of the small mammals and reptiles that I had prior to vet school. Having the knowledge that I do now, I sometimes forget how little the general public knows about the needs of other species, even ones like dogs and cats that have been domesticated for thousands of years. As much as I hate that I have had many animals in the same home as me receive subpar care over the years, remembering them and the lessons I learned while caring for them (or when they passed away because I really didn’t know how to properly meet their needs), does give me some more empathy to some of my clients.
I was reminded of this today because one of my colleagues texted me last night and asked what my recommendation for a lizard or gecko would be as a pet for a teenage boy. It got me thinking of little Aztec, that first baby iguana that I had with no lighting, Blake, the day gecko with too much sun exposure, the mites that Blue, my beloved Texas Collared Lizard, and Verde and Limey, the iguanas we brought home after Blue died, would get when I brought them outside with me, the sand impaction that Mo, my first Bearded Dragon ended up with from improper bedding in 2008, and the too small tanks with improper lighting that Mo and Felix both had for so long. (Honestly, Felix’s tank is still too small, and I only recently started offering him fleece blankets to burrow in, since I keep him on a cage carpet for ease of cleaning.)
I really do try to keep learning about them and do better for them all the time, especially these less traditional pets. Even the dogs. I’m always watching training videos and reading books about dog behavior because I want them to have not just good, but great lives. I don’t currently have a cat, but I try to remember to tell my clients with new kittens, especially first time kitten owners, about the Ohio State University’s Indoor Cat Initiative website, so that they can enrich their cats’ environments and lives to make them better (and hopefully avoid behavior problems that bring them to the clinic or cause them to relinquish their feline friends). The best I can do is to keep learning and implementing the things I learn and share them with the world to make everyone’s pets’ lives better, whether they are dogs, cats, rabbits, Bearded Dragons, insert-other-species-here and hope that people do take my advice. By bringing these animals into our homes, we should do everything we can to make their time there the best and healthiest that it can be.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
