Each year since 1968 the Purina Animal Hall of Fame has honoured Canadian “true pet heroes,”—109 dogs, 23 cats and one horse. Well, I am nominating my friend Leslie-Ann’s faithful dog Brody in advance of the 2008 awards. Brody’s life-saving feat preserved not just Leslie-Ann’s life and those of her grandmother and grandfather, but also the lives of Connie, the grey tabby, Alistair, the white short hair domestic, and Fionn the ferret.

One recent evening, Leslie-Ann had gone off to sleep after Brody did his end-of-the-day flop and settle at the end of her bed. Usually, Brody doesn’t stir until morning. It was 1 a.m., and he flew off the bed, barking frantically. (more…)

Oh, I have to pitch in on this one. I think these Green Living Blogs are one of the best blog themes (festivals, blogivals, blemes, I don’t know, make up your own name) around. And Kat has one of the coolest names in existence. So here goes:

Pet food Angel, the Birman cat, is the only cat I have owned in 32 years of consecutive and concurrent cat ownership who has had canned food (the vet said: “She can’t get enough water, so she MUST have canned food”); I buy large cans and we recycle every can and lid. Lizzie and Flopsy, the bunnies, get timothy hay and organic kibble. The fish (more on them next week) get whatever stinky flaky stuff the guy said they already like. We haven’t finished a container yet, but when we do, we’ll recycle.

Pet toys Angel scorns toys. If she wants to play, she’ll find a piece of Lego or marble or feather from a pillow or gum wrapper and bat it around for 10 seconds, then lie down and rest. I bought two bunnies so they could play together—no toys. The fish—are there toys for fish? I’m not buying them.

Pet gifts This is so weird and sad, people spending fortunes on doggie raincoats and tennis dresses, Swarovski crystal barrettes, kitty cologne. I have three kids, so the pets are not on the Christmas and birthday buy-gifts list (alright, we made a big deal about the bunnies’ birthdays, but we didn’t buy gifts, we just showered them with attention and photo-ops). When people have fewer kids and more money and already give to charity, I say go nuts and buy them a GIC.

Spay and neuter Angel is spayed. Bunnies are sisters and have no boyfriends. Abigail the hamster is a girl and, like the bunnies, is dateless. The fish? If by any chance one of them has babies, I imagine that will be recycled as instant bigger-fish fish food. That’s pretty eco in a cold way.*

Litter We use recycled newspaper pellets. All of it goes in the green bin.

Fur We are planning to have the bunnies’ fur spun and knit into a shawl. Failing that, we are also leaving it on our squirrel and bird nut table on the front porch so it can be carried home by our wild friends to line nests.

Acquisition and dispatch I bought Angel from a reputable cat breeder (along with her sister, Lily, who outgrew our family when Graydon came home with leukemia and the whole vibe in the house changed. I hunted for a loving home for her, and she found one with Brian, an architect in Cabbagetown in Toronto whom I have lost touch with—if you know him, tell him to mail me!). We would have taken in previously loved bunnies, but there were none on Kijiji or Craig’s list at the time. The fish, well, it’s more the dispatch—we wrap them gently in paper towel and it into the organic green bin. From the sea to the land.

And that’s the eco-pet story in our house.

*Not as cold as one of the neon tetras, who died on Tuesday and had to be put in the freezer until next Monday’s internment service and the green garbage pick-up on Tuesday morning.

Alright, I know we got into this fish thing because I bought Luka five little fish and a plastic bowl. Total cost= $20. We’re now at $150 approximately, more detailed accounting to come (and it’ll come in the form of a confession because this is some of the silliest spending I have ever done). When I said on Friday that the remaining fishies looked tired, I think they were in the early throes of comas. We have now said goodbyes to:

We’ve also committed to burial a pair of strawberry tetra and Sir Poops-a-lot,a little orange guy who swam backwards. As soon as we got the heater going, the tropical fish keeled. The water shows 79 degrees on the water thermometer, and the only fish still thriving are two prehistoric-looking loaches and the albino coby cats.

We have committed to no more fish until we go to a fish ONLY store and take notes, read books, that sort of thing. I still have a school of neon tetras in the back of my mind. But Luka and I like watching the four of them just fine for now. (more…)

(Don’t get too in love with this fish, if you know what I mean)

I had originally planned to stretch this fish thing out over a couple of weeks, but it’s going to take so long, even I can’t stand it. Instead, here is a highlight reel of sorts:
• We go back to Walmart, return the filter, feel like a fool (me), buy some cool long blue cylinders that are supposed to, when pricked, provide a “wall of bubbles” for our fishes to enjoy, a fake coral (”real coral will kill them”), two more fake plants (”At least they won’t rot”) and five fish: a shubukin (pictured at left), two coby catfish (no photo, plus I think I made that name up because I can’t find anything in Google Images), a bala shark (above) and a blueberry tetra (at right).
• The fishes are acclimatized, then (more…)

Even a kitty like Angel, long-suffering lady of a house with two bunnies, a hamster, 10 fish, two teenagers and a seven-year-old, has had her fill of people ooohing and aaaahing over two floppy-eared rodents just because it’s Easter. Enough already!

This is not our tank.
It is my dream of an artist’s conception of our tank. I wish I was in Atlantis again. We all do.

Day 6 of March Break dawned darkly
And now, it’s back to the saga of our fish aquisition/education/adventure. It’s the sixth day of March Break, and we only have one neon tetra and one black sucker left. Luka is getting pretty sad to see his fish disappearing. I’m truly feeling like a fish killer and a bad consumer. We pile in the car and race to the Walmart, get the missing filter, buy five weird fish and a fake plant. And water conditioner. And rabbit food (we still have two bunnies whose first birthday is approaching). We race home.

At home, the last neon tetra has gone to the big fishbowl in the sky. We send Luka to play Bionicles. (more…)

I HOPE YOU’RE WEARING A SWEATER TODAY
In honour of Mr. Rogers today, what would be his 80th birthday, we’re being asked: “Won’t You Wear a Sweater March 20th?” I am! I wanted to write all kinds of fun stuff about Mr. Rogers, but realized a) I never watched his show as a kid; b) my kids never watched him; c) I watched his show in university and thought Eddie Murphy’s Saturday Night Live Mr. Rogers pieces were some of the funniest things I’d ever seen; d) I just like the man and how nice he was; and e) I found that someone had already done an excellent job, so here’s the link!
I wish I were in Pittsburgh today.

BUNNY BIRTHDAYS! CLICK ON THE (MORE) LINK FOR PHOTOS!
Flopsy and Lizzie turn one year old today! We got them in May last year, as part of a personally designed family healing project, and they have been nothing but the perfect pets ever since. (more…)

March Break Day 5
Picking up where I left off, the water in the real goldfish bowl was looking very murky, and the pretty glass blobs were allowing the food granules to slip between them and pile up underneath. On the food bottle, it says the water can go cloudy. We tried feeding them a small amount of fish flakes, but by morning of Day 5, we had one dead neon tetra. It was clear to us the goldfish bowl was not the solution.

So, the Dad was coming over and he instituted a search for his childhood fish tank in the garage. It was there. We filled it up, and it held water. So he agreed to go to Walmart with Luka and Graydon to purchase a filter. For no more than $15. The remaining three neon tetras and the black sucker (more…)

For Day 4 of March Break we decided to take our cameras and record stuff around the house. Tessa got some amazing images, one of which is at the left. But taking pictures led to reminiscing, and that led to a flood of homesickness for owning a hamster (on Tessa’s behalf) and a flood of longing for fish (for me, I had planned to make salmon for dinner, but for Luka, it meant “I have always wanted to have a pet fish all of my long life.” He is seven). So after various promises, deals, much pleading and financial figuring, we went to the Walmart and the pet store. At Walmart, we purchased a beta fish bowl kit, four neon tetras and a black sucker (this is (more…)

Here’s my question for Works for Me Wednesday Backwards Day (where bloggers ask for tips): Our cat, Angel, chews perfect ovals in socks as an appetizer to her canned cat food. We find the ovals, so she doesn’t eat them all. She will go to the basement to pull a sock out of the laundry, bring one from an upstairs bedroom, even wrestle them out of winter boots, drag them to her food bowl, chew out an oval, eat her food, then drag the sock over the food dish. What’s up with that? If you want to solve other bloggers’ dilemmas, go over to Rocks in My Dryer.

If you haven’t yet, enter to win $100 worth of Greens+kids vitamins at this post. Contest closes Friday, March 7, so three days left!