4 posts tagged “pets”
Yesterday I had to make one of the worst decisions a responsible pet owner ever has to do. I had to euthanise a two week old cockatiel chick which was slowly starving to death. As often happens in a clutch where one egg hatches a few days before the others, we had a bigger chick competing with two which hatched a few days after it. One died pretty quickly, but the other fought on. It wasn't until I took the nest box down and examined the remaining new chick closely that I realised it had been stepped on by an adult bird, effectively breaking it's legs. The break had healed quickly as happens with young birds, but not having good legs to stand on, it couldn't properly compete with the older chick for food.
I thought perhaps we might save it by hand-rearing, but a close examination yesterday revealed that it wasn't even interested in the hand-rearing food and both legs were badly distorted, incapable of supporting weight. I had to do the right thing, but how to do it? I wandered the backyard with the chick in hand trying to screw up the courage to do something with this warm little body. As I walked past a fence-post, I quickly lashed out, dashing it's tiny head against the post, and it was over. It's bugged me ever since. Oh, it was quick, I have no doubts about that. I immediately buried the poor little bugger where a couple of our other pets are buried, and said sorry. It was the right thing to do. I keep telling myself that, but wouldn't it have been more natural to let it starve? Natural maybe, but I'd hate to starve to death.
I still feel like shit today. I'm not made for killing, even in kindness.
No, not the human kind. The canine kind. You've all seen the pics of Bindie, our 10 year old German Shepherd, and I believe I've written the tale of her companion's - Jeffrey - demise. She's been very much out of sorts and lonely ever since he departed, and together with her increasing frailty with age, both Rabble & I are much more sensitive to her moods and feelings. That was, until last weekend.
We we're heading off to collect a deep freeze from my Mother, and had emptied our camping trailer in order to bring it home. Bindie apparently knows that the trailer being hooked up to the car means we're going camping and leaving her on her own - with daily visits from Jade, our daughter, for feeding and company - for anywhere from a week to a fortnight. It's all very well to say that animals are dumb, which is an attitude I don't subscribe to. If there was any doubt, it was immediately dispelled by Bindie's howling and vocalisation of distress from behind the fence as we opened the front gate, positioned the car in front of the trailer and hooked it up. She didn't want to be left alone, thanks very much!
As a member of our family, we're particularly fond of the bigdog and don't like to see her upset, so today, we're off to collect a companion dog which will hopefully give back some of the company she had with Jeffrey. This one is 12 weeks old, and appears to be a kelpie-X from the one photo we've seen. I've had kelpies before and they make excellent human companions as well as sociable pack animals. We both hope that having a pup around doesn't distress Bindie, or have her thinking she's being usurped as top dog. Time will tell. Pictures, as we hear from across the pond, at eleven.
I'm a fish freak. Hmmm.....let me be a little more precise in that. I keep fish, as a hobby. We both do. All manner of fish, all freshwater. Neither one of us has the courage to tackle a marine environment yet. Hell, freshwater aquariums are enough drama!
I have two main tanks. A 120 cm x 40cm x 40cm tank and a 60cm x 30cm x 40cm tank. Rabble has a 90cm x 45cm x 38cm tank. In hers, Rabble has a mess of platys and guppies in her tank now. Previously it was gouramis and a ghost knife but the gouramis and the knife fish ate the platys and guppies, so someone had to go. The three gouramis now live in my big tank together with three silver sharks, a freshwater bass and a smaller and somewhat lonely-looking tetra. The ghost knife now has free reign in the smaller two-foot tank. I had a 20cm silver perch and what we here in Oz call a Yabby - Cherax destructor - until today. Both decided to depart this world for completely private and undisclosed reasons, today.
I'd been trying to help 'Lobby' over the last few days by transferring him to a smaller, and totally fresh, clean tank, but sadly to no avail. The perch.......this one has me flummoxed......was completely fine this morning. He was dead in a corner near the heater (turned off) at 4:00pm this arvo. I'm always just a little distressed when a fish dies, because it's almost always without sign of why. The perch caught me completely by surprise.
Anyway, to the subject of this post. I ate 'Lobby'. Well.......he was a crayfish and a big one at that. The tail was meaty but the claw meat was the best. A small snack, to be sure, but he certainly wasn't wasted.
Is it cannibalism to eat a dead pet?
