Scenes from a Pet Shop

My family has a dog. He’s a little Sheltie. (Yes, I spelled that correctly.)

His name is Rudy. He’s quite good at doing normal dog things—like chewing shoes left unprotected, or chewing pillows on the couch, or chewing blankets on beds.  He barks a lot, and runs when you try to pet him (a heartwarming trait of his breed). 

He destroys his toys. I don’t mean the way my kids do by throwing them around, I mean rips the stuffing right out of them, no matter what. It seems even toys that don’t have stuffing get the stuffing ripped out of them. He has such a little mouth, I just don't understand where all of that chew power comes from. 

Rudy's other main trait is that most people think he’s a girl. Even when we say “Rudy” or “Rudolph” (as he likes to be called around formal guests), people who meet Rudy say “she” is so pretty. I don’t get that. It’s emasculating for the poor thing.   

Most people also think shelties are collies, like “Lassie.”  He looks like Lassie reduced by 65 percent, so I get that.  “AKC” will tell you that the collie and the Shetland sheepdog (shelties) are not related. They must not be able to see they clearly look like each other.   

Rudy is not the first pet we’ve had in my 9 years of marriage. We’ve had two cats and another dog (my wife has animal ADD, but that’s just between us). 

Even worse is the fish. If I say we’ve had 200 fish, it feels like not enough head count for the number of goldfish who have lived and died in my home.

What is kids’ fascination with fish? Every year, it’s the same thing. We go to the fun fair at school, they get a few (dozen) goldfish we don’t have a bowl for.  The kids beg and plead to get one. We do—and the food, and the scooper.  So now, we’re down $10, $15 or so?  We used to get gravel and a plastic plant. As if the fish needed a plastic plant. Interior bowl decor.

Goldfish have a very short shelf life. They make the water dirty quickly, poop forever, eat constantly, and do, well, nothing, really. Swim mostly, in one place. They live for, what, 5 days? Maybe 10? Then it's belly up—check, please!

Afer the toilet flushing ceremony, the kids want another fish because they loved having a fish.  Being reasonable parents, we go to the pet store and look around. At a pet store, the gold fish from the fair are feeder fish for bigger things.  So, maybe we should get something else—oh, a Beta fish, of course.  Beta fish can’t live together, but everyone wants one, and thus two are purchased. Next, one kid says those poor beta fish can’t possibly live in such a small bowl, can they?  Noooo. The store clerk agrees. We need a bigger bowl, and a filter, and gravel.  Now we’re closer to $150.

Let me digress here. Gravel in a fish bowl is a terrible, terrible joke played on all of us.  Who cleans the gravel of fish poop? The kids? HA! My kids don’t clean their OWN rooms, let alone fish gravel.  What happens when  the bowl is cleaned out?  The dirty, uncleanable gravel finds its way into a sink drain. Always. A tip from me to you—avoid gravel.

Beta fish live for a while longer and do ... about the same nothing that the goldfish did.  Since the fish is probably being overfed, or the bowl isn’t cleaned regularly (my wife and I spend our time with things that interact with us—like yelling at the dog for chewing something, or the kids for leaving something out for the dog to chew), it dies too. 

When all the fish are dead, rather than store the fish bowl for the inevitable “next year fun fair gold fish,” an empty fishbowl is a sign my wife interprets as donate and get it out of here. So much for the annual $200 investment. At least the basement is less cluttered.  

Bottom line – get a dog, accidently lose the goldfish on the way home, and then play with the dog. Just keep the shoes in the garage, and call him a “he.”