Tuesday, June 23, 2009

These are the strange pets


The Trout and I have not had a lot of pets in our married life, but we have had unusual pets. We bought our first pet on our honeymoon. A toucan. Can you imagine? And we took this toucan to live in northern Iowa over the winter. He was doing fine, slinging mashed bananas around his cage until a teacher friend wanted to take him to school for Show and Tell. He caught a cold and one morning I found him dead on the floor of his cage. We only had him about 6 months and sorry to say, I don't even remember what we named him. And no, darn, I do not have a picture of him.

Next a friend found a fox den where it looked like mama fox had been killed. We took a baby fox and he was so much fun. He would eat out of our hands. We had a dog collar on him and one day he escaped and a neighbor seeing a fox running through this small town shot him. I don't remember his name either, but I do have a picture. We did learn that wild animals are meant to be in the wild. Do not bring them home.

Then, also during this year, we (or should I say he had an owl named Ollie.) The Trout would go to the local chicken hatchery and buy dead chicks to feed to the owl. The Trout was still in college at this time and luckily we had a landlady that let him keep the owl in the backyard. After graduation and leaving college, the owl was given to a friend. (Beware of friends bearing gifts--or something like that.)

Those were the strange pets. Sometime I'll tell you about the beagle we had for 17 years. She is worth a whole posting.



5 comments:

  1. I had the FOX leash trained as well - he was very gentle and dog like - too bad we led him loose when I went into the Army and he came back to town for food and got shot!!

    As a kid I had raccoons as pets- very inquisitive and gentle to play with. I would hide Ritz crackers in my shirt pocket and Rocky would go searching with his nimble front paws.

    Olley the Owl was fun - I would run at him and then back up fast - He would swing his head to adjust his eyes I quess - damn near fill off his perch. The landlady didnt mind the Owl but she was not to happy to have its "slugs" of undigested feathers and bones around the yard!!

    Don't forget to tell about Angies's pet rabbit, Hugo, that teased the poor beagle to tears most days - She even gave the beagle a good kick to the head one day while high jumping over her! Poor thing!

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  2. :-) :-) :-). What more can be said?

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  3. Very interesting story!

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  4. Anonymous5:30 PM

    When I was a young child I had a raccoon for a pet. I loved him. He provided hours of entertainment for a young farm boy with not much else to do. I was so was sad when he disappeared. My dad told us that he was off looking for a wife. But, one of my uncles told me a few years ago that my dad found 'Coonie' dead and that he had been shot. He didn't want to tell us that because he thought it would upset us. I was upset enough as it was. rw

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  5. Interesting post, Susan. I bet that little fox was adorable.

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