What’s the most unusual pet you or your family has ever had? Cats and dogs are fairly usual pets in the average household, but I was wondering about some of the more unusual pets that my friends online have had in their lives, so I asked them!
I posted: “I want to hear from you about the UNUSUAL pets you’ve had or have now! have a lot of questions for you!
“What was the pet? Where did the pet come from? How did you find the pet and why did you decide to adopt it? Tell us the pet’s story!
“What were the problems, if any, with the pet? What were the joys of having this pet?
“Would you recommend this kind of pet to a friend?
“How long did you have the pet? How long does this kind of pet live? Was veterinary care for this kind of pet easy to find or not? Were there health issues? Was health care for the pet expensive?
“What do these pets eat? How are they housed?
“Would this kind of pet be appropriate for a family with children?”
I asked: “Please tell us what we should know about this particular pet!”
Here are some of the very interesting answers that I got. Enjoy!
Neil Rubenstein (Florida) I had a four-foot Yellow Rat Snake named Chief when I was in college. I caught him in Odessa, Florida, at Camp Keystone. I originally wanted to be a herpetologist to study and work with reptiles, specifically snakes. Snakes are still a fascination of mine.
Jessica Theisen de Gonzalez (New York) My family had two tortoises when I was really young. My dad saved one of them from being crushed on a highway. He was always bringing home various critters to try them out as family additions when he ran across them through his Navy SEAL work—like the fox and the rabbit, neither of which lasted the weekend; both went back where they came from. But the two tortoises were with us for years.
Scott Stauffer (California) Crayfish. Started out as a fourth-grade science project. Had him for four years. Big Red. [He came from] the school science lab. I think we mostly did feeder fish and fish flakes. After a while, we learned how he liked to be petted and he would hang out while I did homework. He was really curious and so was I. He escaped once for two weeks. Not sure how he survived—it was a few years after that science class, so I couldn’t find out. I would recommend one as a first-time pet. (If you’re allowed to have them.)
Jessica Stinson Hudson (Alabama) Axolotl. My daughter got her several years ago and has since moved out. Mushu lives with us now. Mushu’s got no brain cells, but we love her. My daughter also has a crested gecko named Chai. Also no brain cells.
Photo by Jessica Stinson Hudson
Rebecca King (Ohio) Millipedes.
Marcy Britt (Washington) Sparrow hawk. She never learned how to hunt well, then got weak so could not fly. Caught her, got a cage for her. Fed her partially ground chicken backs. She got pretty tame with me. Finally had to pass her onto somebody who had a license. Called her Red.
Grainne Levine (Maryland) We had a Quaker parrot who swore like a drunken sailor. He came from our blacksmith who was getting rid of him because the parrot didn’t like his other birds. Since the guy didn’t really care who took the bird, we were worried for his safety. The parrot loved my then-husband but didn’t like me even though I often cared for him. That changed when I was baking Christmas cookies. Apparently, the bird had a sweet tooth. He would stand on his perch on top of his cage and make little grabbing motions with one foot. This was accompanied by the cutest little sounds. It always worked to get him a cookie. (I was easy for him to train.) The parrot lived to be 28 with no health issues.
Tiffany Copley (Ohio) Hissing cockroaches, millipede, skunks, spiny mice.
Sheila Gomez (Washington) Chameleon and a mouse.
Peggy Modjeski (Kentucky) I worked for a vet in college. Someone brought in a litter of little raccoons. I had one for 14 years. He was such a fun critter. He had a twisted leg or we would have released him. He was so sweet, very busy and entertaining. I learned a lot about training with positive reinforcement. You don’t tell raccoons what to do. You ask nicely and reinforce the behavior you want. I didn’t put it all together at the time, just did what worked. He got along well with our cats, dogs, and horses and people.
Layne Arlina (United Kingdom) Chinchilla. Chilli came to live with us from another family and he was hilarious. Would bounce off the walls to my heavy metal music and in the night I’d awake gasping for air as he would snuggle up so close to my face. Loved that little dude.
Laurel Ramseyer (Washington) Many spiders over the years. They are all interesting, but I have had my favorites.
Teresa Tuttle (Texas) Skunk. A friend accidentally killed the mom, she had six kits. He had them de-scented and vaccinated. My family adopted one. We named her Priscilla. She was the most fun pet I’ve ever had. Funny, adorable, easy to keep. She was crated when we were not home, but had full run of the house when we were there. She used a litter box. It’s been years, I don’t remember what we fed her. She did need frequent baths because she had a very musky odor. Other than that, she was a super easy pet.
Lynn Brezina (Illinois) When I was a kid I caught a catfish and brought it home as a pet. I also had myriad snakes and toads. [I kept the catfish] in a galvanized tub with the water I brought home from the creek. It was not a great success story for the fish.
Danny W. Braudrick (Idaho) Tarantula.
Terry Hill Cunningham (West Virginia) While my mother was in the hospital having my sister via cesarean, my dad took me to an exotic pet store and said I could pick out what I wanted. Exceptions were snakes and armadillos. This was 1963 and I was four. I came home with a pet baby alligator. The grandmothers who were babysitting me marched up to my mother’s hospital room, stating that they “were not spending the night in that house with that alligator!” My mom was like, “What alligator?” It did not turn out to be a very nice pet. We fed it raw hamburger and my mother got stuck cleaning a stinky cage. It was not very cuddly and of course it would bite anything it could get its mouth on. It “died” mysteriously while I was at school one day.
Amy Suggars (Ohio) I kept a colony of spider beetles for a couple years. They’re really cute little insects! I wish I had a photo for you.
Reed Cundiff (New Mexico) We were given a young sparrow hawk on a cross country trip in 1954. He accompanied us in our station wagon from St. Louis to Kentucky and back home to Ohio. My mom released him.
Rebekah Piedad (California) A wolf, a rainbow lorikeet, and a hummingbird that I hand-raised after the little one fell from its nest.
Eileen Anderson (Arkansas) Kangaroo rat. It was probably illegal; my sister’s boyfriend caught him near Mono Lake and gave him to me for a pet. I named him Roo, of course. He was fairly docile but did bite me a couple of times. They can live without water, getting moisture from their food. But when we gave him water he would scoop it up in his little front paws and drink from them. Looking back, keeping him as a pet was not kind or fair. We kept him in a too-small habitat and fed him what was probably a sub-optimal diet (although my mother tried hard to find out what was best to feed him). I remember that he could shell sunflower seeds and eat the kernels. We did let him out to hop around, but not nearly enough. We released him a few months later when we went on vacation to the same area. But that rarely ends well, either. It’s the first time I have thought much about it as an adult and it’s a sad story for the animal.
Colette Kase (Mexico) It was tolerated that I bring home wild animals I found as a child, so I always had some in the house. I adopted some Berber skinks from an invertebrate lab I worked in during the summer at university when they had too many. I would never consider wildlife a pet and, personally, I think it is completely unethical to keep them in captivity for pleasure. I believe wildlife belongs in the wild and, having lived in regions where the poaching of endangered species for the pet trade is common, I firmly believe that normalizing the keeping of wildlife as pets fuels poaching and endangerment. Wildlife trafficking is the most common form of trafficking after humans and drugs because it is so profitable. Captive-bred parrots, which people have long justified keeping in captivity for amusement, are now in a rescue crisis with thousands warehoused because there aren’t enough homes, and parrot mills are operating like puppy mills.
NEXT WEEK: More “unusual pets” that folks around the world have had!
