10 things you need to know before getting a pet
Emilie is a dog bore. ‘I don’t want a dog, in fact it’s the last thing I need,’ she said. ‘As if I would add more chaos to my life,’ she said. ‘Like I have the spare headspace,’ she said. And then one day she turned up at the office, tears coursing down her cheeks, hiccupping with emotion.
‘I’ve just met my puppy, Billy,’ she said. Well, do we really need to elaborate on what happened next?
She’s been sleeping on a bed of silt for the past year because Billy likes to gambol about in mud and then he likes to cuddle. She takes endless terrible pictures of him, where he looks like a frizzy black mass, and shows them to everyone who seems willing. Billy goes some way towards filling the bottomless pit of need that is Emilie.
Billy’s leaping and bounding and limitless enthusiasm almost match Emilie’s oppressively sunny nature. All she wants to do is go yomping with Billy. She scans rooms for other dog owners, particularly relatively new ones who have just woken up to the transformative quality of pets. It’s all so disturbingly wholesome.
Annabel is thinking about getting kittens. She pretends to be bulletproof, but she is so vulnerable and mad that she is already a bit sad because she thinks the kittens will be murdered by a fox/run over/contract a deadly cat illness where they grow lumps and expire. Then how will she cope?
What do you do if you get a pet who is a pain? What then? You can’t send them back. Or can you?
And she’s incredibly intolerant. So, she wonders, what do you do if you get a pet who is a pain? What then? You can’t send them back. Or can you? Can you train cats? Cats don’t generally seem approval-seeking, so why would they care if they are well-mannered or not? Aloof or destructive? Cosy or chilly?
Annabel is also considering the transformative nature of having her vintage silk curtains shredded, her sofa lacerated, her skin punctured, and her delicately scented house... less delicately scented.
Why is it that, at a certain age, when life is rushing at us and worry binds us together, we suddenly decide to add this unknown ingredient to our already bursting day-to-day? Pets.
Do they really fill the shape of this unknown need? Do they? Emilie would say yes. Annabel would say, ‘But how will my anxiety handle it if the kitten doesn’t come home at night? How will that add to my endorphin levels and life satisfaction score?
It’s a risk. I don’t like risk. What am I doing? This is insane. I can’t afford vet’s bills. Now, ragdoll or Burmese? Please discuss.’
10 things you should know before getting a pet
There will be 100,000 times more laundry.
Hair will become your constant companion – sometimes it’s a dog hair, sometimes it’s a chin hair (your own, sorry). Such a fun game.
Your pet will have an irreproachably organic diet – unlike you. If anyone eats chocolate in front of the dog you will become violently vigilant. ‘IT COULD KILL HIM.’
You will suddenly have the world’s best get-out clause: ‘Sorry we have to leave because the dog.’ ‘We have to say no because the rabbit.’ ‘We can’t go to that incredibly fun 40th in Dubrovnik because... the cats.’
You will slightly look down on non-pet owners. They don’t know love.
You will spend millions of pounds on rubber things that look suspiciously like sex toys. But (usually) aren’t.
Sometimes you will walk around with your pet trotting by your side and you will feel like it’s your familiar, or your daemon. This makes you feel witchy and powerful.
You will howl over anything to do with pets. You will be an open emotional wound.
You will start constantly donating to pet charities. You will understand why people leave their pets everything in their wills.
You will want another one.
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