Dr. Doolittle's Mom

When my daughter, Mary, was a little girl, I couldn’t put frilly pink dresses on her without a fight. Oh, yes she put them on and she looked angelic, but underneath that perfect little princess exterior was a tomboy that couldn’t wait to get out.

Ellie Mae Clampett had nothing on her and any critter that crawled, trotted, waddled, hopped or flew eventually landed in my back yard.  Somehow she could always talk me into yet another pet.  I only had a few rules; they couldn’t have a long, hairless pink tail, slither or have eight legs.  I have learned a lot being the mother of a mini Dr. Doolittle, though, and I am more than willing to share that knowledge with other parents. 

In order to keep this post at the usual blog reader 90-second size I will not, at this time at least, discuss the creatures larger than say, a breadbox.  So there will be no dogs, cats or horses today. So here goes…

Did you know that it’s really hard to tell the sex of a rabbit and the males can be a bit, shall we say, difficult?  The rabbit cage stayed in the dining room till brownie decided he wanted to back his little bunny butt to the cage and pee horizontally.  I won’t even go into Bunny whose feeding required a pair of welding gloves.

Cotton Ball, the Hamster was sort of cute, but hamsters are itty-bitty night owls and run all night long on their squeaky little wheels.

And honestly, the lifespan of Rusty the Goldfish was rather long in comparison to other goldfish won at the fair. And for the record, substituting fish does not work on kids even if they look exactly the same to you.

Eddie the box turtle became Edwina after he laid an egg.

Tadpoles put in little plastic aquariums all over the back porch will soon become tiny frogs. 

An Anole is a type of lizard that changes color much like a chameleon.  He eats crickets.  Yes, I said crickets, little hopping bugs and if your not careful they will hop right out of the aquarium. 

If you're smart you shouldn’t allow your children to sleep with ducks.

Even though Mary is now grown she hasn’t changed all that much.  Recently she brought home a baby wild rabbit whose mother had taken her final trip via a lawnmower.  Several days later we said a little goodbye as we released the critter in my rabbit infested back yard.  Then she went home to feed her tree frogs--crickets, of course.

Eastern Box Turtle ACEO