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Laura on Life

Low-maintenance animals

By Laura Snyder

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[June 25, 2008]  I have a cat. I don't have a dog because I am too selfish with my time to want to take a dog out to do his business every few hours. I've done the diaper thing for so long that I can't even consider wanting to clean up after a dog or, for that matter, having an animal that greeted me at the door by bringing me a chewed up high-heel and stuffing her nose in my crotch. I wanted a more low-maintenance life.

ChiropracticMy cat stays outside because my oldest son is allergic to them. And even though he rarely shows up here -- my son, not my cat -- I don't want to narrow down the possibility even more by having, in the house, an animal that makes him miserable.

The cat also stays outside because, well, the diaper thing again. Litter boxes are nothing more than an extremely loose-fitting diaper filled with sand. She's pretty low-maintenance, though. My daughter feeds her once a day.

Whatever my cat doesn't eat, a stray opossum will finish off that night, like an automatic bowl cleaner. If my daughter forgets to feed her one morning, my cat gently reminds her by leaving the remains of some small, hapless animal on our doorstep.

"Hey, there's a dead animal on the patio! Did you feed the cat today?"

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Low maintenance ... unless we forget to feed her.

We have recently acquired three -- count 'em, three -- more pets for which we are now responsible.

My 11-year-old wanted a hermit crab. Why? "Cuz they're cool!" He had the acquisition of this pet planned to the smallest detail. There was no way I could say no.

I only let him have a hermit crab for three reasons: 1. He saved the money and was willing to pay for it himself. 2. He had done the research on what they eat and how to take care of them. 3. He was spouting all sorts of zoological hermit crab jargon that sounded impressive enough to be true.

He systematically took away all of my objections and I didn't have a leg to stand on, except "Because I said so!" And that one is used only for extreme circumstances. So he got a hermit crab.

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He named it Hermes. Short for hermit. It was not very original, so he Googled the name and found out that it was also the name of a Greek god. That sounded more legitimate, he thought, and Mom would be impressed as well.

Dribbles, our new baby turtle, was named for the excessive amount of urinating he did whenever he was picked up. He's faring well in an oversized Tupperware container. My daughter found him in a pond and caught him with a fish net. Although he seemed to be doing quite well on his own, my daughter was convinced that he needed help because he was still a baby. Fortunately, turtles can live a long time -- possibly long enough that we eventually won't remember why we called him Dribbles.

My 6-year-old caught a lizard and calls him Sharky. That was a very original name, if only because of its obvious inaccuracy. My son caught him with his bare hands. After so many chocolate milk spills, I didn't expect that kind of precision hand-eye coordination. But the lizard's tail broke off on his way to the jar-prison. Now that he's an amputee, my little boy feels kind of responsible for him.

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"How will he survive in the wild without a tail?"

I think maybe he should have thought about that before he decided to put him in a jar. Sharky only eats live bugs, though, so my children hunt down live bugs right after breakfast each morning. Yummy.

So much for a low-maintenance life.

[By LAURA SNYDER]

You can reach the writer at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her books.

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