Annie – Never a Mom

Happy Mother’s Day! Since my cats and dogs are all spayed and neutered, none of them have ever been parents, at least not since they came to live with us. However, when I was a kid, our pets sometimes came with surprises.

The first family cat I remember was Puff, a stray tabby with a chronic ear condition taken in by my parents. One day my mom was holding her when she felt something wet run down her arm. To her surprise, Puff’s water had broken, and we were about to have more than one cat in the house. It now made sense why Puff was spending so much time in a closet, as she likely planned to bring her babies into the world in the secluded space. She had three kittens, who later were all rehomed, and the new mom was spayed soon after to prevent any other unplanned pregnancies. (Puff was an indoor/outdoor cat at the time, which was common in those days). In fact, she had her surgery when we still had her kittens in the house. Our family dog, a male Beagle named Sam, took charge of her little ones in her absence. If any of them wandered too far, Sam would retrieve it, returning the wayward baby to the rest of its siblings.

When I was growing up, pet stores were the place to go for pocket pets. Today care is taken to identify the sex of the animals for sale. Some retail chains will carry either male or female, but not both. This was not always the case back then, when we brought home a golden hamster, a male I named Teddy. One day I asked my mom, “What are those pink things in Teddy’s cage?” It turns out that Teddy wasn’t the male hamster we expected. Those “pink things” were tiny, hairless babies. We kept Teddy, but her kids were taken to the pet store when they were old enough to be separated from her.

As I got older, the pets got bigger. Graduating from hamsters, we brought home a brown and white guinea pig I named Lucy from a local pet shop. It turns out that she was indeed the female I was promised, but we didn’t realize that she was carrying an added bonus when we brought her home.

One day I noticed that Lucy had a smaller version of herself in her enclosure, a tiny brown and white baby. She only had one little piggie, and when we verified that it was a female, we named her Suzy and kept the mother and daughter together.

If my memory is correct, that was the last time I got more than I bargained for when it came to pets and their unexpected offspring. Currently we have a parakeet that sometimes lays eggs, so I should probably change her name from Elvis to Priscilla. Unless she has been entertaining birds in her cage late at night, the eggs will never hatch, as she is the only bird in the house. So, no matter how many kids you may or may not have, I hope your Mother’s Day is filled with more mirth than madness.

Tiki – Also Not a Mom