I believe most of us more or less have experiences in having pets; having a pet in the family could be enjoyable in most cases.
1). Please talk about the pet you have (or had). Introduce your pet a little bit, for example, how did it/them come to your family or is there something special/interesting about your pet(s)?
2). How do you and your family interact with the pet or how do take care of the pet? Are you the one in charge of caring the pet or it's a family affair.
3). What do you learn from the experience of having a pet? or you can just talk anything about your pet or just having a pet.
Topic contributed by Joe. Next turn is Alfee.
Actually, I have never kept the pet in the period of my life time. Perhaps, I used to living in the apartment. It seems unlikely for my family members to take the initiative in raising the pet since the building administrator may have regualtions which were supposed to be observed by all the inhabitants. However, my father adores the pet dog very much, especially aboriginal black dog. The features of these type dogs are fierce but loyal to their masters. Since my father is in charge of the factory operation, it is quite necessary to have such dog to guard the plant on the weekend for there is nobody in it. Yet, this dog seems to only recognize my father as its only lord; therefore, every time it found I walked by alone did it would bark loudly at me. And probably, for this reason, I gradually became less interested in keeping the pet.
回覆刪除In modern society, we can see that more and more people are inclined not to have babies; instead, they keep the pet as substitution. These phenomena, in my point of view, may attributed to the constantly increasing living expenses. Besides, with some consciousness liberated nowadays, the present generation no longer takes the conventional concept of family for granted. They do not want to be disturbed to raise babies while pursuing their ideal lifestyles. Certainly, everyone possibly takes different attitudes towards it. Whatever your standpoint is, I will esteem on both sides.
Here is an unforgettable experience of my keeping pet. I used to keep two quail ( a kind of chicken) as a pet when I was an elementary school student. The male one is yellow and the female one is black. Since my sisters and I misunderstood them as the opposite gender. We name the yellow one a girl-name and the black one a boy-name. When my mom bought them from the market near my home, I was so excited that I took a look at them three times per hour. They are so cute that my sisters and I would have a little fight to decide who could play with them, so did us take care of them together. They were so interesting, because when they came to our home, the ants in our home were almost disappeared. The ants are their favorite dishes. They could also do some flight just like chickens. As time passed, they grow up from the eraser size to a baseball one. On day, when my sister was playing with the yellow one, he suddenly jumped out of my sister’s hand. He kept running around my room very fast. I was so nervous for I was afraid to step on him that I wanted to raise my foot as high as possible. Unfortunately, I did step on him by his head. He certainly, died at that second. The black one is so sad that she ran around the yellow one. It is the most shock moment that still flying around my mind now. I cried heartbreakingly that day. It was all my fault, I thought. Since that day I kept one dog and then two cats in my home. They live very well. However, I am sure that I won’t have a bird as a pet anymore.
回覆刪除I would not use the word “pet” because I think Orange means more than a pet for me. I think she is one of my family members.
回覆刪除It was a sunny day in the early June when Orange was still tottering around with her mother and her black and white siblings in the store that I caught a glimpse of her and instantly decided to bring her home. Among her siblings, she was the only one who has orange and white color and she was just a furry ball which was no bigger than a cavy at that time. The early sunshine in summer functioned as a spotlight that sparkle the soft orange fur on her body. Behind the shopping window, she saw me sticking my nose on it, and found it interesting to have a stranger staring at her that she doddered closer to the window. The reflections of my figure in her amber-like eyes were telling me that she is curious to get to know about this stranger and willing to accompany me. Therefore, soon after that day, she became one of the family members of mine.
It was sixteen years ago.
Today, Orange still keeps me companied. When I am frustrated, she stands beside me and listen to me. When I am happy, she purrs and shares my happiness. When it’s midnight, she will gently remind me to go to bed. When my alarm clock goes off, she will wake me up with the purring sound.
It is hard for me to imagine my life without her. However, it is very obvious that she is getting old. She can’t jump as high as it used to be. And she constantly throws up. I hope I can calmly say goodbye to her when it’s the time.
Judy Chou, Eng Dept. FJU
Dear Alfee,
回覆刪除It’s really a pity that you have no experience of keeping a pet. It will be a lot of fun. Really. =]
I can understand how uncomfortable it is to be barked at. I personally don’t like dog that much because they are very noisy. Although they are passionate and they have high loyalty to its master, I hate to walk the dog. Since you have apartment regulations to follow, you might not able to keep noisy or bigger pets such as dog or cat. But if you want to try to keep a pet, you can start with little animals such as rabbit or hamster. They are not that noisy and they are easy to take care of. Others like aquarium animals will be a good choice, too.
As for the phenomena, I think it is inevitable. This is because raising a child cost far more than keeping a pet. Indeed, the high living expense keeps people from breeding kids. In addition, the responsibility of raising a child is too heavy for most of the couple. Thus, people transfer their love and care from children to pets, usually cats or dogs.
Thank you for sharing. =]
Judy Chou, Eng Dept FJU
Dear Martin,
回覆刪除That was a sad story. I’m sorry to hear that. However, I think you don’t need to blame on yourself that harsh. It was just an accident. You were just a little kid at that time and kids can be naughty and careless sometime. What I’m trying to say is that at least afterwards you learn to cherish and respect animals’ life, right? Then the death of the yellow quail taught you something.
To tell the truth, when I was little, I once hurt Orange accidentally, too. I was five or six at that time while Orange is about one or two. At that time, I enjoyed roller skating at home that I would go from living room to the kitchen and then to every corner of the house. When I was getting out from my room, I didn’t notice that Orange was somewhere near me that I accidentally stepped on her tail, which led to the dislocation of the bones. I never do roller skating afterwards and I am always alarmed so that I wouldn’t step on her anymore. Today some pieces of the bones in her tail are still dislocated. It is very lucky that the dislocation wouldn’t influence her life.
Things constantly take place and teach us some lessons. The most important thing is that we have to bear the lesson in mind. =]
Judy Chou, Eng Dept. FJU
It’s just so great to hear that somebody also had birds as pets. The pet I have right now is a Jenday Conure which is a kind of parrot. It all started when I was in senior high school, all obsessed with parrots and therefore the moment I finished my college entrance exam, I went all the way down from Taipei to Taichung to bring it home from a parrot owner whose Jenday Conure couple just gave birth to a hatch of pink dinosaur –like little fellas. I still remember there was a typhoon that day and I carried her in a plastic box with a pocket warmer and clothes in it. I acted with my extreme caution and dared not to disturb her in her sound sleep. The day when we got home, she was just twenty three-day old, as mentioned above, a hideous, dinosaur-like, in now way looking like a bird at all. Since she was too little, I must feed her the way humans raise a child, which is having the powdered milk for bird dissolved in warm boiled water and then feeding her, three times a day. When I fed her, she would cry like crazy and eat and eat until she was contented. Now she is already four-year old, terribly LOUD, quacking all day long. Once she gets out of the cage, she just perches on me and rolls all over me whenever she feels like doing so. She is very curious and destructive; she bites everything that she can get her beak on. She follows almost every I go and the moment I am not in her sight, she screams and screams until I show up in front of her again. The things I like about her are: she being very loud, energetic; she cuddling in her bed on her back, which is a tremendously interesting, as well as cute behavior as a bird; she entertaining herself by fighting with stuffed toys, which makes her more of a dog than a bird. The only problem I have with her is probably her shrill screaming during morning; I worry so much about disturbing my neighbors that I have to cover the cage with a light-blockable cloth at night so she won’t start screaming at the sight of the sun.
回覆刪除Having her in my lifer reminds me of a very important point as a pet owner. We have our life, our friends, our hobbies, our all kinds of affairs to attend to, but all our pet has is us. I feel bad whenever I have so many homework to deal with that all the time I have for her is only enough for cleaning her food, water and playing with her for only a little while. Therefore all she can do is just watching me get the daily care and maintenance done and calling me back while seeing me rush back to work. I hope every owner can be as considerate of their pet as possible, be it just a small fish or bug.
Joe Hsu, Dep of Eng, FJU
Dear Alfee,
回覆刪除It’s a pity that you lost the interest in either getting close with your dad’s dog or having a pet for I always think that aboriginal black dogs are highly playful and can be a good and loyal companion, just like Judy said. According to my experience of having a dog before, having a dog is really really fun. If the dog you have is the larger kind of dog like the aboriginal black dog your dad has back home, it may be even more fun because they are even much smarter than those slightly dumb dogs belonging to the toy group (玩賞犬) like we had before and you can have more kinds of activities with it.
Regarding the phenomenon you said, I guess it may be more or less because it’s much more tiring to take care of children than taking care of pets. Also children are very likely to rebel and be disobedient to their parents; I slightly agree with this idea for I think that sometimes it’s easier to teach a dog than to teach a kid lol….
Thank you for your response.
Joe Hsu, Dep of Eng, FJU
Dear Martin,
回覆刪除I’m sorry for your loss. But speaking of quails, I remember I also had two of these when I was in junior high; they were gifts from my friends because they due to some unknown reason couldn’t keep them anymore. But I don’t know if it is because I am not the one who raised them up, they didn’t seem to be intimate or interact-able with me and my family members. They just wondered around in the cage, totally not paying any attention to my intention to play with them or anything, let along getting out of the cage. So just out of curiosity, are they able to just like standing in your hand calmly and not trying to run away? One time I took them out of the cage, trying to play with then, but they completely ignored me and fled away from me; it took me great effort to get them back to the cage. They were never allowed to come out ever since…but other than that, I think they are cute actually, at least they don’t scream like crazy like the darn parrot in my house..
Thank you for your response.
Joe Hsu, Dep of Eng, FJU
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回覆刪除Dear Joe,
回覆刪除I'm so glad that you're finally joining us in the project.
For me, it's really cool to have a parrot as a pet. I once had the experience of taking care of a bird. But in the end it became a sad story. When I was little, my mom brought back a wounded sparrow and we took care of the little bird for couple of weeks. At first it refused to eat or drink, but after a few days of hunger and tiresome, it surrounded. However, after it recovered from its wound, it started to fast again. This time it's strong will overwhelmed its own life. It died after three days of hunger. Later on my father told me that sparrows have their animal instincts and natural behavior that they don't like to be fed and took care of. Hence it constantly refuses to eat or drink. This is it's way to protest.
And indeed, sometimes I feel sorry that I have less time to play with Orange. If possible, I will stay at home more often to make her feel that I'm with her.
Judy Chou, Eng Dept. FJU