The Observer Newspapers | Everybody Loves a Fish

October 10 , 2008

Everybody Loves a Fish

When I was a boy, my sister and I were like pied pipers for animals. We were always coming home with boxes of kittens we found abandoned, cut little puppies that needed to be nursed back to health, along with birds, ducks, horses, snakes, mice and the occasional human.

Our house was animal central. We always had the family dog and at least one cat, and somehow they put up with all the foster animals we brought in and cared for before our parents made us pass them on to some other loving family.

We had hamsters at one point, or maybe guinea pigs (I never really cared enough to tell the two apart), which a comedian once referred to as "disposable pets." There were few animals that weren't showered with love the moment they set foot in our yard.

When I was about 12 our neighbors' dog kept coming over to our house to play with us because it was just no fun at his own house. After several weeks of taking Max, a large, white, wolfish dog, back to his house at the end of every day, we finally talked his owners into letting him live with us, and he was part of our family for many years more.

Bedtime was often like sleeping in a barn. The dogs loved to snuggle as close to you as possible and loved to hog the whole bed. They would sense when we were getting ready for bed, and nonchalantly plant themselves on our beds, claiming their sleeping spots on the pillows, perpendicularly across the middle, or in some other entirely inconvenient location.

Pretty quickly I figured out that I had to get ready for bed secretly, and quickly, to beat the herd into bed so I could get some pillow space and force the German shepherd-sized beasts to sleep at the foot of the bed.

Fur, fleas, slobber, veterinarians and animal and human drama were the staples of life in my childhood, and I have to admit I was kind of looking forward to sharing that experience with my own children, maybe on a smaller scale. I was thinking of having one dog, say, and maybe a cat.

But, such is life. My daughter is terribly allergic to all things furry, so I see no dogs or cats in my future for a long time. But every kid should have a pet, so for Audrey's sixth birthday last weekend we got her a fish.

Now, fish are one kind of pet I can't remember having when I was younger. You can't snuggle up with a fish. They don't seem to really understand when you've had a rough day. They don't get visibly excited about eating or sleeping, or balls of string or pork chops that you "accidentally on purpose" drop on the floor.

And yet, fish take a lot of work. You've got to remember to feed them, even though they will never remind you. You've got to keep an eye on the water temperature and quality, although the fish will never show you if they are unhappy.

We've gone the easy route, with a starter tank that holds about a half-gallon of water and requires no pump or professional equipment. We've leased the tank out to a betta fish, which according to the information we've read has to be one of the more indestructible fish you can have in a home aquarium.

Keep the temperature right, feed the fish not too much and not too often, and change the water from time to time, and "Jesse" (that's the name my daughter was inspired to give to her fish) should be fine.

Jesse's not much good for snuggling in bed with, but it's nice to have a pet in the house again. And just like my sister and I when we were little, the kids love it.