The joy of having a pet

It finally happened! After several months of begging and pleading, and after several rounds of shedding tears, our daughter finally convinced us to get her a pet. We already have a goldfish, but that is not a true pet by my daughter’s definition. It just swims around in the tank; I can’t touch and feel it – that’s how she defines a pet.

Dogs, cats, turtles, rabbits, hamsters, lizards, guinea pigs, mice etc. were all under consideration; we finally settled for a rabbit after taking into account the amount of work involved. Of course, it helped that a close family friend has a rabbit as a pet and they naturally influenced the decision as well.

One Saturday, we went to a pet store that had a selection of about 10-12 rabbits, from babies to 10 week olds to even older ones. There was a white one with black eyes that we all liked pretty much the instant we saw it. This store is in a mall and we had decided that we would look at rabbits, shop at other stores and then come back to buy the rabbit. However, our kids made sure that we did not leave the pet store without our new pet. My daughter named it “Snowflake” pretty much instantly. It was great to have Snowflake with us while we shopped since she kept our kids occupied. It is interesting that we don’t know her gender for sure. Someone at the mall told us that she is female. So far we have not tried to challenge that assertion.

Once we got home, we set up her cage and settled around her. It was great to see all that she was doing. We had been told that rabbits love “Timothy hay” and we saw very clear evidence of that. It felt just like having another baby in the family. The sales guy at the pet store had told us to go easy on Snowflake but our kids were too impatient and just wanted to play with her. We also gave it another name, Chandani, which means moonlight in Hindi. Since then, we have been calling her Chandani.

It didn’t take more than a day or two for Chandani to start recognizing her family. It is a great feeling to see her respond even as we approach the cage. She has become very used to being let loose outside her cage and demands that she be let loose every time we are near her cage. She kicks up quite a storm if we don’t do that. It’s really cute to see her stand up on her hind legs and look around, as if taking in the view from atop a tall building.

Our kids are already behaving better. We don’t have to wake them up in the mornings any more. They wake up by themselves and the first thing they do is to check out Chandani and play with her. Of course, both of us do the same thing too. It has been very difficult to educate our 5 year old how timid and delicate Chandani is, and he can be rough with her sometimes. However, we can see how much he already cares for her. All of us find excuses to go near Chandani’s cage and to talk and play with her.

The best part of all has been the love and affection from Chandani in return for all the love and caring she has been getting. She is very comfortable roaming around us, and is not afraid of any of us. She eats out of our hands, and she licks us all affectionately. I really enjoy putting my cheeks in front of her and she licks non-stop for several minutes.

We have also learned a lot of new things that we never even thought of. We hadn’t heard of Timothy hay, nor did we know that papaya pills were good for rabbits. So, it turns out that you can buy all kinds of toys for rabbits, and you can even potty train them. Chandani loves carrots so the stereotype of rabbits as being carrot lovers might actually be based on solid evidence. One of our friends has been quick to point out that Chandani is really skinny. We had to explain to her that all of us a very skinny and Chandani simply cannot escape her family inheritance.
We are all very happy about our decision to bring Chandani into the house. What a joy she is! I wish we had done it earlier. If your child has been begging for a pet please give that a serious thought; it can be a life changing experience.