Pet decisions

It's getting closer and closer to pet decision time at Bruton Mansions. The background to this goes back a while.

Our family had a dog when I was a child. Mopsa was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier who was around when I was born and eventually was put down at the grand old age of 18 when I was a teen. Mopsa came from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale - Dad was an English teacher, hence the name - always interesting at the park when other people are calling Rover and Spike and I'm calling Mopsa. She was a lovely, sweet, perfect family pet and she looked after me when I was a baby; one of mom's favourite stories is of Mopsa sitting out in the garden by the side of my pram, constantly vigilant and forever worried when I cried out.

So the Bruton's are dog people. But Louise is a cat person. Timmy had been her cat for years and became our cat when we got together, then became Molly's first pet as soon as she was old enough to be trusted not to just yank his tail. He lasted 19 long, good years and he's been gone two and a half years, dying just a few weeks before we made the move up to Yorkshire.

So when we moved up here, Molly decided that she wanted a dog, desperately, passionately wanted a dog. It's probably because she sees so many of them walking around here. But a dog isn't really an option with everyone out of the house so that option has had to be, unfortunately ruled out.

The current standings are:

DOG: Molly and my first choice, but ruled out because of work. It's just not fair to leave a dog home alone for so long.
CAT: Louise's choice. But way down the list for Molly and I.
GERBIL: Cute, clean, fun. But rather too nocturnal from what we've read. Still high on the list though.
RAT: Another one that Molly and I are really in favour of. More like a proper pet than other rodents, not completely nocturnal and smart. The big problem is that Louise is not so sure. Getting different reports over how much they smell though.
HAMSTER: Another cute option but again the problem of being nocturnal.
RABBIT: Nope. Not a real pet as far as I'm concerned. Pets do things, respond to being in a family. Rabbits just sit and eat. You may as well get fish.

Now that we're actually talking about pets Molly thinks we'll be off out tomorrow to get one. So it's all she wants to talk about. But we're still deciding and it may take a while.