Nurse pets

After my recent blog about Ebony, I’m here to be brave and say that I’m single. In every way, I am foot loose and fancy free. For the first time in 16 years I have no pets.

Ebony and I had been a little team since early last year, and now it’s just me. It feels a bit weird as I’m feeling pretty okay about it; I feel I made the right decisions for Ebony when needed and I’m happy to have a break from pet parenting for a bit.

However, this hasn’t stopped me looking at rehoming sites or considering fostering – oh no. However, while I’m happy window shopping for now, it has made me think about the types of pets I go for, and whether it may be time to break the pattern of adopting the classic “nurse pets”?

Definition

I think you all know what I mean by “nurse pet”. More often used for cats than dogs, in my experience, but the criteria are the same:

• Is there an appendage missing?
• Are they an eye or an ear short?

And, in particular for me:

• Do they look a bit moth eaten?
• Do they smell?
• Are they older than my friends’ children?

That’s the kind of animal my heart warms to – you can keep your healthy puppies and kittens and hand me the slightly balding, single-toothed creature who needs a cuddle. However, am I sensible doing that again?

My kind of animal

These pets, while they are everything I desire, are very high maintenance and require a lot of extra effort. Am I punishing myself in my bid to care? Could I have a pet with minimal issues and love it as much? A hard question for me to answer, and maybe one I need to broach in therapy.

For now, I think I can answer it by knowing my pet-owning decisions have been based on my experience in charity clinics. I saw the little oldies who really just needed a retirement home, rather than a stint in a rehoming kennel.

I was a failed foster carer more than once. I could provide a quiet, stress-free space for them just to be, and there were several that came home for “a good six months” only to live three amazing years or more – not counting Little Blue, who demanded nine years of elderly Persian care (I would have got less for murder).

Unrehomables

This time round, my life is different and I won’t forget that. I’m also not in clinic to pick up the “unrehomables”. I’m enjoying the lovely memories of Ebony, Hollie and Wilson, and when I head back to pet parenthood it might be for a non-Peke – but don’t count on it.

If it needs my love, it will get it – one-eyed, blind or three-legged, they don’t deserve any less love.