PETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

PETS.

THE BRITISHER'S WEAKNESS.

from xambs to ttjataras,

(By M.E.S.)

August is a merry month, conscientious in its desire to put up a record for storms, sleet and hail; in the high country it is also the lambing month, and therefore every farmer's wife becomes the protesting mother of a large and noisy family, and that when milk is still a scarcity. A flock of two-tooth ewes provides the best of all arguments against too early marriage and an inexhaustible source of supply for the' family's pet lambs.

It is nothing extraordinary for the farmer to return from a trip round these frivolous young matrons after a bad night with half a dozen deserted new-born lambs upon his saddle; a few may succumb en route, but the rest survive to lie in attitudes of limp exhaustion upon the kitchen hearth all day, to drink in feeble and disgusting gulps the entire milk supply for the family, and to rise suddenly to renewed and unpleasant vociferous life about midnight. Lambs have an evil way of appearing moribund all day and thereby inducing their protesting and exasperated foster-mother to allow them to slumber by their sitting-room fire during a particularly cold night; no sooner do they find themselves alone and in possession than they arise alertly, scramble out of their boxes and conduct a devastating tour of the furniture, finally squatting triumphantly in the warm embers of the hearth to the eternal detriment of their appearance. From the moment they decide to turn determined eyes from death, lambs become the most trying of all the many pets that delight the hearts of children and exasperate the patience of parents.

Tlie keeping of many pets appears to run in some families—a malignant strain that in others expresses itself as homicidal mania or habitual drunkenness. Any of these tendencies is apt to cause acute discomfort to those who surround the addict, but pet-keeping is the only one that masquerades as a virtue. Mothers of children are said to be peculiarly unprincipled where their offspring are concerned, but their honour is impeccable compared to that of the true pet-lover. Other people's comfort, their prejudices or their property are as nothing to them. All is well lost in the cause of their pets—particularly someone else's all. Many Varieties.

We all have prejudices, particularly in our affections, and personally caged birds do not appeal to me; parrots, to whom a measure of freedom is allowable, make delightful pets, but with one serious disadvantage—they outlive a whole series of owners. There is something that chills the exuberance of our possessive affection in this longevity; the pet is hot wholly ours (and, since women ceased to be chattels, pets have become increasingly popular); it becomes/somewhat of a trust, an hereditary possession. There is something sinister, too, in a parrot's eye, a contemplative wisdom of the_ ages, an ironic comparison of your virtues with the superior ones of your predecessor, a somewhat blatantly Victorian regret for the good old days.

Tuatara lizards are to me unattractive pets, perhaps because they too can look back across a century or so and lament the passing of the years. Apparently to some people they have a strange fascination, for I lately met two English tourists who had spent some months in New Zealand and were loud in their praise of our country; but particularly was the lady fascinated by our tuataras. Indeed, she had somehow secured a pair and was awaiting permission to take them back to England with her. Apparently this is not a simple matter; there were officials to bo cajoled, persons in authority to be approached. Whether she was successful I have never heard; •nor have I forgotten her husband's melancholy farewell when he accompanied me to the door. "If we do succeed in taking the wretched things, it's most unlikely that we'll be allowed to land them. England has all sorts of regulations about that kind of thing. I've no doubt we'll be adrift indefinitely in the North Sea with a pair of tuatara lizards, for nothing would persuade my wife to give up a pet." It was a grim prospect, but the lady was a bad case * of pet mania. The Old Friends.

On the whole there Is much to be said for the ordinary, normal pet, those beasts that have long been recognised as the friend and companion of man. Give me, for preference, a horse, and then a dog —but not in town. To me there are few sights more pathetic than a large dog, obviously destined for an equally large open space, led on a leash along city street, never free to rush about, to roll in the dirt, fight another dog, bark riotously and generally make a nuisance of himself, as even the most reasonable dog at times wishes to do. Nor do I care to see a horse slithering painfully upon bitumen, poking his head drearily over a suburban fence, waiting for the chaff that is the sole event of a tedious day. Small dogs and cats are the best pets for town; cats are strange, elusive, reserved creatures, capable of enjoying their lives and making, their own illicit pleasures in the heart of London or of the Sahara. Moreover, horses, cats and dogs enjoy only a decent allotted span; there ia 110 fear of their outliving a doting master and falling into alien hands.

An Exile's Plaint. The Englishmr;. is notoriously a lover of, animals, an addict to the pet-keeping habit. He takes his animals seriously, as he does his other pleasures; his dogs and horses rcceive a punctilious attention second only to his children. Yet a complaint from an Englishman abroad published in a letter to "The Times" seemed to carry the whole business rather far: "Cannot the ban on the importation of parrots," he wrote passionately, "be removed in England, thereby giving an opportunity for English exiles with their paßfOts to return to their homes for the Royal jubilee?" It was a strange and touching plaintv one feels for the loyal Englishman longing to express his devotion to the reigning house yet chained to an alien soil by a devotion even more clamorous, by an unswerving loyalty to his parrot. In the "Manchester Guardian" "Lucio" wrote flippantly: Far away and most forlorn. Somewhere east of Suez, Out of bounds but British born. Sits an exile who is Still denied the home he planned. Be it grange or garret, 'Cos thev will not let him land If he brings his parrot. Could such a complaint have been published in any paper save a British one? No wonder foreigners call us a nation of pet keepers.