Companion Animals

All my pets are doing well with the arrival of the new year. Benjamin Bunny was scheduled for neutering surgery a few weeks ago, but he escaped the knife when our vet Dr. Kim determined by manual examination that both his testes were undescended. They probably never will descend, and since he is presenting no behavioral difficulties at all, there is no need to go into his abdominal cavity to try a much riskier surgery to remove them, as they might be undeveloped and difficult to find. So Benjamin is safe as houses.

Benjamin is also delighted that the upcoming Chinese/Korean year is the Year of the Rabbit. He'll have you all know, it's his year!

My Birman, Claire, really seems to have benefited from the additional stimulation that Ben provides. I was a pretty predictable presence for her, but he is not, and I honestly think it has given this 15-year-old cat a new lease on life. She has become more playful and even more affectionate, and she is demonstrably fond of her rabbit friend except when he is being a little too persistent about sniffing her hindquarters.

Tugger the hedgehog has been a great addition to the household. The other animals are curious about him, and he seems not to be afraid of them. I take Tugger out for handling every night, and I also gave him a teeshirt with my scent for bedding material. The result has been that he has become very comfortable in my hand, not balling up or prickling at all; you can tell a relaxed hedgehog because his spines are completely down and smoothed out. Tugger is a gentle soul who loves to sniff; hedgehogs proceed mainly by sense of smell. He is thriving on his diet of special hedgehog chow, freeze-dried mealworms, and silkworm pupae. The latter are a popular Korean snack for people, available in every store, but I can't develop a taste for them; they have a very strong and peculiar smell that lasts for hours as an aftertaste. Tugger, however, loves them. He is an insectivore after all.

So my long-standing Doctor Dolittle tendencies are finding a good outlet here in Korea. Could there be a cockatiel or some other bird in the future? Possibly -- a cat and a bird together are challenging, but I've managed it before, and Claire is a very peaceable feline. I've got room for a bird-cage on top of the refrigerator (wink) -- we shall see.

POSTSCRIPT: It is interesting that many people with my level of OCD and neat freakiness might have problems with one pet, let alone a larger group. But I seem to do fine with it. Of course my pets are usually pretty fastidious themselves. And their emotional demands are quite "neat" and predictable, unlike those of people. I think that's key for me. Once you have routines with pets, you can and should be very regular with them. They like the predictability, too.