Friday, March 16, 2007

My Salamander


I have a pet salamander. His name is, surprisingly, Salamander, though he has gotten quite a few nicknames in the 6 months that we've had him living in the lap of luxury. Most of the time I call him Creature, although some less flattering nicknames have come out, including Stinky, Stink ball, Savage (when he makes a particularly ferocious snap at my food offerings), and Cutie (which I'm sure makes him feel very manly). My dad insists that he is a girl (which probably makes him feel much worse than when I call him cute) and usually calls him Sally or some variation of that. And my mother, well, she's too busy stuffing food in the poor things mouth and sending him on a long and painful road to obese-dom to give him a proper name. She insists that he's "Just a little boy!" and should get as much food as he wants. I object, and every time he decides to trek out from under his log when others are watching, I point out that he's gotten much rounder since the last time we actually saw his whole body.

One unfortunate night my cute little creature decided that he was not happy with something in his wonderfully designed storage box-turned-terrarium and decided it was time to make his disappointment known. I looked over and saw him scaling the wall of the box. This was quite shocking since he usually doesn't even soak in his pool while the lights are turned on. We did an emergency soil-change, and all has been well ever since.

Though many people think that a salamander is probably one of the most unappealing pets out there, I have to disagree (obviously). I get great pleasure out of having him around. He's started to recognize me as one of his "feeders" (although he probably likes my mom better, because he knows she cant resist him), and every time he sees me looking for him, he stretches his neck out from under his log and gives me a cute little salamander smile. He also has a few quirks, like his obsession with chicken, his need to attack anything that moves, and his bathing ritual (in the tub, every night at 8 o'clock). I love just watching him, he's so adorable.
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I realize that a salamander can be considered an odd choice for a pet, which leads me to my question for you marvelous blog readers:
What is the strangest pet you or someone you know has had? What pet do you wish you had?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

aww! I concur that salamander is thuroughly adorable, even though you know that already I think. My most bizarre pet would had to have been my abnormally long-lived gerbil, haha.. it was around for almost 7 years. but yay for blogs again! <3

Anonymous said...

hmm...weird pet...well i had that big white fish, amongst others, that was wider than he was long. He was so fat sometimes he would just flop over on his side...and because he was white he looked like a blob of fat. hah, i miss those fish...we had a black and yellow koi too, his name was knight. great blog!

Anonymous said...

Hey, even though i am one of those people who thinks that a "salamander is probably one of the most unappealing pets out there," that was a good blog. I enjoyed it, not too many big words.

The weirdest pet i've had was probably a bird, and then a "wild" bird haha (probably explains why i hate birds) and i wish i had a dog named Max. Oh wait, i do.

Anonymous said...

You put him in the tub? :O Does he swim around in nice bit of water? That sounds fun. This could be a weird pet..except not a pet...when I was about 5 or 6 there was this big plant pot outside our door..and there was this spider that would always come running out from under the soil when I kicked the pot.. and I called it "Spidey"..so every once in awhile I would go outside and kick this plant pot yelling "SPIDEY!!!!" and this thing would zoom up and around the sides of the pot and disappear into the dirt again. It was weird..considering how incredibly terrified I am of spiders now..geez heh...good blog again!

Anonymous said...

Well I have actually always wanted a salamander and I think you're super lucky and one day I'll run to your home sneak in and just touch him quickly to see what he feels' like (that sounded kind of creepy like i'm some salamander predator) and then runaway finally knowing what a salamander feels like or you know just if someday I go to your home I could easily just ask to see him and maybe play with him if he likes to be played with.

I think it's weird when people have wild animals as pets but at the same time I'm jealous because I want that wild pet for my own haha because when they're babies they're so cute.

I had a turtle her name was penny. She's still alive I've had her since grade 1 she was already like 5 or 6 years old. so she's very oldand now in some reserve for animals somewhere. Oh penny you trooper you. I miss her.

I have a dog...Winston.
totally domminated comment thing here (sorry)