Keeping Pets

CEBU, Philippines - Among many city residents, renting a place to live is the norm. Norman is one of them. Coming to the city some four decades ago to study college, he has since found work and established residence here. And, yes, he has always been a renter.

Recently Norman had to move out of his rented place, as it was scheduled for renovation. He thought it would not a hassle, considering that there were a lot of houses “for rent” nearby. He was wrong.

Place after place he knocked on said no the moment Norman made it known he had dogs, two of those. After a very long search, Norman finally found a place that allowed him to bring his pets along. Only that the house was rather out-of-the-way and in a ‘not quite ideal’ neighborhood.

Having found a place to move into was not the end of the problem. The process of relocating was really tedious. Norman had already a huge collection of things that he didn’t want to let go of; the packing and cataloguing alone were already quite a task, let alone actually moving the boxes.

But his main concern was the dogs. While the new place allowed Norman to bring his pets along, he was still in a quandary whether to send the dogs off to his sister in the province or turn it over to the city veterinary office for possible adoption – that would make his life easy, he thought. In the end, Norman realized he couldn’t live with the idea of his dogs being separated from him. He would keep them. But even with such firm decision, the problem was not over for Norman.

New dog cages were needed to fit the space of the new place. The cost of two cages added to the already significant cost of relocating. Norman didn’t complain; his dogs very much deserved the added expense. Yet again, the problem did not end there.

Norman finally moved to his new place, with his dogs in their new cages. The unpacking of things began, and then arranging these in their right places. Then, Norman had to deal with a new problem – the noise of his dogs. The incessant barking was irritating enough for Norman himself – worse, he was concerned of it disturbing the ‘peace’ of his new neighbors.

For several nights Norman didn’t have enough sleep, and he had a day job to report to. He would wake up several times during the night as soon as his dogs would go noisy. Either he would ‘talk’ to the dogs to quiet them or he would pull the cages inside, so the noise would be a little contained at least.

It would take more than a week for the dogs to get a little settled in the new place. Every now and then, Norman still has to wake up in the middle of the night when his pets would go into a barking fit. It takes about 30 minutes persuade the dogs to be quiet.

Keeping pets is not necessarily ‘a walk in the park’. At times it can be as nerve-wracking as raising a child – perhaps even worse. There is the daily task of preparing food for the pets, the visits to the vet for immunization and other concerns, dealing with the misbehaviors, the cleaning after them, everything.

But pet owners seldom complain. Having pets around does them a lot of good. For one, pets give a kind of emotional comfort. And pets also provide warm companionship very similar to that of human friends – at times even better. (FREEMAN)