ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

When I grew up, the only pets I had were fish.  Back then, I had a 25 to 30 gallon fish tank.  I like the different variety of fish and suggested to my husband to get a aquarium for the kids.  We couldn’t find a suitable place for a fish tank in our house, so we decided to get a small tank instead.  It is much easier to keep a fish as a pet.  Fish are cheaper and easier to take care of.  In addition, they won’t stink up the house or ruin the furniture.  We got some pet fish for our kids but the mistake we made was keeping too many fish in a small tank.  They didn’t survive long.  After two years, we decided to give it a try again.  This time, we only bought one fish, a red tuxedo guppy for our 2.5 gallon fish tank.  However, I can’t stand having only one fish in the tank.  I am afraid that the red tuxedo guppy would feel lonely all by itself.  I thought that if we buy a bottom feeder.  Maybe it will help maintain the health of the aquarium.  We decided to get one more fish, and that was when things went wrong. 

When we got to the pet supply store, we didn’t anticipate that the humane society would show up at the store.  There were four adolescent dogs and five puppies.  The puppies were about eight weeks old.  Their mom is a border collie.  Their dad is unknown.  The puppies were extremely cute and that was why things went wrong.  My daughter likes dogs and puppies.  She has about two to three dozens of dog plush stuffed animals.  She even has a pillow pet dog.  Her bed is filled with dog plush stuffed animals.  Each day, she brings a different dog plush stuff animal to daycare.  Her love for dogs is indescribable.  She has been asking for a puppy since she was able to ask for something.  Anyway, upon seeing the cute little puppies, she decided to forgo the pet fish and bring back the puppy instead.  In the past, we were able to tell her that we couldn’t buy a puppy because there was not a pet store selling puppies in Minnesota.  While we were at a pet store in Orange County, we were able to tell her that we couldn’t buy the puppy because it didn’t have a ticket to fly back with us.  This time, we were having hard time trying to think of an excuse not to bring back the puppy.  We told her that it was extremely expensive to get a puppy even from the humane society.  We couldn’t bring the puppy with us when we travel and the puppy would feel very lonely.  The puppy would pee everywhere and chew the furniture.  The dog food is expensive.  I was almost going to give in but my husband stood firm.  Finally, I told her that we didn’t know who the daddy was and we had to find the daddy first, so we could know what kind of puppies they were.  Mixed breeds are sometimes dangerous.  She was extremely sad with tears all over her face and didn’t want to leave the store.  That was last Saturday.  She still thinks that we will get the puppy once we find the daddy.  My husband thought that maybe we should get one after we come back from Taiwan.  I have mixed feelings about that.  I didn’t grow up with a pet dog and I didn’t know if I want to get into the trouble of getting a pet dog.  Having two kids is already a challenge in life.  Adding a puppy on top of it would be too much work for me.   

Written by Elisa English

On 2/21/2011 in Minneapolis