how many of you, had a couple of standard pets such as dogs or cats as
children?

We had two dogs when I was a child, a toy poodle and a lhasa apso.

how many of you had close contact with more unusual species of animals
as children?

My mother caught a parakeet in her back yard before I was born, so he
was around most of my childhood.  My older sister did an experiment in
school involving lab mice.  We had pet mice in the house for years
afterward, though my mom did make us find new homes for a bunch when
we were up to 132.  We spent many a Saturday cleaning mouse cages.  We
had tropical fish.  I had a pet bunny for many years.  My father kept
a flock of grey geese because they eat grass burs.  We raised several
clutches of gosslings.

One evening my dad came home with a box.  My dad was a gentle person and
it scared me to see him so angry.  He ran a small county airport and
often went out there before sunrise.  Apparently, there was a mother
skunk who had dug a den near one of the hangars and he enjoyed seeing
her trundle along at dawn and dusk digging for bugs.  She had gotten
caught in a steel leg trap set by someone who had a garden on the airport
property who had set it for rabbits.  She was dead and my dad had a box
of skunk kits who's eyes were just opening.  So, he presented this box to
my mom, who went ewwwww, ewwwwwwww, ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!  Awwww, they are so
little.  So we spent a summer raising skunk kits, three of which my mom
sold as pets to pay for the spay and neuter surgeries and one of which we
kept.

So, I think that ferret people are created.  So far in our own home we
have had dogs, a cat, birds including those born and raised in our home,
hamsters, gerbils, rats, fish, a hedgehog, and our ferret.  It's good
for us, and it's part of socializing our children.

Veda
[Posted in FML issue 5269]