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How a pet project helped me to meet my Waterloo

By Earle Gale (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-02-10 11:08

I stood high on the sheer stone side of the canal-like river that runs through the long, thin park in my community, willing the ice to melt.

The sun was warm on my face and great chunks of petrified water obligingly broke off beneath me and swirled with the floating pop bottles before being forced by the flow to dip under the frozen blanket that still covered much of the surface. It was as if the river and the sky above knew this was the start of the lunar year and that spring had to be let out of its cage.

I felt a little smile creep onto my face but I hid it because of the courting couple walking past and my fears that they would think me a madman and call the police. Besides, the happiness I felt was not for me - it was for my turtles.

I bought them in the autumn from a street peddler who was also hawking goldfish, kittens and bunnies. I have been watching them slowly die ever since. It's been painful for me but it must be worse for them. They turn their noses up at whatever food I offer and choose instead to get thinner.

All winter, they have refused to eat or hibernate. Thankfully, so far, they have also refused to die. No doubt, their slow spiral toward oblivion has been caused by the fact their water is neither cold enough to make them want to sleep nor warm enough to make them want to live.

Unable to control the heat in my home, let alone the heat in their tank, I have decided to beat a retreat and set them free in a lake in a park somewhere when the weather gets warmer. I think that time will be soon; I just hope they hang on long enough.

It's a sad capitulation for me because I'm someone who needs to have a pet to care for and who, until now, seemed to be pretty good at it.

Since my childhood, I've had all the regular pets - mice, rats, ferrets, rabbits, dogs, cats, chickens, goldfish and the like - but I've also looked after a whole bunch of unusual creatures, like snakes, lizards, hedgehogs, squirrels and all manner of birds, great and small, including a tiny wren and a majestic kestrel.

The regular pets came to me in the regular way, while the unusual ones were almost all brought to me by neighbors and friends over the years who found something injured or abandoned in a garden shed, or something rescued from beneath their cat. I can't remember failing to nurse one back to health and back to the wild.

That's why I'm so frustrated in having met, in the turtles, my Waterloo. It's ironic because I only bought them because I thought they would be idiot-proof pets and ideal for an expat who may only be in town for a year or two and who can't take on a bigger commitment. It's difficult for foreigners who want a pet to know what to do.

Many of us know we will likely not be around for long enough to justify a dog or cat. I wouldn't be happy waving goodbye to either one at the border when I inevitably leave. A tank full of tropical fish might be nice; at least there would be no bonds of attachment to break when it's time to leave, but can you imagine how difficult it would be to find someone prepared to take so much apparatus off your hands when you have to go? Maybe I could keep an indigenous bird in a cage and release it when I leave, so it can take flight when I do.

Yet, none of these ideas really seem to fly, which is why I think there's a business opportunity here for an enterprising individual or two. What we need are innovative entrepreneurs with the drive to set up a pet rental service that offers furry friends to expats on monthly leases.

If you're thinking of starting one up, put me down for a miniature schnauzer, but please, no turtles.