It was my late Grandmother that made me fall in love with pets and enjoy my time around them. When I was a very young girl, my younger sister and I were taken to the village to live with grandma, we spent our primary school years with her and during that moment, I bonded so well with her pets; rabbits, goats and fowls. Grandma had a big yard with these pets and had different spaces for each of them so that none would disturb the other.
I could remember how every morning, I would go around the yard watching these cute little rabbits hopping around while I couldn't go near the adult ones because they were dangerous, should I even use that word? But the adult rabbits were kind of more harmful than their little ones.
My uncle would take one of the little ones and tell me to caress and play with their soft ears. It was always a beautiful time spent with them. I played so much more with the rabbits than with other pets in the yard and I grew up to become so fond of them that I thought when I grew up, I would have them as pets around me. But you know, those thoughts could only die while new ones take over while we keep growing.
Grandma has so many rabbits that she refused to sell anyone but along the line, I couldn't even explain how those rabbits went away or perhaps something bad happened to them as we were taken away back to the city after we completed our primary education. Since then, I never heard of those pets again but I know how Grandma reared those animals.
After many years, my family moved from the village to another town which was over an hour's journey, still in the same state. Then, one of my aunts bought a goat for my grandmother and she started rearing again. She called the goat "gospel." She loved the goat so much that she would always ask if it had eaten every morning and if they failed to give gospel food, she would not allow the one in charge to eat. To her, animals should be treated like humans since they are part of the family as pets.
Gospel kept growing and giving birth to lots of children and after years, gospel became grandmother and great-grandmother. We watched as lots of goats surrounded our compound and it was a joy seeing them around.
A few years later, gospel died, leaving behind its children and great-grandchildren as they kept reproducing. The death of gospel pained Grandma that she was sick and couldn't eat because of it. After many days of begging her to eat something, she finally let go and watched over the rest. After some investigation about the death of gospel, we realised it wasn't a natural death because after cutting its stomach, they found strange items in it which made them conclude it was some kind of spiritual hands on it.
The first time I watched one of the goats give birth to a triplet made me surprised. I was washing my clothes that morning and was noticing the behaviour of the goat, pacing up and down and bleating so hard. It kept screaming and making so much noise that I was pissed at first, but my cousin came to tell me it was about to give birth and was in labour. Humans need people to help them when they are in labour but animals like goats do not allow anyone to move closer to them.
I asked my cousin to help in its labour but he laughed and said it isn't done that way. I watched as the poor goat was suffering in pain and all I could do was to watch and feel for it. After lots of pacing up and down and being in much pain, she gave birth to three kids and felt relieved. The way she licked those kids was emotional and I could feel a mother in her when she didn't allow anyone to come closer but to surround herself with those kids.
It was a surprise to see after some days, the kids were already walking and running around the compound. This shocked me because a human baby takes between 10 - 18 months old to start walking without holding onto anything but these little kids were already walking just a few days after they were born.
A month after Grandma died, these little cute bunnies were gifted to us. They are so beautiful that I couldn't stop staring at them and would check on them every morning. I made it a daily routine every morning to sing a short poem for these bunnies and while singing, I noticed they would stay calm as if they were enjoying my song. These bunnies reminded me of those rabbits Mama reared some years back and how my love for them returned when I saw them.
This is just a story I felt I should talk about and how I love having pets around me. Although I love puppies as pet, but when they start to grow, I might decide to sell them or dash them out because I do not intend to keep a dog as a pet in the future.
The first two images were created from Bing AI while the last two belongs to me
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