One fish, Two fish, Dead fish, Blue fish....

My kids are always begging for pets. Dogs... even though we already have 2. Neither of which any of them care for or even pretend to. I feed the dogs. Walk them. Play with them. Even clean up their poop. And they poop a lot! But if I want my landscaper to keep coming back (among other reasons) the poop must be picked up. Aidan asks for a cat constantly. He happens to be allergic to cats so they are out of the question. Birds... Oh Lord they are fascinated with birds! Aidan has asthma. Asthma and parrots don't mix. So no birds. They have asked for frogs, lizards, turtles, and yes hamsters. If your read my recent hamster story you know we are not getting a hamster.

There are two very low maintenance (or so I thought) pets that I have let them get. A fish and hermit crab. Our first fish was a purple beta sometimes called a fighting fish named Murray. Aidan loved Murray. He would watch him in his little bowl on and off all day for weeks when we first bought him. The fish itself costs some thing like $2.50. Great a nice inexpensive low maintenance pet. Kind of. The fish costs nothing. But then you need a tank. Even small one is $20.00. Fish food $10.00. Some water rocks and a fake plant to make it more homey another $10.00. You also need some drops to neutralize the water and they are $5.00. Of course Aidan needed to get Murray some Sponge Bob decoration for in the tank which cost $15.00. By the time all way said and done this two dollar fish ran me over $50.00. Oh well a one time cost of $50.00 is not so bad. Aidan has his very first pet that is all his own. He is happy. That is all that really matters. Until Murray suddenly died. I have no idea what happened to that fish. We did everything right and yet 5 weeks later he was dead. I didn't have it in me to tell Aidan. So I did what any parent would do. I went to PetSmart and bought him another fish.

Aidan noticed first thing in the morning that his fish tank was empty. I lied to him. As I often do. I told him that Murray went on vacation for the day and that he would be back later that night. Aidan was four at the time. He totally bought it. After dinner I went out and bought a new fish. That looked just like Murray. At least he did while I was in the store. I got home put him in the water and realized he was not purple like Murray was. This fish was definitely blue. Aidan noticed immediately. I told him just like we come back from vacation with a tan Murray came back blue. Blue is like tan for fish. He didn't even question it. Just said "cool! I hope he stays that color!"

We had Murray 2 for a few years. Aidan surprisingly never lost interest in his fish. He loved to show him off to his friends. One afternoon he had a friend over after school. He took him up to his room to show off his fish friend. I heard Aidan say looks like Murray is sleeping. "HEY MOM DO FISH SLEEP UPSIDE DOWN???" Oh shit Murray 2 was dead. "Yeah Aidan they do... come down here and let him rest." That night after Aidan went to bed I scooped Murray 2 out of his bowl. I felt bad for this lifeless fish but he had a good run. I took him in the bathroom dropped him the toilet.... and to my surprise FISH SLEEP UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!. As soon as Murray hit the cold toilet water he began to swim frantically around the bowl. I returned Murray to his fish bowl and waited anxiously over the next week for him to actually die from the heart attack I gave him. He didn't. Not until a year later. By that time Aidan was pretty much over him. So over him the boys argued over who would get to flush him.

Then there was the hermit crab. And the reason I will never own another pet other than our rescue dogs. We were spending the summer down the shore. Every day for almost a month Aidan would be begging me for a hermit crab. They are at every stand practically every few feet at the boardwalk. All summer long I said no. Worn down from endless begging and whining I gave in. Since we were buying the whole set up for the crab the guy "threw in" an extra hermit crab "for free". The tank was a small plastic case lined with fluorescent orange sort of rock/ gravel. There was a small sponge that needed to be moist at all times. We bought some flaky looking food that they told us our new pet needed. The guy at the stand told us that despite popular belief hermit crabs actually like to be handled. That they would get to know us. He even suggested submerging them in water to coax them out of their shell. But warned not to do it more than a few times a week. We had the hermit crabs for about a week. We had not been submerging them in water. Or really even playing with them. The kids took them out of the tank from time to time and let them walk around living room but that was it. One night I heard from my bedroom one the crabs pacing the tank. His hard claws against the gravel mad it sound like he was digging. I stood there watching him pace wondering what was wrong. I noticed that the other crab was not moving. But Hermit crabs are not normally super active so I didn't really think too much of it. I picked up the immobile one. To my horror most of his legs remained in the tank. As I was holding him the rest of his claws began to fall off. I felt sick. What was wrong with him? Had the kids been to rough with him? Did they knock his legs loose? Why were they still coming off? I took to google. "Hermit crab losing his limbs" "sick hermit crab" "how to care for a hermit crab"

As it turns out we were unknowingly killing our crab. The whole set up was all wrong. Bright colors. The ones like the gravel the tank came with make them anxious. Keep them active because they prevent them from sleeping. Handling them causes stress. They shouldn't be taken out of their tank more than a time or two a week and you should never submerge them in water. And finally a hermit crab that is losing its limbs with out them being broken especially their big claw is doing so on purpose. The overwhelming stress and anxiety causes them to "voluntarily" drop their limbs. This crab that I had purchased to entertain my children was actively dying in my hand. I began to cry and then sob. I couldn't catch my breath. I was so hysterical it woke my husband up.

He came down stairs to me at the dining room table. Sobbing. Clawless crab in hand. Googling. Through sobs I explained to him what was happening. To which he replied... "Have you lost your damn mind?!"

Maybe I had. But I don't think so. It makes me sick that these poor helpless crabs are bred to live in an environment that they can not survive in simply for our viewing pleasure. Sick that I had participated in funding this kind of industry.

Sooooo the moral of this dead pet story... do your research. Don't just buy. Know what you are buying and the proper way to care for them before you take them home. Don't blindly take the advice or word of the guy that is selling you over priced unnecessary crap. And do not buy hermit crabs!!! They are not meant to be pets.