I don’t know–maybe for some of you, having a couple of bears for pets might not be unusual. Ditto the skateboarding dog. And that little striped thing, I think, is a baby peccary. I have heard that these close relatives of the pig generally grow up to be fierce and unpredictable. I think you’re better off with giant millipedes.
I say possums definitely have appeal, even if they do get stuck in your garbage can and then pretend they’re dead, totally grossing you out. But the possums in these videos aren’t doing anything like that.
My wife once had a possum for a pet. She gave birth to a whole crowd of baby possums (“she” being the momma possum, not my wife: heaven forbid) and stowed some of them in the silverware drawer. The cats were very careful to give the possum all the space she wanted, and no fights broke out.
I had a half-grown possum in my bedroom once, but my mother saw it and had a bad moment.
THIS JUST IN: Ruthlessly wielding high-impact charges of irresistible cuteness, baby sloths have driven an entire Bigfoot population (Bigfeets? doesn’t sound quite right…) out of the rain forests of Costa Rica. Authorities have warned human tourists, “Don’t be there when they make those cozy wah-wah sounds–that’s how they get you.”
I couldn’t resist the sheep using the trampoline. Even if I had Bigfoot video, the bouncing sheep would be better.
But there’s a lot of fun in these clips, even without a trampoline.
Something, I don’t know what it is, holds animals back from grasping the concept of a mirror. I had a little lizard once who got so upset when he saw his reflection, I had to make sure he never saw it again. No more mirrors for you, guy! But even smarter animals like cats and dogs just don’t get it. And watch out for that box turtle–he’s really cheesed off.
“We don’t generally keep moose in the house, sir…”
There’s that, and Laura the Dog feeling guilty, and a cat and a ferret playing tag–relax for a few minutes with assorted critters.
Time for my nap!
Okay, they can’t sit in your lap and purr; but you can still have fun with fish. They can even get tame and friendly. My goldfish used to let me pick them up and put them in the sink when I had to clean their aquarium. I always fed them by hand.
And then there are a lot of funny-looking little fish which I imagine one might get attached to, in time.
There are even fish who get to be friends with cats. How is that possible?
It has nice, soft fur; but it also has a duck’s bill, and lays eggs. The males have poisonous spurs in their heels that can really ruin your day, if you annoy them. It lives in the water and waddles around on land. And it’s kind of hard to type it correctly.
It is, of course, the duck-billed platypus, from Australia. As you can see, this female platypus is nice to handle and seems quite affectionate.
You can’t just waltz into Pet Smart and buy one, though. Probably you can’t do that even in Australia.
Now watch–it’ll turn out that at least one of you has a pet platypus and people will think I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The humans in these videos are kind of weird, but the animals are cute and funny.
In that next-to-the last clip, if you watched it closely, do you know what that turtle was doing? We checked with Mr. Nature. It was a courtship display. He was courting that big fish that was sort of turtle-colored. Our turtle courted a glass turtle like that. Made us feel awful guilty for not providing a real mate. But it’s not so easy to just go out and grab a painted turtle.
You’ve got to be Dr. Doolittle to figure out what some of these little characters are doing. I’d understand that parrot’s display if he were a lizard, but he isn’t, so I don’t. And then there’s the cat who discovers he can fly. And the household where the pets are a bunny and… I think it’s a fox.
