There's an Earwig in my Fish Tank

Helen Collins

Description

There's an Earwig in my Fish Tank is a startlingly honest account of being a pet owner. When Helen Collins and her partner decided to adopt Monty they were totally unprepared for how he'd change their lives. An abandoned and completely untrained puppy, Monty had behavioural issues and a tendency to create utter havoc, eating, blundering and stampeding through their lives. Interspersed with throwback tales of the mayhem wreaked throughout the years, this is also the story of the chaotic menagerie of pets that they have always nurtured. Funny, witty and full of comedy dramas, There's an Earwig in my Fish Tank is also the poignant narrative of life in the beautiful mid-Wales countryside, surrounded by the pitfalls and joys of living with a selection of rescue animals. Helen has created a celebration of pet ownership, but it does not shy away from the traumas that can come with taking care of animals. It highlights the need to understand the commitment of taking on a pet, as well as the tears and laughter it brings with it. It is also a gently self-mocking look at the age old perceived differences between male and female logic and decision making, set within a relationship that has lasted 25 years. Add in an unexpectedly manically disruptive canine to a settled household and this book is a comment on the persistence, love, frustrations and enthusiasm that all true animal lovers will recognise.There's an Earwig in my Fish Tank will appeal to all self-confessed animal lovers, as well as anyone considering getting a pet. Inspired by John Grogan's Marley & Me, it will make the reader laugh and cry but above all it aims to convey the absolute pleasure of looking after an animal, winning its trust and living and growing together.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781788038140
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2017 Helen Collins

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781788038140

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Acknowledgements
There are many people who became part of the creation of this book and who offered continued support and encouragement as it unfolded. A heartfelt thank you is expressed to the following:
To Sarah Brown and her family, for giving us the chance to love Monty.
To Julie Grady Thomas for her editorial knowledge, constructive advice, help and for getting me past my writer’s block with her wise words.
To my family for their love and belief in me.
To Anna Jones who inspired me to start this project and made me believe I could do it.
To everyone who followed Monty’s story and pushed me to turn it into a book, especially Carolyn, Denise, Kerry and Mila.
To Daniel Rhodes for editing the final draft with dedication, humour and endless patience.
And to John, who remains my soul mate, my rock and my everything.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introducing
Be careful what you wish for
First Night Chaos
How Muttley became Monty
My First Walk with Monty
Operation Turd and Wazz
Dirty Protests and an Obsession with Cat Pee
These Nuts are Toast
Bad News for Megan
Culinary Capers
Puppy Playtime
Christmas is Coming
Discovering his Woof
Doctor Monty
Puppy turns to the Dark Side
Tasty Morsels and Bits of Sheep
Roll Over and Give us a Kiss
Havoc from Dawn to Dusk
Scaredy-Pooch
Megan’s Story
Megan meets the Locals
Fish Tank Maintenance, Monty style
The Saga of the Tropical Fish
Tropical Fish begin to take over the House
Déjà vu on the Fish Front!
Fish Funerals: to Flush or not to Flush?
All about Goebbles
The Amazing Rat Killing Cat settles in
And not forgetting Micky
Micky’s Story
There is only one ‘F’ in Tufty
Alpha Female in Control
Tripe, Training and Facials
Monty has a Smashing Time
Goebbles comes for a Walk
Lost in Translation
Still Lost in Translation
There’s an Earwig in my Fish Tank
Little Birds
Goebbles reclaims her House
Ball Training (Indoor Rounders)
Me Master, You Dog
The Battle Plans of General Cow
The Stream Eats My Wellies
Cold Storms and Hot Rocks
Summer Walk
Revenge of the Sheep
Guns and Crowses (and a Wood Pigeon)
Winter Walk – The Song of the Gate
Tribute to a Dying Ewe
Monty is a Legend after all
Foreword
I have always had a passion for animals. My dad came home with a couple of gerbils for my brother and me when we were about four and seven respectively. To my knowledge they were our first true pets if you discount goldfish that you could win at the fair in those days. We never became bored and carried out our pet-keeping duties diligently, which is probably why I was then given a budgie for my twelfth birthday. This ignited my lifelong burning love for birds.
In fact, before long my mum, dad, brother and I ended up with a budgie each, all living in large indoor aviaries in harmonious chirpiness; mine was Perry (I was learning French, budgie in French is Perruche ), my mum’s was Banana (it was yellow), my dad’s was Grey Thing (work it out) and my brother’s was Joey.
Having a pet taught me responsibility, duty, sharing and an early understanding of the laws of circumstantial evidence when Perry was blamed for the untimely demise of Joey. The fact that Banana and GT were immaculate while Joey reposed in bits on the floor of the aviary he shared with Perry, and Perry looked like she had been showered with the contents of an abattoir, seemed a bit like jumping to conclusions to my thirteen year old self and remains a sibling argument to this day.
We progressed to guinea pigs, more budgies and holiday-sat various specimens from school including gerbils, stick insects and silkworms. The last of which pre-dated my horror of caterpillars and introduced an early understanding of the laws of trespass when the science teacher in charge of pets failed to inform the school secretary, who owned a mulberry tree, that two oiks would be prowling round her garden in search of mulberry leaves instead of him. Disaster was averted by our polite demeanour and the fact that we only had armfuls of foliage and woeful tales of peckish grubs instead of the family silver.
I cared for injured birds that fell from their hangar nests at my dad’s work, feeling a sense of achievement and privilege when I was able to return them back into the wild, healed and fully fledged. The early summer of 1986 was memorable for the dawn to dusk rearing of two baby starlings, one of which had a broken leg that my dad and I set with a matchstick and surgical tape. The vet who checked it over praised us for the quality of our efforts and the leg healed perfectly.
When our starlings fledged the one with the broken leg returned each dawn to tap on my bedroom window. Knowing it would not open it then flew to my brother’s window next door and waited for me to come and let it in. It would then go back to sleep on the top of my doll’s house until the chill of early morning had worn off, when it would fly down to my pillow and prod me with its beak until I let it out again. My doll’s house has not been played with for many years but, sentimentally, I have still never felt able to clean the last vestiges of starling poo from its roof.
For my eighteenth birthday I received Olly, an umbrella cockatoo and then, eight months later I went to university in Aberystwyth where I rediscovered the beautiful Welsh countryside I had enjoyed on holidays as a child. I made an amazing set of friends who gave me hamsters on my birthdays and, as with so many students at Aber, I later found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and we settled in the hills. John had a rescued cat when we met, the rest is history.

This book is written as a tribute to rescue animals and pets everywhere.
To earn the trust of a previously abused or abandoned animal is a blessing.
To be accepted unconditionally by an animal is a privilege.
To be welcomed home, no matter what mood you are in, as a friend, playmate, provider and member of the pack by a creature that before knew only fear is a joy.
To accept that life into your home, with all the associated mishaps, responsibilities and pitfalls, and know that your commitment is total and lifelong is a lesson.
To care for an animal in health and in illness, providing proper treatment and if necessary, at the end, ensuring the ultimate gift of a pain free passing is a duty.
To experience all these together and to love a pet, rescue or otherwise, is an honour.

Introducing
Megan: A Border Collie sheepdog, who turned up one summer, starving and injured, and took over our lives.

Micky: A bald, middle-aged Blue-Fronted Amazon parrot, who barks like a dog and looks like an oven ready poussin .

Bobby: A Ring Neck Parakeet on a mission to wind up all things canine.

The Budgies: Originally, a potential breeding pair, Perry and Huckleberry. But, two boys, so slight technical hitch in the breeding programme.

The Tropical Fish : Of various sizes and completely unrestrained reproductive ability.

Goebbles : Elderly cat with attitude and an aversion to wearing a large, black dog.

And Monty…

Be careful what you wish for
Megan had been with us for two years. She had flourished from the starving scrap that appeared outside the front door scavenging potato peelings from the bins, all bleeding pads, ribs and bruises. She still had the issues with sudden noise that had probably caused her to be beaten as a sheepdog and then abandoned, but she had settled into a happy existence with us, the parrots, fish and the cat.
From being someone who had run the full gamut of pets since childhood, from hamsters to stick insects and even a stint arriving home from school to announce cheerfully to my unprepared mother that we were holiday-sitting the psychotic school gerbils, I had never wanted a dog. But now I was hooked on all things canine. Friends visited with their dogs and Megan behaved impeccably. She was a bit clingy and hated to be left if we needed to pop out so, one day in early September 2012, watching her surveying the yard and digging holes I had a light bulb moment. What about getting her a friend?
Once John’s eyebrows had returned to their normal position I put forward all the possible benefits of a second dog, carefully gleaned and edited from the Internet. It was just as cheap to feed two dogs (dog food website). Meg would stop missing us if we went out and would spend the time chilling with her new companion. Having a second dog also means happier, healthier pooches all round (dog insurance website). One do