Dick King-Smith's Book of Pets

by Dick King-Smith

  Lupin

  Lupin is more than just a ginger cat. He’s a ginger tabby, which means he has all those beautiful tabby markings, but they’re orange-coloured instead of brownish. His coat is quite long, and his tail is very long.

  There’s an old saying that God made the cat so that man could have the pleasure of playing with the tiger. Like the tiger, the cat is a great hunter, so if you’re fond of wild birds, take care where you put your bird table. Otherwise, as well as feeding the birds on scraps, you’ll be feeding the cat on birds.

  Feeding your cat or kitten is easy – you can buy lots of good cat foods, but remember that cats are choosy animals. They’re not like dogs, which will usually gobble up any old food you give them. You’ll find that your cat will probably decide on one special flavour of one special brand, and turn its nose up at anything different. Of course cats like milk or cream, but it doesn’t always agree with them and they don’t really need it. Just give them water to drink. Spoiling cats by feeding them chicken or steak only makes them lazy and uninteresting and fat, and that suits the mice, because fat cats don’t hunt.

  Lupin thinks a lot of himself. A dog will look at you as if to say, ‘You’re lovely!’ When Lupin looks at you, he’s thinking, ‘I’m lovely, you must agree.’

  Like most cats, he’s very clean. When he was a kitten, he learned straight away to use first a dirt box and then the garden, and he spends a lot of time washing and grooming himself, right to the very tip of that long, long tail.

  Dodo is busy in the daytime, and sleeps at night. Lupin sleeps quite a bit by day, and at night he’s out hunting. I don’t know what his favourite sort of mouse is, but his favourite tinned food is the rabbit-flavoured one. Don’t tell Frank.

  Chiquita

  Chiquita is a long-haired guinea pig. To give her her proper name, she’s a Peruvian cavy.

  Ages ago – 2,000 years, in fact – people in South America tamed a small animal called a ‘restless cavy’. They kept them for pets, and … to eat. (Don’t listen, Chiquita. Don’t listen, Dodo, either.)

  But I like to call them guinea pigs – a name they probably got because they first came to Britain from a country called Guinea and someone thought they looked piggy. Really they’re nothing to do with pigs. They’re rodents, from the same family as rabbits like Frank, and rats and mice. They have four toes on their front feet and three on their back ones. And actually they do have a tail, though it doesn’t stick out; it’s just half a dozen little bones under the skin.

  Guinea pigs are about the easiest of all pets to keep. Take Chiquita. In the summer she lives in a wire run on the lawn. She doesn’t try to burrow out, as Frank would, and she mows the grass. In her hutch, in winter time, she likes the same food as Frank – hay and vegetables and wild plants. Don’t forget, there are some plants that are poisonous and I’ve made up a sentence to remind you of the worst ones.

  Remember, Everyone, Don’t Feed These Bad Herbs.

  Ragwort, Elderberry, Deadly Nightshade, Foxglove, Toadflax, Buttercup, Hemlock.

  If in doubt, stick to the dandelion leaves again. Guinea pigs love them.

  Baby guinea pigs are unusual because they’re not born blind and hairless and helpless like baby rabbits or mice. They grow inside the mother for such a long time – 63 to 75 days – that when they do arrive, their eyes are open, they’ve got all their hair and even their teeth, and they’re running around and nibbling at food the very same day.

  Like all guinea pigs, when she was born Chiquita had a very big head and huge feet, and rather a small body. But she got bigger very quickly, and grew the long silky coat of Peruvian guinea pigs. There are two other sorts: Abyssinians (nobody knows why they’re called that), which have a rough coat, and smooth-haired, and all three kinds come in lots of different colours.

  ‘Never’ is a big word, but guinea pigs hardly ever bite, and if you carry yours around with you and talk to it, it will become very tame.

  Unlike Frank, Chiquita and all her family are very talkative. They seem to have a whole language of their own, including a sort of chuttering sound like a very small motorbike when they’re angry with one another, and a purring sound between friends. But the noise that Chiquita makes most is a whistle, and that means ‘I’m hungry!’ Which guinea pigs almost always are.

  George and Georgina

  George and Georgina are Mongolian gerbils. Gerbils live in many parts of the world, but the ones from Mongolia and Egypt make the best pets.

  They’re quite a recent addition to the list of pet animals – my old book of 1907 didn’t know anything about them – and they’re fun to keep because they’re such busy creatures. Some animals just lie about and don’t do much, but George and Georgina are on the go all the time. They don’t seem to spend a lot of time sleeping, and they’re very nosy, sitting up on their hind legs to see what’s going on. They take great care building a nest, and then they pull it all to bits again and rebuild it in a different way in a different place, usually making an entrance tunnel. And if they have to, they can move very fast. I bet George and Georgina can outrun Lupin.

  Feeding them is easy. Hamster food is fine, and they like canary seed too, and dog biscuits. And though they don’t drink much, they should have a drinking bottle.

  There are some don’ts about gerbil keeping:

  Don’t pick up your gerbil by its tail – the skin could pull away from the bone. If you’re gentle, and offer something nice like a sunflower seed, it’ll soon sit happily in your hand.

  Don’t give them newspaper for making nests with. Ordinary paper is all right, but the ink used for newspapers can be harmful.

  Don’t just keep one gerbil. They’re very companionable animals, so it’s best to have two. If they turn out to be George and George, or Georgina and Georgina, well, that’s fine. At least in a year’s time you’ll still only have two, and not two hundred!

  And there’s one last don’t. Don’t leave baby gerbils with their parents once they’ve been weaned. If your gerbils should have babies, when they’re three weeks old, take them away from their parents and put them in another cage. Because before you can say ‘George and Georgina’, the next lot will appear.

  Claude

  Claude is a cobalt-blue cock (male) budgerigar. And he talks. He will tell you his name, he will wish you a good morning (even in the evening), and he says quite a few other things, like ‘Snap, Crackle, Pop!’ and ‘Shut the door, please’ and ‘God save the Queen’ and ‘Goodbye’.

  If you want your budgie to talk, there are three things to remember. The first is to buy a cock bird, because they’re better at it. Next, choose a young one, so that he’s away from all the twittering, chattering members of his family and only hears you and what you say to him. And thirdly, teach him quite a few different phrases; if he learns one and one only, he’ll say it all day long until he drives you bananas.

  All caged birds have to put up with their cage, and usually it’s not big enough to do any flying in. And one thing Claude loves is stretching his wings. So once a day (making sure that the window is shut and that Lupin is not around) he’s let out of his cage and has a good fly around the room.

  Budgies are easy to tame. Get yours to sit on your finger, and before long you’ll be able to put him on your shoulder and walk around with him.

  ‘Budgerigar’ is a funny name, but it’s what the native people call it in Australia, where it comes from. They could see that this noisy little parakeet belonged to the same family as the big cockatoos, and they liked the look of it, so they put together their word for good – ‘budgeri’ – and for cockatoo – ‘gar’. Budgerigar – good cockatoo.

  Green is the most common colour for wild budgies, but nowadays you can find them in nearly every colour of the rainbow. And telling cocks from hens is easy. Look at the cere (that’s the ridge just above the beak), and if it’s brown, it’s a hen bird; if it’s blue, it’s a cock.

  Budgerigars will do perfectly well on just budgie seed and fres
h water (though you must remember to give them some grit – they can’t digest their food properly without it), but it’s nicer for them to have a bit of choice. Claude gets a spray of millet and some cuttlefish to gnaw at, and sometimes a treat like a piece of apple.

  Budgies like toys too. Claude has a little mirror in his cage where he can see another budgie who looks exactly like him (strange, isn’t it?). He does a lot of talking to this friend.

  But of course your budgerigar’s best friend should be you. If you just stick him in a cage and feed him, and otherwise forget him, he’ll be bored and miserable. But if you talk to him and play with him and keep him company, he’ll be a happy bird.

  What have you got to say about that, Claude?

  What?

  Oh, is that all?

  (Claude says, ‘Goodbye.’)

  Maggie

  Maggie is a small working terrier. Nowadays it’s the fashion to call dogs like her Jack Russells after a famous fox-hunting parson who lived about a hundred years ago and kept terriers of all shapes and sizes. But it’s only the little ones like Maggie that can live up to the name terrier, because it means ‘earth dog’ – a dog that’s small enough to go down holes in the ground.

  That’s what dogs like Maggie love doing, to see what lives down there – rabbit, fox or badger, they don’t care. They’re tough and they’re hard-working, never afraid to have a go, never too tired to try.

  Like some people, there are some sorts of dog that prefer to keep themselves clean and neat and tidy; they hate getting their feet wet or muddy, and would sooner sit indoors in comfort. Terriers aren’t like that at all. They’re country dogs. Maggie is happiest dashing around in any kind of weather, chasing something, even if it’s only her own special ball made of rubber as hard and bouncy as herself. And if you are indoors and happen to mention a certain word, you have to spell it out – M-O-U-S-E – or else she’ll turn the house inside out looking for one.

  Whatever she does, she goes flat out at it, whether it’s having a game (or a scrap) with other dogs, or barking at strangers who come to the house. Dodo might say, ‘Please come in,’ to a burglar. Maggie would say, ‘You put one foot in here and I’ll bite it off.’ And eating is another thing she’d do till she popped, if you let her. The other day I saw one of her daughters who went to live in a butcher’s shop. She was like a balloon, so fat she could hardly walk.

  If you have a puppy, that’s something you must beware of once it’s fully grown. If it seems to be getting fat, cut its food down a bit. And don’t forget – dogs are meat-eaters. Your puppy will need chiefly meat, with some cereal and milk and eggs. And of course it will have to be inoculated by the vet, and then you can ask him or her about other things it might need, like vitamins and cod-liver oil. But once your puppy is grown up, don’t overfeed it. It’s not good for anyone to be fat, whether it’s a person or a dog or a mouse.

  Oops! I said that word!

  Watch out! Here comes Maggie!

  Milly and Mollie

  There’s something very attractive about pet mice. It’s partly to do with their size, and their neatness and cleanness, for they spend a lot of time tidying themselves up, and partly to do with the quickness of their movements. Their little feet twinkle along, their whiskers never stop twitching, and they’re great climbers, twirling their long tails to balance.

  Milly is a white mouse with pink eyes and Mollie is a chocolate one, and those are only two of the seventy different colours you can get. (Dodo and Lupin and Maggie don’t care what colour a M-O-U-S-E is, but they’re fond of mice in a different way.)

  People will tell you that mice smell. Well, they do if you don’t clean out their cages properly. Do this every day and put in fresh sawdust, and it won’t be a problem. If you just want a couple of mice, it’s a good idea to buy two females – or does, as they’re called – because it’s the bucks, the males, who are smellier, and that way you won’t have to look after dozens of babies. Like Georgina the gerbil, Milly and Mollie could have lots of children if they weren’t both does. Remember not to give mice meat or cheese to eat, or else you really will have to hold your nose!

  Milly and Mollie are fed on quite a few different foods. It makes life more interesting for them. You can just buy special mouse mix in a pet shop, but my two also like bird seed and biscuits and bread and cornflakes. They have a piece of apple now and again, and some chickweed from the garden. But they’re tiny animals, so they only need very small amounts. It’s not a good idea to have a cage full of stale food.

  Talking of cages, do make sure that your mice have enough room. They’re very active, and love running about and climbing (especially at night, because mice are nocturnal creatures), so those shoebox-sized cages sold in pet shops are no good. Give them a really big box with space to make a sort of adventure playground for them. One with a glass front is best, so you can watch them scuttling about. Milly and Mollie have ladders to run up and down, and twigs to climb on (apple wood is good), and shelves to scurry along. And their nest box, containing clean hay for bedding, is right at the top of the cage, while their food dish and water bottle are on the floor, so they get lots of exercise going between the bedroom and the dining room. And they like toys to play with – an old cork is a favourite.

  If you handle your mouse, it will get very tame and perhaps ride about on your shoulder like Claude the budgie. Just make sure that when the mice play, the cat’s away.

  Goliath

  There is now a ban on the import of wild tortoises caught in the Mediterranean, and also a number of species from Africa and Asia. However, you can buy ones that are bred in captivity. There are still many illegally imported tortoises advertised, so be careful who you buy from. Avoid getting one over the internet or even from a pet shop. The Tortoise Protection Group (tortoise-protection-group.org.uk) has a list of recommended breeders and sometimes has rescue tortoises that need a home. See also tortoisetrust.org.

  Tortoises come in all sizes, but the smaller ones can find their first winter in this country quite difficult. In other words, the bigger your tortoise, the better chance it has of surviving: tortoises come from warm countries like Greece and can only survive the cold winters in Britain by sleeping through them. And the little ones may never wake up again.

  You may not be able to find one quite as big as Goliath, who is a real whopper, but if you can, choose a heavy one. Pick it up and push with your hand against its two dangling hind legs, and if it’s healthy and fit it’ll push back strongly. Look at the underside of its shell. If it’s flat, you’ve got a female, but if the shape is a bit rounded, hollowed out like a shallow saucer, it’s a male.

  Goliath is no trouble to keep. He eats all sorts of green stuff, including grass, and – like Frank and Chiquita – he loves dandelion leaves. But he has to be kept away from the flower beds and the vegetable garden, because tortoises eat all sorts of things you don’t want them to – above all, strawberries. Sometimes Goliath is given one that’s been pecked at by the birds, and he doesn’t turn his big hooked beak up at overripe tomatoes or wasp-eaten plums.

  Tortoises can’t climb over anything as high as a brick turned on its side, so it’s easy to fence Goliath in. He has a square pen made of four planks which can be moved about the lawn, with a box for him to shelter in, and a water dish, big and heavy enough for him to bathe in when he wants. When he drinks, Goliath will hold his head underwater for ages – you’d think he was drowning – and indeed, he would drown if he got into deep water, so make sure there’s no more than five centimetres in there. Just in case Goliath should somehow get out of his pen and escape, he has his name, address and telephone number painted on his shell.

  In the autumn you’ll find that your tortoise starts to lose its appetite, and sits around not doing much. It may even try to scrape out a sort of burrow. It’s telling you that the weather is getting colder, and that it’s thinking about hibernating – sleeping the winter away.

  Here’s what you have to do. Find a g
ood-sized box and fill it with soft hay and dry leaves. Put the tortoise in it and find a place that’s safe from frost, like an attic or a loft. The tortoise will burrow down into that bed, and if it’s big enough and has had plenty to eat during the summer, it will be perfectly all right. It won’t need food or water or any attention from you, so don’t disturb it. All you need to do is peep into the box round about March to see if it’s ready to face the spring.

  Goliath has hibernated for a great many years, and will do so for a great many more, I hope, for tortoises are long-lived animals. If you asked him what his idea of happiness was, I think he’d say, ‘Feeling warm sunshine on my shell. Having my neck tickled –’ he loves that – ‘and eating a really squashy strawberry. No – several squashy strawberries. Without hurrying.’

  Berry

  It’s not surprising that my old book about pets doesn’t mention hamsters. The man who wrote it would have thought of them as pests, enemies of the farmer in countries like Germany, where they stole his grain; indeed, a plague of them could ruin a whole field by chopping off every cornstalk at ground level.

  It was not until 1930 that a much smaller kind of hamster was brought to Britain from countries like Syria, and people began to realize what super pets they made.

  Take Berry, for example, whose name would do for a male or a female, I suppose – though actually his round behind tells you he’s a boy (the girls have more pointed bottoms and you can see their little tails sticking out). Berry lives all by himself and is perfectly happy – hamsters like to be on their own. Lots of other pets, like George and Georgina, and Milly and Mollie, enjoy company and are miserable alone. Goliath would be much happier with a friend too. And a rabbit and a guinea pig, like Frank and Chiquita, usually get on well together. But hamsters don’t like other hamsters. If a strange one was put in Berry’s cage, there’d be a terrible fight. So if you want one small, interesting, easy-to-manage pet, a hamster is ideal.