Our affinity for caged animals is growing

As the pandemic lengthens, so increases the number of animals in our home.  

Much like us, they live in confined spaces. 

After acquiring our fourth (and hopefully final) pet, my daughter started to question whether her pets actually like to be behind bars.  

“Are you sure he doesn’t want to come out more?” she asked as her hamster clung to the cage walls, its nose sniffing endlessly for a breath of freedom. 

“No, no,” I reassure her, “he had his five minutes today.” That’s five glorious minutes of rolling around in a fully enclosed plastic ball. It’s the safest way to allow a hamster to roam without having to call out the search and rescue. 

As for our newest animal, a budgie – donated by a dear friend whose adult budgies appear to be endlessly copulating – he gets a little more “yard time,” as they call it in prison. But with yard time comes fights, particularly when different species are involved. There haven’t been any injuries yet, but a few close calls. 

Not for the budgie, mind you, but for our cat. Unlike our canary, who is tormented merely by our cat’s gaze, our budgie appears to lack an understanding of the predator-prey relationship. He appears to think of our timid feline as an ideal perch. When given the opportunity to fly, he makes a beeline for her head. 

 Our cat now bristles in fear each time the budgie bounces on the floor towards her. That doesn't stop her from remaining curious, however. Similar to when I bring out the vacuum, she is drawn to the terror, albeit at a safe distance. 

Unlike most other animals, including ourselves, our cat actually prefers to be cooped up in the house. While always interested on what goes on outside – she spends hours on end peering out our front window – she has yet to muster the courage to venture past our front steps. She’s been in permanent lockdown since we adopted her three years ago. So long as I chase her around the house every now and then, her life is fulfilled. 

It offers perspective, I guess. If anything, the pets in our home provide us with much-needed distractions during this time of limited social interaction. Our daughter, who just finished her 14-day isolation period after a classmate tested positive, was getting used to Zoom classes with a budgie perched on her shoulder. 

“I hate school,” she said half-jokingly about the thought of going back. This is the same person who said “I would die!” if school were cancelled this year. 

But I can’t blame her, seeing as there are only two weeks until Christmas break. And then only a few more days after that until our Covid Christmas, as I like to call it. That’s when we’ll exchange gifts with our extended family outdoors, on a (hopefully) balmy Saskatchewan winter day. It will be a brief, but safe, visit. 

It’s our five minutes outside the cage. We’ll try to make the best of it.

The predator and prey?