When it comes to the hobby, pet keeping would be the top of my list and I strongly believe that I'm a woman of impetuous passion when it comes to this hobby for after having them under my care, it'll be my responsibility to sustain and nourish them like they're my own child.
Having them is not an option but a desire for having the thought that someone might be waiting for me gives me the reason why I should wake up in the morning and be home before the sun sets. And I felt like these lives have chosen me to be its caretaker for I have faced countless times where they struggled to survive and I battled against time and endurance just to save them and staring at them gives me the determination and trust to my self that "yes, I can and I will".
I've been into this hobby since I was 4 months old, the moment that my parents entrusted me under other people's care, all I did was take a peek through a small hole in the floor along with cats and kittens circling around me and watch the fishes below as we're in an irrigation area. The old woman who took care of me said that I could do that thing even for a whole day long and I didn't even bother when my parents left, I didn't even looked for them or cried. From time to time, after such obsession of accumulating several pets, I've learned what they like and the things that they don't and even their sleeping routine and understood some patterns that involve their means of communication.
I love this hobby for it became a part of life. They became my happiness as well as my sadness. I'm so happy knowing that I have someone I could greet day and night but seeing them at some case that they weakly moving or worst, dead, it's so hard for me to sigh for it's even so hard to breathe and I have to spend another moment of guilt and regret that I failed and I failed them.
Petkeeping became a part of my daily routine for I have to feed them first before I take my meal and cleaning their chamber including them during weekends became a way of spending my rest day for it'll be the only time that I could feel like I'm having time for myself to be happy and at ease.
Keeping them and taking care of them became a part of our family habit for we tend to their needs just like how we tend to ourselves'. My grandparents who stand as my parents like to wake up early in the morning nearly at 5 o'clock where mother cleans our pets' waste matters and father looks for hay and green leafy vegetables as a snack for our rabbits and guineas. I only have to take some malunggay leaves for my hammies. Fishes, rabbits, guineas, and hammies even fed twice or more every meal for we just never bother to ask if they were already fed or not as long as we could feed them on our own. Cat and dogs eat their foods as we take our meal at the same time.
As I'm feeding or cleaning them, all I think about is that it'll be so great to see them someday having their own babies and I'll be there to help them tend to their babies till they grow up. I even imagined that our home will be so lively and full of life when there are a lot of my hamsters, rabbits, and guinea pigs to roam around and my aquarium tanks will be like a sea of colors.
As I'm an ambivert type of a person and used to just talk with my grandparents sharing about school kinds of stuff and some of my days with some of my friends, my hobby gives me the opportunity to find friends on unique ways. Even though other people may say that they're just animals, I prefer to call them my friends or siblings. And I found my real friends through them for I choose my friends based on a specific characteristic - being a pet lover. I could say that people who're pet lovers are the people who can feel empathy towards other's emotion and has a composure and control to their own attitude and perspective towards their life and career. This hobby doesn't set a gap or comparison towards my parents or friends for they're a part of my identity and real people around me understood and accepted the things that I love and even support it by means of adapting my hobby or even just by being a pet sitter.
I can't say that petkeeping is expensive but it's also not so cheap for it requires to maintain a stock of water treatments for fishes and some vitamin supplements for the hamsters, rabbits, and guineas and also separate bath soaps for the grooming of our dogs, cat, guinea pigs and rabbits for they have specific tolerance to chemicals. Sustaining and nurturing them doesn't require only the money to keep them but it also needs my time and perseverance. Sometimes, when I experienced shortages in money and time, I really have to spare some sacrifices. I have to skip some of my meals if I have to buy them new pellets or urgent medications, and I have to rush back home even just after having meetings or interviews just to change the water in the aquarium tanks or the beddings of my other pets.
When it comes to proficiency and competence in pet keeping, I could say that I'm an expert on my own way and claiming the place of an amateur is a way to low for me for I've been keeping and maintaining saltwater fishes today that most of the fish hobbyists claimed to be somewhat a serious commitment and is a difficult level to every enthusiast. Amateur applies to the beginners where they still have to undergo the trial-and-error approach and has to keep fishes that are hardy and are easy to care of or with low demands of maintenance. Sometimes, tools are not really needed when you acquired the skills and strategies to keep your pets healthy and maintain its new environment preserving its wild nature.
Pet keeping has no connection of my vocation but I felt so lucky that this is my hobby for this taught me patience, steadfastness, and even self-discipline for I have to stay on track on keeping them without neglecting my other responsibilities.
When I have to talk and explain my hobby to an alien, rest assured I'll just say that " Me, them. Them, me." and that'll create a bigger picture and it'll be the strangest thing to say to the strangest creature I've ever seen.
May the force be with us.
