The Class Menagerie

Over the years, I have had quite a few classroom pets. I had a fish tank in a console TV painted like a cow, several lizards, skinks and geckos, two hamsters that one student kept putting together so they would continue to have babies (and eat them). There were also three turtles: one painted turtle (Toulouse), one snapping turtle (Snappy) and one box turtle (ByeBye 'cause he kept trying to escape), and two gerbils named Thelma and Louise. 

All of these classroom pets were "gifts", I didn't procure any of them. Some of them learned tricks and some did not; it depended on when they came to the classroom and if they were sharing "quarters."  

Toulouse was an only turtle for about two years before any other turtles showed up. He had turtle food that he would eat in a pinch, but he truly loved a good cricket- preferably still alive. In the beginning, I would pour the crickets out of the bag and into the tank, usually in the water and they would drown and Toulouse would eat them begrudgingly. He would swim by them multiple times, push them with his claws, and finally touch them with his beak before eating them. 

I taught Toulouse to follow my finger out of the water and get on his sunning perch where I would put some food, at first vegetation, so he understood I wanted him to eat up there and not in the water. Eventually, I could walk up to the tank, wait for Toulouse to look at me, and shake the bag of crickets. He would swim quickly to his perch and rest with his head raised, waiting for me to open the tank and shake some crickets onto the perch. That boy could MOVE when crickets were involved. Snatch and crunch.

A few years later, one of the more senior science teachers had to retire unexpectedly, and all of his classroom pets had to relocate. This is how I acquired ByeBye and Thelma and Louise. I taught ByeBye how to run an obstacle course. He liked it at first but the reward at the end never seemed to make up for the fact that he ended up back in his enclosure.  A student took him home one summer, and not surprisingly, he didn't come back. I'm sure he was happier wherever he finally escaped to.

Thelma and Louise were characters. They had a huge tank, it spanned almost one whole wall. When it was time to clean their tank, I would put them in the gerbil balls and let them run around the classroom. They were able to navigate those balls out of my classroom and down a very long hallway. Sometimes it took me 10 minutes to find them when the tank was clean. Thelma and Louise were not "holding gerbils." They would bite your fingers to the bone if given a chance, and I had to wear fireplace gloves to handle them. I did teach them to hop onto my palm when it was time to get in the balls, though. This trick came in handy later when Thelma and Louise got sick. 

Thelma got sick first; one of her back paws was swollen and red. I was so worried about her that I took her to a vet. Unbeknownst to me, not all vets treat small animals. Small animal vets are not that easy to find, but I found one, about 45 minutes away. She had cancer and he gave me some medicine for her pain.  I decided to turn the vet bill in to the school accountant. Two days later, I got called into the principal's office.

"Ms. Neunder, I understand one of your class pets is sick?" my principal asked me.

"Yes," I answered sadly. "Thelma. She has cancer, and I'm worried she's in pain."

"And she is...?" 

"A gerbil," I told her

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. "Ms. Neunder, I know you take great care of all the animals in your room." 

I nodded.

"And I will pay the vet bill this time. She paused and shook her head. "But the school cannot be responsible for the medical treatment of your classroom pets."

I got it. I did. But that was the end of my animal adoption program.