The thing about owning a life…

Thoughts on animals and how we “keep” them.

A few years ago, my daughter really wanted a pet frog. On her 6th birthday, we headed off to the pet store and found a really interesting frog, a fire-belly. He was green and black with a flaming orange underside.

We picked out all of the necessary components: a terrarium complete with every plaything and climbing apparatus a frog could hope to enjoy in a glass cage. He moved into our home, happily hopping around. I dutifully ran out each week for live crickets, his meal of choice.

Of course, my daughter lost interest in the mundane aspects of daily care and the frog became my deal. Every day I would feed him a few crickets and watch him eat. The longer I stared at his perfect frog habitat, the more depressed I became. All I could see was the walls he was trapped within.

This weekend I spent some time at a country fair. There were beautiful displays of vegetables and crafts and every kind of farm animal. I pet the calves, listened to the mayhem in the chicken coop and watched the pigs compete for their dinner.

I took a seat to just watch the pigs. They were locked in small pens, two pigs to a small enclosure. They were pushing their snouts through the bars, trying to steal their neighbors dinner. Adorable scene. But all I could see was the bars…