Can you imagine how it would have been in the pioneer days to live with livestock in the house? Cows and pigs, sheep and chickens running around your kitchen, under your bed, fleas in your clothes and hair. Yuck!

I am not someone who will keep pets in a house. It's that whole livestock idea. I cringe when I read about pet owners who clean up bodily messes their animals have left in beds and floors and so on. I don't understand how it can be pleasant to live with your livestock. I'm sure most of the pioneers were glad when the warm weather came and the livestock could move outside.

Now we have electric and gas heating, we don't need the livestock to keep us warm or the other way around.

I do like pets however. Cats are my favourite. They look after themselves, don't drool or bark or require constant cage or tank cleaning. They also live just long enough, not too short as many small animals tend to do. I think cats are good pets for children. Cats don't mind some affection but they won't need daily attention. Outdoor cats are especially great at looking after themselves and just being there when you get home and want to spend some time with them. You don't need to spend a weekend grooming them or a big chunk of your day leading them around on a leash. Perfect!

Fish are nice too, but not as clean as cats. Ideal fish would be in a pond outdoors with the odd frog and garter snake. Not great for apartment dwellers but then people in apartments can usually catch their own pet rodents anyway. Just don't tell the kids where Hammy came from.

Would you want to be an animal? Sometimes I would like to be a whale. I could dive into the deepest parts of the ocean where no people have been. Down there I would find sunken pirate ships and chests of treasure. I'd find their maps to secret buried treasure too. When I had all I wanted I would turn into a person again so I could spend all my loot.

Sometimes I would like to be a wolf. I'd run with the pack, howl at the moon and scout around the wilderness until I couldn't walk another step. The wolf can smell and hear things better than people too. I would enjoy experiencing that. What things would I hear that I've never heard before.

Sometimes I'd like to be a seagull. Soaring over the ocean waves, the beaches and the cities, watching everything fly by beneath me. I would perch somewhere high up, on the head of a gargoyle or steeple of a church. The wind would be blowing on my feathers. Soon I'd smell some french fries dropped in a parking lot and I'd swoop down to grab them up before all the other gulls could get them.

It would be great to be a dragon. They can do all of those things. But, a big dragon would have trouble sitting on a small branch or church steeple. True dragons like to hoard treasure but I'd like to spend some of it. I don't think a lot of stores would calmly accept a dragon coming in to buy the latest bestseller. Being a person is all right too, its who I am. But now and then I think about all the fun of being an animal and the special things I could do.