I never Seen Myself As A Pet Person

I never seen myself as a pet person

April 1, 2026

It is 7:30 a.m., and I’ve been sitting at my computer for about thirty minutes, sipping my two cups of hot cocoa and watching YouTube. My student told me at the end of February that she would come back in April, so last night I texted her to ask whether she would come today, the 1st, or on Monday the 6th. While I wait for her to show up, I want to tell you about my pets in Thailand.

I was not a pet person, but my heart always wanted to raise animals of my own.

Sukhothai — The First Bunny

My memory goes back to the first picture I can see in my head. I was living in Sukhothai province with my stepmother. My dad worked as a driver for a big consumable products company, so he didn’t live at home for long periods. My sister and I stayed with our stepmother most of the time in the hospital accommodation where she worked as a children’s nurse. I was younger than fifteen.

The first pet I remember was a bunny. Actually, a pair of bunnies — though I don’t remember how we got them. Maybe they were ours, maybe they belonged to my stepmother’s roommates. Someone taught me to hold the bunnies by their ears. Later, only one bunny was left, and then none.

The picture I still remember is the bunny lying dead with a piece of vegetable in its mouth. I heard the adults say the vegetables hadn’t been washed properly and still had poison on them.

That memory never left me.

Before Sukhothai — My Grandfather’s Pets

Before moving to Sukhothai, I had already experienced animals because my grandfather raised many pets: a white dove, a pair of gray doves, chickens, chicks, and a white goose. They were very tame because he trained them well.

We lived in a small unit provided by my grandmother’s workplace — a long wooden two‑story building with many rooms connected in a row, what we call ห้องแถว in Thai. It wasn’t really an apartment, but it looked a little like one when compared to buildings in the USA. At that time, I didn’t know anything about buildings in the USA. Behind the building, my grandfather set up a chicken coop.

I loved watching the chicks sleep, their tiny heads dropping again and again. It was so funny. But I didn’t like staying close to the mother hens or adult chickens because they always attacked me. When my grandfather let me grab the eggs from the coop, I had to keep my eyes on the adult chickens the whole time.

My grandfather always sprayed water on his doves and talked to them. Their sounds were loud and happy. He would take them out of the cage, let them sit on the pole, and they never flew away. The goose was also trained, but I was scared of it because it attacked me once when I accidentally frightened it.

Later, when we moved to another place, my grandparents raised many colorful budgerigars (นกหงส์หยก) in a big cage. They were beautiful.

Bangkok — Beke and Jonn

When I was in middle school in Bangkok, my sister and I came home one day and saw two dogs waiting for us. My grandfather had gotten them for us.

We each picked our own dog. I chose the bigger one with long hair and named him Beke, after a popular football player on TV at that time. I didn’t know the player, but I heard his name so often. My sister picked the tiny dog with flat skin and no fluffy hair and named him Jonn (จ้อน). We never knew their breed, but we loved them.

We had many fun years with them. Then one day, Jonn became very sick. My grandfather told us he was waiting for my sister to come home from school. When she held him, he passed away in her arms. We buried him under the tree in the yard.

We stayed in that rental house for several years before I moved to live with my mom. (For your information: my parents divorced when we were young.)

I visited my grandfather again when I grew up, and Beke had become huge and old. Many years later, I heard someone had poisoned him because he was too big and his bark was too loud.

College Years — The Fish Disaster (American Crime Scene Edition)

When I lived with my mom and attended college, I saw friends raising fish and wanted to have some too. I went to Jatujak Weekend Market in Bangkok and bought ปลาหางนกยูง (guppies) and a beautiful garden decoration water bowl shaped like a tree stump with a heron standing on it.

I set the bowl on the second-floor back balcony and poured my fish into it. I bought many fish and enjoyed watching them. Their tails were fluffy when they swam, and their colors were attractive.

Then came the disaster.

One hot sunny day, I came back from school and found all my fish floating. They were dead because of the heat. I touched the water in the bowl — OMG! It was hot.

If this were an American TV crime show, the scene would look like this:

Victims: All my guppies
Cause of death: Extreme heat
Weapon: The sun
Crime scene: My heron water bowl
Prime suspect: Me
Motive: Ignorance and zero fish‑raising experience

I told my friends and everyone about this event. They laughed at me and also felt sorry for the fish. I didn’t think about the heat outside. I had no experience raising fish.

Later, when I moved out of my mother’s house and lived on my own, I took the heron bowl with me and put only water in it. Eventually, I gave it to my dad when he bought a townhouse and set up a tiny garden in the front. I also gave him the lotus I had been growing, and he placed it in the bowl before adding fish. The atmosphere was right, and the fish lived happily there.

My Last Fish Before Moving to the USA

Before I moved to the USA, I raised goldfish and a black “vacuum” fish (I’m not sure what kind it was). One of my friend’s boyfriends helped me set up the aquarium and oxygen system in my apartment.

The idea came from an old friend I accidentally met. We used to work together years ago. She lived nearby, and when I visited her, I saw her boyfriend’s beautiful goldfish aquarium. That inspired me.

So one day, we went to Jatujak Market — the same market where I bought my first fish and boiled them. I was excited, walking around and choosing the aquarium, the equipment, and the healthy goldfish. I felt like a kid choosing toys.

Everything looked good in my apartment. He taught me how much food to feed and how often to change the water. But after a short while, the fish died one by one. I was sad but didn’t give up. I got new goldfish and tried again.

Before I moved, I had only two left. My nieces were raising fish in a huge pot with lotus plants — no oxygen system, only natural water. I decided to give my last two goldfish to them to take care of.

These are my experiences with pets in Thailand. In the next chapter, I will tell you about my experiences with pets in the USA.