Vet Tails

Vet Tales Excerpt – More Childhood Pets & Learning Business

My younger brother Gav and I had a hamster breeding business. We supplied pet shops with baby hamsters after going through the process of using our stud hamster Snoopy to do his business with our four females and it made for some extra pocket money. I would use mine to buy food for my birds while Gav used his to buy his fish and also more exciting things like video games and music tapes.

Snoopy was a lovely chap, fun to play with, calm and committed to his work. One day he succumbed to a parasite infection that made all of his beautiful white hair fall out, leaving him a pink and bare hamster. He looked like a bit of a scary creature being bare but thankfully this didn’t stop him from being a happy chap and delivering his excellent stud duties!

Snoopy’s offspring were always delightful and when they were weaned from their mothers before they were ready to go to the pet shop we used to love watching them run around their big cage  with all the toys that we could think of providing including a hamster wheel on which they would run for hours. Our border collie dog Gusto would be entranced by their activities and stand perched up next to their cage studying their every move. My Mom would say that she was studying them to write a thesis on hamster behaviour!

Gav was always more business minded than me, making a commercial venture from the popcorn that our wonderful nanny Tatty would make us for school in the morning, dividing it into small bags and selling it to his school mates while I would share mine with my friends in class.

With our hamsters it eventually dawned on me that I was doing most of the leg work cleaning, feeding and caring for our pets while Gav seemed to just have a share in the profits without doing much work. I remember having a chat to my Dad, who has always been a good sounding board for business and he suggested that I buy Gav out. I took his advice but found that I wasn’t making any headway getting Gav to oblige and went back to my Dad for his wise counsel. My Dad said that he would speak to Gav and the deal went through but later in life I learned that the story was that my astute brother was just wanting to capitalise on his investment for as long as possible.

My business skills have always needed some work. When I was about ten and walking through a flea market with my cousin Craig (just a bit older than me), he had his eye on a pair of sunglasses which were priced at ten Rand but being good at bargaining he was going to try and get the price down. His opening line to the vendor was “I’ve only got five Rand”, at which point I boldly interjected and said “Don’t worry Cuzzy, I’ll lend you the rest!”