pet envy

"You know how some people who can't have children go to parks and want to steal other people's? - Do you think that's what we're doing with dogs?" So spake Leila on Hampstead Heath the other day, and to be fair she has a point.

My road to animal ownership seemed arduous as a child. At first, I wasn't allowed any; I therefore cultivated an interest in woodlice, to the point where my mother feared opening matchboxes lest they housed one of my many invertebrate wanna-pets. I acquired a canary by fluke when the florist across the road gave me one an old lady had left to him in her will, but little did little Cheepside know that he was to change my world forever with rabbits.

Birds were just a gateway, you see; rabbits would soon become my pets of choice after one leapt into my arms in the pet-shop where we used to buy bird-seed. I promptly presented the creature to my mother, who uttered the fatal words, "No, you can't have one, they're social animals" - which of course I interpreted as a mandate to get two. To my surprise, it worked, and we returned home that night with the inspiredly-named Peter and Benjamin.

Rabbits are quite simply the best pets in the universe. Even from the vacant Cute Factor angle, their wonder never wanes; I defy you not to go as gooey over an adult rabbit washing its face as over a baby grooming itself - "I suppose this is the equivalent of watching an old man shaving", my mother once mused, watching Benjamin perform his ablutions at the age of six. But rabbits aren't just cute and fluffy ("no", interjected a long-suffering friend the other day, "they're really cute and fluffy") they are a delight in ever-changing, unique ways. With a hundred times the personality of a guinea-pig, they are the most engaging, dim-but-not-as-dim-as-you-think animals you could hope to meet.

Rabbits are not stupid. They are certainly not as stupid as any pet manual makes out. But they do exercise their wits in the most footling ways, as perhaps best illustrated by the late Mary Rabbit. Few animals enjoy being given medicine; most will probably try and spit it out. But only a rabbit could keep a pill in their mouth for twenty minutes, only to spit it out when they thought you weren't looking. Nothing if not pragmatic, her techniques for avoiding home-time at the end of a day in the garden were similarly protracted. While the other rabbits scampered left, right and centre before eventually capitulating wherever the broom herded, Mary would instead position herself in some nook or cranny from which, levering with all your might, you would only be able to prod her forward of by about an inch. Yet at the same time, she would regularly stick her head under a leaf and expect the rest of her (rather corpulent) form to be rendered similarly invisible. Rabbits inhabit an axis of logic starker, but not dissimilar, to our own - and that is why I love them.

I have now however been petless for some years, something strange is happening; any animal will do. I used not to like cats; now I hail them in the street. I chirrup at birds I've never met before; I tried to persuade my mother and step-dad to get a dog before they were even officially a couple. Of course, I always knew I liked animals (well, rabbits) but I never realised how very bereft I would feel without them. I am not at a stage in my life where I could fairly commit to the purchase of another, but I swear I am actually getting broody for it - I've gone as far as debating a hamster, and I don't even like the bloody things.

I'm holding out for a rabbit, though, a few years down the line. In the meantime, at least one of my office's executive perks is a rotating cast of dogs I can pretend are mine for five minutes while I make the tea.