The little critters that make my life complete
I live in a residential college. This college has strict rules on no pets which is reasonable. Problem is, back home we have three cats who are literally family (yes, I'm one of those animal lovers who regard pets as members of the family, important fact you should know about me). Moving to Adelaide was hard in that sense and if you own pets yourself you'll understand what I mean when there's a difference returning home and having a companion waiting for you and just having that movement in your life. The lack of movement in mine started getting to me and before long I found myself longing for that special love you can only get from the four legged variety.
Of course the rules in my residential college can't be bent no matter how bad I need animal therapy so I went for the next best solution: get critters that are allowed in college. These include fish and turtles pretty much. However, visiting a pet store one day (which is how I get animal therapy) I happened to see hermit crabs on display and thought to myself 'Surely those are allowed?' Next thing you know in an academic meeting with my college principal I brought it up and she approved! Bless her.
After much research (I never get an animal without first knowing everything about how to take care of it and all that jazz) and contemplating (I have severe arachnophobia and after owning tiny crabs before I wasn't sure if I could handle hermit crabs but in the end decided that they don't really have eight legs - as they have some tucked away in their shell - or move in an erratic way) my boyfriend Scott and I got Jackson, an active hermit crab who is a little shy but likes to "play".
I know hermit crabs may not seem adorable in any sense but trust me on this, they really are! I didn't imagine I'd get overly attached to Jackson but I fell in love. Despite being a crustacean he (yes, I've decided he is a he, you can pretty much decide the sex of your hermit crab seeing as you can't tell for the most part) has quite a personality and some cute quirks.
Seeing as hermit crabs are social critters though (on the fence as to whether to let our babies get facebook or twitter though, they're too young) it wasn't long before I started stressing about Jackson and whether he was lonely. Scott and I took him out of his tank regularly and let him "run around" and handled him quite a bit but obviously it's not the same as having one of your own to connect with. So a few weeks back we bought Trent, a very active hermit crab who literally ran over Jackson when we first put them together in their tank only to burrow under the sand for the last two weeks and not do anything! That said though, a few days ago he decided to reemerge and has been active.
Hermit crabs are amazingly gentle creatures and although they look rather intimidating when they're the size of an orange (which is how big they can grow!) they still have a tranquility about them that makes them endearing. I'm glad Scott and I got these guys and they definitely satisfy my need for movement in my life!From time to time I'll definitely do updates on these two, Take it from someone who is petrified of spiders, I promise they'll grow on you even though they're not your usual sort of "adorable" or "fluffy" pets.
