“Man’s best friend” is commonly associated to be a dog, but Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, taught us that pets, regardless of species, are still a large part of an “Ohana” the Hawaiian word for family.
Sophomore, Derrick Juarez’s, family includes his five pet ducks. Juarez named three ducks after the characters of Ducktales, Louie, Douie, and Houie, and the other two named Titzi and Dondafelzon.
This flock, however, is not Juarez’s first group of domesticated ducks as pets.
“I was at this farm that my uncle owns and he had these two ducks that he didn’t want anymore, so I just took them,” Juarez said. “It was just a random day, I wasn’t expecting to have any ducks, but then I saw them, and I really liked them.”
Juarez first became interested in the idea of ducks as pets because he thought they were cute and would be good to own.
But Juarez is not the only student with a unique group of pet. Maryjane Koza, sophomore, has previously owned three ferrets.
“[Ferrets] are really cute and they did all this weird stuff, and they’re really smart. [With mine] you could teach them little tricks, and they became really close to you; they thought of you as a parent,” Koza said.
In addition to Juarez, other students also have very different and unique animals, such as Randall Gorecki, sophomore, who breeds and sells snakes and fish.
“I grew up on a lot of land when I was little, so it was kind of hard not to be attracted to them. I was interested in all amphibians,” Gorecki, who currently has twelve snakes of all different types for sale, said.
Many pet owners spend time with their pets, such as Koza, who enjoyed teaching her pets how to roll over and how to jump on their hind legs, along with teaching one of the ferrets to hunt small items in tunnels she created for them.
“Ferrets in the old days were used [to hunt] because you would put them in little tunnels and underground and they would go kill small animals and bring them back up,” Koza said. “You just put them in a tunnel, and they just do the work. She never got anything because I always dug the tunnels for her.”
Juarez also has different experiences with his pets, admitting when the animals first came in, he was unprepared with what to do.
“When Louie, Houie, Douie, and all of them first came in, they were in a box, and when I opened it right away, they all jumped out and started like running around my kitchen, so it was hard to catch them,” Juarez said about the ducks’ funny antics.
Gorecki, however interacts differently with his animals.
“I go to a reptile shows twice a month, so I pose and sell them there,” Gorecki said. “Also people around the school are interested in them, so they buy them.”
At one point, Gorecki sold a snake for $300, although the average snake can sell anywhere from $1 to $1,000 depending on the gender and type of snake.
Despite the common interest in animals most people share, Gorecki claims to choose his friends based on their reactions to his unique pets.
“If people think that it’s weird that I’m into snakes like that, I just won’t talk to them,” Gorecki said.
Despite being fun and adventurous animals, all the pet owners agree that having pets as unique as theirs comes with responsibilities.
“[Ferrets] smell, so that has to be something you can deal with. They also need a lot of attention and care. And they get cancerous tumors really easily, so you have to be careful with how many treats you give them,” Koza said, “They are a lot to handle, they are nocturnal too. They sleep a lot, but they will wake up and they can be loud as [heck].”
While fun, the pets can be a lot to handle and leave a mess, as seen in with Lilo and Stitch when Stitch leaves a trail of destruction in multiple places among the small-Hawaiian town.
Whether snakes, ducks, or simply a golden retriever, all of the owners agree that having pets is a fun experience and teaches about not only companionship, but loyalty to others.