Love of Animals

Oliver and Eden - Summer 2010 - Niabi Zoo in Illinois

Ollie LOVES animals. I always tell him that he would be a great zookeeper because of the love that he has for animals.

*He's allergic to cats and dogs, but LOVES them and loves to be around them at his grandparents houses. (Thank goodness for allergy meds and air purifiers!) Since we have many people with these allergies -- Oliver, Jaren and Ed -- we don't have them in our home. When a friend of mine and I saved a kitten from the side of the road last year, I had to bring it to my mom's so that Oliver could have a pet. He is a black and white cat that Ollie named, Max. He just loves him so much!

*Several months ago I was watching an episode of 'Hoarders' and there was an episode where these people had TONS of stray cats living in their house. People found around 70 animals, most of them had died, in their house. Oliver was in the room and heard it and started crying, asking me to turn off the TV which I did. He has such a soft heart.

*Last night we were looking up different types of monkeys online and I told him again that he should work with animals for a career. I always wanted to work with chimpanzees. We looked at different zoo sites online and talked about Jack Hanna and how fun it would be to meet him and be able to see animals up close and personal. There was an area on the site that talked about 'adopting' an animal at the zoo. We talked about it and when I mentioned that he could 'adopt' a gorilla, he said that it might be too big. I then realized that he thought they would come and live with us!!! :O) I explained to him that it would help buy food and stuff and we'd get a photo and adoption certificate. He wants me to write to the zoo and see if he could come and feed it and visit it. This conversation led to talking about endangered animals. He got really quiet and teary eyed when he realized what 'endangered' meant. He asked me how many were endangered so we looked them up and found out that there are 400 endangered species in the United States! I think it said that a species goes extinct ever 15 minutes! He then said, through a cracking voice and teary eyes, that he wants to be the president AND a zookeeper so he could change this situation with the animals. We looked up ways to help so they don't become extinct. Helping with parks, not littering, recycling, saving water and using less electricity. We read that people's yards are getting bigger and we are taking up more space and he was saying, again fighting back the urge to cry, that people can live in less space. I love seeing this sweet and tender side of Oliver. He's always had that sensitive side and I'm so glad that is not gone.

*I also had to tell him that we couldn't get a pet monkey. I have enough monkeys in my house to deal with! So... he just looked up cute videos of monkeys the rest of the night. Such a funny kid!