By Emma Sun
IMAGINE coming home to a dog, three cats, two guinea pigs, three chickens, one canary and one Oscar fish greeting you after a tiring day of work.
That’s the scene that welcomes Reece Andrez and girlfriend Nerida Hardisty back to their Pakenham home every night – and they love every bit of it.
“We just wanted to have a bit of a homely feel about it,” Reece explained.
“There’s nothing better than coming home and seeing them looking at you and smiling.”
While most people would find owning so many pets a hassle, Reece and Nerida bask in their company and manage to get a fair amount of entertainment from the animals.
“The chickens, Kiev, Parma and Nugget like to jump up onto the window sill and when you’re watching the TV you’d see them up on the window sill tapping the glass – they do little things all the time,” Reece said.
More often that not, having a fish as a pet would not be as entertaining as having a cat or a dog, but Reece said his pet Oscar fish amuses him on a daily basis with her antics in the tank.
“Our fish, Schmidt loves to dig holes in the sand,” he said.
“She’d pick up the rocks with her mouth and move it across to the other side of the tank. We’d rearrange it and lay the sand flat but she just redecorates the land you prepare for her – she knocks plants over, moves them around.
“It’s frustrating because you want it to look tidy, but it is fun because they’ve got their own personality and they want it their own way because it’s their own house.”
The animal’s names are as unique as their personalities, and Reece said a fair amount of thought goes into naming their pets.
“When Nerida was in Tasmania, they used to name all their cows funny names – two were named Steak and Chop,” Reece explained.
“When we bought the chickens we didn’t have any names so we thought Kiev, Parma and Nugget.
“With the kitten we thought an Australian name – so we thought Matilda. It’s sort of a hard name to yell out so we decided call her Tilly but when she’s in trouble she’s Matilda.
“Our guinea pigs are named Gopher from Caddyshack and Basil from Fawlty Towers. We used to have two Oscar fish, which we named Schmidt and Crane after Shirley and Danny from Boston Legal.”
Reece said getting more pets in the future is definitely on the agenda, but they will be pacing themselves.
“With the amount we’ve got right now we probably won’t get another one, but if one dies we might,” he said.
“We haven’t got much room in the backyard for more pets, but maybe in the future – we’ll see how it pans out.”
