Once you have children, you tend to accumulate pets, too.
We did, but they die rather quickly. The children lose interest in a few hours. Been through fish, hamster, anole (small lizard), hermit crabs; now we have a guinea pig.
Fortunately we cared for a relative’s dog while they were away; everything I predicted about our children not walking/feeding/cleaning up after it came true, and my wife doesn’t ask me to get them one any more.
Yes T-C, I can confirm that. Multi-critter house here too...
As Dave Barry would say, our big ‘main’ pet is a rather large (well fed) german sheppard terrier ??? mix. He is mostly black in coloring. The uber pampered Bichon gets ‘scared’ and needs picked up when our big guy barks at her (he spends his days on look out duty at the front window and protects us from neighbors dogs; UPS drivers; and Campaigning pols). We call out the Bichon’s behavior as ‘raaaacist.’