Nicky Rennie: I want to get a pet but Buster and Florence will have to wait a bit

Nicky Rennie feels it's just about time to get a pet.

COMMENT

There is nothing like being stuck at home with a head injury to make one absolutely sick of oneself. Don’t get me wrong, I frequently channel Greta Garbo - “I want to be alone” - and am most happy in my own company. But that is a choice.

Slipping off your front step, smacking your face on the concrete and having to stay home is another case altogether. And I am truly stuck because I have been forbidden from driving my car. My wings have been well and truly clipped.

I’m now working with an occupational therapist, which has been very helpful because I’m angry with myself and have been fighting what’s happening because it’s frightening and confusing.

The lack of control I feel is monumental. However, I have now come to accept that to heal properly I have to accept what it is and treat myself with kindness, so, on that note, I had an idea.

I am terrible at flirting with the opposite sex (and I never go out, so don’t get the chance anyway), but I am flirting with the idea of getting a cat or a dog. Talk about a tiger for punishment.

I lost my Rosie dog at a year old and it has taken me years to get over it. Putting a dog down is like ripping your heart out with a knitting needle. It was the most upsetting thing that I have ever done.

I still have a cat called Baxter who lives with my ex-partner. I was given him on Valentine’s Day a few years back, as a gift, but when I moved out nearly three years ago, I felt it was too cruel to move him, so there he stays and I have visitation rights.

To dog or to cat? That is the question. When you live on your own, you miss coming home to someone who is glad to see you. A dog always is. A cat couldn’t care less. Not particularly good for the soul, it would remind me too much of living with my 18-year-old again. She was never happy to see me.

The natural option would be a dog, but they require too much work and I have a demanding role where I would be away too much, so that isn’t fair either.

Names have been picked out. Buster for a dog and Florence for a kitten (that could be problematic if it’s a boy kitten or a female dog), but my nerve hasn’t held out. I organised to go with Mum and have a look at the SPCA, then worked out that I didn’t have the headspace to care for anything else just yet. I’m finding it hard enough to look after myself.

I’m lucky; if I need a dog-fix I can go to my parents’ house, they have two dogs who lick me to death the minute I get there.

So, at this stage, Buster or Florence will have to wait until I can think straight (whenever that might be), so I can be a good mummy to either one of them.

I’ll keep you posted. It is now what I will call “My Pet Project”.