Four dogs, three cats, two snakes, a tortoise: what 30 years of pets have taught me about life

Tim Dowling: ‘At times our house has resembled a menagerie.’ Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian. Shirt: Levi’s. Trousers: Uniqlo Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Guardian

No, I said to my wife, “we should not get a cat.” Every family needs at least one member who is prepared to present the case for not getting a pet. I accepted the post early on. A cat may seem like a good idea, I told my wife, but it would ultimately be an encumbrance, a dragging anchor on our lives. We already have a mortgage for that. Let’s just pretend the mortgage is a cat.

“No,” I said a few years later, “we should not get a dog. Dogs shed hair and chew up your property. And also, we already have a cat.”