When I was a kid my first pet is a duckling. I got that duckling from a pick and win game outside the school when I was only in Grade 3. There were lots of vendors in front of our school and one of them is a man that carries a huge cage full of ducklings. He doesn’t sell those instead he’ll let you pay 1 peso and pick for a small piece of paper that has a number combination. If it has zero in it then you’ll win a duckling. It is really exciting for the Elementary pupils to try our luck with just one peso. So when I got to win a duckling it felt like winning a lottery for a kid like me.
So I brought it home, made a shelter for it and called it “Dek-Dek.” My brother and I took care of it. We made sure that it is properly fed and free from rats because we are told that big rats eat ducklings. We feed it and carry it like a baby before we go to school everyday. When we’re already home, we’ll go check it right before we put our bags back in its proper places.
This is the first time when my brother and I learned the essence of responsibility. We were able to know that we have to allot extra time to take care of our pet. We learned to save our “baon” to be able to buy feeds for it. We learned to handle it with care because we want to see it grow. We also learned to appreciate the life of an animal and treat it as a family.
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| Loonie and Cloonie |
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| Joaqui with Cloonie |
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| Ken with Loonie |
I also encourage my kids to have their own pets and I let them choose the ones that they really like to have. I can see that they’re starting to know how to handle responsibilities which is a good thing because being responsible is a great factor to have a brighter future.
What happens to the duckling?
Well, one day, when my brother and I got home from school, we found out that our duckling which eventually became a duck after a couple of months has been stolen by a man who is also our neighbor, he took it and made it as “pulutan sa inuman.”
Sad. :-(
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