A New Addition To Our Family

Maddie has wanted a pet kangaroo for years. I looked into it last year but apparently our state law prohibits you from keeping a kangaroo as a pet unless your enclosing fence is at least 1.5 metres high. Kangaroos cannot jump this high you see. Unfortunately, the fence around our back yard is of the older type at just 1.2 metres so we cannot legally keep a kangaroo. Maddie was disappointed but there's no way I'm going to spend thousands of dollars to upgrade our fence just for a pet.

So yesterday, we were all at the local shopping centre and walking past the pet shop when Maddie screamed out in delight. She dragged us over to some cages at the front of the pet store. As I got closer I saw what she was excited about. They had three young wallabies for sale. A wallaby is any macropod that isn't large enough to be considered a kangaroo and has not been given some other name.

"Mummy, Daddy, can we get one?" I looked at my wife and knew straight away what the answer was. You see, my wife is a big animal lover and she'd always wanted a kangaroo as well. I went inside to talk to the shop assistant. I found out that as wallabies cannot jump as high as kangaroos our fence would be of sufficient legal height to contain one. These particular wallabies had also been given the appropriate vaccinations and were neutered.

The wallabies were AU$395. That sounds expensive but when you consider the average pedigree dog is easily going to set you back anywhere from AU$700 - AU$900, then wallabies are a bargain. Sure, they can't fetch a stick, but you'll never have to mow the back yard again as a single wallaby will keep the grass cropped to an acceptable level. In these environment-conscious times that's a big consideration.

So we decided to get one. I also bought a couple of bags of 'Wallaby Tucker' which is just like small dog food biscuits and can provide the wallaby with essential minerals and nutrients to supplement its diet of grass. Maddie chose the cutest one, a female, and said "I'm going to call her Fluffy!" So now we have a new addition to our family. Here's a picture of Fluffy.

Fluffy in our back yard