My pets

In Short

Marshall Saunders chronicles her years running a sprawling indoor and outdoor aviary, caring for dozens of orphaned, injured, or discarded creatures. The account follows her experiences raising everything from screech owls in the family bathroom to foster pigeons, rescue robins, and captive wild birds. Throughout the domestic chaos of stray seeds, nested paper, and late-night feedings, she documents the distinct personalities of her feathered charges. The book has endured as a classic piece of early twentieth-century humane literature, blending practical animal care, gentle humor, and an impassioned defense of wildlife protection.

The Story

The domestic narrative begins with a pair of tiny Californian screech owls, Solomon and Betsy, who quickly upend the household routine. Kept in a family bathroom after scaring the maid, the owls learn to extinguish gas flames and bath-side candles, plunging their human companions into darkness while laughing from the corners. Betsy’s sudden death from illness leaves a deep impression on the author, sparking a lifelong commitment to animal rescue and the establishment of a dedicated home aviary.

As word spreads of her sanctuary, the resident population explodes with an extraordinary variety of bird and small animal life. A wild robin named Bob sets up home in the aviary, obsessively building nests out of mud, porridge, and soaked paper, before striking up an odd companionship with a talent-filled mockingbird named Dan. Soon, the author is nursing sickly robins like Tardy back to health through demanding, round-the-clock feedings, and even housing orphaned rat kits in her father's study after their wild counterparts cause tragedy in the rabbit pens.

The heart of the book shifts to the world of pigeons. Saunders details the care of homing pigeons and fantails, detailing their breeding routines, flight instincts, and practical management. Amidst these, her absolute favorite emerges: Sukey, a deformed, abandoned jacobin squab rescued from the brink of death. Saunders feeds the tiny bird directly from between her own teeth, nursing her into a long, pampered life complete with an eleven o'clock evening supper routine. The sanctuary expands across multiple floors, utilizing a custom elevator shaft to connect a basement enclosure to a sun-lit roof-veranda filled with discarded neighborhood Christmas trees.

Alongside the joy of observing daily flirtations, nest-building, and bath-time routines of cardinals, finches, and petrels, Saunders faces constant practical hurdles. She loses birds to visiting hawks, copes with delicate foreign species ill-suited to captivity, and deals with sudden illness. Yet she turns each heartbreak into a lesson on care. The narrative culminates not in a single dramatic climax, but in a broad, heartfelt plea for wildlife protection, urging readers to recognize the essential role birds play in the natural world.

How It Unfolds

The owls start it all Two screech owls take over the family bathroom, terrorizing the housemaid and habitually snuffing out bath-side candles to the family's endless chagrin.

A robin named Bob A tireless robin turns the aviary upside down each spring, mixing porridge with dirt and paper to construct empty nests while bonding with a loud, acrobatic mockingbird.

Midnight nursing for Tardy The author stays up through the night to hand-feed a stubborn, coughing young robin who refuses to pick up his own food despite growing a full set of tail feathers.

Unlikely rescues in the study After wild rats raid the pens, Saunders and her father capture five innocent-looking rat babies and raise them in a study cage, watching them learn to sleep together in a pulpit-shaped box.

Nourishing Sukey from the mouth A deformed jacobin squab, discarded by its parents, is saved when the author keeps it warm on a hot water bottle and coaxingly feeds it bread and milk straight from her own lips.

Transforming the house The home adapts entirely to its feathered residents, incorporating an elevator shaft connecting the basement enclosure to a high sun-room outfitted with recycled local Christmas trees.

A call for mercy Observing the tragic conditions of imported goldfinches and cardinals in pet shop windows, Saunders closes her account by demanding strict protective laws for foreign and native birds alike.

The People

• Marshall Saunders: The compassionate, highly observant narrator who turns her home into a refuge. She wants to ease the suffering of every creature brought to her door, enduring sleepless nights, dirty nest-building sprees, and pecked fingers to ensure her pets thrive.
• The Author's Father: A supportive, soft-hearted ally in the household. He shares her affection for animals, readily abandoning his study books to help rig rat cages or comfort his daughter when a favorite pet perishes.
• Lizzie: The family’s Acadian maid, who finds herself utterly outmatched by the free-roaming owls. She wants a peaceful workday, but is forced to carry a switch just to defend her hairpins from dive-bombing screech owls.
• Sukey: A frail, deformed jacobin pigeon who becomes the author's cherished companion. Saved from starvation as a hatchling, she grows into a pampered home favorite who demands a late-night supper by lamplight before tucked into bed.
• Bob: A determined, solitary robin whose reproductive instincts run wild. Disliked by the cardinals, she spends her seasons frantically building elaborate, messy nests out of mud, scraps, and porridge.

In Its Own Voice

"The candle was more fun for them than the gas, for it had a smaller flame, and was more easily extinguished, and usually on entering the room, away would go the light, and we would hear in the corner a laughing voice, saying 'Too, who, who, who, who!'"

The author recalls the nightly chaos created by her first two screech owls in the family bathroom.

"The only way I could get the little exhausted creature to eat was by putting its feeble beak to my mouth and letting it take the food from between my half-closed teeth."

Saunders describes the delicate, painstaking method she used to save the abandoned squab, Sukey.

"We are our brothers' keepers, we, their children, must learn to echo--keepers even to the beasts of the field and to our little brothers and sisters of the air..."

The text concludes with a passionate reminder of humanity's responsibility toward the natural world.

What It's Really About

Beneath its charming anecdotes of home-reared robins and mischievous owls, the book is a thoughtful study on human stewardship and animal sentience. Saunders argues that animals possess distinct emotional lives, individual personalities, and a capacity for gratitude that humans frequently overlook. She challenges the contemporary trade in wild and exotic pets, suggesting that true affection for nature requires respecting an animal's freedom rather than trapping it in a cage for simple entertainment. The text connects individual acts of domestic kindness to a broader ecological duty, warning that the destruction of bird life threatens the balance of human society itself.

Why Read It Today

This book offers a warm, clear-eyed window into early animal advocacy, written by a pioneer of humane literature. Readers who enjoy natural history, domestic memoirs, or classic animal stories will find a captivating narrator whose humor prevents the material from ever feeling preachy.

The reading experience is gentle and intimate, defined by quiet observations of animal behavior—from the skirt-dance courting rituals of finches to the antics of bath-crying robins. While modern readers may occasionally wince at period realities, such as using chloroform on irrecoverable pets or the necessary culling of farm squabs, Saunders approaches these moments with absolute honesty and deep respect. The prose is completely free of sentimentality or modern hype, leaving behind an enduring sense of patience, empathy, and quiet devotion to the smaller creatures sharing our world.

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