Who's The Daddy: Beware! When the kids leave home you’re left with the pets

Very big, very little pond - and if yours are anything like ours were at that age then any time now they’re going to beg that you get them a pet, or two.All I’ll say is this - be very careful what animal you pick, because in about seven years when they leave for university or shack up with some randoms you barely know, if their childhood pet is particularly long lived then you’re the one who’ll be fetching and carrying for it til the day it pops its clogs.Which is why hamsters are a great starter pet.

Three years, tops.

And during their low-maintenance lives they don’t do much apart from run around that wheel all night, eat, drink and sleep all day.Of course, mucking out duties will fall to you after your kid does it just the once and then leaves it in his own filth for so long that you blink first and that’s your job now.Still, once your kids hit their teens and are bored of it, it helpfully dies of old age.However, if you get a kitten (and many parents make the schoolboy error of getting one per kid), with a good diet and a stress-free life they can easily live for 20 years.

By which time your kids are a decade into adulthood and have nippers of their own while Tiddles yeowls constantly for his long lost childhood soulmate.Which is what’s happened in our house, with two cats and a dog rising up to take the place and status of our grown and flown daughters.If it isn’t the cats screaming to be let in or out at three, four and 5am then it’s the dog trying to barge open one of the kids’ bedroom doors so he can stretch out on a double bed that he now believes is his birthright.Me and the boss haven’t suffered this much disturbed sleep since our daughters were teething.

Thing is, we were around 20 years younger back then.These days our family home is a bespoke, five-star cattery and kennel with a 24-hour concierge service.

Every whim catered for because we’ve got all day to fetch and carry after our kids’ entitled, middle-aged pets.