AH! YES! Remember when we started getting chickens? Adorable! Those were the days! All of us in our little “urban farmer” hats, pretending eggs from the store weren’t good enough; that we’d care about those soulless, dead-eyed, mite-ridden lumps of feathers for more than 20 minutes. We didn’t (whoopsie!)—and goats were next! Ah! Yes! Good old goats, with their obstinate tempers and ever-so-slightly terrifying demon-eyes, requiring constant care and concern while never caring if we lived or died! Indeed, Portlanders’ short-lived obsessions with our two most recent animal fads were almost enough to make our on-again, off-again love affair with pugs—a species known, in less-fashion-conscious climes, as “Darwin’s Folly”!—seem like a passing phase!

But now that we’ve accidentally killed all of our chickens, abandoned our goats just outside of city limits, and can’t stand to lovingly milk even one more of our pugs’ anal glands, let us turn to the future! What novelty animal will proud Portlanders pretend they know how to care for next?

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

FERRETS! Ah! Ferrets! True, they might smell like a rotting corpse, they might gnaw at infants’ eyes, and they might copiously urinate every 15 minutes… but they’ll also look adorable draped around our necks as we mosey up and down SE Belmont! Two please!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

LADYBUGS! Who among us can resist that chipper polka-dotted red shell? Nobody, that’s who—which is why the people to see at First Thursdays this fall will be those covered from head to toe with a seething, crawling coat of these squirming, needle-legged insects!

PYGMY THREE-TOED SLOTH! Has there ever been an animal better suited to Portland’s 4:20-friendly lifestyle than the pygmy three-toed sloth? No sir! Hope you’re ready for a new pal who loves to chillax… until you forget him somewhere!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

SLOW LORIS! Why do they look so sad? Because they’re brutally territorial and their bites are devastatingly toxic! This winter, expect everyone to have a slow loris of their own to help them get through Portland’s rainy drear!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

STIMSON’S PYTHON! In the next few months, you’re going to hear a lot about what kind of python you should have slithering around your home, curling up in your cabinets, and hiding in your shoes. But there’s no debate at all—if you don’t get a Stimson’s python, you might as well not have a python at all! Good luck with that!

TAPIRS! Oh, you know! Tapirs! They’re like pigs, but with creepy little elephant trunks! They’re disgusting—and St. Johns is about to become the tapir capital of the Pacific Northwest!

MOLE RATS! Pink, hairless, and pathetically blind, these sweet-hearted snuggle-buds are happy to warm each and every one of your orifices!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

A.L.F.S! Cats? Ha! What is this, 2013? In one smooth move, lose your cranky, ratty old housecat—and gain a boisterously wise-crackin’, fun-lovin’ BFF!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

CAPUCHIN MONKEYS! Like a filthy baby human covered in barbershop hair, capuchin monkeys are clingy, moody, and love to throw their feces directly into your face. Not sure if you want children? Get a capuchin monkey! Why not!

  • Artwork by Susie Ghahremani

VEAL! Sick of all the whining that being “vegan” requires? Great news! Next spring, we’ll all be raising baby cows from birth, making sure they have plenty of room to grow, taking them to barbecues with friends, brutally force-feeding them milk-based proteins, and then quickly, efficiently slicing open their supple throats and watching their steaming blood splatter across the porches of our Laurelhurst Victorians. Ah! Yes! Send out an Evite and warm up the coals—it’s time for another barbecue!

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.

6 replies on “Portland’s Hippest New Pets!”

  2. psh, if you take care of them (e.g. feeding and cleaning the cage) ferrets barely smell and would never attack anyone. The poor infamous ferret that disfigured that child had been starved and left unattended with a baby for hours…what do you expect? Probably similar to what a dog or cat would do.

    The unfortunate things about ferrets are really 1) expensive vet bills in old age and 2) they aren’t allowed on planes…so good luck moving across the country or going on extensive vacation!

  4. The goats are not “just outside the city limits,” they are in Lents neighborhood. It’s crap like this that enabled the city council for years to ignore outer East Portland. Why invest in an area that’s not even inside the city limits? Obviously, anything beyond 82nd ave on the Hipster’s map of Portland just contains drawings of monsters and wasteland.

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