When pets take on characteristics of their owners

There's a scene in 101 Dalmatians where Pongo is watching a string of women and their dogs walking by. Each dog shared many of the characteristics of their owners - short, tall, thin, wide, prissy, nerdy, etc. Outside the world of animation, and movies in general, it's been known to happen in real life as well. Usually with dogs, maybe with cats, but likely seldom with fish.

Oh, but let me tell you, it is possible. Peyton's goldfish, Princess, is solid orange - her favorite color (well, was solid orange, but we'll get to that in a minute), has a flowing tail and is rounder than the fish Paige picked. Paige's fish is a long, very thin fish and is more colorful - white and red with black spots. Paige can be colorful in more ways than one.

Floppy Jr. is a bit spastic too. He jerks around and makes quick movements much like Paige. I promise I've seen them both make similar sudden movements today.

And much like their owners, Floppy Jr. picks on Princess. Nudge, nudge, peck, peck. And he keeps Princess from getting by him, apparently just to pester her just because he can. Paige was doing the same thing to me today. I love her to death, but it was driving me crazy.

Another nod to real life, the two fish had to be separated. I had observed Floppy's bully tendencies, but when Paige came in last night, she looked into the bowl and asked, "what are those brown spots?" Well, after a little bit of internet research, I confirmed what I had told someone earlier this week, I think Floppy was giving Princess fish hickies. His nudging and pecking on her is apparently bruises. Nice, huh?

So, rather than letting poor Peyton's fish get abused, I went out and bought another bowl so they could each have their own.

Paige didn't want me to reveal this information about the new fish bowl to Peyton, for whatever reason. I told her anyway. She exclaimed, "Paige's fish is just like her - MEAN!!!"

When my mom came over to pick up something earlier and said, "that fish looks just like Paige." It's all quite strange. I mean, for Pete's sake, they're FISH!

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