OCD about pets!

Hi a couple months ago I got 2 pet mice of which I had previously spent months obsessively researching care information so I could be prepared. Now I'm wondering if any one else has this problem where strangely since getting my pet my Ocd is much better(less obsessed about myself) but in a way iv pushed my ocd on to my pets and now I'm very ocd about them! furthermore this is the first pet iv had since the sad George the gecko incident in 2004(my sister accidently got large crickets which went on to devour my gecko of which I found coming out of his eye sockets!) Furthermore an example of my ocd is when feeding mealworms I may of accidently brushed the tweezers past the head of my mouse(which my fear is I accidently caused brain damage by hitting it to hard even though I'm not even sure It touched its head at all) also if I don't wash my hands and I eat top roman I fear I got some of the seasoning powder(with msg in it) in the tank which could hurt them! I know these fears are irrational but I just want my pets to have everything perfect and have terrible fear of doing something wrong to hurt them but I can only do my best. does anyone else have this problem with a pet?
Also iv noticed that my ocd has a habbit of twisting my memory of a situation to the point where I'm not even sure what happened!

i don't have that problem with my pet. but anyway i like this part

tmosler wrote:but I can only do my best.

i understand that you want your pets to have everything perfect but sadly its simply not realistic. nothing is perfect. but i can tell you for sure, the fact that you're worried and concerned about it (fear of doing something wrong to hurt them), imo there's almost zero chance you will carry them out. but i know even if i say this, you'll (very) likely still have some doubts. bcs it's ocd. so i know how distressing it is

tmosler wrote:Also iv noticed that my ocd has a habbit of twisting my memory of a situation to the point where I'm not even sure what happened!

this is so typical.. maybe try not to 'analyze' the situation like trying to remember something at this point. because it can lead to a 'false memory'. i hope things improve for you soon

Yes, tmosler, you're not alone. I have the same obsessions. A therapist once told me I'd probably be a lot better off without pets, as far as OCD goes. But that's not going to happen.

I have cats. The OCD list is endless, but frequently similar to the things you obsess over. For example, If I open a can of food and I don't hear that vacuum air sound loudly enough, I throw the can out. I can't get to sleep unless I know where they all are, and even then, I'll frequently wake up in the middle of the night and have to check on them. I sweep and vacuum the floor constantly, always on the lookout for something they might eat but shouldn't. And then there are the days when I have to rush home from work because I get a sudden 'feeling' that one of them is sick, or that someone has broken into my apartment and is hurting them.

That's just for starters.

I agree that without them, I would be free of all this, but I also know that I'd just transfer the anxiety to something else. Such is the nature of OCD.