Blue Peter pets

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The Blue Peter pets are animals that regularly appear on the long-running BBC children's television series Blue Peter. For 27 years, when not on TV, these pets were often looked after by Blue Peter's long-standing pet keeper Edith Menezes, who died in 1994. The exceptions were the dogs Petra, Shep and Goldie, who lived with Peter Purves, John Noakes and Simon Groom, respectively, for which the three presenters were paid a stipend for their upkeep.^[1]

The first pet was a dog named Petra in 1962, and since then there have been several dogs, cats, tortoises, parrots, and horses. The current animals on the show are Shelley the tortoise and Henry the beagle. Rags, a pony, named by viewers, was purchased with the proceeds of a Christmas appeal in the late 1970s as a Riding for the Disabled horse. The Blue Peter parrot—Joey, and one successor, Barney—featured in the 1960s, but when Barney, a blue-fronted amazon, died, he was not replaced.

In a 1986 documentary shown on BBC2 as part of the Did You See...? series, former presenter Peter Purves recalled that Biddy Baxter, the show's editor, had called him in floods of tears on the day that the first parrot Joey died. He went on to muse in the same interview that had he himself died, Baxter would have been far less upset. The original ideas behind featuring the programme's pets were to teach viewers who had animals of their own how to look after them, and for the creatures to act as surrogate pets for those that did not own any. For example, dog training items, tortoise hibernation, and cat care are often featured on the programme; however, the keeping of rabbits and mice was deemed not suitable as they do not live long. In addition, dogs that lived with the presenters often accompanied them on filming assignments.