want to get to know you

[Bunnys_rule63]

I have had pets my whole life, as a baby my family had 2 dogs and 2 cats, however both were elderly and our last cat died when I was 5 years old. As we love animals and felt the house was too empty without them, we went and bought a kitten from a friend of ours whose cathad just had a litter of kittens.

Me (age 5)and Ollie (age 8 weeks)

Then 6 years later, aged 11, we moved house where we had a massive garden and after much thoughtdecided to get rabbits. Idid lots of research, found a reputable breeder, and came home with two sisters (Ruby and Millie). They soon because part of the family, and although it tooka while to socialize them it was so worth it! They are now 6 years old and still my little babies!:big kiss:

Now 5 and a half years later (aged 16)I have added another animal to our bunch, one 16.3hh horse called Smokey!Although I think that is our animal quota filled for now.I don't have time for anymore animals, but right now I have the best pets I could ask for. They have taught me all about animal love and how deep it can get (I can say hand on my heart I love Ollie as much as my brother and sister who I am very close to).

Thanks to them I will never be without animals for the rest of my life.

Jess -slave toOllie, Ruby, Millie, and Smokey.

 

[we3pnuts]

My turn!

Wow you all have great pet stories! You are all so lucky to be blessed with so many wonderful pets.

My name is Joanna and I'm 28. I have two human kids, Esten 7, and Brea 6. I have been married for 8 years to my wonderful husband.I was a travel agent for a while for some very snooty rich people. I didn't care for that job to much. Iwas alsoa photographer for 12 years. I recently stopped doing that and have now decided to be a stay at home mom. I still do my own photography on the side but after 12 years of getting crabby kids to smile I was a little burned out.

My first catmy parents got before I was even born. The cat was only a few weeks older then me. Her name was Jo-Jo. She lived to about 14. She developed feline leukemia. When it got to the point we couldn't do anythingmore for her, we put her down. My dad and I brought her in and cried our eyes out saying goodbye.

When I was about 12, my friends cat had a litter and I decided to keep one, without even checking with my parents first. My friends brother brought it over in a box on the back of a motorcycle, lol. My parents weren't thrilled but they let me keep him. His name was George.When he was about9something happened to him that he needed a blood transfusion. We neverdid find out the cause but something made him very sick. After he received the blood he was healthy as could be.He lived to about 15. He passed away thispast spring. He was a wonderful cat with a ton of spunk and a very feisty personality.

At about the age of 14. I was going through some tough times, not doing so good in school, wouldn't listen to the rules at home. You know how it goes, just being a bad kid at that age. My parents asked me if I wanted a dog. Their strategy was to see if it would get me to stay home and have something to take care of and look forward to. Well it worked. We went to the humane society and picked out this little 9 month old dog that sat in the corner quietly with the sad puppy eyes.Someone had left her chained up to the humane society door in the middle of the night with no info about her (poor puppy). We brought her home and I named her Lexi. After a day or 2 we noticed she wasn't feeling to well and had awful kennel cough. We brought her to the vet multiple times butcouldn't get it cleared up. We wanted to get her spayed but the vet wouldn't do it until she got better. After months of strong medication we finally got her well enough to do the spay. When the vet opened her up she had a dead pup in her that was causing an infection, that's why she wouldn't get better. About 2 days after the spay she was a happy healthy puppy. She was sort of short with a long body. After a few years she learned to jump our chained link fence. She ruined her back doing this and became paralyzed from it. She was put onsteroids and kept confined. We had to use a towel under her belly to help her go to the bathroom. She had such a drive, she healed and learned to walk again. Her back legs were always weak but at least she could walk.The last couple years of her life she developed cushings disease. It's not a curable disease butshe was still active and seemed healthy.She started to lose bladder control and her eyes went bad. My parents felt it was time to put her down so after 14 years of a tough but wonderful and loved life she passed away the beginning of this summer.

When my husband and I bought our first house we decided to get a dog. We purchased a weimaraner from a breeder. We named him max. We had him about1 year. He started to turn mean and bit one ofthe neighbor kids. We didn't want an aggressive dog with our 2 small kids so we found him a good home without kids.

we also found a parrot outside in the freezing cold at my parents house. There was about1 foot a snow on the ground. It was sitting on the roof of the house. It took us about 30 minutes to talk it down. It finally landed on my husbands shoulder. We had it a few months but it never liked us. It always bit us even though we gave it lots of attention and treats. We didn't know anything about birds so we gave it to my mother-in-laws co-worker who already had an african grey.

After not having any pets for about1 yearmy boss had Germain shorthair pups. My bosses dogs were awesome and it was a no brainer to take one of the pups. We now have Major our 4 yr old Germain shorthair. He's a VERY nice doggy.

We also had a very cute little kitty for about a month. My son is so allergic to cats. He had an asthma attack every night. So we gave her to my husbands mom. She already had 2 cats.

My bunny story. I have wanted one my whole life. When I was about 7 my dad and I were at a park and I saw a little black bunny hiding under a car. I thought it was SO WEIRD to see a wild black bunny. I went up to it a petted it and thought it was the oddest thing. My dad then said it was someones petand theymust have let it loose. At that age I couldn't rap my headaround itthat someone could do that. We drove away and I felt sooo sad for that little bunny. 21 years later I still feel guilty for just driving away and doing nothing. That's when I fell in love with them. When I was about 8 I found a litter in my backyard. I put them in a box and brought them inside. I thought for sure I could keep them. After a little while my mom made me put them back. At 8 yrs old I was so bummed. When I was 14 I made a hutch in a tech class. I started doing research on having a bunny and bought a book and lookedat all the pet stores. I never brought the hutch home so that means I never got the bunny. Even though I really, really wanted one, I had a fear of getting one too. So I always put it off. When I got marriedI always begged my husband to get a bunny. He wasn't sure of them so he always said no. My daughter's 6th birthday was coming up and my mom asked if it was ok if she got her a bunny for her birthday. Of course I said yes! I think the bunny was more a gift for me then my daughter. My daughter named her Diamond. I always say, "Diamonds are a girls best friend" . Having a bunny is better then I ever imagined. I can't wait for my next one now.

That's me and my pets in a nutshell.

 

[horselvrkc]

Heres my story:

When i was, around 4-5, or 6, I said: mommy can i have a hamster? And to my surprise she said "Sure we will get it to morrow! So i did. I got him at a petstore, and i named him Snoopy. Snoopy and I were great friends, but my mom was allergic. What made ME feel good though is how Snoopy bit everyone except me! lol. Then my parents friends said "can we have him" and for some odd reason, we let them have him. But then one week later, snoopy died.:nosir:



Then, i was begging and begging for a cat to my mom. We prayed and prayed everynight that we would get the best kitty and that she would go on walks with us around the neighborhood and wait for me at the bus stop. One day we were driving and we saw a sign that said "free kittens" and we went in, got the most playful one, a gray tabby that would take your heart out. To this day, she still goes on walks with us and waits for me at the bus stop!!!

Then i had 3 mice for 1-2 years, and then a rat that i loved named Inky. Just recently we had to put her to sleep for mammory tumors :-(

I have the greatest passion for horses, riding english, jumping, and showing. I am leasing a pony, named frisbee that is the cutest thing. Horses are my real passion.

5 days ago i got my first bunny ever, RILEY he is a very cute little guy, a red rex buny. I love him to pieces. He is stilll afraid of me, but it will take some time for him to get used to me!

Great idea, but my fingers are sore from writing so much!

-Kat

 

[~Bracon~]

Hey Rusty , about my name.....

I named her before I got her, yep its a bit wierd, but I had an idea of the type and colour bun I wanted and I really liked the name. I used to spell it like "Bracon" because thats how I thought it was spelled untill I found out the correct spelling was "Bracken". Hope tht made sence?

~Hannah,Bracken&Warren~

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

My first pet was my dog Kara. She is a bichon shih-tzu cross. I got her for my 13th birthday from my mom. I had been researching dogs for a year before and I had read everything I could get my hands on. I got her from a breeder a week after my birthday. She is 5 now and is my heart bunny. Kara is named after her grandmother, and it means friend in Irish.

For Christmas that year, I got some gerbils. My first one was Slyvester, then I got Dude and they lived together. I have gotten others in the last 4 1/2 years, there was Josh, Viggo, David, James, Medea, Debbie and a few others that I cant remember right now. I have also have 2 dwarf hamsters and a few mice. I prefer gerbils.

A year after I got Kara, my mom saw the breeder and they had another litter. We disscussed it and decided to bring another puppy home. The puppies were about 3 weeks old so we had to wait a while to bring her home. Her name is Bree after the town in Lord Of The Rings. She and Kara have the same dad and different moms. Bree is 4.

In grade 10, I first decided that I wanted a bunny. I did a lot of research and picked up a cage at a garage sale. It took me a year to finally get a bunny. I got Korr in October of 2005. He was a huge learning expirence for me. I got him at a petstore and he is a dwarf cross. Korr is about 4 lbs and black.

In August of 2006, I decide that Korr needed a girlfriend. I had been looking on the humane societys website for a while and came across Sophie (there Patch). i knew from the first sight that she was the one. So my mom and I went t the humane society for a bunny date. It went well as Korr was hiding under a shelf thing and Sophie was a little more adenterous. As Sophie needed to be spayed, we had to wait to bring her home. After she healed, I bonded Korr and Sophie and they have been living together since november.

since joing RO, I discovered lionheads. I wanted one. I had seen 1 at a shelter but the timing wasnt right to get her. I had been looking at breeders in the area and found a few i liked. I then looked in the classifiedes and come across an ad for some lionhead being sold. I emailed the people and when I saw Pennys pic, I kne I wanted her. It was a few weeks until I was actually able to pick her up.

About me. I am 18 and have lived in Calgary for 17 years. I finished high school in june and now I need to find work. I have volunteererd for a club for people with disabilities and I worked at their summer camp as a aide this summer.

 

[Rusty]

thank you for that wonderful post MsBinky!!! i loved every moment of it and i dont think i stopped smiling. i loved all the parts where your dad was so cute with the animals. he sounds like my dad. ive caught him lying on his stomach in my room having a conversation with rusty lol. and he cries whenever something passes away. only 2 dogs but still he was very upset.

i can't believe how many pets you had!! it must be wonderful to have lived in a household that has been truly happy and touched with and by animals.

i think i might have laughed out loud when you said the kitten kept jumping on the baby's face lol. just picturing it is hilarious.

and yes i think i've had the same disease as you while working at the petstore. i wanted absolutely everything and it was heartbreaking to adopt things out. but my parents never gave in to having all the pets i wanted. so i guess your parents are more awesome than mine!!



and ladadvocate i'm so glad you've come around to rabbits. i don't know if i'd be this happy if i hadn't taken in a rabbit. why dont you post a little story about yourself and your bunnies

 

[Rusty]

thank you starina for that wonderful story! it seems like your mom is quite the cat lady! im glad you have found such happiness with all the pets you've had. even if they were crabby. lol.

some cats are crazy when they climb that high!!!! oh man!! and its ridiculous that those ppl wouldnt come and help. especially the humane society...

you've moved around quite a bit. when i moved to the west side of canada, my dad made sure all my pets came. even my reptiles, cats, and dogs. it was great.

again thank you for that story. i really appreciated it!

 

[Rusty]

hey jess! thank you for that post.

tell me a little about your bunnies like silly stories or something since you've had them for so long. i'd love to learn from your bunny experiences so that rusty may be a happier bunny!

 

[Rusty]

hi joanna!

your bunny in your avatar is absolutely gorgeous!!! you know your mom totally did that gift to you haha!

dont feel bad about driving away from that bunny. your parents probably thought that it was out there for a while and was probably doing fine. its just sad how ppl can do that. especially with the parrot. its disgusting how ppl can do that. thats like this one time at the petstore i was working. my boss found a tank outside in the winter and it had a tarantula in it. we took it in and it was tame and everything and i wanted to see what it was like to hold him and when i had him in my hand he squated down on my hand like taking my heat. it was so sad. of course we couldnt sell it at the pet store because he wasnt ours but we adopted him out for free to someone who had one already and knew about them.

thank you for sharing your story with us. im sure everyone enjoyed it because i definitely did

 

[ChompersMom]

My own first pet was a dog named Alexandra (Alex for short). She was a miniature pinscher. I was just in 2nd grade and I named her because it was what my 2nd grade teacher named her newborn daughter and I looked up to her . Alex was my guardian and slept with me every night. She died at the age of 10 while I was in Arizona visiting my father (I lived in Maine until I was 18). My father and I went to cali to visit Sea World and the San Diego zoo and for some reason I had the strongest urge to call my mother on that Sunday morning. I found out over the phone that she had passed away unexpected and we were never quite sure why. She had no health problems leading up to he death. We buried her in a dog cemetary.

When I was 14 I had a hamster named Jingles. She was the best hamster, hands down. She was a long-haired teddy bear and would let me carry her around without ever once biting me. She was a bit spoiled and had about 4 cages attached by tubes as well as a ball to run around in and quite a lot of wheels. She lived to be 4 years old and died in my hands. I walked into my room and saw her having a seizure. I picked her up and held her until she stopped moving. I must have cried for at least a week.

My ex boyfriend adopted a rat for me who was living in waaaay too small of a cage. My mother hated rats so I had to keep it at my ex boyfriend's house. His name was Mortimor and after I moved he had to stay with my ex. I just received word that he recently passed after getting a tumor.

My mother then bought me a chinchilla who was already an older boy who had been passed from pet store to pet store with very limited human contact. They named him buster and he had torn out all the hair around his hind quarters out of stress. I brought him with me to Arizona when I moved (he flew on the plane) and lived here for about a year before passing away. He never really was too fond of humans but at least he had a better life than when he lived in the pet store.

My mother bought me one of my current dogs--Duncan, shortly after Alex passed. He's a hairless chinese crested that we bought from a breeder since I had a fascination with the breed. I brought him to Arizona where he now lives with another dog my father bought for me, Oasis. She's a boxer who received her name because I didn't know anyone out here in Arizona and she was my "Oasis of the desert". They are both now 2 years old.

I brought home a cat that I named Don Juan De Gato from someone's house where they told me the cat hated people and not to touch it. He's a little black cat and he was following me around so I picked him up. They said they didn't want it and I could have him if I wanted to. I took him home and gave him to my father who had just lost his beautiful black cat, Bear. We just call him DJ now and he's mostly a dog cat, giving kisses and wanting attention.

I have a ball python I bought while skipping Agribuisiness class at the college I took 1 semester of when I thought I wanted to be a vet. The class was a lecture so as long as I got the notes from someone I was fine. She was a breeder snake that I named precious and she's about 3 years old now.

I also bought an Egyptian Uromastyx from a pet store that they had them all shoved into one small tank. They couldn't tell me much information on them so I had to do a lot of research and even though he was technically mine my father fell in love with him so I gave him to my father for his birthday. He's prob. only about a year and lives by himself in a 50 gallon tank.

Chompers, my rabbit, I just received last week after he was brought into the Petsmart I work at in a cardboard box. He was found roaming around in the bushes outside by someone and he was completely matted. I shaved what I could and combed out the rest and then took him home.

That's my zoo

 

[ChompersMom]

Oh and about me..it's easy to forget when my life is mostly about my pets :headsmack

I'm 20 years old and live in Arizona with my father and step mom. I'm in a relationship with a guy that I've been in for about 5 months and I work at Petsmart as a dog groomer. I wanted originally to be a vet but after going through one semester and hearing about how few people continue on to graduate school and how much money they really don't make in comparison to the years of college, I changed my mind. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do in the long run, besides having a family both of fur and not .

That's about it really. I'm looking to get a house soon and hopefully live with my boy and of course have to take my dogs, bunny, and snake along. He doesn't have any pets except a cockatoo but I don't believe he would take the bird with him. It would most likely stay with his parents.

 

[Butterfinger]

Wow! Everyone has such great stories! I just finished reading all of them.

Hmm... about mine...

The first animal I came into contact with was a big orange longhaired tabby cat named Freya. My parents first got her as a kitten when they had moved into an apartment together, and they took her with them when they got the house I was born in. I'm not sure how old she was, and I barely remember her... Because a couple years later, my mom's allergies to her got so bad, and the injections weren't working, so they had to give her away. I remember being sad, and I never heard anything about her again. I was probably about three-ish when she left.

After that, my brother was born, and a while after that (Maybe a year) my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to have a rabbit. So, they contacted a breeder, and we brought home the sweetest, most beautiful red-eyed-white Holland Lop girl I've ever known. I remember playing with her around the house, and how if I turned her upside down, she'd trance immediately with all four paws straight up in the air and just lay there. She never bit anyone, and she was the best rabbit ever. I learned how to handle rabbits from having her. (She also had malloclusion, and we had to get her teeth trimmed every once in a while, but she was otherwise healthy).
One day, she escaped from the yard, and was lost.
But not forever.
The next day, as we were making 'lost rabbit' signs, she hopped right into the backyard. We caught her, and were just so overjoyed to have her back.
But she died overnight in her cage. We think she might have eaten something poisonus, and was returning home to be with us in her last moments. (Even though she didn't seem sick when we caught her)

After her death, my mom researched more rabbits, and we had almost decided on getting a Himalayan, as there was a breeder not far from where we lived. In the end, we decided not to get one, because of their delicate bones, and the fact that we were still very young kids. So instead, we went and brought home two French Angora brothers, named Cinnamon and Spice.
They turned out to be sick (I think it was snuffles, but I don't remember), however, and we returned them to the breeder.

Soon afterwards, we found the Dutch breed, and bought two Dutch sister babies from a breeder not far away. They were the normal black and white pattern, and were showable, and had tattooes in their ears. (001 and 002 ) my rabbit was 001, and we named her Clover. 002 was my brothers, and her name was Blackberry. Clover and Blackberry did not get along. At all. In fact, if they were ever accidentally out together, they'd go flying in a whirlwind of black and white and start ripping each other's fur out. So we had them in a hutch that was separated in the middle by a wooden board, so they couldn't get at each other.
Clover was my favourite (Being mine, naturally) and she was also the sweetest. She wouldn't nip like Backberry would, and she'd hold very still if you pet her on her forehead.
One night, some dogs got loose and ran into our yard. They got under the bunny's hutch and started biting their feet.
We scared them off, but on both rabbits, several toes had to be amputated, and half of one of Blackberry's back feet had to be removed.
After that, we made a wire barrier around the entire bottom of the cage, so nothing could get in there again.
Clover, though, came down with pneumonia and died when I was in second grade.
Blackberry lived, and died of old age at 12.
About a year before she died, though, I had been wanting my own rabbit (Since Blackberry was my brother's still, and I hadn't had one of my own for a long time) and one day while my parents were gone on vacation, I went to a pet store with my friend (I'd often take walks to the pet store) and fell in love with a white New Zealand laying in the back in a cage. And I almost bought him/her, too, but I was only sixteen at the time, and couldn't
So when my parents got back, I talked to them about me being mature enough for a rabbit of my own, and how I'd take care of it, and also how I really missed having one, since mine died back in second grade.
They caved, and my mom mentioned that her best friend's sister is a rabbit breeder. We checked her out, and yes, she did have an available buck for sale that was four months and pet quality for $25. That rabbit's name was M&S Butterfinger.
So we met up with her at a show, and she brought out little Butter, and I held him. It was love. I brought him home and have had him with me ever since. I'm nineteen now, and he's at college with me, cleaning himself while I'm typing.

I've had several animals in between rabbits, and they were....
A garter snake named Kirara, a mountain horned dragon named Hakku, red-headed agama (Lizard) named Isis, and my hamster, Mochiko, who still lives with me. (The reptiles all unfortunately passed away from various causes, but I was particularly devastated by Isis's passing, as she was the best lizard in the history of ever, and was so full of energy and life--She died last year on Halloween). I still daydream about having reptiles again, but my luck with them is so unfortunately bad that I wouldn't want to doom the poor little thing to living with me. I do have some goldfish, though.

Okay! Sorry for writing all this I've had animals my whole life, so writing out my history with animals is like writing a life story, haha. That's it!

~Diana and Butter

 

[Penna]

Hi, everyone for the most part calls me Lanie from school. Well, I'm 13, going to be fourteen next month. My age generally suprises a lot of people. I have four siblings. I started school exactly a week ago.

When I was around eightish?, I would go to those carinvals, the kind that give away goldfish at the games. And one time, they were going to flush the rest down toilets, but I started crying and they gave them to me. Needless to say, my parents were not happy that I had over 100 goldfish. But they let me keep it. Because we all knew they wouldn't live to be too old. But I actually had a few of them for close too three years.

On my birthday when I was 10, my parents finallygave in and let me get a pet. They told me it had to be something small. Like a hamster or a gerbile. I chose a hamster. We went to the pet store, and I picked out a hamster that was on it's way to the Humane Socioty. Her name was Tiger, I loved her sooo much. Sadly, Tiger passed away a little after Christmas this past year.

Sometime when Tiger was alive (about a year after I got Tiger), my brother and I were at the petstore with my mom buying hamster food. There was this once lonesum rabbit in a cage. My mom asked a worker why it was all by itself in a cage off to the side of the room. The worker said because it didn't sell, it was going to be snakefood. Thus, with a lot of begging, my brother and I convinced my mom to let us take it home. My mom said that we were going to find it a new home. But, well, that never happened. And I'm glad it didn't because I would have Belle with me today.

A little after I got Belle my friend's gerbil's had babies, even though they were supposivly both girls. So she gave the babies after they had gotton older. All seven of them. Well, I really didn't want seven gerbils (and well, neither did my mom). But I managed to find good homes for them throughout my friends and whatnot. A few of my friends actually still have the gerbals also.

So this past Janurary, I was at a different petstore, with my brother and my mom once again. A man had brought in three rabbits that were sitting in an absolutly disgusting box. Maggie, and what appeared to be her two siblings. I asked the manager why they were sitting there. They were going to be snakefood (what is it with rabbits and snakefood?), but anyway, my mom said we would take the three rabbits to the Humane Socioty. So we did. But the Humane Socioty only had room for two of them, so I took one home to foster. That was Maggie. Somewhere in there, I secretly think my mom fell in love with Maggie and wanted to keep her. xD

This past June I *almost* got a third rabbit. One of the teachers in my school had a rabbit in the classroom. I just about died. This thing, was in a cage no bigger than twice your keyboard. He was stuck in there ALL DAY. And ALL NIGHT. He was never taken out of his cage. I walked in there one day after school and was like "OH, YOU GOT A RABBIT!! CAN I HOLD HIM!?". I actually didn't even wait for a response. I went right over and picked him up. The teacher was very shocked, because supposivly he was an "agressive" rabbit who wouldn't let people pick him up. And yes...I probably shouldn't have picked him up without getting an answer, but I did so anyway. I really wanted to keep him, but I knew that I already have two babies and really couldn't handle a third. So this other girl a year below me has him now. She's absolutly GREAT with him. His name was Albert. He had such an awesome personality. Very very gentle little guy. I still get to see him, I cut his nails because she doesn't like to.

I could go ON and ON forever about my history with animals. But I won't.

---------

Editted for spelling errors!

 

[Aina]

Hi.
My name is Alice. I am 18. Single with no children. I live with my parents and go to college at the local university. I got my first pet when I was a year old for my first birthday, but of course I didn't have to take care of her. She was a calico cat my parents got from the animal shelter. They said that I had always been facinated with a neighbor's cats, so they got me one. It was rather wild when we got it, but my dad tamed it and it became a great cat, surviving my siblings being todlers and still being very friendly. Unfortunatly she was run over while we were on vacation when I was nine. When I was eight I got fish and I still have fish, though not the same ones, lol. For my tenth birthday I used all my birthday money and got a tortoise. Her name is Tori. She is still alive today and is really pretty. She will come when called or if I sing, and will eat from my hand. She was the first pet that I had to actually take care of. Through the years she has been a silent witness to my laughter, tears, and other pets.
Then my brother got a NZ white for $5 from a petstore, named Einstien. He lived in our backyard. One day we were on vacation he got out and the animal control got him. My dad paid $20 to get him out. He complained about having to pay more to get him out of 'jail' than he cost to buy, but I know he really loved him. He was a good rabbit. He would come when called and I don't think he ever bit or anything. He was to big for us to pick up, but I don't ever remember getting scratched on the occations when I did pick him up. He was awesome. Unfortunatly he died of unknown reasons one winter.
Fast forward a few years. The dark ages I call them. I only had Tori. One summer I was at camp and complaining to my friend about 'never' getting a dog because my dad wouldn't let us have one. When I came home from camp I was greated by a small ball of fur we named Maggie. A dog! A co-worker had convinced dad to let us have on of his dog's puppies. We had gone to see them a week before leaving for camp on the promise we wouldn't ask for one, lol. Everyone liked Maggie the best, so that is the one we got. She is very good with my other pets and very smart.
After that my brother got a snake and I fell in love with one of the mice. It died after a week, but I did get hamsters. They died right after I got Skye.
My brother brought home Ronnie saying they had watched him for a while and he must have been abandoned. It turned out he was owned by someone, but they just let their rabbits run loose. We didn't learn about that until we had had him for a long time, so we kept him.
Then a week before christmas I got Skye from a petstore. She was matted and I could feel every bone in her body. Poor baby. Both the rabbits are great and I now have them bonded and they are living in my bedroom. Skye has always been friendly and Ronnie is still coming around, becoming more friendly each day.
Well thats it for me. Oh, I do like horses. but don't own one at the moment. I hope to own one when I get out of college.

 

[Rusty]

im going to continue reading this tomorrow as i have a lot of stuff to do like today i spent 3 hours cleaning my boat with my mom and its my dad's birthday so we're going to celebrate. iwill post about all your comments i promise but i'll have to do taht tomorrow.

cheers

 

[JadeIcing]

I am going to move this to the off topic section.

 

[Leaf]

Well, I'll try to keep this short and simple.

I'm 31 and live in Missouri.

I work full time in heating/cooling - usually running CNC machines to make parts and bodies for valves/distributers that go into components.

I also work almost full time at the local pound. I've been working with animals for 15 years, roughly half my life. I foster heavily and always seem to have new cats/dogs at the house.

Last year I was almost overwhelmed by the number of cats/kittens I fostered, and I've pretty much weaned away from the feline aspect because of my allergies, some damage that was done to my home by the cats - and because my blind cat does not seem to be as welcoming to new cats as my 6 year old cat is.

I have three dogs right now, one who is young, but has some severe health issues. The other two are fit and as happy as can be. One does agility but can't compete on any level because she is deaf.

I rarely watch TV, I have basic service with rabbit ears and my reception is nothing to brag about. I can get in the mood to rent movies, and I'll sit and watch many back to back.

I love working 3rd shift, as I'm a night owl. I enjoy reading, working in my yard, going camping, fishing and doing other outdoor activities.

Photography is a hobby of mine.

I am hooked on political talk radio.

 

[Bassetluv]

My first pet was probably a worm.

I recall collecting them after rainstorms and placing them in the bottom of my little plastic pail. I have no idea what I was going to do with them, but my mom always seemed to intervene with, "NO...they cannot come into the house!" Eventually I moved on to salamanders...checking under every flat rock for one, sometimes finding a jackpot all in one place (the Osmond family of salamanders, no doubt). I would put them in jars, buckets, my pockets - whatever was handiest at the moment. They would migrate their way into the house, up the stairs, and into my bedroom...only to be ushered just as quickly back outside by my mom. I think the final straw on salamanders came the day an entire jar of them escaped in the basement, little red-striped lizardine creatures scurrying in every which direction, and my mom - on her way to do the daily load of wash - got the daylights scared out of her by the sight of my little friends darting about the concrete floor. After that, I decided that salamanders just weren't such a big hit. And I think it was around about that time I graduated to snakes.

My first *real* indoor pet was my mother's cat, Peter. I remember him as a beautiful, jet black male, a massive boy even into his golden years. He was also a scrapper...an outdoor cat who seemed to find delight in seeing just how many battle scars he could proudly carry home every day. His ears were a mangled mesh of semi-holes and thickly knitted old tears, his body a constant war zone of deeply pitted wounds and rakish scratches. But it was his tail...that was the one body part which tortured him to no end. Poor Peter had an ongoing battle with infections that occured at the tip of his tail...large pustular lumps that constantly plagued him, probably causing immense pain and itchiness. He was incessantly licking it, and the licking eventually gave way to chewing. Back in those days, a pet - for many familiies, including the one I grew up in - was something that you didn't take to a veterinarian unless it was gravely ill. Reasons for such lack of attention to a furred family member were many, and in our case, it seems both the carried-over belief that a pet was 'just a pet', and ongoing bills from having four children to raise, convinced my dad that animals would heal themselves, eventually. Unfortunately Peter didn't, but my dad finally broke down and took him to the one local vet. Treatments ensued, but they never did seem to do any good. By the end of his life Peter had removed almost a quarter of his tail on his own. He had been my mom's cat, and when she passed away he missed her presence greatly. But just over a year later I guess he missed her too much, and his health declined to the point where he no longer seemed to care about anything. And my dad, as nonchalant as he tried to be about it, escorted our dear family member to the vet's one final time. I was 12 years old when Peter died, and a great many decades have passed since them, but I still think about him, I still remember his loving purr and his coarse tongue licks, and I still get a tear in my eye when I mention his name.

A few more cats graced our doorstep over the years. There was Blossom...a beautiful, longhaired black and white beauty who was definitely my sister's cat. Unfortunately Blossom developed pneumonia at a young age, and succumbed when our live-in housekeeper tried to force the liquid medicine down her throat, holding Blossom upside down...she choked on the liquid and was lost a few moments later. We had another black and white cat...a little tough guy with a crooked tail whose name escapes me for the moment...he was a talker, and a character! There was Noddy...named after one of the members of an old rock band called Slade...though she was nothing like her namesake. Noddy was elegant, graceful, a dainty beauty with long white hair and a gorgeous plume for a tail. But Noddy also came with a temper. Touch her in the wrong spot, or lift her when she wanted to be left alone, and you would be met with a fierce left hook, so fast you would barely know what hit you.

And then there was Mickey. He was the most talkative, amicable, comical cat I think I've ever met. He was a lynx-point Siamese, and we rescued him from a family who lived in the country with their nine children and countless, oft-forgotten animals. Our dad was actually friends with the patriarch of the family, and on one of our first weekend trips out to their 'farm' (code-word for depths-of-despair shack that they all lived in), we discovered Mickey. As we were saying our goodbyes at the end of the visit, to our horror we overheard that they decided they didn't want so many cats, and so Mickey, at six months of age, was about to be taken to the river, shoved in a sack and drowned. Even our dad couldn't squash our pleas to save him at that point, and so we came home with a new family member...one who looked like royalty and acted like Jerry Lewis.

Mickey loved people. For anyone who visited our house, the more cat-fearing you were, the better. That's when Mickey's catdar zoned in on you, and he became like your shadow. He would jump into your lap at the most unexpected moment and stretch out as far as he could. If you tried to remove him - even by quickly jumping up - his claws transmogrified into velcro strips, clinging tenaciously to any available fabric...pants, sweater, new designer shirt...and nothing could remove him. Well, almost nothing. The sound of the can opener shearing the top off a can of cat food would see him flying at top speed through the house, careening around corners better than Mario Andretti at the Indy 500. He was a food hound, and a huge one. Mickey would eat anything that even remotely approximated food. He had an appetite like a horse, and that appetite wound up saving his life. When he was around two or so (as I recall) Mickey became quite sick...lethargic, lost weight, his fur was listless and he was drooling. We toted Mickey off to the vet's, and the diagnosis was feline distemper. The vet kept shaking his head and saying the humane thing would be to put him down right away, as he had ulcers in his mouth that were so bad he could hardly open his mouth at all. Yet we - my sister and I, as teens - couldn't bear the thought of losing Mickey, so we begged the vet to prescribe medication and we took him home. At first Mickey balked when we fed him, even though we switched him to canned food, so bad was his mouth, but we encouraged him...and soon enough there he was at every mealtime, chowing down as best he could. He would get angry and spit wildly at the food dish in the midst of his struggles to chew, blaming the pain in his mouth on the food itself...I guess in his feline mind he thought it was biting back. But amazingly, not only did Mickey begin to recover, he did recover, and he went on to live a long - albeit kind of weird - cat life.

LOL...I was going to compile a short list of all the pets I've had since I was young, but at this rate the post would become a book in itself. In writing about my dog Charlie...his story alone would be a book....so I'll cut myself off here and leave it to say I've enjoyed a plethora of furry soulmates in my life, from as far back as I can remember to present day. Not all lived the lives of ease and comfort, especially in the early days when, as I described previously, a 'pet was just a pet' to my dad. And his beliefs were one step up from his own father's, where a pet didn't even set foot in the house. But each and every one of the creatures who crossed my path carried telltale worn patches, either in fur or in their hearts, where they were loved beyond description.

 

[Rusty]

hi horselvrkc!

thank you so much for posting! sorry it took so long for me to start reading these again. i just had so much stuff going on.

anyways, what made you get a rabbit after having horses and rats and hamsters? and what was it like to have a rat? i've always wanted one but they're illegal here thats pretty cool that you have a cat that waits for you at the bus stop. i wish my cat did that. i wish my cat would pay attention to me when i dont have ice cream or a bowl of cereal in my hand lol.

 

[Rusty]

wow i had no idea you lived so close to me korr_and_sophie!

that must be great to have 3 wonderful bunnies! its amazing how you can get such a great connection with a rabbit and just fall in love. i felt so weird when i saw rusty. i felt so happy and excited and i just loved him to death even though it had only been about a minute since i had spotted him.

gerbils are so awesome!!! i tried a couple of times to get some when ppl would return them to the petstore but no one wanted them. so i spent more time training them and handling them and they all got adopted before i had a chance to convince my mom so glad i got to learn a little about yourself and your pets.