Tell me about your pets...

[candyshopgirl]

So tell me about your pets and how you came to have them. I have three cats Mannie the manx, Princess Queen , and Bubba Sir Sexy Fluffytail. I have two dogs. Chewie McGibb the pom and Maggie Greybeard the pomchi. Bubba Sir Sexy Fluffytail was the first to show up. He was full of ticks,fleas, underweight(you could see his ribs) and was suffering from frost bite. So We took him to the vet and he got the full treatment. He is now 21 pounds. And soon mannie showed up and was scared shitless of people. She was the same as bubba minus the frost bite. And she was pregnant. I would feed her and she wouldn't ever come to me. I watched her eating out of my trash many times. And then about two weeks before having the babies she just became lovable.
And then one Saturday morning the dogs wanted out at 7:00 am. I took them out and there was mannie with a scared look on her face with a slimy calico kitten. I got a box and took mannie and my new calico cat named Princess Oueen inside and thats where they have been every since. Chewie McGibb came to be cause of a friend that worked in a petstore. Chewie was returned twice(both by college kids) and I couldn't resist. When we got her she was 4 months old and had never been on grass, never had a blanket, and was scared of toys.
Now Maggie was born in an alley behind a pizza place(is why we joke she loves breadsticks so much). She was 6 weeks old when I got her and I could never imagine my life without her. She loves to tunnel under the blankets and we joke that she would sit on satan's lap if he was the only person around.

[wchristopher]

I have one cat called 'The Doctor'. I acquired him when our previous cat died and my wife came home with him after a wedding. He is the only survivor of his family as they were all hit by a car and he was the one furthest away from mom when it happened.

He is loud, annoying, hurtful, obnoxious, and I love him.

[Micer]

<_<
>_>

We have a bit of a zoo, Mephistopheles aka. Misty (my cat), Faust (hubby's cat) and Dante (officially now hubby's mother's cat), Marchy the Rabbit, Momo the Degu, Cooper the Ball Python, Poco the Garter Snake, and finally Isabella and Vladimir the Leucistic (Ivory scale/Blue eyes) Pine Snakes.

Misty we got when we were living in Miami, we had a neighbor across the street who was pretty much the neighborhood cat-man. His entire property was surrounded by garden, and he loved to take care of the cats, always feeding them, catching them here and there and taking them in to a free clinic to have them spayed and neutered. Sweet sweet little German man, but, he'd also wind up with kittens once in a while.

So one day he invited us over and offered us a kitten once the litter was weened, also letting us know that the father of this litter was the top Tom of the neighborhood, a big rough looking customer named Fritz. Pretty much if there were strays eating, and Fritz showed up, the other cats cleared off like their butts were suddenly ablaze. So I look into the crate, and the first kitten to look up and hiss at me ( http://micer.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=192#/d13g1r ) was my baby, Misty. Sadly he's more of a spoiled momma's boy than anything else now, and yes, we thought he was a girl at first, surprise on us! XD

Faust, we adopted from an animal rescue, hubby fell head over heels in love with the little gray furred guy. Now he's an utter ditz of a pudge-cat and drives Misty nuts by constantly following him around, wanting to play, or driving me nuts by following me around, wanting to eat.

Dante, was found by the hubby when he worked at the exotic pet store (where Momo, Poco, Cooper, and the pine snakes came from), he was out picking up feeders for the store at another site when he came across a couple of tabby kittens fending for themselves. He was only able to catch Dante and his sister Isis (which our friend and his wife adopted)

His mom fell in love with the orange tabby and pretty much carried him off to stay at her house for good, which cracks me up to no end because this woman for the longest time couldn't stand animals.

Marchy, last but not least was my birthday gift to my better half, since we both missed having a rabbit around (our last was a diva, but we both loved him) and has been spoiled by both of us.

Wonder how they're all going to take the fact that I'm having a baby in August?

[MaggieTheCat]

My husband and I currently have three cats. I guess technically two of them are "his" since he had them long before I moved in with him. One of them has definitely adopted me...the other one...tolerates me.

Ash is the oldest of the bunch. He's grey and white, but that's not how he got his name (contrary to what I thought for years...) He's actually named after Ashley from Army of Darkness. My husband and his mother got two cats when my husband was in high school; Ash is my husband's, and Oscar, his brother, is my husband's mother's. They're both about 13 years old now and in really good health. We don't have Oscar, of course, he stayed with my MIL when my husband moved out. Ash is the sweetest, cuddliest, friendliest cat you'll ever meet. Seriously. He just wants to be friends with everyone and will insist you pet him the moment you walk into our house. It's always amusing because most of our friends are allergic to cats, and as soon as they walk in, Ash is rubbing up against them and walking around in their shoes/bags/etc. He's only hissed once in his entire life as far as my husband knows: this summer we were fostering a stray dog for a few weeks, and one day the dog barged into the house and scared the crap out of Ash, and Ash hissed at him. Otherwise, Ash never hisses at anyone or anything. If he's upset, he'll just sort of meow pitifully.

Yume is the second oldest. She was the baby until we got the kitten (see below.) My husband's mother saw her at a pet store when my husband was in college and just had to bring her home. She is a long haired, tortoise shell colored cat and very fiesty. She doesn't particularly like me; she's definitely a daddy's girl. She has some health problems unfortunately. She has kidney disease although she's doing pretty well with it all things considered. When my husband moved out of his mother's house after he graduated college, he brought Ash with him and wanted to bring one of the other cats so Ash wouldn't be lonely (his mother had 5 cats at the time) and so he brought Yume. She's a spoiled princess and acts like a pretty typical cat.

Pluto is now the baby. He's less than a year old...we don't know his exact birth date but we guess he's around 11 months old now. And huge! He's by far the biggest of the 3. He's almost 11 pounds, whereas Ash and Yume are both just over 9. Pluto has very long, solid black fur, which is partially how he got his name; he's our little god of the underworld. Or a dwarf planet. He fits both descriptions pretty well. We got him last April shortly after we moved into our house. One of my husband's co-workers, K, was on a deserted, rural road on his way to work one morning and saw this tiny black thing crawling around in the road. He pulled over and found a black kitten -- no ID, no mama cat that he could find, no houses nearby that it might have run away from. There were some large birds circling over the kitten so K scooped him up and brought him into the office. K couldn't keep him so he asked if anyone else in the office would take him. My husband and I had said that after we got settled into our house, we wanted to get a new kitten (the apartment we were living in previously only allowed 2 pets, so we only could keep Ash and Yume there.) This was a little sooner than we had expected, we had only just moved in about 2 weeks prior and were still organizing and unpacking. But we also couldn't let an abandoned baby be all alone! So we took him home that night and he's been a pretty amazing addition to the family. He was completely healthy; we got him checked out by our vet before we brought him home, and he had no fleas or ticks, no worms, no diseases of any kind, so we figure someone must have had him and taken care of him for a little while and then dumped him. The place where K found him is a very popular animal dumping ground, unfortunately. Pluto is also very sociable (we have friends over to our house pretty frequently, so from the time we brought him home, he's been used to people other than us being in the house) although usually he'd rather play than cuddle. I think as he gets older, he'll mellow out and be a lot like Ash. Uncle Ash is certainly Pluto's best friend and has taught him well in the ways of a house cat.

I have another cat named Puck who I had to leave with my parents when I moved in with my husband. He's grey and white as well, and actually looks remarkably like Ash. I got him about 4 years ago from a woman whose cat had kittens and she was just trying to adopt them out. He's pretty fiesty; my parents live on a big chunk of private land, so they let him go outside. He's a mighty hunter. He's caught all manner of mice, voles, squirrels, birds, rabbits, and once he even brought us a weasel. He's more of my mom's cat now; even though we have room for him now that we live in a house, I think it's best to leave him where he is 'cuz he's so used to going outside (we don't let any of our cats outside unless they're on a leash with us; Puck wouldn't go for that!) and he hasn't seen me in a few years now.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I used to have a zoo now I'm down to just one.
She is Lucy, she has a pretty long french name, but she will answer when you howl more then she would answer if you used her full name. She is a pretty girl, a black lab x redbone coonhound, she is my baby and I love her.

She is a shy worrier who was left at a shelter shortly after she was born with the rest of her litter and shipped up north where they had a better chance at finding a home. They spent time traveling until they were about 7 months old and finally found a good person to find them forever homes. Lucy and her sister were the last to go, we saw her sister on tv and went out to the feed store where they would be to meet people. She was in her crate and after the woman from the rescue talked to us she pulled Lucy out for us to see her, until then we didn't think there was a dog since we couldn't see her tucked so far back hiding. I was sitting on the floor and she went right for me, climbing in my lap and tucking her nose under my arm and shivering. While we talked to the rescue group's owner and I held Lucy a little girl wandered over and asked to pet her. The owner of the rescue and I decided she could as long as she stayed away from her head it would be fine. Lucy handled it well just shivering a little but staying pretty relaxed while being petted, I knew I wanted her at that point. We ended up leaving and going home to fill out the online adoption form and heard by the next morning we could pick up Lucy any day that week she was ours and the woman running the rescue was planning on giving us Lucy the entire time. We picked her up and she was hiding in the back of the kennel with her sister hiding behind her, we got the braver of the two... Lucy hid in the pantry for two weeks before finally getting used to us and loving her home.

We've had her for 4 years now, she is still a chicken dog but has gotten better and is still getting better. She gets used to visitors fairly quickly and LOVES my grandfather and best friend when they visit. She has her boyfriend next door and they kiss at the fence. She is a hard dog to train, It's not that she isn't smart even though I call her the smartest dumb dog ever when she plays gets excited and runs into doors . It's that she is so stubborn, I love her for it, she keeps me on my toes and makes for some hilarious training sessions. Ex: Telling her to stay means she sits looking pretty then flops over onto the floor dramatically to wait until she is told to come. I have NO idea why she does it, it's a recent thing I think she just doesn't like to wait.

Pictures below is an example I found of what she looks like when told to stay.
Her in the snow looking worried, and her trying to make Waldo pay for what he has done. Which I assume was to hide. *shrugs*

[Dreamstalker]

Right now we don't have any pets (no-pet building, we were grandfathered in with McGriff but shelters check with landlords); here's a rundown of the pets we've had (mostly cats):

Livia and Snowflake: when I was a baby. Livia became very protective of me and would actually get mom's attention if I was fussing, crying or trying to get into something I shouldn't. One day I bent her tail in half and all she did was bat me with a soft paw ("hey, don't do that"). Mom was amazed. Snowflake played chess; at least from what dad says, she would make legal moves until she got bored and "won" by swatting all the pieces on the floor.

Cora: a stray we found under the car. She died a few years later from some kind of heart condition.

Red Fred: An Irish setter that my grandfather found wandering one day with no tags. He became extremely protective of me; he'd growl and snap at anyone not family who came into the yard when I was out there.

Max: One of mom's cats that lived with my grandparents until I was about 9; grandma used to take the fresh seafood that grandpa bought and give it to the cat.

Boots: Grandparents' cat. Loved sleeping in the bathroom sink for some reason and wasn't afraid if it was dripping. Sadly she died from a major infection caused by grandma never cleaning her teeth.

Sooty and McGriff: We got both of them in Vermont (early 90s); Sooty was a barn cat who got a bit crazy after coming to an apartment (what was her former owner thinking?) and after that earned the nickname Zuul. She died a few years ago from some sort of bone disease. McGriff came to us as a baby (literally) and lived for almost 19 years (he died last year from heart failure).

[fireheart]

I have 2 cats and a blue-tongue lizard that lives in the garden.

Mitchell's the older of the two cats and is around 6 years old now. He's a Tonkinese (half Siamese, half Burmese) and is adorable. He has this tendency to chat with you quite a bit, which can be funny and annoying all at once. However, he is a bit of a bully to his younger brother and will often try and edge his way into mum to curry her favour. He's very good with us though....well most of the time. When he was a kitten and we bought him home, he'd have this tendency to give a playful nip, quite a bit. It'd get to the point where mum would point a finger at him and say "no biting" only for him to lean forward and just casually put his mouth over her hand. He's grown out of it now for the most part and will only bite if you piss him off.

Oscar's the younger of the two and is a Russian Blue. We actually got this one from the breeder who gave us our first cat. She felt a bit guilty for giving us a sick cat and gave us Oscar for free (first cat had to be put down due to anaemia). He's still a kitten in some aspects, but is still playful and affectionate. Unfortunately he cops some of the bullying, but tends to get the upper hand when it's time for a groom. (I remember when he was a kitten and was trying to clean Mitchell's head, Mitchell resists, so Oscar sorta grabs him in a headlock and holds him in place while he finishes) He also always greets us when we come home from school/work and will ALWAYS greet mum when she walks in the door, which is cute and funny all at once. He has FLUTD, which is managed by tablets twice daily and always creates a source of amusement when mum grabs the tablet. On top of that, poor bub wound up getting a certain area groomed while he was still a kitten! After Mitchell had been desexed, Oscar was still too young to be desexed, so while OScar was busy cleaning himself all-over, Mitchell decides to help Oscar out, walks over and starts cleaning around his genitalia area! Sadly, unlike Mitchell, he has actually bitten mum ONCE by mistake, when she was teasing him with a plant while he was outside and he bit her hand instead of the palm leaf. She was on antibiotics for a couple of weeks but is now fine. (her finger swelled up to the point where there were no wrinkles on it).

As for the blue-tongue lizard, we don't know how he got there, but we know he lives under one of the sheds in the garden. Oscar has this tendency to play with the lizard whenever he's outside, by batting and chasing at it. We've never had a snail/slug problem in the garden though. And yes, I have handled blue-tongues. We reckon that the one living there NOW is probably one of the babies raised by a blue-tongue that used to live on our property as we had a blue-tongue baby at one point (and I got to hold that one as well). It's just known as Bluey to all of us. (Blue-tongues are not poisonous, but some species are endangered)

[Parrothead]

Right now I have two cats, Baby and Roarke/Boobie. Roarke's mom was a stray that someone rescued and we adopted him. (He got the nickname from when he was a kitten, he would always snuggle with your left breast. We don't know why...)

I found Baby under the hood of a car the day Pepper died. She was four weeks old.

[Cat]

Two kitties:
Morgan le Fey, tabby, fat, I swear she's insane. Got her from a now ex- friend who originally got the kitten as a playmate to her dogs (dumb). Morg enjoys mauling people, cept her mommy she will go from cuddle cat to demon in less than a second for no known reason.

Baba O'Riley.. Little runt black cat. One-eyed (feline herpes), snaggle bottom tooth, thumbs on his front paws. Poor dear is sick now with lower intestine problems, and is on pills. He is a shelter kitty, and has the loudest purr ever. Super loving, I think he is part Siamese... For he has a loud never-ending meow.

I also may still have hermit crabs, but as it's winter I can't go digging for them in case they are hibernating. No dead smell, though... So that is good.

[telecom_goddess]

Wow I've had all kinds of pets in the past....tons of ferrets, cats, rats, a snake, tarantula, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice. Right now it's down to two cats and two rats, plus my daughter has about 4 or 5 rats.

My cats are a girl Caterina and a boy Ephrem, they are 8 and about 6 or 7 respectively. The rats don't really have names per se.....

[blas]

I don't use my real pet names, just so you are all aware.

Now we are back to 3 pets at my parents' place.....a dog and two cats. Bear the old lab/retriever, Baby the evil Persian/tabby mix, and now Tiger the kitten.

My closest pet friend was FatCat the beautiful tortie. God I miss her so much. We got her when I was 8 and my brother was 5. Last March was one of the hardest months to go through. And it's still hard. She was the most affectionate, loving cat. She was so warm and soft and fat. She scavenged the entire house for crumbs. She'd stomp down the stairs in a hurry if she heard the microwave go off. She could smell fast food before I even got into the house with it. She ate anything that didn't get to her first.

[nicolecj]

I have four. Simon the 200lbs English mastiff. He drools a lot and likes to chase his tail - he is only three so he is still puppish. Luthor the 57lb boxer/beagle/his-mother-got-out-so-god-only-knows mutt. He is a bit older and takes care of Simon. He is very smart... sometimes too smart.

I have Absynthe, the maine coon cat. she is satan. She was kicked out of three homes before she was six months old because she is evil and tries on a semi regular basis to kill people. She guards the house from mice and humans. Seriously, she bites intruders. She when a bit crazy when my finacee dies, as he was the only human she liked, but is getting back to her pycho self. Then the last cat is Alex. He is a barn cat I adopted in November because he got kicked in the head and it broke two of his fangs, the upper left and the lower right, leaving him with no ability to bite. Also, he was a tom but the kick seemed to have messed him up mentally, so I had him nuetered, his broken teeth pulled, and some other issues resolved and I took him home. They guess he is about five, but he really is not right in the head. I worry about him. He has a big blunt triangle shaped head and his ears are mostly frostbitten off, making him look like a bull dog so we call him bull kitty. My father likes to give him McDonalds. I never met a cat that ate McDonalds. he just isn't quite right.

[Monica]

I have a black cat name Boo-Boo Kitty (cookies if you know where I got it from), my sister, who lives with me has a wiener dog named Otto. My parents (who live a few houses down), just got a darling little 12 week old Puggle puppy. It has got the Pug face, and a long body, and long legs. That little one sure can jump.

[telecom_goddess]

I have a black cat name Boo-Boo Kitty (cookies if you know where I got it from), my sister, who lives with me has a wiener dog named Otto. My parents (who live a few houses down), just got a darling little 12 week old Puggle puppy. It has got the Pug face, and a long body, and long legs. That little one sure can jump.

I know I know Laverne and Shirley...that was the name of Shirley's stuffed cat.

[PepperElf]

no pets at the moment at least none with me.

But I did have Viggo. He's at sis's probably forever...


Back in oh... 2002 or so, one of my new coworkers took me to the animal shelter to just look around and I fell in love with a black cat. Normally I hated manx cos they look so weird and this cat had a stub for a tail... but he was practically rolling over in his cage just to get at me to cuddle. All I could say was "mine!"

Originally when I thought about names I considered Roan (Rowan?) because of a Yes song I'd been listening to but... eh. that just didn't seem like a good name for him. So, because of LOTR of course, I ended up going with Viggo.

And he turned out exactly what I expected - a cat that loved to cuddle and play.

I had to give him up when I went on deployment however cos... after deployment I was headed to Japan. Sis agreed to take him. I think he'll be there forever now cos the kids are too use to him and ... he's been around them more than he's been around me now.

Although the first time I visited home on leave, when Viggo saw me... well first he ran away but later on, when I stayed for a weekend, he ended up doing his old thing of sleeping on my chest. And at one point, I even napped on the couch lying on my side with him draped across my left arm, the way I use to cuddle with him... After that, Sis said he got a lot more cuddly to them.


But here, well it'd cost a bit to bring a cat into the apartment. And my boyfriend wants a dog. I want both really but... we'll prolly have to wait for a house instead.

Though... we have considered perhaps getting a hamster. If we do... I think he'll name it Rhino, after the hamster in "Alpha and Omega".