I found Percy by perusing the Uncle Henrys. I went to Maine and looked at the pups and they were all adorable. I picked him because he was the most playful of the litter. I put a deposit on him and went back and picked him up at 8 weeks.
He just turned 5 this month and he has been the best dog I have ever had. He is more like a soul mate then a dog. I know that sounds crazy but he is so dear to me. 
My parents got me my oldest dog when I was 11 and she’s 14 now. They weren’t dog lovers so they decided to buy a purebred Tibetan Terrier - she ison the smaller side (20 lbs), doesn’t smell, doesn’t shed to speak of or aggravate allergies, and her breed is known for being healthy and even-tempered - she certainly is.
My next two pets, my 10-year-old dog and 5-year-old cat, were both found on the streets and I took them out of pity. They are both really good-looking (pup is a red-brown German Shepherd mix and kitty looks just like a purebred Korat), that’s probably the main reason I kept them. I love them both although the dog have some aggression issues and sheds, and the cat has severe mood swings (bites, scratches).
My younger cat I picked out from a neighbor’s litter of kittens because my other cat is a raging bitch. He’s the cuddliest, sweetest kitty ever.
When we finally moved to a place where we could have pets, my wife and I went to the SPCA. There were some cute-ass kittens there, including a stunning pair of siblings - one almost all black, and one almost all white. We loved them. But in the cage right next to them were two beautiful, but not as stunningly colored girls. The black and white kittens were nice, but these other two just WANTED it more. They stuck their paws out and just begged us to take them. The result is Lisa and Trudy. I wish I had kitten photos.
Later, we kinda wanted another cat. Again, to the local SPCA. As luck would have it, there was an off-site pet adoption fair that day that we didn’t know about, so the actual SPCA site was really thin - all the best cats were out at the fair. We didn’t want to just grab any old kitten, just because the pickings were slim. But the only (yes, the ONLY) kitten there was simply adorable, and desperate to come with us. They said he was 6 weeks old, but the vet we eventually took him to said he was actually 6 months, but malnourished. We named him Butch, and he’s just my favorite entity in the world other than about a half-dozen humans.
Joe
When I was a young boy many years ago, the neighbor’s unspayed runaround cat had kittens (no surprise) and also psychological troubles (one of their daughters had Down Syndrome and loved and hugged and squeeeeeeezed the cat until the poor thing bit her in self-defense). This traumatized momma cat rejected her litter and wouldn’t nurse them, so there was an immediate call to come get kittens and bottle-feed them. My parents allowed my sister and me to go choose one each.
The kittens were dumped out in the middle of a newly-made bed for us to size them up.
The kittens did not quite have their eyes open, although some of them could squint weakly. They were already moving around, in tentative wobbles, without obvious purpose. One by one they wobbled and mewed and tripped over each other.
And then the little tiger-striped one seemed to look right at me. Gathering his strength, he began to advance across the vast bedspread right to me. As he came on, he was visibly mastering movement – his trembling eased and he began to stride.
“This one is mine! He’s meant for me!” I thought. I beamed encouragement as he walked directly across the bed, strong, proud, head held high for the first time…
…Nearsightedly passed within inches of me, and strode off the edge of the bed, tumbling to the floor with a tiny thump.
“Oh yes,” I said out loud, “That’s definitely my cat.”
My Luna picked me. She meowed at me. When I picked her up, she licked my face. She has not done that since.
Katya was in the same room as Luna at the no-kill shelter, was cute, and seemed friendly enough. We wanted two cats that I could tell apart without my glasses at five feet (so I can tell who’s sleeping on my feet), which means no cats that look alike. It was a plus that they were together at the shelter, so we didn’t have to deal with introducing them to each other at our apartment.
Serendipity found us. We were dining at the Crimson Crustacean one evening, leaving with our leftover cheesey biscuits and lobster pizza when this timid, emaciated torti steps out of the bushes and looks at us. She’s clearly frightened, but so starved that hunger over-ruled her fear. I got some bits of lobster from the leftovers and handed them to my wife who crouched down to feed her. Before my wife could even ask, I said, “Well, we’ll take her home. We can quarantine her in the sunroom and get her some leftover chicken while we run to WalMart for basics, take her to the vet Monday.” She rode home with us, purring on my wife’s lap. To this day she still loves to go for a ride with us.
Bear we adopted once we got settled in with Serendipity and had her spayed and she was recovered. We went to one of those adoption fairs at Petco or Petsmart or whatever. Bear is jet black, and we are suppose he’s quarter Siamese due to his vocalising and shape of his face. He was kind of grumpy at the store, not wanting to be picked up or held, though the foster lady said he was normally a lap kitty and liked being held. We took a chance and took him home. He hid from us a bit, and after a day he hacked up a huge hairball. After that, he was extremely friendly. Apparently he’d just had a sore tummy.
The two are fast friends, now. Serendipity is more ‘my’ cat. Or rather I’m ‘her’ human. And Bear seems to be more attached to my wife.
Does your cat make unusual sounds, or have an unusual fur texture? Our Katya looks like a Korat. I got to pet a purebred Korat at a cat show once, and it had fine, soft fur, like Katya’s. It’s very different from Luna’s more normal fur. Katya also does not usually meow- she communicates with squeaks and cooing sounds. The Korat I saw at the cat show made some similar sounds.
Luna, being a Siamese mix, meows enough for two.
We have two cats. We chose our most recent addition pretty carefully, since the one cat we had (we’d lost another cat a few months earlier) is fairly dominant, and loves to play & wrestle with other cats. We got her just b/c we were looking for cats and my husband really liked her, no particular reason.
We went to a shelter to look around, and played with a few different cats. One was sweet, but too calm - she would NOT appreciate being bombarded by another cat. One seemed promising, but hadn’t ever lived with other cats before.
The third jumped down from his cat condo onto my shoulder, and put his front legs around my neck. He also got along great with other cats, liked to play but was pretty passive so there were no issues with our other more dominant cat. He loves everyone, still gives “hugs”, and loves to be chased by our other cat, so it worked out well!
I mentioned my kitty boys, but forgot my doggie girl! One of my husband’s employees had a litter of Doberman pups for sale, and when he got down to the last one he gave her to us for free. My husband brought her home for the weekend “on a trial basis”…well, you know how that goes. I wasn’t sure I wanted a dog, and would never have chosen a Dobe, but she’s been wonderful.
A few months after I moved to NYC, I decided I was adult enough to have my own cat. I had wanted a pet badly the entire time I was in college, but knew I wasn’t quite responsible enough to be a good caretaker.
On a whim one day, I went to an adoption day at PetCo and found Kitty, who looked very similar to a cat I’d had as a kid. She’s the friendliest cat ever, always wanting to hang out and be petted. And she likes to be smacked on the butt with empty plastic bottles.
A year after getting Kitty, I moved in with my boyfriend who I turned into a full-fledged Cat Person. I decided that we were such good Pet Parents that we should get a second cat. We wanted an adult female that wouldn’t be able to beat up on Kitty.
We found White Cat at another PetCo adoption day. She was less than a year old, but had been living on the streets and was really skittish around people. She spent the first week we had her hiding behind our toilet, looking malnourished.
White Cat and (the rechristened) Brown Cat aren’t ever going to be best friends, but they get along well enough. White Cat is now a fatty and far more tolerant of people.
When I was about ten, my parents and I picked up our dog as a puppy at the North Shore Animal Shelter in south-shore Long Island. I noticed her right away, and she latched onto us. She was a retriever/lab/basenji mix and was absolutely adorable.
The process of taking her home from the shelter though was rather unusual. They made my parents fill out more forms than getting a mortgage, complete with character references. At the very end, they asked the seemingly benign question of whether we had a dog house. We used to have a Great Dane, so we did have it for her to use outside when it was raining. Well, that was apparently a trick question. They refused to give us the dog.
My dad went back and told me there was a problem. I started to bawl quite loudly, and he said he’d ask again if there was something he could do. They didn’t budge, but my dad remained steadfast and said that he refused to explain to me that I couldn’t have the puppy, that he was staying at that desk until one of their own workers went out to explain how having a doghouse meant we couldn’t have this puppy that we had all already bonded to over the last two-hours at the shelter. Well, that must have softened them up a smidge, as they relented…
But it didn’t end there. They made us promise to remove the dog house, and supply them with picture evidence. They also said they’d double-check our references and that they had better be “squeeky-clean,” or they’d drive to our house and TAKE AWAY our dog. We removed the doghouse for a year until putting it back, but we have never gotten over what draconian asshole policies that shelter had in place.
My best dogs have been someone else’s rejects.
I had a chow who lived to be 20. Someone else didn’t want him because he wasn’t up to show quality. Best dog I ever had.
‘My’ current dog, some guy gave to my husband when he was at the dump. Goofy little bastard was supposed to be my dog, but he seems to think the sun shines out my husband’s ass, which is all right. He’s provided endless hours of entertainment, and when it’s just me here he thinks he’s supposed to guard me, so it works out.
This is just great.
How did I pick my pet?
Given that he’s just chosen a particularly unpleasant night, right after I’d retired with a muscle relaxant and his daddy is in Victoria, to favour me with an especially persistent recital with no visible source of ‘inspiration’, I’m thinking the answer is “with insufficient foresight.”
