Talk about your pets thread.

Inspired by What is the purpose of having a pet? in GD. Specifically This reply I felt the urge to reminisce about pets I’ve had.

Rather than hijack that one I think it deserves a thread of it’s own as lots of dopers have pets, and pets are great, and I am sure we love to talk about them. (post links to pictures of your pets if you have them)

My first remembered pet was a black cat called sam. The little I remember of him is that he was always apathetic and poker-faced. He’d just sit on top of the fridge and mind his own business.

Years later came Flossy. Loved her to bits. As a kitten she was very funny (jumping like a kangaroo, walking sideways) In her later years she became a bit more relaxed and indifferent. (The thing I like about cats is they’re not excitable and ‘obedient’ like dogs. they do their own thing) She sometimes burrowed into bed with me and purr profusely (It was like she was digging up a road under there!) and dig her claws into my legs.

Then I ended up living with my brother for a bit (parents moved out, brother moved in). His cat flash (black and white, very bushy hair, drools like mad) is innocent and accident-prone. He’s very funny. He was near my foot once, sniffing something. I moved the foot very slightly, causing him to jump almost a metre in the air! (like those little sucker spring toys that you push down and then they shoot up into the air after the sucker comes unstuck). Once, he was sat on the window ledge of an upstairs window. I was across the road with a friend. I said “I bet he loses his balance” (knowing how clumsy he is). SUre enough he did, fell out, attached himself legs spread wide to the window, struggled back in.

I probably have more anecdotes waiting to be remembered, but for now I’ll leave it at that. I can always pos them later.

I have a Giant Asian Praying Mantis called Pat. It is like having another TV channel. When he gets big he can eat baby mice. (Warning, not for the squeamish).

I pit his utter sub-zero coolness against any mere mammal.

I had to save my dog, Poppy, from drowning yesterday. I’d taken her for a walk in the woods by the river, which was very swollen and fast-flowing. I wasn’t worried though, because even though she’s not a very good swimmer (staffies aren’t generally), she’s deeply suspicious of water - whenever I take her to the beach she justs stands on the shore barking crossly at the sea (and tries to eat seaweed - she’s not so bright, either!). So she’s scampering on ahead of me, but still within sight and ear shot, and all of a sudden, with no warning, she turns and jumps into the river. She immediatly starts to struggle, and it’s a testimont to her strength that she managed not to get swept away with the current straight away. I’m running towards her and calling her, trying to keep the panic out of the voice because I want to get to come towards to me (which she does - she’s normally very obediant), but I can see she’s really finding it difficult to keep her head above water, it keeps slipping under and she’s inhaling water. I get to the bank, fling myself down and manage to grab her collar and drag her out. No permanent damage was done, although she was very cold and coughing up a lot of water, and we must have looked very odd to any passers-by, as we sat on the riverbank in the pouring rain, she’s soaking wet, I’m covered in mud and crying and sobbing “Oh you stupid girl, what’d you do that for?! Oh God, I thought I’d lost you, don’t you EVER do anything like that to me again”, while cuddling her frantically.

I still keep having flashes of seeing her little head going under the water, and it sends a shudder down my spine thinking of what could have happened. But the main thing is she’s ok, and that I’ll know better in the future.

I lived with a girl in college who had a cat named Ezell, after the crackhead in the movie Friday. It’s fitting.

One night she was giving me a hand job and apparently he was watching. And in a predatory mood. He attacked my dick, giving me a 1/4 inch scar right on the head. Obviously, I was pissed. Fast forward a couple of years, she moves away and I end up with Ezell. And I love him to death. He got in a fight a couple of weeks ago and I had to leave him at the vet to drain an absess on his leg and I cried like a baby.

Begg’in your pardon, but my siamese attack kitty would eat your asian badger mantis for second breakfast. :slight_smile:

When I was a kid, we had lots of cats. I’ve always been partial to grey tabbies, and I had one named Biscuit. We had a big woods in back of our house where people used to hunt. One day when I was about 9, I was getting ready to go to some girl scout function one saturday morning, and Biscuit came limping up to the house. One of his hind legs had been literally shot off. I ran screaming for my dad, who is a doctor. He took one look at Biscuit and burst into tears. It’s one of the few times I’ve ever seen him cry. We took Biscuit to the vet, and the vet was able to save him. He lived for several years after that, and was able to climb trees and drag home dead creatures on a regular basis, I don’t think he missed the leg once he healed up.

 Now, I have two cats and a dog.  Phoebe, another tabby, is around 19 (best guess).  I found her in a parking lot when she was about 6 months old.  Midnight, a big hulking but incredibly sissy black cat, was found by my husband at a construction site near his house.  And Auggie, The Cutest Dog on the Planet (TM), our sweet, funny JRT / Aussie mix, we found on the side of the road in a ditch, filthy and starving.  

 It's funny- when I found Phoebe, I had no intention of getting a cat.  I was still in law school and wasn't sure where I'd be living when I got out.  My husband hand' ever even though about owing a cat, until he found that tiny little black morsel of a kitten crawling around a construction site, looking for food.  And we stopped for Auggie because we thought he might be hurt, and we took him with us intending to find a home for him.  By the time we got him home, we'd named him and we'd stopped at Target and gotten dog food, toys, and a bed!

And where might some pictures be of said Siamese Attack Kitty?

Our house is quite full of both people and pets. If you want pictures there are plenty here. I will let you figure out which are the kids and which are the pets.

When I was a kid, we had a German Shepherd named Misty and a cat named Peaches. My father taught the dog to fetch the cat. Misty would seek out and pick up the cat by the head and bring her to you. The cat would then shoot you this look like: “are you happy now?” and then he’d saunter off back to wherever he was before.

Now, we live with a dog and 4 cats. The dog happens to think she’s a cat and the cats happen to think their lot in life is to groom the dog endlessly. Only in our house is the phrase “don’t hump the cat” uttered on a twice daily basis. And the cats dont run away! They purr! Sometimes they roll onto their backs - and not in the claws splayed nose flaying way either!

Never be normal :slight_smile:

Tanookie - yes I know, I have not posted pics in a while. I have a bunch I’d like to post…but I am still grappling with getting a good site up. It’s taking so long because I am working with a professional web designer because I am going to use the site for my business - someday - :rolleyes:

I’ve had many pets over the years, from the disposable hamster-for-a-week to a dog I loved so much that I actually believed that he was “sent to a farm” until I was about 20 years old, rather than face the truth.

At the moment, I have two male cats, who are undoubtedly my favorites of all the pets I’ve ever had. Khan is the elder, at almost six years, and he’s the vainest pretty-boy cat you’ll ever see. Only a cat named after Ricardo Montalban could be so concerned with what the humans think of him.

Sirius is the young’un, at only nine months, but he’s already managed to get fat enough that he outweighs his older brother. Yesterday, the little hellion stuck his head through the handles of a plastic bag full of books I had just purchased, then something startled him and he was off like the proverbial prom dress … dragging at least twenty pounds of books in a plastic bag harnessed around his neck. Once the bag broke and he got it off himself, he hid under the bed in embarrassment for the remainder of the day, while Khan stood at the bedroom door and snickered at him in the feline way for the rest of the afternoon.

I’m not really going to talk about the fish, other than to say that E.T. was an ugly black buggeyed one, and we currently have a shark-type fish that just refuses to die.

Our first cat was a grey short-haried cat with white belly, chest and paws. I named him Nipper, since he liked to nip at your hands when he was a kitten. I loved that cat so much! I had been begging my parents for YEARS to let me have a cat, and then at Christmas, when I was 6, they let my godfather surprise me with one! Up until that very day they had been saying No! When we moved to Germany in 1990, we gave the cat to my aunt while we went up to visit my grandmother one last time. I remember leaving the house to go see grandmaman, and saying “I’ll see you when I get back!” Sadly, the cat ran away from my aunt’s place, and I’ve never seen him again. I was 9, I am now 22, and I still hate that I “lied” to the cat about seeing him again.

After three years in Germany, we moved back, and my parents had in the meantime promised that I could get another cat as soon as we moved back. My sister got in on the deal too, and less than a week after landing back in Canada, we went to the local SPCA with my mom and two aunts, and we chose cats right away. My sister chose a cat similar to Nipper, and named her Mittens, while I chose a scrawny little black kitten and named her the very original name of Midnight. Mittens sadly ran away a few months later - thereby convincing us that grey and white cats are just unlucky for us, and we would never get one again. Midnight became not-so-scrawny and it is safe to say that she owns the house.

That Christmas, my parents decided to get a second cat for my sister, and went and adopted Levis from the SPCA. My aunt kept her at her place until Christmas eve, at which point we presented the little terror to my sister. Levis is an incredibly large and stupid tabby with the most pathetic, high pitched meow I’ve ever heard. She has trouble jumping onto the counter where her food is; she needs several booster attempts before she feels comfortable actually jumping. We also strongly suspect that she was weaned too early, since she eats only tiny food pieces, and does so really slowly. Cute cat, but stupid.

That year, my cousin was given a Golden Retriever for Christmas. This resulted in a fit of jealous rage in my sister, which led to the convincing of my parents that SHE wanted one more than my cousin did, and therefore we HAD to have one. Later that year we got a Golden Retriever of our very own, which my sister named Nike. He was a boy, and before people point out that Nike was the GODDESS of Victory, let me just say that, like Levis, the dog was actually named after the clothing company, not any great mythological knowldge that my sister had! (Levis had been so named because on the day of her adoption, Midnight was found playing in a paper bag from the Levis store - it became the code-name, and it stuck).

So, anyways, Nike was a fantastic dog, very calm and gentle, but sadly he had bone inflammation problems in his legs, and was diagnosed with mild hip dysplasia, which shouldn’t effect him until he was about 6 or 7. The breeder refused to believe us, even after we provided medical proof of this. We recommend AGAINST that breeder now. During the time that we had Nike, my sister developed a form of juvenile arthritis in her legs, and he was always there with her in her pain, and you could almost see a mutual understanding of what life was like for them. I’ve posted about it on the boards before, so I won’t go into details, but when Nike was 2.5 years old, my brother came home and found him in the basement, tongue lolling out, eyes rolled back, not moving his hind legs, etc. Treatment by our local vets, and then the vets at the teaching hospital in St. Hyacinthe were ineffective, and our beloved Nike-boy died early the next morning. We never were able to determine what caused it, even after his autopsy.

Nike’s death nearly destroyed my sister - I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more heart-felt and painful scream in my life. The neighbours came over early in the morning, knowing based on her screams from across the street that the poor dog had died. Sis latched on to the neighbour’s dog, then my cousin’s, and even came home one night with a family-friend’s dog which my aunt had been babysitting. It became VERY clear very quickly that she needed a dog in her life, she needed that attachment and that companionship. Having a dog also guaranteed some physical activity, which she needed due to her physical condition.

We contacted the same breeder that my aunt had gotten her dog from (one which we recommend whole-heartedly) and as luck would have it, there were two male puppies just waiting to be adopted. My parents and sister went to see them, and came back and made the decision that night. So, three days after Nike’s death, we were the proud owners of Sully, a playful, hyperactive puppy which had been returned twice (by uninformed people) since he was a LOT to handle! Sully is going on 6 years old, and is in perfect health. He has always been more of a handful than Nike was, though we now believe that Nike’s mellow nature was partially due to ill health. Nike was a good first dog, and it’s nice to think that he left, knowing that Sully needed a home.

(I’m crying now)

And last but certainly not least, is the Breester. Bree (her actual name) is the cat my SO and I adopted together, and she is currently sleeping on his computer chair, a habit which irritates him to no end since she leaves long white and black cat hair all over it! She’s nearly 2 years old, but still is as soft as a kitten and as bizarre and energetic as she was then!

Although I said “last” for Bree, there is a very good chance that we will adopt another cat in the next year or so, and I definitely have future plans for a dog!

::mnemosyne goes off to give her kitty a big hug::

Before we were married, my wife lived with several roommates. One of them got a little black kitten, who was mainly entertainment. She wasn’t responsible enough to give him the attention he required, and it fell to my sweetie to rescue him from her negligence. The original owner named him Zippo, I think because one, he used to zip all over the place like greased lightning, and two, because he was fascinated by fire from lighters and candles, and burnt his whiskers investigating it once. Said roommates held a party, to which some idiot brought his pit bull puppy, so they had to put Zippo in a bedroom and close the door. Of course the dog smelled cat, and barked and scratched at the door trying to get at Zippo, and in what must have been a fit of bad kittty judgment, he stuck his paw under the door. The dog grabbed it and would not let go, until somebody was able to unclench the dog’s jaws. It ended up being my wife who took Zippo to the vet to get his leg stitched up and bandaged, and she offered to buy the cat from her stupid roommate.

I’d never had a cat before, and I don’t know how I went all those years without one. He’s about six now, and he seems to love me to pieces. One of the highlights of my life that I enjoy no end every time it happens, is that he will jump up on the bed and nestle down in the space between my legs (I sleep on my stomach), give himself a bath and go to sleep there. I treasure this because I know that after Zippo is no longer with us, it’s unlikely another cat will ever sleep with me like that. He also does what we refer to as the “kitty slut” pose, where he’ll lay on his back with his legs spread wide open, waiting for someone to notice and come rub his belly. He has an unique kind of vocal communication that he only uses for me. It’s not a meow, it’s an almost indescribable sound that you just know means that he loves me and wants to be rubbed/scratched.

Zippo used to think he was a people, until we moved to the house where we now live. An orange tabby would always come around meowing at the doors like he wanted in. A neighbor told us the people who skipped out on the rent left him behind. So we let him in, fed him, named him Simon, and took him to the vet, and he has quite happily adopted us. My wife says that orange kitties have a reputation for being sweet but dumb. This describes Simon to a T. He’s the only outdoor cat, and he protects our property from other evil critters, and kills lizards and brings them to the door. A couple of months ago, we walked out the front door, and what did we find on the sidewalk but the head of a squirrel. No torso, just a head. Thanks, Simon. After having lived with Simon for awhile, Zippo began to act more like a cat. We discovered that he could meow. He never did it before he had another cat to emulate!

In October 2001, my wife was alerted to a newspaper ad for a grey kitten, free to a good home. And so we acquired Phoebe, a tiny tortoise-shell kitty. She’s unbelievably cute and funny, and still small. We guess she was the runt of the litter, because she’s fully grown now, and still less than half the size of the boys. I was the first one to hold her when we picked her up, and she seems to have chosen me as her person. She always meows “hello” when she sees me, or when she comes in the computer room. She’ll hop up on my lap and crawl up my chest to be cradled in my arms. Lately she’s discovered that she can position herself with her paws over my shoulder, where she can stretch out and be rubbed. This is how I first held her when we picked her up. I like to think she remembers it and feels comforted by it.

All three of our cats get along fine, there are no fights. Simon is the dominant one. He’ll lick the heads of the other two, forcibly restraining them to do so if he has to. Three is a good number of cats, and we couldn’t hope for better ones. My wife says we have achieved Kitty Zen.

Well one time my cat jumped into bed and woke me up with his meowing so he could be let out. Thinking it was cute what he was doing, I grabbed him and plopped him square on my chest. Soon as I lifted him in the air, the damned thing vomitted all over me ! No warning at all, it was just a gushing fountain spraying fish-smelling cat food all over me. You haven’t lived till you’ve spent a few minutes in bed with warm cat vomit streaming down your chest and neck. All I could do was laugh.

Well, it looks like the CATS are the ones with dishwasher duty. :smiley: And I think that a cat-fetching dog is priceless.

I’d hate to live without our pets. I love to watch them wrestle and race each other. They also like to crouch behind a wall, and peek around the corner at each other. Each cat is waiting for the other one to drop its guard, so it can POUNCE! This usually ensures another wrestling match or race.

I had a wonderful dog when I was a child and teenager. Someone deliberately poisoned that dog, and 30 years later, I will still cry when I think too much about her. I loved her very much, and she returned my love.

I was going to write more about other pets that I’ve had and are no longer alive, but I can’t, it’s just too painful. Each was special in his or her own way, and I loved each of them.

The cats I have now are my first real pets - my parents had a dog, but had to give her away when my second oldest brother was about 2, before I was born. My younger brother had an assortment of hamsters along with a dog and a cat, but the latter two were after I left for college, and the hamsters…I didn’t like them very much.

Over last summer, I was thinking about getting a kitten from the shelter. I was waiting until fall financial aid came in because I knew I would need to take them to the vet, pay the pet deposit for my apartment and the like. Meanwhile a friend who was getting married in October and who had three cats learned that her fiance (now husband) is allergic to cats. Well, he’s a farmer with plenty of places for outdoor cats, but Jake and Scout were declawed and couldn’t become outdoor cats. The third (a kitten about 6 months old) was fine with it - and has apparently taken to being an outdoor kitty very well. She was looking for a home for Jake and Scout, and since I was thinking about a kitten…I took them. They’re about 3 years old, littermates. Scout is all black (13 lbs) and Jake is a tuxedo (16 lbs).

I love having them around. They are incredibly affectionate (Scout’s a little neurotic about it, but I accept that) even though neither one is ever going to be a lap kitty. They are my guard kitties - if they hear that door opening, they have to be there to see who it is. Now, they’re not attack kitties. If someone strange came in, they would likely either approach for petting or hide under the bed.

Jake’s very smart, except for this not managing to bury his poop issue (but Scout will usually do that for him). He knows his name and is very alert to what’s going on and he’s figured out that if he wants to be petted ,to park himself in front of you so it can happen. Scout…well, she’s not so smart - she’s one that wants to be petted so badly, but as soon as you start she wiggles all over the place until she’s halfway across the room.

Right now they’re play fighting with each other and making their noises. I like them. :slight_smile:

It’s funny, I’ve had animals all my life but I’m much more deeply attached to them as an adult than I ever was as a child.

Right now I’ve got three cats, as fishbicycle said, it’s a good number. This guy, hanging out with the little one behind him, is the oldest of the bunch though not the dominant one at all. That picture also shows him at his most active. My black long-haired girl is in charge of the house. This shows her playing a favorite game with the kitten. She thinks she’s hiding. And this would be my ever-lovin’, sweetie-pie, honey-punkin kitten. He’s the most affectionate little thing and adorable to boot.
At least I think so. :slight_smile:

The most favourite cat I ever had was the spitting image of that cat. He was named sparky. And was the son of one of 9 siblings we had in the house at one time* (I can’t BELIIIIEVE I forgot about them in my OP!).He was also one of the quikest to become lost. There was a strange bermuda triangle for pets in our neighbourhood that lay strangely near to the house of a woman named ‘dillis’.

*We had 12 cats. a mother, father, and 9 kittens. we gave all but 3 of the kittens away to family. One of those kittens had kittens it’self and we recieved one of them - Sparky. The three we kept - Larry Curly and Mo, all somehow knew sparky was related to them, and they would cuddle up to eachother.

Currently, we have

Jasmine - 7yr old female beagle.

Mickey - 2 yr old male cocker spaniel

Brat - 2 yr old female tabby

Ceaser and Pompey - degus

Ralph - Iguana

George - hamster

Mac - 10 yr old cockatiel

1 clown fish, 4 damsels

But I really miss my last cat Bailey. She went into the vet for a spaying and came out with a sex change operation. You see, the vet called and asked if she had been spayed before because he couldn’t find a uturus. Turned out, she never had one. She was male. He was just so fluffy that you couldn’t tell unless you looked really carefully. The people we got him from told us he was female.

He ran away. sniff.

The first pet I had that I really, really loved was my cat Socks. We called her Ticky (anyone else read Beverly Cleary?), and later, Tickle. She was orange with white tuxedo markings. She was, in my opinion, the best cat who ever lived.

First off, she was really, truly smart. There was no way any human could put one over on her! One of the best examples of this is how she learned to feed herself. My parents poured 20 lb bags of Meow Mix into a wall-mounted plastic bin in the garage. Pull down a lever, and Meow Mix pours out the bottom. Dad would fill her bowl out there, and bring it in. After a few months of this arrangement, Dad noticed that there was often Meow Mix on the garage floor below the bin, even though he was always careful not to spill. This went on for months, until Dad finally caught Tickle one day. She was on top of the bin, and had managed to push the lever open and closed. Meow Mix was in a small pile on the floor of the garage, and a stray cat was eating it. Apparently, Tickle was running a soup kitchen for homeless cats!

She was the queen bee. She was fiercely dignified, too. She always got what she wanted, and everything she did was, for lack of a better word, “classy.”

She was a mighty huntress. She kept the neighborhood free of mice, bunnies, and ground squirrels. She had a very large territory, and apparently, in good weather, she made her circuit a couple of times a day. Our neighborhood was out in the woods, and a lot of people had nice gardens. The neighbors loved that Tickle came by and hunted the vermin that messed up their gardens. Tickle was always careful to leave the things she killed at the doorstep of the proper house, too. That was how they knew she’d been there. She never killed birds, though she did like to watch them.

And yet she still retained a little bit of the kitten in her. Tickle had a fetish for boxes. If there was an empty box lying around, she’d jump in it. Even if it was too small for her. We had a game that we played together. I called it Danger Hole. The game consisted of closing up a box that Tickle was in, then sticking a finger in through a small opening in the box. The trick was to yank your finger out just before Tickle attacked. And Christmas time was her favorite. There were special ornaments on the tree, just for her to play with. Little bells that really jingled, and soft ornaments she could jump up and pull down. On Christmas morning, she’d race around like a maniac, her pupils wide, frolicking in the masses of discarded wrapping paper.

We had Tickle for nearly fourteen years. When we went on vacation, we’d leave her food and water, and she’d take care of herself. She liked it that way. When we had cat-sitters, she tormented them.

In September 2003, my grandfather died. As my parents packed the car up to go to the funeral, Mom found Tickle sleeping in one of the car seats. When Mom went to pet her, Tickle opened her eyes and gave Mom a look of deep sadness. Sadness was an emotion that cat NEVER displayed. Mom was worried that something was wrong, but decided that she was just being paranoid. After all, the cat didn’t seem sick.

When we returned from the funeral four days later, Tickle was gone. All the “lost cat” posters we put up didn’t help. One of the neighbors had seen her the day we left, and that was it.

We’re pretty convinced she went off to die, as a dignified cat does when the end is near.

Even though I haven’t lived at home in 8 years, I still miss her.

R.I.P. Tickle, 1990-2003

I have a melodramatic rabbit. Last month my other rabbit died so now she is on her own.

The rabbit’s hutch is in the shed. During the day the hutch and shed are left open so she can roam about the garden. My rabbit doesn’t like rain though. If it’s raining or wet she’ll stay inside her hutch. However a few days after my other rabbit had died I found her just sat out in the rain. She may be melodramatic but I love her anyway!

Okay, current critters only. The ones I’ve lost still hurt too much, regardless of the years between their loss and the present.

Trouble is 14 years old. He is a cantankerous old tabby cat. He has seniority even over my husband, as I’ve only had HIM for 11 years. He answers to his name, comes when called, snuggles better than any other cat I’ve ever been owned by. He’s also fighting a liver ailment, probably cholangeohepatitis, which has a very good prognosis for recovery if caught in time. Meanwhile, I have to give the old bastid copious amounts of antibiotics and anti-inflamatories, which is not fun for either of us.

Ladybug is a 8 YO lab mix. She is so sweet. She has an incredible personality, very loving, very obedient, always wanting to please. She belonged to my FIL, who gave her to me when he knew he was dying. She keeps the yard safe from wildlife, as any 'possum, armadillo, rabbit, or other such critter who comes into the yard has a very short life expectancy.

Punkin is a 5YO orange tabby. He is also incredibly sweet. He likes to pick on his sister, but he’s really very sweet to everyone else. He is fat, but moves like lightning when he wants to, and loves a good game of mouse-hockey on the diningroom floor.

Molly is Punkin’s sister, the calico. She is a strange cat. She is actually very affectionate when she wants to be, but she is quite content to be left alone, too. But if she wants to be petted, YOU BETTER PET! She also has a neat trick of jumping from the roof onto my shoulders to be carried indoors.

Jasmine is a 2YO yellow-dog, pound-puppy, only-her-mother-knows-mix. She was abandoned at the prison where my husband was working. The pound got her, and I went and adopted her, when hubby called to let me know. She is very timid with people, but ferocious with other animals (except other dogs/cats–she only goes after dogs if she perceives a threat to her humans.) She is frightened of any sudden movements or sounds, so we suspect she’s been abused in her puppy years. She is very affectionate, and follows Ladybug around like she’s her mom.

Here, left to right are Ladybug, Trouble, Jasmine and Punky. (Ignore the basket of laundry waiting to be folded, that’s normal.) Here is Molly, who was on the couch when the other photo was taken, so missed out on the group photo op.