Pets

[Reisheiruhime]

So, does anyone have any? I have 2 dogs, and 8 cats. Did that give you a heart-attack or what?

[Sevothtarte]

I grew up with a lot of animals. At least five cats at any given time, a dog, some birds which didn't last long because of the cats, fish, my little brother ...

No pets right now, wouldn't be happy in my apartement. I want a turtle and a cat, though, and I'll get them once I've got the space for them.

[Damelon]

1 ten month old cat, 2 dogs (labradors).

[Ryzel]

I grew up on a farm with animals like cattle, a horse (filly), sheep and cats. Now I have moved to the city and have nothing in the way of animals. One of the reasons for this is that I am mildly allergic to various animals, especially horses. (Which probably is the most I have in common with Covenant. )

[duchess of malfi]

One nine year old black lab named max, who is my baby doggy, one nine year old huge orange and white puffball of a cat named Tigger, who is my baby kitty, and my younger son has a three year old silky furred orange and white cat named Bud and he also has a snail named Speedy Gonzales.

[[Syl]]

funny this topic came up.

last night I had to put Monty, my five year-old ferret, to sleep. he's had an adrenal cyst for the last year. other than producing hormones that made his hair fall out, the vets said it was benign and wouldn't affect his lifestyle ($800 surgery to remove). yesterday it caused his prostate to swell and cut off the urethra (urine tube). needless to say, that causes a lot of complications. the surgery to get him fully recoverd, if it succeeded, would have been a minimum of $2k. sadly, the military doesn't have pet insurance.

he had a good life. my wife had him for a year before i met her. he was playful and curious, but calm and friendly if you wanted to hold him. he'd stare down dogs, wrestle cats, jump from balconies, and wouldn't be afraid of anything except the vacuum cleaner. he never bolted out the front door, but he'd walk right out like he owned the place if you left the door open. he managed to escape that way three times. one time he was lucky enough to be found by a person that kept him with eight other female ferrets until we found out where he'd gone. he'd beg constantly whenever i ate cereal, go crazy for treats, and absolutely hated baths or water in general. he'd run off like damp, furry lightning before you could dry him off. he loved to play with plastic bags, moving blankets, and anything plastic he could dig out of a wastebasket. he was a great friend.

if you've never had one, ferrets are great pets. they're a lot of work (like 2 year olds in some respects), but worth it. my wife got a ferret because it's one of the few pets who don't give her allergic reactions. they don't make any noise, but have a lot of personality.

Monty has a little sister (not blood related) a year younger than him named Freya. i think she's started realizing Monty's not home. we're going to take her to a local ferret shelter today (we were going to in a week because we're going overseas) so she doesn't have to be alone.

the wife and i are very sad.

[Damelon]

Sorry about that Syl. It's a tough thing to do, taking a pet to the vet to be put to sleep.

[The Leper Fairy]

I currently only have my african grey parrot name Gryphon. I had 3 white mice for a school project once... withn 3 weeks I had 21, but you can't clean the cage when there are little babies... the whole wing of the school smelled terrible. I gave them all back to the pet store later. I'm had tons upon tons of hamsters. I think 27 total. When I was in 1st grade, I got the job of watching it over the summer, it died, I cried. 2nd grade, I got to watch the new hamster, it got out of its cage, went under the floorboards and we had to cut the floor to get it out, dad wasn't too pleased. It got out again and died. That was the end of babysitting other hamsters. So I got my own... They mostly got out and... you guessed it... died. I had one hampster, Denim, who could unscrew the little tubes. But everytime she got out she went to the same place. Eventually though, she went neurotic and died. She did have babies though.... I think... I gave them to the pet store too. Later, I got another hamster, a fat grey thing named Chippy. She had babies. Chippy was the best hamster ever. She lived an almost full life but it wasn't very long because as my crazy step grandma would say, "they dont have a very long shelf life" Chippy had about 6 babies I think, I left them together too long and they ate one. Now that is disgusting.

Anyway, my bird, Gryphon, is waaaay better then any old hamster. We've had her for about 4 months. We were playing with her outside once (Like we always did) and she caught a draft and flew into the trees on the next block, we couldn't find her for about 15 minutes. It was awful. Gryphon is so in love with my dad, it's almost sickening to watch. She'll sit on his shoulder and cuddle her face on his cheek and coo at him. Blech. She is about 9 months old. She can say, peekaboo, hello, how are you, whoop whoop whoop (Like homer simpsons does) and some whistle and such. She likes singing to Green Day Me and my friends also do this thing where we yell "BAUUUUU!!!" really loud to locate eachother on the ski hills and such and sometimes just to see what kind of reaction we get from people, anyway, Gryphon picked that up and it's the cutest thing ever. Hee, she is also potty trained. Although my mom's customers look at me really funny when I hold her over the garbage can saying "Can you do a good poop, Gryphon? Big poop?"

Well, now that I have suffieciently lulled you all into a bore-coma I should stop writing.

[Sevothtarte]

My favorite pet story: I was very little, 6 or 7. Christmas Eve, we went to church. What we didn't know was that one of our cats was pregnant - she had never looked anything different from normal or had given any other signs. Well, while everybody was in church she had her kittens. Since we hadn't prepared a 'nest' for her where she could 'hide' them and keep them warm, she went to hiding them herself. Each baby kitten in a different place. Behind the stereo, behind the couch, behind a cupboard, in a drawer ... when we came home and realized what had happened we set out to find them. It was like searching easter eggs on Christmas Eve, trying not to be killed by the mother who saw her babies endangered ... best, funniest christmas I ever had.

[fightingmyinstincts]

Well, let's see...I have an unknown but probably close to 12 number of cats....6 dogs? 7? Let's see...Jam-Jam Reggae; Thaddeus(or the Kung Fu Puppy); Moggy; Fathead; and my two--Phudge and Linden....guess six is all! My cats are named Bean, Boom and Squeak, Wookiee...The rest have names but those are mine.....

[Vain]

Had 14 cats at one stage - although many were kittens. Then had kids and somehow the amount of pets dropped substantially - we would move house and they'd run away - that kind of stuff but we never replaced them.

Had Guinea Pigs when I was young - they flourished and multiplied but then our dog ate them - it was rather traumatic at the time If I remember correctly, the rabbit suffered the same fate then we gave the dog to a farmer but the dog got killed by a tractor.......there's a Woody Allen movie here somewhere

[Skyweir]

we've always had animals .. dogs and cats mainly..

now I have an old black cat .. named Montgomery Lister ... monty for short

[honourably named after a noted war hero 'Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery .. and a sci-fi comedy character hero .. Red Dwarf's Listy!]

and one younger female cat .. who has got to be the most attractive cat in world history .. named 'Dizzy'

[in honour of a noted Starship Trooper action hero]

before we moved to the big smoke :razz .. minus the smoke .. or should I say .. the little smoke ~minus the smoke .. anyway .. we had a blue tongue lizard .. named Izzy

he slept in bed with us .. he was sooo cute .. and cuddly!! And he would play hide and seek .. and nearly always win .. he was a natural blender no not the kitchen appliance type ..

we also had a green tree frog .. but we kept him in a terrarium kinda aquarium .. he liked it there .. and we have always had fish! gold fish mainly .. oh yeah and a couple of extraordinarily humungeous huntsmen spiders!! we usually just remove their constant presence from the house .. but these were so impressive we decided to keep them in captivity

we had pet mice too .. but that all came to an untimely end once the kitties entered the household .. amazing how apt they were at ferretting the pet mice out of their mouse sanctuary!! ..

We've taken in many strays .. dogs .. even a horse once .. an echidna .. possum and countless birds [in the old days ~ victims of the cats ]

The cats we have today are too lazy to chase wildlife .. they prefer the quiet 'tinned sardine' life ..

[birdandbear]

We currently have three cats, plus one that we're catsitting for a couple of weeks. (If the natives let him live that long.) Cleo is five, she has all the coloring of a russian blue but none of the size. She is a fat little cat with short legs and a stubby tail, and frankly, she's a little dim, but she's the cuddliest thing on four legs. Rowan, Cleo's three year old tuxedo black offspring, is my sons cat. Rowan sleeps with him, let him lug him around by the middle when he was younger. Also much brighter than his mother.
And Lia is beautiful and knows it. She's solid white, petite, with huge blue eyes. Dainty, graceful, and aloof, she is a model of feline disdain. Except maybe that'll change now, since yesterday she became a mommy. Sadly, one of the kittens was stillborn , but she has two surving babies. A little orange tabby boy, and a little girl- white like her mother, but with one gray spot right on the top of her head. So actually, I guess we have five cats now.

And poor Lucky (my friends cat, the invader) weathers death threats, ambushes, and assasination attempts on every quarter...

[Vain]

Crikey Sky !! Did you perhaps enjoy the Gerald Durrell books? My Family and Other Animals was a riot

[Sevothtarte]

@Sylvanus
How tame can ferrets get? There's a guy around here I sometimes see walking his ferret on a leash - would it leave for good if he let it go free? How affectionate are they? How, er, clean are they?

[Skyweir]

OMG!!! ROFL .. LOL .. LMAO!!

I just re-read my last post and just about died laughing!!

he [Izzy the lizard] slept in bed with us .. he was sooo cute .. and cuddly!! And he would play hide and seek .. and he would nearly always win .. he was a natural blender no not the kitchen appliance type ..

.. it may just be my twisted sense of funny .. that was a faux pais of criptonic proportions!!

now for clarification .. Izzy would NOT play hide and seek while in bed with us!! .. this was during all our waking hours ..

.. he wasnt that cute!

[Sevothtarte]

now for clarification .. Izzy would NOT play hide and seek while in bed with us!! .. this was during all our waking hours ..

So ... you weren't sleeping, and he wasn't hiding, instead he was just where you wanted him to be, yeah? No need to explain further, we all know what you mean.

Healthy and well-adjusted indiviual was it, eh?

[Skyweir]

[[Syl]]

i've never met an untame ferret. they can be feisty like kittens, tho. they won't bite if you discourage that behavior when they're young. Freya occasionally nipped at my toes to get my socks when i wasn't looking.

my ferrets were more playful than cuddly, but that varies by each ferret's personality. mine would want to be held and cuddle maybe twice a week or so. they loved to play, though (pushing them around in a cardboard box, sweeping a towel or blanket across the floor for them to jump on, chasing little jingly balls, and such) and would go crazy for treats. they love going on walks and playing in parks, but mine hated being on a leash because they weren't trained for it when they were young. they won't take off like birds or anything, but they can be too curious and adventurous for their own good. the few times Monty escaped he never went far, but didn't have enough directional sense to find the right apartment after he went out. despite what the state of California may think, studies have shown that ferrets are unsuited to live outdoors and will not generally survive more than a few days (zero reported cases of feral ferrets in the US).

ferrets are pretty clean (they groom themselves like cats), but they get fragrant if you don't give them regular baths. all ferrets except for some sold by private breeders have had their scent glands (like skunks, but smaller and less potent) removed, but they still have a distinct ferret-y smell (no worse than dogs, imo). they'll use litter boxes, but you have to train them to do so (though some people keep them in their cage except for to play for an hour or so a day... kind of cruel unless it's a bigger cage and they have other ferrets to play with... but i wouldn't recommend owning just one ferret anyway).

they're a lot of fun and a lot of work (think of them as little furry two year olds and you're not too far off). great pets, but not for everybody.

this is assuming you're in the US. i hear UK ferrets are noticeably different.

[Bannor]

I have an oscar (fish for the uninitiated) whom I named Luthien. I tried several male oscars (named Beren I, II, III), but Luthien killed each suitor. Now, she just swims around waiting to be fed.