Animal House

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I was told the other day that I BETTER think of something to write about.  *lol*  So here!!!
However, if you're not an animal lover, then just go ahead and pass right by this blog.  All this is going to be about are 4 legged blessings with a LOT of pictures.   I have been an animal lover my entire life.  Chances are if you've known me for any length of time, you'll remember at least one if not all of these.

When I was growing up, my mom raised Persian cats, Doberman Pinschers and Afghan Hounds.  Before I was born she raised horses.  I wish I could have been alive then.  A bucket list entry for me is to ride a horse across a beautiful meadow as fast as it can go.  Unfortunately, I am not a horse rider so the possibility of that happening is next to none.

My first memory of an animal I actually have a picture of is below.  I adopted  kittens from one of our litters and named them Blueberry, Wallplug and Lightplug. Crazy original huh?  I didn't get to keep them.  Once they left that was the end of cats for a while. I also had a pet duck when I was 6.  His name was D.D.  Mom said it was for Dumb Duck but it was just DD to me.  He tried to follow me to school and also swam in our pool with me.  We eventually took him out to a friend's pond so he could hang out with his bird friends. 
 

Infamous green carpet I mentioned in my first blog....

 We then had Doberman Pinschers.  "Cash" had extremely bad gas if I remember correctly.  "Bonnie" was a petite little girl that was just adorable.  She had a litter of puppies that I got help take care of.  To this day I still remember the smell of Puppy Chow and water mixed together because that's what we fed them.  One of the puppies accidentally was stepped on by someone and I remember it being devastating.  He was bleeding and my mom was trying to save it.  UGH, sometimes I hate vivid memories.

After the Dobermans we started raising Afghan Hounds.  We had Penny (Lady Penelope Szerzo), KC (K-Z's Summerwind Akaba) and Cella (Mahadi's Silver Lima de Prima).

KC & Penny

Me & Cella

They are absolutely beautiful animals but a pain in the butt to keep groomed. When I was in 2nd grade, the Dothan Eagle did a story on my mom raising the Afghans.  When I got home from school, they took a picture of me and the puppies to add to the article.

One of the puppies had a tendon problem so several times a day I would work the puppy's paws back and forth trying to stretch the tendon.  I saw a lot of litters born and learned very young how precious even an animal life is.  When the Afghans were gone, we didn't have any animals.  Until Morris.....

Morris and Murphy

Murphy was a sweet little baby that was abandoned by his mother.  He hardly had a chance he was so sick.  I was trying to nurse him back to health and ended up killing him.  He liked to cuddle up close to me at night.  I woke up one morning and he was hard as a rock.  Suffocated.  My dear sweet Dad tried to give him mouth-to-mouth we were all so upset about that little fella.

His final days

Morris the Cat came into my life when I was in middle school.  He was there throughout all the rough stuff with my parents divorcing.  I can't tell you how many times I would go outside and lay on the concrete or grass and cry to my kitty.  As he got older, he developed a skin condition.  A really nasty one at that.  He lost a lot of fur and it was replaced by scabs which bled all the time.  When he was 15, he had a stroke.  It was winter so I kept him inside by the wood burning stove.  I had to pick him up to get food and water.  Late one night I went in to check on him.  I got down on the carpet, cuddled around him and just started talking about all the things we had been through together.  I told him I hated seeing him suffer because it was breaking my heart.  He was gone the next morning.....


In high school I had a little white doggie named Duffy.  He was named after Duff McKagan in Guns N Roses.  Ha! Ha!

I didn't do well with bunnies.  I tried for a short time after Morris.  I thought I was doing a good thing by letting the bunny play outside while I was out there.  Unfortunately, I forgot the City had been out to spray the yard.  Bunny ate the grass and died the next morning.  Another image in my brain.

Let's see........after the bunny came our time with Shelties.  The little girl was Prissy and the boy was Kane.  These were really smart and beautiful dogs!  Remember the near-flood Dothan experienced in the 90s? These two babies were stuck in the crawl-space of my house during that and it was full of water!  My mom swam out into the water, underneath the house and rescued them.  Prissy was standing on top of Kane and they were up to their noses in water.  But they lived!!!  Mom eventually got rid of Prissy and gave Kane to my sister.  I don't know if Kane was trying to get back to us or just ran away but he was found shot on the side of the road.  I'll end that story right there.........

 Along came Joe.  Joe was one of the coolest cats I had ever met.  He was sweet, mild mannered and a great cuddler.  Joe passed away the year the kids were born.  He had Leukemia.  Anytime his name is brought up now, it's almost always followed by "I miss ole' Joe.  He was a good cat."  That he was.

A friend of mine was watching my dog for me when I had brain surgery.  When I went to pick up my dog, he showed me a kitten he was about to put in the woods because he didn't want it.  I TOOK IT!  It was way too little to be all alone!  He named her Biloxi but I just cut it off at Bill.  So then I had two cats, Joe & Bill.

When I lived with Chad in Louisiana, his brother Michael had a dog named Loretta.  Since I wasn't able to work, I got to spend a lot of time with her and fell completely in love.  When Chad and I split, Loretta and I did too. 

After the split, I got an apartment in Louisiana.  I was lonely though because I have always had animals around me.  So, I adopted Spencer.  Spencer's mom was killed by a car when he was a little baby.  He lived on a car lot and was absolutely nasty.  He weighed 1 pound, he had an upper respiratory infection and kitty herpes.  When I moved back to Dothan and started dating Josh, he rescued a kitty that was getting his butt kicked outside of our house.  This cat fell in LOVE with Josh!  It was adorable.  He was found in October and he was orange so we named him Punkin.  So then we had Bill, Spencer and Punkin at our house and Joe lived at moms until he passed away from leukemia.

A little while after we moved into our new house, Bill disappeared.  We have no idea what happened to her and Emily still talks about her to this day.  Several years later, Punkin developed diabetes.  I noticed he was drinking a lot of water and he couldn't walk right.  The vet said he would live but he would have to have shots every day.  I couldn't do that to my baby, him not knowing why I was sticking him with a needle all the time.  Punkin then passed away.

Punkins last few days.....cuddled with Spencer

 Spencer lived for 14 years.  The last couple of years of his life were absolutely miserable.  I finally gave in and had him put to sleep.  It nearly killed me.  Josh did it when I was at school for PTO one day.   He even brought him back home and buried him for me.  These were his last days:

Man, it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest.  If you're not an animal lover, you can't imagine what it feels like to live through this, let alone relive it by writing this post.

But, all of that brings me to where we are now.  Four years ago on a rainy July afternoon, we came across a puppy while we were all out riding our bikes.  I brought the kids on home while Josh tried to find out who the pup belonged to.  Josh walked through the door with this face:

Introducing....TRIGGER!!

This picture is so funny to me.  It's like he is trying to put on his best cuteness so we will keep him.  I wasn't the problem, it was Josh.  He said we would keep him in the yard until we found his owner.  No owner found.  So then he was just supposed to stay outside.......but then this happened.

SUCKERRR!

He became an inside dog but he was NOT going to sleep with us, period.

Need I caption this picture?!?!  SUCKER!!!!

 Really though, could you deny that face?  Trigger Treat Edwards is truly the best dog I have ever owned.  He's so smart.  He's funny.  He protects his family.  He's just awesome :)  No more cats.  No more dogs.  NOW I understand why my mom always said when we got rid of our animals, we wouldn't get any more.  It's just too hard to lose them.