When we got our first apartment, we got Mittens. And her first friend was a chinchilla that we named Chilla. We used to let her run free and Mittens would run after her. Chilla taught Mittens how to make sharp turns by bouncing off the walls with her paws. What we didn't know about Chilla when we got her was that she was an expectant mother. (We figured this out one Saturday morning when we heard a noise coming from her cage - Adam was like "OMG, she had a baby!")
With 2 chinchillas and one small cage, we decided to get them a double decker to give them room. And I thought we should get something to fill the one small cage.
We ended up getting a ferret, Meeko. We thought this was great because the lady at the pet store said we'd all live happily ever after (ok, pause - I was young and so much more stupid then - I'm only mildly stupid now). So we brought them home and within a month, Chini was mobile enough to roam free and got through the bars of the cage and when his mom called him, he came home. During one of those times, we had Meeko out too and after a short chase, Meeko got a hold of Chini (with Adam chasing them to catch Meeko) and it was too late. Chini died in Adam's hands. He buried him in the backyard. A moment of silence for Chini....
***I know I have some pictures of the chinchillas, and maybe one of the killer ferret but not on my computer - I'll have to find them and scan them in - this was back in the day when I was not thinking about pictures and memories and such important things. Not to worry, I'm making up for those years.
We couldn't live with the guilt of keeping Chilla, so we brought her back to the pet store (without a refund - how could we? We got 2 for the price of 1). And some real nice lady at the animal shelter was personally going to take in Meeko so they wouldn't have to put her down....lucky her.
So we got Cisco to keep Mittens company. He was such a docile kitten, a little on the fraidy side.
Then we did a whole bunch of moving...from Winthrop to Brockton to New York City and back.
We got Buster and Daisy when we bought our house 5 years ago. And the following year, they had the biggest litter ever known to a Corgi - 8 puppies. You don't know doggie poo til you've had 10 dogs living with you - the grossest thing ever was watching Daisy eat her dinner and proceed later to toss her cookies for the young'uns to snack on. ugh!
Some photos of some of the puppies:
This was 6 of 8 - The only one I can remember and sort out of this photo was Spike - the black and white one - he looked like the bad Gremlin with the same name because of the white streak on his head. They lived in 1/2 of our unfinished basement while they were little - we fenced them in while Daisy was nursing them.
This is 5 of 8 - their names appear on top of the photo (I must have edited this picture to put their names on their so I could tell them apart).
Just about the same time that Daisy had her puppies, I fell in love with CocoaPuff at the local shelter - so we brought her home - she was about 8 weeks old - never made a peep but tore up the just one year old carpeting on our second floor...so she got declawed and I swear - it took her kittenhood away - she only likes us everyday at around 6am when it's time to throw down a can of Friskies. To this day, I swear the reason why we ever had a 3rd child was because I went out and adopted this cat and threw off all the balance in my life - we had 2 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats - until CocoaPuff.
*Note - we didn't keep any of the puppies - they all got good homes.
About 6 weeks after CocoaPuff came along, we found out that Melody was on the way - I spent 9 months in complete disbelief that we were going to become a family of 5. So after Melody came along, we thought we had escaped any more additions to the family - but then we found Odie - at a pet store....because we were stupid - while Odie may be the dumbest dog to ever roam this green earth, his owners (Adam and I - as much as we say we got the dog for his dad) can be even more stupid than the dog. Tell me how we were supposed to resist this puppy face -
That's Angel with Odie (Adam is holding him like a baby next to her). Odie is one interesting character...he eats cat food, goes through the trash for snacks and I won't mention what he likes about the bathroom trash.Our most recent and hopefully our last zoological mistake was Trix, the bunny. We got her to replace Bean - who was an old red bunny we adopted from the shelter. Bean died of natural causes last summer. He was an indoor bunny and when spring came we got him an outdoor hutch. Not 2 weeks later, dad went to check on him one afternoon while he was watching our kids and found him laying peacefully on his side. A moment of silence for Bean....
So we got Trix - from my cousin's neighbor who breeds bunnies...she was just a baby when we got her...
this photo was taken 2 weeks before tragedy struck - Melody opened up her hutch while Odie, Buster and Daisy were loose in the basement. We were upstairs when we heard all 3 kids screaming and the dogs barking -Dylan came running to tell us what happened and we couldn't make it time to save her from Odie. (No blood, just shock and possibly a broken neck) Trix died in my hands. A moment of silence for Trix...Needless to say, the kids were in trouble- but in Melody's defense, she was only 2 - trying to feed the bunny some hay, which never happened before. And in Odie's defense, dachshunds are made to hunt small animals like rabbits. So while we would have wanted to get rid of Odie (and Melody, for 2 minutes, at the time) neither was an option.
But there will be no more animals in this house -
if I can get rid of the cricket that has been chirping for the hour that I have been trying to write this. SHUT UP CRICKET - you're driving me out of my mind!!!!!
1 comment:
What a saga! BTW - I think the cricket left your place and came to mine. I've been listening to it since Sunday night. Lucky me I can sleep on my good ear and not hear a chirp out of it.
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