Pets

The other day the kids and I were talking about pets I had as a kid and the ones we've had throughout the years and Tita asked me which one was my favorite.
I told her that since I really grew up at my grandparents' house and they always had a dog, I considered them my dogs too.  I never really got attached to them though and once I grew up and moved out on my own, I had an array of pets.
I told my kids of a puppy I bought that I named Dallas (Yes, after the nighttime soap opera.  I was THAT obsessed.  Speaking of which, I am totally re-obsessed with the remake of Dallas 2012, but that's another post.)
Dallas was a purebred Collie.  I don't have any pictures of him because, well, I didn't even own a camera. HA!, but he looked like this:

(via Google)

He was adorable, but he certainly wasn't the brightest color in the box.  I remember one time a friend I used to call Diamond Dave told me I should look for a roommate because "it's safer."  I told him I didn't need a roommate because I had Dallas to protect me.  He reminded me that Dallas wasn't too bright.
Diamond pretended to be hitting me and I was play screaming.  You want to know what my "guard dog" did?!  He got very angry and started to attack me!  That's right!  Dallas was trying to bite me.  Stupid dog.  I felt real safe and secure with my "guard dog" after that, let me tell ya!
Not too long after that, I was going on vacation and Diamond offered to keep Dallas for me while I was gone.  Well, a couple weeks after my vacation, Diamond came over to apologize because Dallas was going to be a daddy to his mutt's litter.  Diamond owned a mutt that as far as we could guess, was at least part weiner dog.

(via Google)

Yeah, you can only imagine what the litter looked like.  They had faces (and bodies) that only a mother could love.  They were down-right UGLY.  Diamond ended up keeping my "guard dog."

Later, someone gave me a baby goat.  Yes, you read that right, a goat and I bottlefed it and kept it at my house (!)  That didn't work for long.

I didn't have another pet for a few years until my dog Bonnie.  She was a few years old when she was given to me.  She was a doberman and she was so incredibly smart.  She was awesome.  I remember trying to breed her a few times, but it never worked because she would beat up any male dogs that ever came near her.  It just wasn't going to happen.

She died a virgin.

She looked like this:

(via Google)

After Marko and Tita were born, we got a Cocker Spaniel we named Austin.  Yeah, I'm from Texas...can you tell? (:

Austin looked like this:

(via Google)

Austin was great with the kids.  He had so much patience with them and never, ever snapped at them.  Not even when both babies were climbing all over him and pulling his tail and ears.  Austin loved to dig though and he managed to get out of the back yard one day and was never to be seen again.

A few years later, we got Sulley and Boo.  The kids named them after the characters from Monsters, Inc.  They were Labrador brother and sister that the kids loved.  Boo got Parvo and died immediately.  I seriously took Boo to the vet the very day she got sick and she died that evening.  Poor Sulley hung on for a few weeks and it was so heartbreaking to watch him suffer.  Even with IV and meds, he just couldn't fight that dreaded disease.  He died also.  It was so sad.

Sulley and Boo looked like this:

(via Google)

I didn't want pets after that because it was so hard to see Sulley and Boo suffer the way they did.  But the kids kept bugging us for another dog when they were older.

The kids got a fish at the carnival one year and we had that fish for almost 6 years.  It was itty bitty when we got it, it was probably about an inch in length then.  When we moved to the farm last year, for some reason it died the very next day after moving.  I'm not sure why.  That was sad because we had had it for so long.

The kids also had 2 Hermit Crabs.  Those were gross.  'Nuff said.

The kids later got 2 sharks that we bought for them.  We got home and put them in their own fish bowls and went to bed.

The next morning, Tita woke me up crying, telling me that one of the sharks was gone.

WHAT?!

I jumped out of bed to see where the shark could have "gone."

Sure enough, it was GONE.

Ok...shark cannot just.......... "leave," right??!!  There was water spilled all over the counter, but no shark.

I had no idea what to do or what to tell her.

For some reason I looked to the floor and about fell over when I saw the shark flapping around on the floor!

I thought maybe Tita had tried to get the fish bowl and the shark fell out.  But she didn't.

Apparently, the salesperson "forgot" to tell us that shark, even the ones that are 3 inches in length jump out of the water like this:

(via Google)

I wish I were kidding!!

So I scooped him up with 2 envelopes to put him back in the bowl because it was the only thing I could find at that second, because, well, it IS a shark and if this 3 inch shark could leap that far out of the water, it could possibly bite my arm off...right?!  I just couldn't take the chance that this shark would attack me.... in my house!

Anyway, he was never the same after that.  He was apparently blind because he kept slamming into the glass.  He wouldn't eat anymore and two days later, we found him floating at the top of his bowl.  Poor thing.

I told the kids that we usually had a cat at my mom's house.  They weren't my cats, that's for sure.  I had never really been a cat person until Sidney:

Some lady at the hubs' work was giving away a litter and I instantly fell in love with Sidney.  He scratched the crap out of me the first week.  But he soon got used to us and loved us.


He was S*P*O*I*L*E*D rotten.  He knew his name, of course, but he knew I always called him Baby and he loved to cuddle with me. He was awesome.  One day he disappeared and even after looking high and low for him, we just couldn't find him.  And we were crushed.


Then we got a Blue Heeler pup and we named him GusGus because he was so fat, just like the mouse from the movie Cinderella.  He was awesome too.  Here's a pic of me with GusGus.  Isn't he a cutie?!

The kids were small at the time and our house had one of those modern picket fences in the back.  The kids lifted one of the pickets one day and forgot to put it back right and GusGus got out.  We never found him either.
And now, we have Peditos.  He is by far, my favorite dog in the whole world.  He seriously thinks and acts as if he were one of my kids.  And I think so too.  We love him and he fits in our family just perfectly.
He's even included in our family pictures!

Because he IS family (: