We thought at one point this last weekend she was going to land on the head of one of our sons, but she veered away and went straight for the lamp again.

Haha

None of the three parakeets I had during the course of my life ever perched on the lamp, they always prefered the curtain rod, and the ate away at the wallpaper The lovebirds don't like the curtain rod, though they've percherd on every possible piece of furniture, Zula even perched on Lucy's cage once, but she didn't think it a very great spot. The birds are a little suspicious of Lucy and she doesn't think very highly of them either.

Here's a funny bird story, I only just discovered the Zula has planted a garden in her cage . She's rather messy when she eats and she must have thrown her seeds around the cage. Both my birds have this terrible habit of spilling their water on the cage floor once they are through drinking, so the seeds were watered and recently they sprouted

I have to admit, despite Zula's very nasty temper, she's really fun at the same time and never lets things get boring. Zuzu is more passive and basically does nothing all day, he just eats, drinks and sings VERY loudly from time to time. (seriously, those lovebirds are quite noisy, my sisters are realy saints for being able to put up with them. Though with time you do get used to all the chirping and it becomes background noise )

I've admired so many different dog breeds (and mixed breeds, too), but I've always loved the idea of a Newfoundland dog. ...
I've heard one drawback is that they drool a lot, however. Oh dear.

/latest reply ever....
I don't know if you'll ever see this Rose, but I have a Newfie. Her name is Fiona. Does she drool? Yes. But does she drool a lot? Only when I give her peanut butter OR if she's out running, running, running, she'll start getting foamy and nasty. She's nothing compared to some of the Mastiffs I've seen.
Now one of the biggest issues I've encountered with her is her grooming needs. I had plenty of time to brush her when I didn't have kids, but now that I do, she's hard to take care of, and I don't have the money to take her in to a groomers all the time. Just last week it started warming up so I took a scissors to her and cut off a LOT of fur, mostly on her legs, belly, and tail. I'm not done, but she feels a lot better. Goodbye mats.
Here she is with my little girl (Well, her head anyways.)

I saw, fantasia! Oh my goodness, that picture is so precious! I've always heard that Newfies are splendid with children and it looks like your Fiona is no exception! *takes some notes about peanut butter and vigorous exercise* I'd love to have one someday, although I'm not sure how happy they would be in the North Carolina summer heat. (I'm miserable enough in July, and I don't have a thick fur coat! ) I suppose I'll have to see where I end up living in the next several years and then pick a pup according to the climate.

While this story isn't about a "pet", it is about an animal...

Narcolepsy in horses is supposedly very rare. My riding instructor had two horses that had signs of it. One was rare and occasional, the other was a known diagnosis. She's since sold one, but has the mare with the known diagnosis. The mechanism in a horse's knees that keep them upright when they fall asleep doesn't work in hers, so she will face plant if she falls asleep standing up. However, she knows it's a problem, so when she gets drowsy, the mare starts shifting around to keep herself awake.

When my instructor bought this mare, she bought a gelding at the same time. Apparently, due to mud, this gelding has been missing his afternoon nap. Yesterday, while tied to the rail getting groomed for lessons, he fell sound asleep. When the rider went to adjust his stirrups, the horse about fell over on top of him. He is NOT allowed to turn into his "sister". No more narcoleptic horses!

I took a picture of him sleeping with his head on the rail. I'd upload it, but it's not at a spot I can do that at the moment.

Another funny horse story:

My trainer has this stuff called Quench that we use if a horse isn't drinking well or is dehydrated. It's a bit like Gatorade for horses. My trainer has a mare by the name of Lark who hasn't had it before.

It's been REALLY muddy (like 12in+ deep in places) and muggy. I went out to get her one day and it was fairly obvious she hadn't had a drink in awhile, so I mixed a small bucket of Quench up and Lark stunned me by drinking the bucket as fast as she could. She pretty much was like a dog with a treat that you try and take away a part of it so they don't scarf it down too fast. "Excuse ME! Come back here with that! I am NOT through!"

I fixed her a second bucket and she drank that one too. (She was slightly dehydrated, it was a high temp, high humidity day.) I rode her and offered her another bucket with about a half a scoop of Quench in it instead of a full scoop. She drank that one too. I quite literally touched the bucket and she glued her eyes to it with an expression that said "More please!" before I gave it to her after the ride. I originally wasn't going to give her any more.

Two nights ago, she had back to back lessons to be ridden in and she came in with signs of not having been near a water trough again. This time, we just hauled a bucket of water out to the arena and offered her and the mule a drink between classes. Lark was offended there wasn't any Quench in it. I was told she stuck her nose in, mouthed it, and pretty much turned her nose up at it.

Goofball mare. No more Quench for her for awhile. She needs to stick to straight water.

Another amusing horse story...

There are such things as equine chiropractors.

For awhile now, Lark's been showing signs of being chiropractically "out" in her hindquarters to some extent. She's also been exhibiting bad behavior at certain points. My trainer has a chiropractor come out to the barn once a month and I paid to have Lark see her yesterday when she came out.

When you go out to see said horse in the pasture and her lower lip is so relaxed it's noticeably lower than the top lip and her expression clearly states "all is right in my world again"... and you get reports that she pretty much didn't want her appointment to end... you know the horse really needed it.

lol.

My trainer's got a couple of horses (Lark included) that will take one look at the chiropractor and totally relax because they know she makes them feel better.

Since I last posted in here, we lost Lark to colic.

I've begun working with another horse by the name of Bentley. He's 17.3 hands tall. Or in a more human version of measurement, his shoulder is just under 6 feet off the ground. He's a big teddy bear who loves to jump. He's had some health issues we've been working him through and thankfully he seems to be coming back quite well. I've been working through building a relationship with another horse (even if it never gets as deep as I had with Lark) with him. Yesterday we had an interesting moment. He spooked twice at the sound of a broken mirror in the stiff winds. Second time, he turned his head and pushed up against me as if he was hiding or seeking reassurance that the noise wasn't going to eat him.

I'm focusing on riding Rosey this week and next probably. She seems to have forgotten the basic rules of when I sit on her back. Or gotten lazy about it. She is a big girl and can carry herself. And I don't care if she thinks the jump standards will eat the mule or not. She will walk, trot, and/or canter by them politely and in a straight line or she will go in circles until she decides straight is easier.

Silly mule.

Silly horse story...

My trainer has a 3 year old who qualifies as a pony in height despite being a full blooded and registered quarter horse. Usually you don't want a horse jumping till at least 5 so that the bulk of their growing is done and the growth plates start fusing.

She was turned out by herself one day and got bored. She jumped a 3.5ft fence cleanly. Silly baby. Now all she has to do is finish growing so that she can learn jumping with a human riding her is a lot of fun.

I have 6 cats, 3 chickens, and a dog.

Little Miss Sunshine is our oldest cat, I think we got her in 2010. Her name was meant to be ironic because she was half-feral when we got her from a friend and scratched me good during our first meeting. I thought it would nice to have a cat with attitude…not my smartest moment, but she‘s mellowed over the years and likes getting attention now. She’s all black except for a few white hairs under one armpit/shoulder, whatever you want to call it. Got her because the cat we had at the time(Joxer, named by my nephew when he was around 3 or 4), he was getting up there in years, and he was a great mouser, so I wanted him to pass on his skills to the next generation. He died November 1, 2012. What he did pass on for sure was the habit of thinking anytime the electric can opener was running, a can of tuna was being opened that they were going to get some of.

Munchkin is our Siamese, I just happened to take my Avatar picture of
her at just the right moment. Found her and her sister on October 21,
2012. I remember the date cause it was the first snow of our cold season that year. I was going to feed/water neighbor’s animals while they were out of town, and I heard this meowing, and it freaked me out, because she had mentioned finding a stray kitten a few days before, and I didn’t remember if she had kept it or just saw it, so I was worried I had been neglecting poor kitty. Following the sound, I saw Munchkin walking around crying, just crossing from the lot next to neighbor’s onto their property. Ran home and got a cage since they were skittish about me touching them. She had a sister, Kentucky, hiding under a dilapidated shed building on that lot. Munchkin was the smaller of the two, so that was her naming reason, Kentucky was from KFC due to her eating habits. Munchkin is short-haired, Kentucky was long-haired. Unfortunately Kentucky died in 2014 due to surgical complications.

Misfit and Fussybritches are grey/black tiger striped cats that we got in June 2014. Literally woke up with them on our doorstep pretty much, with their two brothers(Hedgehog and Pirate, who disappeared last year, Hedgehog because he had salt/pepper hair that made me think of spines like a hedgehog has, not a porcupine cause he was short-haired. Pirate because he had a bad eye infection when he was a kitten and I thought that eye was a goner, so started asking for ideas for a pirate name for him, since a one-eyed cat should have a pirate name, so a friend eventually said to just name him Pirate, so I did, and his eye recovered). I forget what my reasoning was for naming Misfit, but Fussybritches was because the add-on to the house I kept them in at first(I would always quarantine new kittens to make sure they were safe, plus they could get used to the sounds/smells of our house without being directly bothered by it), whenever I would go in to feed/water them and change their litterbox daily, she would hiss at me. So I decided she was a fussybritches…and eventually she went from hissing at me to crying if I didn’t pick her up J

Dianne I got in 2015 from a neighbor. Another neighbor gave them two kittens found in the garage of their neighbor(who is their ex-wife…long story). Neighbor didn’t know what to do, so they called me because I’m the only one they know with experience with kittens. She looks almost exactly like Misfit, but smaller and huskier. Well actually Dianne is a boy, but apparently I can’t gender cats to save my life despite my experience with them, and they’re fixed now, so as far as I’m concerned, Dianne is a girl!!! Her brother was named Stoner(he was black/white like neighbor’s cat, and since I constantly teased neighbors about their cat’s features making him look like he was always wasted or something, they said I had to name him Stoner if I took him, he disappeared last year…that‘s the downside of his name…we live in a small town type atmosphere, and walking around our neighborhood yelling STONER is not a good idea). Dianne gets along best with our dog Scruffy actually. Cute to watch them playing.

Pebbles we got last fall, she’s black/white, and I got her to help Dianne with Stoner’s disappearance, and Pebbles is the cat that Dianne gets along the best with, though none of our cats really ‘get along’…best that happens is they just ignore each other. The black/white cat of our neighbors(named Blackie) also looks very similar to Pebbles, and they get confused when they see each other.

Also had another black/white cat I named Pepe Le Pew, though his coloring was more like a backwards skunk. He showed up a few weeks after Joxer died, and disappeared a couple years later one Monday night(and Tuesday morning a neighbor asked about our cats, cause they were woken up in the middle of the night by a NASTY catfight near their place).

Our three chickens are Hardboiled(the rooster, they were a dark grey as a chick like the yolk is in hardboiled eggs), the hen was a proper yellow chick, so I named her Omelet, and our lame chicken(raccoon attack) I named Cassidy as in Hop-a-long Cassidy.

Scruffy is a schnauzer/terrier mix we got in 2009. Mom wanted a small dog, and there was ad in the post office for him for free, so we got him. And it turned out he was born on mom’s birthday(he came from a breeder, so we got his info with him). And he likes being sung to, if the song is right. He likes Jingle Bells, but don’t try “You Are So Beautiful To Me”. He also will start growling if you ask him if he’s okay…I don’t know why, but those words set him off for some reason.

Funniest thing I’ve seen our animals do would have to be Misfit. Once as a kitten, she got in that hyper mode when they just run around like crazy, and she ended up running onto the kitchen bench and flattening herself on the window. She didn’t hurt herself at all, but for a moment she was spread on the window like those toys with the suction cups on their hands/feet before she slid back down.

^I enjoyed reading about all of your cats, Kalta... I especially got a kick out of the name Fussybritches. I've never had a cat — something I'm going to have to remedy one of these days — but I've always loved thinking up names for them, or hearing stories about where they got their names!

Cats can be fun, and they have the advantage of being a little more independent than dogs. Except for the neighbor's cat Blackie, he's trying to adopt me, because I would feed him when his owners were out of town. They sold their house and have moved, but they made sure the new people would take care of their cats, and Blackie's sister Gray has adopted one of them as her human.

Oh I forgot to mention, Dianne I named after the woman who told me about an organization that fixed seven of our cats for free(well the procedure was free, but I did have to pay $15 total I think it was to not have their ears notched), they even picked them up and dropped them off. And so I named her after that woman because I found out later that she died the day I got Dianne. And Pebbles, since I got her to help Dianne with losing Stoner, I went from Stoner to Pebbles to keep with the 'rock' names.

Scruffy's name, his previous owners said they called him that, and it fits, he hates to be groomed. I can only do a little at a time, so he always looks scruffy.

And we're also getting at least one goat next year. I also want a pair of Katahdin sheep(I think that's how it's spelled), because they shed their wool, and shearing sheep is more involved than I want to be. I'd prefer to just brush them.

It's been about five years since I've posted in this thread, time for an update.   That above pictured baby is now a curly-haired five-year-old. 

We still have our cat Abi, she's probably around 13 years old now and still doing just fine. 🙂 Since having kids she's been a complete recluse, only coming out first thing in the morning for breakfast or at night after the kids are in bed. My youngest daughter who is obsessed with anything that breathes drives her crazy, pulling her out of her den and playing with her against her will. ...poor kit.  

We also still have Fiona, the above pictured Newfoundland. She's now 11. Pretty amazing for a Newfoundland as the average lifespan is 8-10 years. She definitely has arthritis in her back hips/legs, so she gets around slower than she used to, but she can also get up and move if she so desires. Fiona's relationship with the kids would also be described as just okay. She'll tolerate them to be sure, but if they get too rambunctious, she gets up and leaves and I can't blame her one bit.  

But because my youngest is an animal obessed child, and because also felt it'd be good for the older two to be around pets that might actually not avoid them, we added two kittens to the family a couple weeks ago. 

The first is Calico Katie. She's a bitty little thing, though in the last couple days with another diet change that has finally worked, she's started packing on the pounds. But even so, she's still fairly calm and quiet for a kitten and she'll sit on laps (much to my older two kids' delight). She's also long haired and doesn't clean herself well, so she has lots of partial baths a day. She doesn't like me as much.  

The second is a little orange tabby girl named Waffles. Waffles is what I'm used to in a kitten. High energy, crazy, loves to run and jump and play and bite and scratch. As a result, she's the less popular kitten, especially when she pounces on Katie and makes her cry. So as a result, she's kind of adopted me.  

But both kittens are very sweet and much loved.  

Fiona also loves the kittens. She's always been a big fan of cats, but for some reason cats don't like a 105lb dog shoving her nose in their business....don't know why. 

Abi I think knows that the kittens exist, but has zero interest in coming upstairs to find out what all the fuss is about, so she's not actually met them yet. Last night was the first time she "saw" one via a shadow the cross the baby gate we have up. She turned around and went right back downstairs. Fine with my husband and I. We'd like the kittens to be a little bigger and able to defend themselves before all three meet. 

Man, this is an old, old thread.  I feel it's a little presumptuous to start a brand new thread so I guess I am raising this one up.

I don't know about anyone else but we completely got suckered into the "pandemic pet" fad.  I am pretty sure I have heard of that being a thing. 😝 We had a single cat, a 2-year-old mainly white calico named Hammy.  We had gotten her to be an emotional support pet (we are using the term loosely) for our autistic son.  But I think he was still too young or maybe she just didn't match his personality, I don't know, so she had latched onto me.  She is OK with the kids but she's not a cuddler with them so not really much of a comforter.  Anyways, we decided our son was old enough to train his own kitten (he did an awesome job, too).  We had been prepping him for a year so I guess it wasn't a total impulse decision.  But we weren't expecting to get one just yet.  Then we saw some friends on Facebook trying to get rid of some barn kittens and they were so cute we just had to say "yes".  So off we went and this time we made our son understand he shouldn't pick the first one he saw nor the one he thought was the cutest.  He was to sit with them and observe them to see which one was the friendliest and most willing to cuddle.   In the end, we brought home a very dark grey/brown tabby with white nose, paws and belly and we named him Gizmo. He is quite the rapscallion and my son's hands are covered in little bite marks but the kitten recognizes when my son is getting upset and coms and starts to cuddle him right away.  I saw him do that with my daughter too.  She was crying and he ran up to her, jumped in her lap, and started nuzzling.  

We knew our daughter was going to be jealous but we don't trust her with a kitten of her own (she would treat it more like a doll than a living animal) so we got her a betta fish.  At first, she refused to accept it was a male so she named it Dory.  She's under the impression all pet fish have to be named after Finding Nemo characters.  I don't know why.  She's only seen the movie once.   We bought it one of those little Betta bowl starter kits but now we're realizing there is no room to put in a heater and even in summer we are already struggling to keep the water temperature up.  He doesn't eat when it gets cold.  So we're going to upgrade to a tank big enough for a heater before our frigid, Canadian winter arrives.

So now we are a pretty full house.  And it might get more full as I am really enjoying looking up fish information with my daughter so I might want to start a tank of my own.  We picked one up from the thrift store today.  It doesn't have any filters, lights or heater and it's too large for a 7 year old to handle so I'll save it for later.  If I do start my own tank I am waiting for next summer and my kids are better in the routine of caring for their own pets.  I already have my eyes on the Tiger Barb.  haha

Oh, and our older cat, Hammy, hates, hates, HATES the new kitten.  She is supremely terrified of him.  She won't even come to the half of the house where we keep him.  She is an indoor/outdoor cat so we would let the kitten run around when she was outside anyways.  But now she's choosing to stay outside more and more.  She pretty much only comes in for the night.  She is usually 100% indoors during the winter so she's going to have to confront her fears at some point.  I had watched every "introducing cats" video on YouTube and none of the tips work at all.  She just refuses to go along with any of it.  For now though, the rotation schedule we have going is working OK.  The kids play with her outside during the day and at night she comes in for her cuddles with me (she is really my cat, after all).

I have two cats named Clarence (Claire) and Peyton... there used to be three cats, but one died about a year ago. I often joke about that they would talk in Narnia.

Our kitten has decided he likes to be the boss of the house.  I think he will end up being the dominant one of our two cats.  Our older cat is finally starting to accept his presence but they are still most definitely not friends.  She just wants to ignore him but he keeps getting in her face and will swat her, stalk her, jump on her and steal her food.  Their spats are not friendly but neither one is truly trying to hurt the other one either.  It's more him going "Tag! I got you!" and her going "leave me alone!"  The kitten is finally old enough to be neutered so we're hoping that will take the edge off of some of his aggression. Our female is fixed so we're not worried about kittens.  We just don't like how bitey he's becoming.  We're trying to teach our son how to redirect the kitten with a toy (the kitten actually belongs to our son).  The kitten still loves to snuggle and nuzzle and plays his role as an emotional support animal (our son is autistic).  As the weather turns colder our older cat will be staying inside more and more so here's hoping they start to get along more.  Or, at least, the kitten leaves the older one alone.  I will be very happy for there to be a ceasefire. 🤣