Welcome!! Introduce yourself!! - Page 2

[aisling]

Hello! Meg here, with our little cat Pixie.

[julesinottawa]

Originally Posted by William's Mom

A link to the animal pictures is in my siggy.

Wow! Those pictures are absolutely gorgeous!!! Well done

[mzfern]

Ditto to the grateful sentiments above – so happy for this forum .

My bundle of fur is Pippin , an adorable two-year-old terrier mutt – black and tan (like a min pin) with a super soft double coat. We adopted him in January from the humane society and he’s a handful most days. He’s dog and stranger-human aggressive, which makes taking walks, having people over, etc challenging. We were working with a behaviorist a few months ago who specialized in clicker training. The ideas she gave us were great, but she didn’t offer a lot of practical how-to advice (and the lack of practical advice made it REALLY hard to justify the $80/hr price). However, I found the book The Power of Positive Dog Training by Pat Miller which provides a multi-week plan for training with a clicker. We started off strong (Pippin is VERY food motivated), but it was a lot harder than the book makes it seem (isn’t that always the way?). Clicker training got stalled out due to us moving house, but I hope to get started up again soon. I’m open to training suggestions!

Another challenge we’re facing now is fleas . The new apartment is infested with them (and we think maybe the grounds of the apartment complex also). This all made moving in very frustrating, to say the least. I think things are getting a little more under control; we’re treating Pippin with Frontline Plus, vacuuming like crazy, and I’m going to get a canister of diatomaceous earth to treat inside.

I’m very excited because I think I found the perfect vet practice! They’re very conservative with their vaccine use, stress proper nutrition (which I need to learn more about from a dog’s perspective), and specialize in various holistic practices including classical homeopathy, TCM/acupuncture, and using Western herbs. Yay!

[Bestbirths]

Looks like we could start a thread for natural flea remedies.....

William's Mom, your cat heesy looks just like our cat Wang!

[Losgann]

Hi Hi :)

I have 3 furbabies-

My dog Blaze who is a brindle half boxer/half pit bull. We adopted her from an animal shelter thru Petfinder in 2002. Everyone told us she was full blooded boxer- the shelter, the vet, the trainer.. until she got up to about a year old. She's the sweetest dog ever. She mothers everything- the kids, the cats, other dogs. Even a litter of kittens we had!

Toby, a gray tabby. He's beautiful. He doesn't have stripes, he has swirls. I've never seen another kitty that looks like him. He is *so* sweet! I brought him home after my idiot brother tossed him outside his house for wetting on the carpet- after my brother locked him in a room without a litter box! We've had him since 2001.

Beau- a black and white tuxedo kitty. He is *rotten*. R O T T E N! He loves nothing better than to sit in the middle of whatever you happen to be working on, stretch out and purr. He's also HUGE! He's gotta be 15 pounds, and he's only a year old! He's not fat.. he's solid muscle!

We also have a Mama Purr, a sweet calico mama kitty who's kittens just went to another foster family at 11 weeks a few weeks ago.. we still miss them. Mama Purr is a *sweetie*! We'll be getting her spayed soon. It looks like she may be staying with us.

I am so glad we have this forum!

[earthenware]

Really happy to see this forum in existence!!

I am the loving mama to a 5 year old black lab named Oakley. I adopted him from a family farm near my home, his (birth)mom was a yellow lab and his dad was a chocolate lab. He is a big boy (he's European) but very gentle and laid back... except when he catches a hint of the words 'breakfast, supper, walk, or outside'!! We love our Oakley-boy so much and I'm looking forward to finding out lots of great, natural, gentle information in this forum!

[Parthenia]

Hi!
We currently have a cat named James. James is a female cat. DD #1 wanted to name DD#2 James, and was quite dismayed when we named her Ingrid.
When Ingrid was about 2 1/2 mos we went to the local shelter and picked a cat. She is a jewel! She snuggles everyone, including the baby. At night she sleeps in dd#1's bed until she decides to crawl into our bed. She loves to show off her catnip mouse toy hunting. She's very patient if Ingrid grabs her when she passes by.
Before James we had a Rottwieler named Kaya. I got her as a 1 year old rescue, and she was the sweetest dog, even though everyone was afraid of her. She was my hiking buddy and guardian. She loved dd#1. She used to “sing” to specific songs by Neil Young, Bob Marley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Blind Melon.
DH and I met as housemates just after I got Kaya. I think he fell in love with her first, and Kaya saw to it that we fell in love so he would stay in her life.
When we bought our first house last year, Kaya’s health began a rapid decline. Her vet believes she had cancer, but at 10 ½, we decided not to do any invasive surgery. So we did what we could to make her more comfortable for as long as we could. When we finally had her euthanized DH, SIL (the ultimate dog lover), and I held her and talked to her until she was gone. DD#2 was born almost 24 hours later.

We hope to get another big dog next year. I go back and forth between getting a puppy from a reputable breeder and getting another breed specific rescue. I don’t think we’ll get another Rottie. I still get a lump in my throat when I see one.

This summer we also had a monarch butterfly caterpillar, who became a butterfly, and we hatched a praying mantid egg case. All but one survived (he ate the others), and we let him go to enjoy the aphids on my moonflower vine. I’m now totally hooked on exotic insects. 

A co-worker has some zebra finch babies, and I’m very tempted to get a pair, but I’m not much of a bird person.

[maeveypoo]

Hey all! We have a 9 year old husky/akita/german shephard mix that i adopted from the humane society named Winter, aka the Moonhound, and a 1 year old kitty that was being given away outside a grocery store named Summer, aka the Sun Kitty (one of these days i'll get pics linked and the alternate names will make way more sense)

~Jen

[stafl]

Hi! Currently we have a dog, three tadpoles which are quickly becoming frogs (frogblog), and a fishtank full of guppies. I had a sheltopusik legless lizard (giant glass snake) for a very long time, but he is no longer with us. Anyone have questions about herps (that would be reptiles or amphibians) I know a good bit about them, as I'm the kind of person to overdose on information. If I don't know the answers, I know where to find them!
I have kept in the past, hamsters, gerbils, rats, one rabbit (to whom I was deathly allergic), a chicken, cats, dogs, frogs, turtles, parakeets, a parrot (I'm also deathly allergic to birds, it turned out)...I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting at the moment. And I even worked in a pet store for a short time until I just couldn't take the stress of seeing those poor animals being so mistreated anymore.

[William's Mom]

Originally Posted by julesinottawa

Wow! Those pictures are absolutely gorgeous!!! Well done

Thanks!!!!

[William's Mom]

Originally Posted by Bestbirths

William's Mom, your cat heesy looks just like our cat Wang!

Awww, maybe we can see a picture of Wang sometimes! I wonder if Wang is as SILLY as Cheesy is. He's a nut, but a lovable nut! :LOL

[jessicaSAR]

I just found this forum! Yea!!!

We are a pet loving family. We just lost our 13 year old border collie Ernie to bladder cancer. But, we still have an almost 3 year old GSD who is a certified search and rescue dog (Sasha), and a 16 year old cat (Whitney). I love reading about all these wonderful pets!!

[Eman'smom]

We have 4 fur babies and a fish

Our first is Daphne she was a rescue and abused, when we got her they thought she was about 2, that would make her 8 now, she had almost no hair and was so scrawny and sickly it was sad, well now, wow, she is a beauty. Still not real friendly but loves love on her terms.

The "kittens" are Oscar and Monte, they are about 15 months old, they were so tiny when we got them from the shelter they would fit in the palm of my hand.

Then there is our newest fur love Dash, another shelter find, she is a (maybe) Shep/lab/sharpi/something/something mix she is about 10 months now about 60 pounds of gentle love, she lets our 23 month old "drag" her around by the collar (by the way, their shoulders are at the same height), she is the best. Of course she has be, we have been battling demodatic mange with her since the begining. We just had her retested this week, they only found 1 mite this time and it was dead, so maybe we have finally beaten the mange down. Lets hope.

[Dar]

Cool! We got our forum!

We have two dogs and one cat. Keith is our geriatric chocolate lab. We got him through petfinder 2 1/2 years ago, and at the time he was a real mess. He acts years younger now, though. We just found out that he has hypothyroidism and got him on thyroid pills, and they've made a world of difference! We're still trying to treat the chronic recurrent diarrhea both of our dogs are plagued with, though. Anyway, Keithie is kind of a mess, with growths all over and arthritis and some other stuff, but he's an old sweetie who wants nothing more than to be with us... although he sometimes gets grumpy if too many dogs want to sniff his butt at the dog park.

Nana is my sweet border collie. She was a stary who wandered up to the home of an unschooling family in Texas, right about the same time that I was posting about how I wanted a dog, especially a herding breed. Within a week she was on a plane to California... that was almost 3 years ago. Nana was almost feral when she arrived, and terrified of everything - she spent a month just quietly lying in her crate, not even voluntarily leaving it to pee, and hardly moving. It's been a long road with her, and she's still pretty nervous and timid, but she has bonded to me and is my girl, and she does interact with other people and dogs at the dog park (although she runs off from most adults if they reach out to pet her).

We have one cat, Cozy . We used to have another cat, but he passed away unexpectedly in April. Cozy came from the animal shelter in 1991, so I've had her for a long time. She's a very independent cat, and always has been. She snuggles when she wants to, walks away when she doesn't. She's fed on her schedule, or else she meows incessantly. She slept with me before our other cat died, but now she mostly lives in Rain's room (I sleep with the dogs, she sleeps with the cat). She had a cancerous tumor removed in 2002 and seems fine now - very tough cat. She also escaped once when we lived on the farm and we couldn't find her for two days, until late one evening we hard the neighbor's three big dogs - known cat and rabbit killers - barking at something. We rushed out and Cozy was surrounded, but she was hissing and scratching and biting at them, and they weren't sure what to do and were keeping a respectful distance. I think if she'd run they'd have caught and killed her, but they didn't know what to do with a cat who fought back, as best she could. I scooped her up - I still have a scar on my hand from her biting me - and my neighbor called his dogs off, and it all worked out...

Usually, I have more pets than this. In my life, I've also had rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, chinchillas, ferrets, turtles, geckos, lizards, tarantulas, axolotls, piranhas (and other fish), parakeets, cockatiels, lovebirds, madagascar hissing cockroaches, guinea pigs, gila monsters (shhh! That was illegal) and probably more...

Dar

[SagMom]

ooooooh I knew this forum was "approved" but I had trouble finding it.

Currently we have two cats--one is 16 yrs old and the other, 13. The older cat has lost weight over the past few years, has slowed down considerably and is just looking....old, but she's not ill and eats well and gets around just fine. I know she probably won't be with us all that much longer, simply due to her age. I find myself thinking about this a lot lately and just hope that when her time comes it can be peaceful and that she won't get sick or suffer. (I'm preoccupied with this as our last cat was kept alive too long--thought I was doing right at the time, but I'd do things differently now.) She was my "baby" before I had children--so, she's been around for a lot!

We also have a hamster--I'm not particularly fond of rodents, but my two younger kids adore them, so...we've had a few pass through our lives.

Oh, and we have a few tanks of fish--my dd's love.

Our newest additon is our 10 month old Welsh Corgi. This is the first dog I've had live with me in my adult life. We had dogs when I was a kid, but they weren't well-trained. I was a little apprehensive about teaching a dog, but it's been much easier than I thought it would be. Some time in the future, I'd LOVE to bring home a Greyhound from rescue. It's something I looked into a years ago, but recently we came upon an adoption info table and the dogs were just so gentle and peaceful that I could barely tear myself away to finally go home.

We've had more pets in the past, but what we have now is manageable and I'd rather not add anyone new for a while. Dd would love to have some Madagascar Hissing Cochroaches, but I'm afraid that wouldn't be the best thing for my asthma or her allergies. She will likely have quite the zoo when she gets a place of her own!

[Ruthla]

The only animals in my house are "my three pet humans" but I'm glad to see this forum up and running!!!

Yeah!! We can reclaim TAO now! :LOL

[Isis]

I have 2 dogs who live with my Mom. Roxy (All black German Shepherd-9years) & my #1 baby boy "Rusty" (German Shepherd-9years).

2 rescue dogs live with us. "Dutch" (half lab/half pit) & "Ruby" (corgie mix).

Cool idea for a board!

[PuppyFluffer]

Ok Ruthla, go back to TAO where you belong! :LOL

It is nice to have this forum.

I'm a bit late to things but here is my crew:

In summary: Three dogs and 5 cats and 1 fish and 3 snails.

In detail:
McDuff aka Duffy A bearded collie in full coat. He is beautiful. He is older than I tend to remember and he has hip dysplasia but he has an easy life here. He was a rescue dog. Originally found as stray, in a shelter, then taken in by a breed rescue and adopted to a women who ultimately couldn't keep him due to her own health issues. I fell in love with him when he boarded at a kennel I worked at. I've had him since 1995 or so and he was about 3 then.

Annie "the dog formerly known as Hannah" An american Staffordshire terrier. Another rescue dog. She's about 10 now and agile as a 2 year old. She's dog aggressive, as these dogs frequently are. I love her and she fits with our family very well but she will be the last of this type of dog I have. Just too much vigilence required with them.

Buster The basset hound. I am so NOT a basset sort of gal but he is cute. Again, a rescue dog. He is living the good life here after being abused at one home then going to another to live tied to a dog house. He is really pampered here and he's not the typical fat stinky basset. He's lean and does not drool and has great ears, no infections!

All the cats were rescues too.

There's Thelma and her daugher Louise. Originally knows as "Angel" and "Kitty" and at my house, those names would never do! I've had them for a long time.

Then there's Molly, a long haired cat. Very hot cold personality. She loves you for a few days then couldn't care less if you pet her for a month....she's a cat, what can I say! :LOL

NIcholas joined us several years ago. An orange tabby, my favorite color for a cat. He's great with DD.

And we just got Toby, as if 4 cats were not enough.....VEry obnoxious in your face cat....just the way I like them!

We have Sushi, the betta fish. Sally, the golden mystery snail. A new un-named smaller mystery snail and the "baby" snail that must have come with the new small snail as a hitchhiker. I love the fish and am considering getting a larger aquarium.

[Poetmama]

Glad to see there are so many of us who consider our animals part of the family!

My newest baby is an 11 month old German Shorthair named Jay-Jay. She comes to us by way of a family member who breeds and trains them for a living. He isn't a puppy-mill kind of guy, he usually has 7-9 pups at most. A couple of weekend ago on a family camping trip, I mentioned I wanted a family dog to run with, and he offered up a female. Next thing I know, I have a new family member!

I am happy to have new dog in our lives, our best buddy of 10 years passed last September. Bongo was a cocker spaniel who was my first baby and will always be in my heart!

We are the freaking nuclear family these days: two kids, a house and a dog!

[kanga1622]

We are parents to Keegan, a 15 month old 8 lb miniature poodle (possibly a cross - we're not sure). We picked him up from a local rescue group when he was a week shy of a year old. He's got significant allergies so he's a bit high maintainence. We're working this week on switching him from his regular Wellness food to Wellness Simple Food Solutions to see if his allergies are food and environmental or just environmental.