Pets and why we love them

[Darth SS]

How many 'round these parts either have or have had a pet? A dog or cat or rabbit or guinea pig or velociraptor? Ever notice how they always have "that one story" which always make them stick out in your mind? What's "that story" about your pet which everyone should know?

A good friend of mine recently got a cat. I like this cat. He's well natured, friendly, doesn't really seem very interested in my prescence. This cat also hates her boyfriend so hard, just so hard. This cat once walked up and puked on his shoe, then stared straight at him. Anyways, I was recently informed about how unbelievably devious this cat is. When it has decided that it wants to be played with, usually whilst my friend is studying, it has begun jumping onto her desk before staring straight into her eyes and pushing something off the desk. Most recently, it has stopped just pushing stuff off the desk and has instead begun to slowly push stuff off, staring into her eyes the whole time. Clearly, her cat is a reborn mafia member.

For me, my family has had dogs broken up by a brief period when we had 4 guinea pigs. The dog who my family had before I was born was named Homer. One day my parents brought home the tiny, squealing bundle that was me. Having divined his purpose in life, Homer proceeded to spend every moment by my side. If I cried, he howled. If I slept, he stood guard or curled up next to me. When new people came to the house, he would glue himself to my side, carefully observing every person that came near me. Only recently my parents told me about how the day I went to school for the first time, he lied down at the door, just staring at it. Sadly, he died at the age of 16, which was 13 years ago.

This tale comes to mind because I recently met a friend's newborn baby girl. This family also has a 3 year old Newfoundland. For those of you unfamiliar with the Newfoundland breed, this dog is about 150lbs, and the entire time I was over it was never more than a foot from the baby, and never stopped watching me. If anyone makes a move on that baby, I get the impression that the otherwise sweet natured family pet will switch from "Rupert the big red dog" to "Garmr" and shit will go down.


How about you NPF? Have you enjoyed furry companionship?

[Melfice]

Well, we used to have a budgie, and it was pretty tame.
It'd talk my ear off, while sitting on my shoulder. If we had cake, dear gods, you'd be finding bits of it all across the room. It even shared dinner several times.

Just... we had to make sure to watch him when there was any beer on the table.
Once he took an unintended bath in a glass of beer.

Reeked for hours and his otherwise blue feathers turned green.

Too bad he died a couple years back now. Five years? Who knows?

We have had two new ones since, but they're not quite as tame.

[Flarecobra]

I've had several pets over the years.

My favorite was a corn snake that I had. It was friendly, for a snake. Loved to be coiled up on me when I read. Sadly, I had to give it up when I went into the military.

My father, on the other hand, has always had pets. Usually birds, mostly parakeets. Though as of late he's had cats that were just goofballs. The newest, a calico, is just insane, and a klutz.

[Menarker]

I have several pets over the years (and now)

One of my personal fave is one of my cats. Fairly large cat (although she slimmed down a lot lately), common breed but incredibly soft fur. She was a wild cat who just out of nowhere decided to come inside our open door one day and nest in our shoe drawer and stayed with us ever since.

Affectionate to the point of falling on her side when you pet her, so you can rub her belly and she licks your hand in the process. And a purr that sometimes is more like a chirp. ADORABLE!

And despite her size, she is an amazing hunter! She even caught a BAT for me once and dropped it at my feet!

<3 <3 <3

[TDK]

I've usually had a cat. I had the best cat for fifteen years, but he died. I have another cat now. I really want a puppy. I've never had a puppy of my own I could bond with. When my parents' dog had puppies a few years ago, I chose one and named it and stuff, but they gave it away.

[Ryong]

My family had a dog, but she got rabies and had to be put down around the time I was 4. We got another a couple of years later and then my mom's boyfriend at the time gave her a dog back in 1998. We moved and my uncle kept the first one, who died around 5 years ago. My current dog is currently 13, he's supposed to be a Brazilian fox terrier, but he's got a lot of other breeds mixed in. He sleeps a lot now and if you haven't been around for a while, he'll adamantly try to defend the yard, but, normally, inside the house he's harmless, go figure. Also, he takes heart medicine because he's getting old D:

[Satan's Onion]

Mine is very much a pets family--cats in particular. I mean, I've had cats since as far back as I can remember.

At the moment, we have:

Cubby (gray, the son of a cat named Bear). He's a bit dim, and a sensitive plant, but very sweet. He absolutely adores my mother, and my mother absolutely adores him.
Mosh (black, my mother named him and Cubby). He's more quietly confident and confidently strange; he does whatever the hell and he does not give a fuck. He knows how to piss in the toilet and no one ever taught him that.
Her Divine Grace And Serene Majesty The Godhead Empress Kitty (stripes of light gray, dark gray and white; also, she has like seven toes on her front paws). She's kind of a rescued kitty--she started hanging around the property for food and skritches, and she had an injured leg that gave her a limp. My mother coaxed her into the house so her leg could mend, and she adjusted to the role of indoor kitty quite admirably. She's tiny and adorable and astonishingly bossy.


Recently we also picked up a couple of dogs. Carlie was dumped on my family by my uncle, who is less a man than a pungent shit in vaguely-human guise, after his wife and family basically got tired of having to take care of her. She's very energetic--she's still a puppy, basically--and allegedly (a) a purebred black Lab and (b) trained at an obedience school. However, she's almost certainly not the former and patently not the latter; in fact, she occasionally exhibits behavior problems which make us all wonder what exactly my uncle did to her. On the bright side, though, she's a pretty clever dog, if strong-willed. There's a good doggie in there somewhere, but it'll be a lot of work bringing it out.

Topaz is almost Carlie's complete opposite in terms of personality. My mother loves him madly, and he loves her back, but he's also very friendly and mellow and patient with practically everyone he meets. (It's been said that he'd make an excellent therapy dog, in fact, if we had the time to go through the whole program and all.) He's also rescued--we live in a prime area for pet dumping, so we've adopted or placed quite a few pets in our day. As far as we can tell, he's mostly yellow Lab, with maybe some retriever in him, and he's so well-behaved it's almost uncanny. Carlie used to absolutely despise him, but time and familiarity have made them much better friends.

tl;dr I've had pets all my life, and in fact I can hardly imagine a life without them.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

The last dog we had died in 1997. Always wanted another, but my mum won't allow it.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Because they maul little children and melt the ice caps.

[Amake]

My family had a couple of cats and a S:t Bernard that weighed more than me when I lived back home. Though the best story involves only one of the cats, who once woke me up in the middle of the night with an eager headbutt in the face. He was soaking wet too, fresh in from the rain. So basically I got a wet hairball the size of your fist rammed into my face with a force of maybe five kilos. While sleeping.

Man, he's been dead about half my life, but I miss that guy.

This tale comes to mind because I recently met a friend's newborn baby girl. This family also has a 3 year old Newfoundland. For those of you unfamiliar with the Newfoundland breed, this dog is about 150lbs, and the entire time I was over it was never more than a foot from the baby, and never stopped watching me. If anyone makes a move on that baby, I get the impression that the otherwise sweet natured family pet will switch from "Rupert the big red dog" to "Garmr" and shit will go down.
By the eyeteeth of Anubis, how right you are. I love how dogs love babies.

[Magus]

Somebody gave us a female beagle, it ended up mating with another beagle, so we had a bunch of beagle puppies to give away. I ended up keeping two them for myself, then someone wanted the mother for a hunting dog so we traded her for his labrador puppy which my sister got, as her two labs had just died pretty suddenly in the course of a year or so (pretty much from old age). Then through the vagaries of fate one of the people who took one of the beagle puppies made us take it back because they were too old to take care of it apparently, so then I had three beagles. Which was one more than I would normally like to take care of, but hey, I'd put up with it. THEN my sister has us taking care of her lab because of her newborn--basically, giving these dogs a bath is a pain and a half.

But damn so cute when they romp and frolic with one another. SO CUTE. ARGGHH. It's almost painful.

[Betty Elms]

My cat has an inner ear problem that makes him fall off of things, and that's pretty much the main reason why I love him.

[Marc v4.0]

My cat has a 'the world can go fuck itself' problem and is also the smallest of our cats.

Her never-ending rage at everything is why I love her

[Darth SS]

My cat has an inner ear problem that makes him fall off of things, and that's pretty much the main reason why I love him.

Isn't that kind of the opposite of why people get cats? Does he not fall on his feet?

[batgirl]

I've had tons of pets over my lifetime. My first pet that only belonged to me was my rabbit, an angora lop (floppy ears and extremely fluffy, you could make a sweater from the stuff we brushed off her). She lived for 7 years, which is quite old in rabbit. I trained her to pee in only one spot in the kitchen when we let her romp around, took her on walks (I bought a harness and leash for her) and genuinely enjoyed her company. Sadly, she got stomach cancer and we had to put her down.

We also had a dog named Rosie until recently. We got her from a shelter and had her for 18 years. She was a terrier mix, around 15lbs soaking wet. She stayed with us through 3 moves and lots of family moments. She was the fourth child in the family. She was the gentlest dog, never bit anyone and was always just friendly. When my cousins were babies they used to fall asleep in her dog bed curled up with her. She was beloved by everyone and was just the best pet you could ever have. We had to put her down in November due to age and a brain tumor. My sisters and I still cry from time to time when we think about her.