My mom and dad had Pasha three years before I was born. She was this beautiful gray tabby. I remember her being the "mean" cat, but now that I look back and have more experience with cats, she was a normal standoff-ish cat.
My mom and dad got Muffin. Muffin, a brown and black torti, was the best cat. Her and I were literally best friends until she died. She slept with me every night, and was just the greatest cat ever. I think I told her as the example of the best kitty in my mind. Having these two cats in my life shaped how I would react to animals as an adult. When I moved out when I was 22, the first thing I did was get a cat. I had acquired several smaller pets before, anything from snakes to lizards to fuzzy creatures and crabbies.
Carrot is one of three lizards currently living in my small, one bedroom apartment. I was visiting family in Johnstown, PA a few years ago, and wanted to stop at Petco to check out an out-of-town pet store. I had heard rumors that Petco sometimes got color morphed leopard geckos, and had to check it out. For the people who aren't reptile addicts like myself, normal colored leopard geckos are generally white with black spots. See the picture above? That is a tangerine leopard gecko. I've seen these tangerine color morphs at shows with less spots going to $300.00+! So anyways, I went ahead and bought the juvenile leopard gecko at the Petco and kept him and comfortable and safe as I could in a plastic critter keeper until I could get him home and introduce him to some of my other geckos. Carrot is pretty awesome. He's stayed really healthy. I've bred leopard geckos, and he has definitely been the best. I've had him for probably six years now, and the first time he bit me was yesterday.
Gus's story isn't quite as happy. I'll admit: I got in a little over my head with an adult iguana. That being said, I've also done the best I could have for him. Gus is an 8 1/2 year old male iguana. One day, my fellow reptile pal said she knew of someone who was about to give their "baby" iguana to the pound. So I figured I'd take the iguana and save it from being euthanized. Iguanas are not easy to re-home, because seriously, they aren't the easiest to care for. They get BIG. Adult male iguanas can reach 5-6 feet easily. So anyways, I agreed to take the iguana. I go to pick him up in the parking lot of a pet store, and quickly discovered he was NOT a baby iguana. He was over three years old when I him, and was pretty big already. He was given to me in a rat cage. Yes, a nearly full grown iguana was stuffed into a rat cage. Upon further examination, he was also covered in severe burns and burn scars. I took him to the vet soon after I got him. We found out his burns came from his previous owner placing his heat lamp in his cage.
That being said, he's done pretty well. He's starting to slow down, but he's still beautiful and has a great personality for a male iguana.
My first lizard was a bearded dragon. I originally got two, Loki (pictured above) and Draco. Draco laid eggs, but we could never successfully hatch them. Draco had some health issues involving parasites, and she died early. Loki is still awesome, though. He's funny this time of year, because he's basically dormant. The winter time for most reptiles means they slow down, sleep a lot, and really only eat when they need to. Loki will sleep for hours and hours, and pop up like a jack-in-a-box when I give him crickets. As you can see, Loki's left hand is a little odd looking. He got into a fight with my sisters bearded dragon a few years ago. Lizards will fight if they're hungry, or just in a bad mood. However, we ended up taking Loki to the vet immediately. He lost a couple of fingers and had some serious breaks in his hand. Loki is a pretty large lizard, but there isn't a whole lot you can do for a lizard with a broken hand. So I gave him injection antibiotics for a few weeks, and kept a topical cream on his cuts to prevent any infection. His hand actually healed really well, considering. His hands still looks crooked, but he can run around on it and catch food, and he doesn't seem to experience any pain. That's what matters.
Everyone thinks that hermit crabs are disposable beach pets that die two weeks after you get home. In a way, that's true. The industry that brings pet shops hermit crabs is downright cruel. Remember that all hermit crabs are wild caught -- hermit crabs cannot be bred in captivity. So they're literally plucked from the ocean, ripped from their shells and stuffed into harmful painted shells before being shipped to the pet store. I always cringe when I see hermit crabs in pet stores, because 99% of the time, they are not being taken care of properly. Hermit crabs cannot survive in the open air, meaning those mesh cages will kill them. Anyways, before I went to the beach in May 2011, I did my research on proper hermit crab care. I took along supplies I'd need to get them acclimated after I bought them from hell-hole petstore. I ended up getting three hermit crabs 8 months ago. Not only are they still alive, but they've grown like crazy and are displaying normal crabbie behavior. Batman, Kermit, and Sonny seem pretty happy in their heated terrarium full of moist sand and coconut fibers, real moss and lots of hiding places.
My bunny is the bestest! In May 2009, I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool (I spin yarn, knit, the whole shebang) and found an adorable 5 week old French Angora rabbit. This is one of those instances where I've purchased from a breeder. Bunny-Boy has am impressive lineage, and that'd be awesome if I were to breed him, but I'm not. He's a pet, and probably the best bunny ever. My sister wanted me to name him Channy (from Friends), but the name Bunny-Boy just stuck. Historically, I'm really bad at naming animals. When I was 20, I was baby-sitting full time for a little girl named Lea. She also loved my animals, so I had her name a good chunk of them (for example, Carrot). That's how bad I am at naming animals. I had an eight year old do it for me instead. Anyways, Bunny-Boy just seemed to work with him. He's actually an awesome pet rabbit. He's friendly and affectionate. When he has free run of my apartment, he usually spends some of that time up on the couch with me getting his ears scratched. This photo above is actually taken maybe a month after I got him, so he was still really young.
Because Bunny-Boy is an angora rabbit, he has very long and thick fur. He tends to matt every 6 or 7 months, so I take him to the vet to get shaven. Matts can cause pain to fuzzy animals that have them, so when they pop up, I try to get them taken care of quickly. The picture above was taken after his vet visit. They shaved him naked, but he seemed really happy to not be weighed down by fur. He's grown a lot since I got him, almost three years ago. He started out as literally a handful of rabbit. I could pick him and and hold him in my hand. Now, he weighs about 12 pounds.
Oliver is my buddy. He was my first cat living out of my parents house. I got him for free from a nice lady in Ellicott City who was giving away kittens. I actually first met Oliver when he was about 5 weeks old. He barely looked like a cat! He was all eyes and head. He is fat and fluffy and funny all in one. He's a sweet people cat, but he's not the best cat-cat. He tends to be aggressive and bully-ish, and I've noticed recently he's been a little mean to the other cats. But he's still my baby. He's around 4 1/2 right now, so I have many more years with my fatty cat!
Oliver loves to sleep in the strangest places. Guitar cases, the middle of the floor, under the bed. He's basically a normal cat in that sense. He can be a real pain in the ass, but hey, he's my Oliver.
Jack has a really nice story. I adopted him when I moved into my current apartment, the beginning of 2011. I was coming out of a really hard time. I felt lost and hurt and betrayed. Looking back, Jack and I needed each other. I think the healing he gave me was the same that I gave to him. When I got Jack, and heard his story, it made me feel less alone in a very large world.
Jack was found abandoned in a parking lot when he was around five months old. In October 2011, Feline Rescue Association found him and took him in. They got him the vet care he needed, and eventually re-homed him to me! Jack is literally the sweetest cat. I've had him for almost a year, and he still has moments where something scares him, and the look in his eyes just rips my heart up. I don't know what happened to him before FRA found him, but he reminds me of a child who is afraid of being hit. The first few months I had him, the slightest move or smallest sound would send him running and hiding. Even now, a year later, if my mom comes over, Jack is under the bed before she can even get in the door. He's getting better every day, though. He's very sweet and very affectionate and clingy with me (as he is literally climbing all over me as I type this).
Jack had never been a house cat. So Oliver definitely showed him the ropes. He taught him to sleep for extended hours and drink out of the toilet.
Oliver has never been a very cat-social cat. But he did a good job at tolerating Jack while he was still getting used to being in a stable environment. A year later, Oliver and Jack don't cuddle like this, and Jack seems happy with that. I'm so happy how well he's adjusted, even though he still has moments where his eyes fill with terror. Then I pick him up and tell him how he doesn't have to be scared anymore, because he has a forever-home now. I know cat's don't speak English, but I hope the message sinks in.
And then came the kittens. John wanted a kitten really bad. So I started looking around on Craigslist for free kittens. I easily found a local lady who had two kittens left. I wasn't 100% planning on getting another kitten. I was pretty happy with Oliver and Jack at that time. We got to the woman's house, and saw both of the kittens. They were both so adorable. One was a medium length black kitten, and the other was a tuxedo kitten. Both little ladies. Both adorable and both so tiny! I couldn't just leave one alone. So yes, we took both.
This is Lola. She was one of the bigger kittens in the litter. She actually looks much older than her sister, but they are actually the same age. When Lola first came to my house, she was incredibly she. She would hide behind my sewing machine, and just look overall terrified. She was VERY standoffish for the first few weeks. I remembering thinking, "Wow, she is kind of a bitch." But then one day, she walked over while I was laying down on the couch, and just curled up on my chest and fell asleep. Over time, she has really come out of her shell. She's incredibly affectionate. She doesn't like to be picked up or cuddled, but she likes to be near me. I'm sitting on my couch writing this, and she's curled up next to me. She really turned out to be a sweet kitten.
This is her beautiful sister, Coda. She is technically John's kitten, but she's been staying at my house. She's a beautiful tuxedo kitten, and good lord, her personality is so freaking hyper. When we got her, she was definitely the more outgoing kitten. In a way, she still is. She is always in motion, and really only stops when she is too tired to keep running and playing. She then passes out for a little bit, and then is right up again and bouncing off the walls. Lola will sit still and just enjoy being a cat. Coda will really live the kitten life. Lola enjoys the other cats company, but she tends to prefer sitting with me. Coda, however, really loves Oliver and Jack's attention.
Haha, doesn't Jack just look thrilled? He puts up with Coda very nicely. Right now, Coda is attached to Jack at the hip. She so desperately tries to get as close to Jack as possible. Jack tolerates it, but after a while he's had enough.
Remember when Oliver showed Jack the ropes? Jack was sure to do the same for the kittens. He taught them his favorite past time -- drinking out of the sink!
In the end, they're all pretty happy. And I'm happy to have their company.
