pets make the world go ’round

I’m organizing the downstairs area to get ready for THE BIG MOVE, so I thought today would be a good day for a post that I didn’t have to come up with.

Jen over at Our Daily Big Top tagged me (I GOT TAGGED!!! I GOT TAGGED!!) to do a pet meme, and y’all know how much I love our pets. I mean, my blog is called TWELVE PAWS (although, we only have 8 paws now, God rest Molly’s soul) — we love our pets. They sleep in our bed. They get on the furniture. We worried more about them than we did about Emma on the day we brought her home from the hospital. Clearly, this is the meme for us.

1. What is the first pet you remember?
Daisy – she was one super ugly but super sweet mutt (although I thought she was beautiful at the time) and she was scared of thunderstorms. We would find her at various neighbor’s houses, sometimes miles away, after thunderstorms. She ran away during one particular storm, and we never found her.

2. How many different kinds of pets have you owned?
LOTS!

growing up: Daisy (mutt), Keena (toy poodle), Roc (lab mix), Duchess (boxer), Maggie (boxer) and various outdoor cats

post-college: Macey (black lab/boxer mix)

with DH: 3 hermit crabs, Jessie (mutt) and Molly (German Shepherd mix)

We still have Macey and Jessie (and Molly’s ashes)

3. What was your strangest pet?
The hermit crabs. They didn’t do anything except dig into the sand for months at a time. Two of them now live happily in one of the classrooms at my mom’s school.

4. What is your dream pet?
A non-shedding, kind and gentle dog who inherently knows that there is NO BARKING ALLOWED when Emma is napping.

5. What is your nightmare pet?
I would flip if I had another Macey as a puppy. She was awful. She was like Hooch – she ate everything, she chewed on everything, she peed/pooped on everything. She tore a hole in the bathroom door when I left her in there one day. On top of that, she had been abused as a wee puppy, so she was scared of everything. Those first couple of years were painful.

6. Your best/ funniest pet story…

the picture says it all — yes, that’s me and my twin … errrr … poodle

7. Tell your worst/saddest pet story…
Anytime a pet dies, it’s just horribly sad, but I think the saddest was when we lost Keena, our toy poodle from congestive heart failure after 10 years.

8. Did you ever have a scary animal experience?
Yes, the time I found out that Macey has boxer cardiomyopathy — we were out running/walking the dogs on a very hot day, and she collapsed in someone’s yard. Ken had to carry her (all 80 lbs of her!) home so we could get her some water to cool her down.

And there’s the time she ate an entire bottle of Molly’s incontinence medication – she had to stay overnight at the emergency animal clinic for constant monitoring and IV’s.

And Molly’s last month when she had such trouble breathing — we ended up having to put her to sleep 2 days after we brought Emma home from the hospital due to throat cancer.

9. What was your favorite pet?
Overall, I think my favorite pet is Macey. I got her when I was living on my own – I had just broken off an engagement and things were rough. She completely changed my life, and even though those first few years were really hard, she has turned out to be the most loyal, gentle and loving dog.

10. What did you really want to tell us about pets that didn’t fit into the other questions?
If you’re going to get a pet, please please PLEASE adopt. There are so many animals (including purebreds that were discarded) sitting in animal shelters that are just waiting for the right home. And every year, at least half of them are euthanized.

Having said that, think long and hard – do research – pray if you’re the praying type – do whatever you need to do to make sure that having a pet is the right choice. Most of the animals in animal shelters are there because they were obtained by someone with unrealistic expectations of the time, effort, and money required to sustain a lifelong relationship with their pet. Not cool.

We are huge supporters of adopting and also working with your dogs to adapt with change. When Emma came along, we never once thought about getting rid of the dogs — we taught THEM to get used to HER.

We work with her to be nice to them, and we work with them to be gentle with her. And now, they’re inseperable – she’s usually calling for the dogs first thing in the morning instead of calling for us. Macey is a boxer mix that can bite through a turkey bone in one fell swoop — but Emma can take food out of Macey’s bowl while she’s eating. It takes work, but it’s doable!

So that’s my PSA for the day. Adopt!

I really need to get to work, and Emma just climbed upstairs by herself, so I’m tagging anyone who wants to do it!