Pictures of our pets! (real pets that is..)

Pictures of our pets! (real pets that is..)

So, as many of us have furry or scaly little friends I thought it might be fun to have a thread where we shared details, funny stories, that kind of thing. I know that Pescado has a homicidal feline (would you expect anything less?) and 123 has a turtle, but we don't know what color said kittycat is, or what kind of turtle ... and how about the rest of you?

I have one cat who just turned 20. She's a skinny little stripey thing with a Siamese mrrraaawww. She used to have a brother, with whom she had several litters of kittens (shocking, I know ... they weren't my cats then). I acquired them used, after they had been fixed. Boy cat has since gone to kitty heaven.

We have a dog, a purebred Tibetan Terrier who's smarter than your average one-year-old human and a sweet black bear hamster who has never tried to nip anything besides her food. Also, a pondful of goldfish. Yes, I am a zookeeper.

I grew up with cats and dogs in the house, and have always wanted a boa constrictor but I'm afraid it would get out and eat my cat. She's none too fast on her feet these days. I used to have tropical fish, and I once owned the world's fattest rat.

How about the rest of you? Pets you have now, or have had in the past? Pets you wish you had? Pets you wish you didn't have? Now's your chance to share.

 

I have a pet rock. It shakes sometimes. I used to have one of those Pikachu Electronic pet shaking things.

 

I have 2 pet cats.

 

At this time, I have a scottie, an African Grey parrot, and a somebodypleaseshootit rooster. Last year I started to smell something strange coming from my son's room. On investigation I found a little chick in his closet. "But mom...it only cost a dollar!" So the old dog kennel with the log cabin dog house is now a chicken coop. It grew up to be the meanest thing I've ever petted. It crows every time someone in a 40 mile radius turns on a light. It frequently knocks on the door under some delusion that it's going to be allowed in. It does a great job of running off unwanted visitors. If you've never experienced a mad rooster coming at you in a dead run you've missed one of the truly terrifying experiences life has to offer.

Parrots live long lives...perhaps 90 years. We inherited ours. African Greys are amazing mimics. Mine sounds just like my mother-in-law. She seems to understand everything and responds appropriately. I have long conversations with her. She sings Jingle Bells with gusto all year long but at Christmas. She adores birthday parties and always takes the lead in "Happy Birthday To You". They love drama so if you let out a swear word or say something ugly, they repeat it in the voice of the person that said it. They are worse than any child so we now spell and/or monitor the tone of everything we say. She almost bit my thumb off while offering her a bite of food. Her beak cut right through my thumbnail and it took months to heal. I use tongs to hand her things now.

 

I have a pet problem, we have way too many in this house hold! OK, there are two dogs, Ripley who is a Jack Russell x australian silky and Windo (my husband likes Star Wars) and hes an American Staffie x Maltese. Then there is the two cats, Milly the mother (now fixed) and Sooty the son (he's pure black and big and looks like a miniture panther). Two Weeros (cockatiels) named by my 5 year old, so there is Me and You2 (you1 flew away). 6 chooks including 1 rooster who sounds like it could be a relative of Zydecos' rooster, except he's not mean. Then there is the fish pond which is kinda hidden in the garden so I'm not sure how many are in there now, I know of at least 4 fish, then there is the resident frog that lives with the fish. There have been rabbits, crazy crabs, guinea pig and ducks also residing on my premises at various times.
We are going to be buying 5 acres shortly, my husband has plans on a couple of goats, some pigs and a horse, but I think I need to put my foot down, it's starting to cost more to feed the animals than it is my family .

 

Sylla? At my house, we are trying to envision an American Staffordshire and Maltese mix! What does it look like? That has to be one of the oddest pairings I've ever heard of!

 

I'm still laughing at Zy's descriptions of her pets, especially the parrot. I've never been able to warm up to birds but yours sound like a hoot. That rooster sounds nutty.

And yes, please post a picture of your dogs, Sylla. I too have no idea what that would look like.

My dog is a "paw oriented" dog, which means she uses her paws like a cat does, for grabbing things, etc. She tried to get a tennis ball off of a chair by poking her paw through the ladder back rather than going around the front and mouthing it like a "normal" dog. When she sleeps she's apparently boneless, and when she's in need of a haircut, like now, it's hard to tell one end from the other, especially with some of the positions she gets into. She understands conversational English, for example, if you say to her calmly, I wish you would stop barking now, she does. If she's in the mood that is. There's no such thing as a submissive Tibetan Terrier.

Now that she's almost three she's turning into the dog of our dreams, mostly well behaved, affectionate and funny as hell. She kills soccer balls, and when we bring a new one home from the store she goes nuts. She knows it's for her. She has a special "doggy swearing" noise she reserves for soccer ball killings.

So, OK, she doesn't sing jingle bells. But she doesn't bite, either.

 

Your pics as requested, I have also included his sister, just so you can appreciate the true complexity of this dog (Windo is the white one)...

 

I'm so happy you posted pics, sylla! (Now if Josh would just approve the attachments, I could look at them! )

SBW, I'm not a bird person either. They are a lot of trouble and extremely messy. I've learned to adapt though. My hubby likes them. (There's that "for better or worse" clause in the marriage deal, isn't there?) I don't consider the rooster a pet really. We tried to find it another home. We just can't shoot something we've cared for. I'm surprised one of the neighbors hasn't snuck over one night and done it though.

I'm a dog person. Hubby and I particularly like terriers. We like their reserve and stubborness. We used to show Airedales in obedience trials. This is a unique challenge since terriers only do stuff if they feel like it. We enjoyed the dog show circuit. It's one of the few places you can talk ad nauseum about your dogs and not bore others! We'd like to get involved in fly ball, agility and earth dog competitions but we've never lived anywhere that had these activities. Perhaps when our last child leaves for college we will start one.

My husband's family are horse people. We used to ride the mountains on horseback and camp as a family. My sister-in-law showed Tennessee Walking horses. She got to wear the formal black "pinks"...top hat and tails. It was cool! Anyone here have horses?

 

I came so close to getting one, but I was 16 and my parents didn't want to care for it once I went to college, so ... no horse. It was a bay Morgan filly named Atalanta. She was beautiful, and she would have been all mine ... strange to think that if she's still alive she's an old old horse by now ...

I used to take English riding lessons, but we moved before I got into the showring. I coulda been a contenda.

Yep, there's that for better or worse clause, which is why I'm probably not getting any more cats ... hubby says he doesn't want to be saddled with a pet when he's 60 and I guess I can see his point.

Once the kid is out of the house we're taking the dog (if she's still with us) and seeing America.

Cats don't generally travel as well as dogs, in my experience. We had a cat when we were kids who tried to kill herself when we tried to take her to the cabin for the summer. Literally. My dad had made homemade cages and she stuck her head through the bars and almost choked. She spent the summer with friends. Our other cat got to come along for the trip, and he had a blast trying to get chipmunks through the screen porch. He was also a champion moth killer. Amazing how high a young cat can leap ... he's the only cat who ever traveled well, at least that I've owned. He used to ride on the seat and sit there peacefully the entire trip. Such a sweetie. Every other cat (and I've owned plenty) has gone ballistic the second they get in the car.

 

Yeah, that's my experience with cats in a car, too. I've only owned two and taking them to the vet was usually a nightmare. I had a male cat pee in the car and even replacing the carpet on the floor didn't remove the odor. We had to sell the car! lol We finally bought small crates for travel. I genuinely like cats. I had a Himalayan and a long haired white cat. I disliked trying to keep the cat hair cleaned up though. It's bad when you have to request visitors wear only jeans to your home. It was embarrassing to have friends, dressed in navy or black, leave wearing a ton of white cat fur.

My youngest goes to college next year. Hubby and I have been planning our next life phase. We'd like to move back to Tennessee. We chose a smaller breed of dog so we could travel with it. We always had large dogs but I've absolutely adored this scottie. It was the perfect dog for us at this stage in our life.

I took equestrian riding in college. It was offered as a phys ed course. My kids took riding lessons for a long time but it wasn't their passion. We were glad. It's a very expensive hobby.

 

We here have a rat named Squiggles. It is our second rat adopted from the local grade school (grade 3 uses them in a dietary experiment to prove junk food is not good for development). The first one was Gizmo. Gizmo died in November and is buried in the rasberry patch with a headstone.

 

I've had numerous hamsters but never a rat. Do they make good pets? That's nice of you to adopt the school experiments. I particularly like the idea of the raspberry patch. It sounds lovely...very Beatrix Potter like.

 

I looked after the stud rat when I was at school. (He fathered the dissection fodder ... ... yeah, I know, I come from a barbaric age ) Anyway I got quite attached to old Fred. He was a quite a character and very intelligent and 'pettable'.

Cats are my choice ... they don't share homes with rats though My current cat is a completely mad short haired 'tuxedo' moggy.

 

Since it's taking so long for my pics to be approved, i added them to the gallery here....
http://forums.worldsims.org/gallery/browseimages.php?c=10

 

Rats are social, intelligent, and inquisitive, making them excellent pets. Especially ones raised from youth around humans, they are very tame and gentle.

 

I had a budgie and 2 dogs at my Dad's when I was little. Since then I had 2 cats, another budgie, 3 hamsters, and about 200 goldfish. The fish don't seem to like me. Most recently we had 3 fish - one was a catfish, tank cleaner thingy, and the other 2 goldfish. Then my Mum's boyfriend cleaned the tank. Woops! Even ha doesn't know wht he used to clean the tank. All fishies - bye bye!

 

You should never use anything other than elbow grease to clean a fish tank. They're sensitive little creatures. And don't worry about them not liking you, Babe ... they eat their own young, so I wouldn't take it too personally.

Sylla, those are two of the cutest dogs I've ever seen, especially Tessa! Awwwww ... what a honeybun.

Thanks for sharing! (Wonder why your pictures didn't get approved. Maybe because the dogs weren't wearing clothes LOL.)

 

Sylla, Windo certainly has a staffie body but a maltese face and ears. It looks like a big question mark on his nose! "Guess what breed?" He's definitely a keeper. Is this a picture of Tessa as a puppy? If she's grown then that had to be an odd looking litter of puppies! I love her little face. Did none of the litter have a staffie head? They have such a distinctive head I'm surprised that wasn't dominate.

Babe, I can't do fish either. My hubby has a knack for them though. Keeping fish alive for a long period of time seems like a huge ongoing science experiment.

Sounds like old Fred had a fantastic life, Mirelly. Stud rat in a lab sounds pretty safe anyway! lol Why a barbaric age? Don't they still do dissection in schools? I remember how apprehensive I was about dissecting the requisite frog in high school and that it ended up being very interesting. Oh..and I had to look up "moggy". LOL! Learned something new.

 

My year only did dissection once - and that wasn't even my class. They did a pig heart, apparently. :S