Introducing the Kids

I have spent a lot of time on this forum just enjoying everone else's fur babies so I thought I would introduce mine. No pics as I do not have a camera (on my to do list somewhere........)

Our family currently consistes of one rabbit, two cats, three dogs and assorted fish. Oh, and also hubby (had to get a human family member just to prove I could do it.....LOL)

The rabbit is named runt (don't blame me....one of the conditions of having my furry children is that he gets to name the majority of them) and is a very pretty smoky gray that was rescued from the pound. She has her summer home outside in a large rabbit hutch where she can enjoy the goings on of the neighborhood and her winter home is inside in a smaller hutch where she can watch the other furballs. She is a very mellow bunny and seems to take everything in stride and even "plays" with the cat through the hutch in the winter. If she gets annoyed she will do the "rabbit stomp" and the rest of the "kids" know to give her space.

Tessa aka tetleytuna is a brown tabby who was found wedged under a board near our back door when she was a very small kitten. She had been crying for some time but looked so young that I thought surely her mamma would come get her. Apparently not as she could not get out from under the board. She has lived with us now for about 10 years and always sleeps on my arm or pillow at night and usually can be found in my lap when I am on the computer. She has used up several of her lives and one in quite a spectacular fashion. I was working for a vet at the time and Tessa just did not seem to feel well. Nothing in particular, but I took her to work with me for a few days. One of the times I went in to check on her in her kennel she made a horrible noise, passed a lot of blood and just keeled over. I rushed her into the surgery room and the vet could not find a heartbeat. We put an oxygen tube down her throat and she got a direct injection of a cardiac stimulant. There was no change so I just picked her up and prayed with everything that I had that she would come back to me. Shortly thereafter she started to show some signs of life. She spent the next few days at the vet's office and we never did find out what was wrong. Tessa has since recovered completely and that episode does not seem to have slowed her down any.

Cooty is a black and white female cat. She too was a rescue. A feral cat had some kittens in a shed but I could never catch any of them. I did find one of them dead which just broke my heart. Cooty finally got so weak that she could not run away from me anymore and has been spoiled rotten ever since. She has a "challenging" personality at times and has been known to go from purring one second to rearing back and nipping the next. For all I know, she may have slight brain damage from her difficult start in life. I just accept her for who she is and she does very well. Her self appointed task is to keep the rest of the furballs in line, Lucy the lab will not even go on the bed if she knows Cooty is there as Cooty takes great delight in smacking her nose.

Lucy the lab is next up. A rescue as well, she came to us from an abusive home and was very frightened and thin. You could count every rib and her face was so thin she looked like a racing greyhound. She has since filled out and she is our destructo dog. Hubby used to hang his leather belts on a hanger in the closet but he does not do that any more. He came home one day to find that she had been in the closet and chewed up all of his belts. They were still on the hanger but only about half as long as they should have been! She has however improved my housekeeping skills. Lucy likes to "shop" her favorite "store" being the trash. If I do not keep the trash emptied like she thinks I should she will root through it and bring her treasures up on the bed. She is also fond of dismembering any stuffed toys I get for her. She has a great time playing with her brother and sister with them until they get a slight tear, and then she will sit there and pull the stuffing out and shred the bodies. She takes great delight in this and I will find the "remains" and throw them away. I really do not mind, it is easy to clean up and I get them for about a quarter a piece at garage sales.

There is also MoMo the blonde sharpei. He was a rescue from the pound. Someone had shot him in the back and he still has pellets that are too close to his spinal cord to safely remove. He walks and runs funny sometimes but really enjoys life to the fullest. When I give the other two dogs treats, they gulp them down and ask for more. Most of the time he will tilt his head back kind of half way close his eyes and chew away before asking for more. He is my blanket boy. Whenever he lays on the bed (and he has claimed the foot of the bed from the first night he spent with us) he has to have a blanket to lay on. He does not like to lay on the floor either unless he has somthing to lay on. He will be restless until I put something down even if it is only a bath towel. MoMo is cautious about new things but is such a sweet little boy.

And then there is Gracie. She is an aussie(?)/rottie mix that came to live with us as a puppy. One day a little girl from the neighborhood came up to hubby and said "here this is yours, for Annie's B-Day" I used to have several little girls that had a flower bed in my yard that they planted and took care of. Gracie's mother was a registered Rottie and her father was "just passing through". She has the coat and body size of an aussie with the colors and "blockiness" of a rottie. She has always fully lived up to her name and is the sweetest little girl you would ever want to meet. In the years she has been with us I have only seen her act aggressively a few times and then only to do a quick snap at some of the neighbor's dogs that were really harrassing her. My grandchildren have climbed all over her poking and pulling and all she does is look at them and walk away. She has the most expressive face with brown eyebrows that twitch up and down when she is watching someone. She always knows when she is being talked to or about. She will whine very softly and twitch her eye brows around. She is getting up in years now and has some mobility issues, but always wants to be involved in whatever may be going on around her.

I know this is a long post, but I hope you have enjoyed meeting my "children" as I have enjoyed meeting so many of yours.

Ann B.