Grandma Mary Died

[zcccrv]

1 minute ago, mango_fandango said:

I love this! One of them is keeping an eye out and the other is reporting back to you.

To be fair, the look was more along the lines of: "why are you bothering us right now when severely important events are ocurring bellow, are you per chance offering a bag of beef in sauce?" but your interpretation is cuter so let's go with that.

[Zebedee]

I love all the pet pics, but I have a mild obsession with ginger/ginger&white cats (just because I want one, so I can call it "Pfifferling" (a ginger coloured mushroom in Germany, and I love the "PF" sound in German!). But seeing all the lovely black cats is wonderful. Can't believe how much harder they have it when it comes to finding homes and people.

Anecdotally, about half of the ginger/&white, or tortoiseshell, cats I've met have been slightly sociopathic. I've never met a black, Tux or tabby cat who was anything less than sweet and devoted to their person (even if a bit nervous of strangers). The one fluffy white cat I've met I adored, but she hated everyone. And all the Burmese or Blue cats I've met have been friendly, but aloof Clearly, there are likely friendly fluffy white cats, and sociopathic black cats. I just haven't met enough cats. 

Someone needs to pay me lots of money to spend my time petting many cats, and "researching" this. I'd need to study at least ten generations of every type of cat before I could draw any preliminary conclusions though...

[Scrabblemaster]

@Zebedee Oh yes I forgot to mention the damage! Just like you we could not understand how someone so small can damage that much things. Wallpaper,curtains, socks, underwear, shirts, skirts (it took a while until we realized she was able to climb in the dresser...), doors, books, electric cables (only the ones with electricity in them). And so on. And the Houdini! You are absolutely right! She is a fast little houdini-hamster. 

And I love that you rehomed a hamster, because that is what we did with our little girl, too! It is great that you had the courage to invest emotionally, financially and with your time into  a living animal that is older and most likely will not live very long, according to at which age you got the hamster or under which conditions the hamster had to live before. They are so small, I don't care how tall or little our pets are, they deserve our love.

We cannot have cats and dogs for allergic reasons too. And after we outruled the other potential animals, the hamsters were the winners. 

Sorry for the wall of text, but I really love my hamster.

[Zebedee]

1 hour ago, Scrabblemaster said:

They are so small, I don't care how tall or little our pets are, they deserve our love.

Exactly! Actually, I got my robo on a whim. All summer, I'd been taking in poisoned rats, injured birds, to the vet, and the time I got TinyP was when I'd taken a young pigeon in. I was really hoping he/she would be able to go to a bird rehabber, or if it was just undernourishment etc I could keep him somewhere safe for a few days. I got so fed up with taking home a little body Then I saw this section of animals for rehoming (vet/pet shop/adoption combo place). I asked the "rodent girl" who'd been there longest, was least likely to get adopted fast, and she pointed me to Parsnip (hamsters, especially tiny ones, are really unsuited for small children, and people will insist on putting them together etc etc). So he came home with me (in a horrid small cage, until the bigger one arrived next day. And then its extension, and another...lol). I had him 20 months, and he was hilarious. Too fast to take pics of usually, this was a rare occasion where a mealworm tempted him onto my hand. I almost entirely stopped watching TV, DVDs etc when I had him!

Once I got him, I realised how much I missed having animals that actually liked to be petted, and I've always loved rats, so I got a couple from an "oops" litter up for adoption. I'm in love with rats now, can't imagine being without them! Now I live in a rented flat, so no dog/cat possible, but actually, unless one really needed a home (in my hypothetical future, where I have a house and garden!) I think I'll stick with the small animals. My boyf adores my rats, and loves guinea pigs, so I think I know what new animals we'll rescue when we have the right circumstances. Though, we do both like the idea of living somewhere with a barn and a field - work from a home office, and run a retirement home for donkeys and a rescue for little animals.

You're so right, just because they are tiny and have short lives, doesn't mean they deserve less than any other animal. And so many of them are naturally fearful, being so low in the pecking order They need so much reassurance and security.

Still, hamsters especially amaze me. How can such tiny, often solitary to the point of being anti-social, little animals survive in the harsh climates they live in? And how can their tiny stomachs possibly ingest enough food to sustain them on their daily 10k runs?

[jillsdopplerofdoom]

Another one of the hammies. This is Lola. She was my second rescue after her owner decided to get rid of her after getting a dog. She was the loveliest girl but could be feisty at times. She loved cheese and was always in the mood for a cuddle. In August of 2017 she provided me with my first ever litter of pups. She was the best mum and as we had already bonded it allowed me to bond with her babies more. Lola sadly passed away in July last year. I miss her so much. 

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by jillsdopplerofdoom

[Curious]

14 hours ago, Lurker said:

@Curious I brush her every other day sometimes more with a pin brush or else mats and knots form.  I’m lucky she enjoys being groomed and will even allow a limited amount of under arm and belly brushing.

Thank you!   My adult cats love to be brushed.  So much so that they will literally push the dog I'm trying to groom out of the way if they hear grooming going on.    I'm running a brush through the kittens in the hope they turn out the same way.

Echo already requires some grooming because her fur is like a magnet.   I've found kibble skin deep in her fur before.  When she's been out for exercise time, I always run a brush or comb through her to pull out any debris she's found while playing.

[Curious]

I'm loving the hamster and rat stories and pics.  One of my close friends from high school has had rats since high school and they are such neat little critters.  She once posted a picture of a rat, a cat and a chicken sleeping together on her bed!   Not like just the 3 on the bed, but cuddled up with each other.  It was amazing.    She also posted a video of one of her rats playing with one of her cats and the rat had the upper hand the whole time.  It was hilarious.

I had hamsters when I was a kid.  My first one, Fluffy, lived 2.5 years.  The following ones only lived about 6 months each and that was too hard to take as a child so I stopped getting them.  I was devasted to find that Fluffy had escaped his cage, despite the several layers of duct tape covering the latches and was nowhere to be found.    I put the cage in the middle of the basement floor, put a board up for a ramp and put his favorite alfalfa pellets along the board to entice him back into his cage.    I knew he was still alive at first because pellets would be missing.   Then after a few days, they stopped going missing so I figured he had died someplace and we'd find out when the smell became apparent.  After 2 weeks my dad told me to take everything down and put it away as Fluffy was obviously never coming back.    I was so sad as I went downstairs to clean his cage for the last time.   I got to the cage and noticed the pellets were gone and lo and behold there was Fluffy curled up in his nest like nothing had happened.

[jakesykora]

2 hours ago, Curious said:

Thank you!   My adult cats love to be brushed.  So much so that they will literally push the dog I'm trying to groom out of the way if they hear grooming going on.    I'm running a brush through the kittens in the hope they turn out the same way.

Echo already requires some grooming because her fur is like a magnet.   I've found kibble skin deep in her fur before.  When she's been out for exercise time, I always run a brush or comb through her to pull out any debris she's found while playing.

My sweet elderly (16 yrs at the time) girl who died just about a year ago LOVED to be brushed as well.

I just had to call out, "____ do you want to be a pretty kitty?" and she'd race right to where her brush sat, even if I wasn't to it yet. And she'd give her adorable quivery tail reaction if anyone who saw her called her a 'pretty girl' or a 'pretty kitty.'

 

[mollysmom]

5 hours ago, jakesykora said:

My sweet elderly (16 yrs at the time) girl who died just about a year ago LOVED to be brushed as well.

I just had to call out, "____ do you want to be a pretty kitty?" and she'd race right to where her brush sat, even if I wasn't to it yet. And she'd give her adorable quivery tail reaction if anyone who saw her called her a 'pretty girl' or a 'pretty kitty.'

 

I love these stories! Yours reminded me of my dog Molly. She lives with my ex husband now but when we were all living together every single morning as soon as she heard my blow dryer turn on she'd jump out of bed (or whatever she was doing) and run into the bathroom to "get pretty".  She would just sit at my feet and wait for me to blow dry her. It was just so cute and something I'll never forget. 

[Curious]

5 hours ago, mollysmom said:

I love these stories! Yours reminded me of my dog Molly. She lives with my ex husband now but when we were all living together every single morning as soon as she heard my blow dryer turn on she'd jump out of bed (or whatever she was doing) and run into the bathroom to "get pretty".  She would just sit at my feet and wait for me to blow dry her. It was just so cute and something I'll never forget. 

Our first Papillon LOVED the blow dryer.  When we did the canine good citizen class there is a part where the dogs are confronted with a bunch of different things like an umbrella opening, a blow dryer, a chair tipping over and some other things I can't recall.   On the day that test was given, I offered to go first because we were training our dog to be a service dog for me and I knew he was bullet proof on all the things they were going to do.  When the instructor got to the blow dryer he was so excited and the instructor just laughed and said he passed that second.

As each other people went through the various stations when they got to the blow dryer test our dog would run over all excited, so the instructor would turn and give him a quick blow dry    

The other dogs were much less enthused about being blown dry

[Playagirl]

On 6/20/2019 at 9:08 PM, 47of74 said:

You know. If you don’t want to see more cat photos the absolute worst thing you can do is ask people to stop. Because certain 47s and others take that as a challenge and not a request.
 

CATS???? Did somebody say CATS???? I love me a challenge. Here are my grandbabies while I was catsitting this winter.

[Curious]

6 minutes ago, Playagirl said:

CATS???? Did somebody say CATS???? I love me a challenge. Here are my grandbabies while I was catsitting this winter.

Is the one in the middle a Bengal?  They are all beautiful

[Playagirl]

On 6/21/2019 at 12:32 AM, jjmennonite said:

Did Playakitty come home? Big huge hugs to you, if she didn’t. Ear scritches for Playakitty, if she’s home. 

Yes, she finally came home after two days, looking absolutely fine. She spent some time in a major sulk because we kept her inside for a couple of days afterwards. We've just started letting her out again so I imagine it'll happen again before too long but the alternative is keeping her inside and letting her tear the house apart which we're not prepared to do. We're lucky we live in a quiet neighbourhood surrounded by cat lovers (except for one anomaly). Cats come and go and we all tend to put out food for whichever cat seems to be outside for a long time. We're lucky there's no strays and all the cats have been fixed and fully vaccinated. It's kind of like a feline colony around here.

[AuntCloud]

On 6/21/2019 at 9:33 AM, Zebedee said:

I love all the pet pics, but I have a mild obsession with ginger/ginger&white cats (just because I want one, so I can call it "Pfifferling" (a ginger coloured mushroom in Germany, and I love the "PF" sound in German!). But seeing all the lovely black cats is wonderful. Can't believe how much harder they have it when it comes to finding homes and people.

Anecdotally, about half of the ginger/&white, or tortoiseshell, cats I've met have been slightly sociopathic. I've never met a black, Tux or tabby cat who was anything less than sweet and devoted to their person (even if a bit nervous of strangers). The one fluffy white cat I've met I adored, but she hated everyone. And all the Burmese or Blue cats I've met have been friendly, but aloof Clearly, there are likely friendly fluffy white cats, and sociopathic black cats. I just haven't met enough cats. 

Someone needs to pay me lots of money to spend my time petting many cats, and "researching" this. I'd need to study at least ten generations of every type of cat before I could draw any preliminary conclusions though...

So very true. My fierce Charlie is a large soft cuddle bug who is scared of the thunder - my daughter had to hold him when a thunderstorm hit us earlier this week and pet him until he settled down. Here he’s snuggling with his sister Jane whose Siamese is showing as she’s got long legs and always has something to say.

[Playagirl]

On 6/21/2019 at 7:26 AM, QuiverFullofBooks said:

I think it’s very likely that the Duggars would eventually put a family cemetery on their land rather than buying a plot. Of course Mary had to be buried with Jimmy.

No disrespect intended but with all the adorable pet pictures I've been looking at in this thread I misread this as 'animal cemetery.' For all of their pets that we've only seen once over the years, never to be seen again.

[Playagirl]

27 minutes ago, Curious said:

Is the one in the middle a Bengal?  They are all beautiful

The furthest one is half-Bengal. She has a Bengal mother and a non-Bengal father.  The other two are not related to the half-Bengal. They are full Bengals who have the same father but different mothers. Playakitty is a Bengal too and is full-sibling to the closest one in this pic. Everything you've ever heard about Bengals is true which is why ours goes outside; her energy level is off the charts.

Edited June 22, 2019 by Playagirl
Grammar matters. So does clarity

[Curious]

2 minutes ago, Playagirl said:

The furthest one is half-Bengal. She has a Bengal mother and a non-Bengal father.  The other two are full Bengals who have the same fathers but different mothers. Playakitty is a Bengal too and is full-sibling to the closest one in this pic. Everything you've ever heard about Bengals is true which is why ours goes outside; her energy level is off the charts.

I would love a Bengal, but I don't think our laid back household would work very well for one.  They are so beautiful though. 

I have a friend that has one and he puts her outside on a "chain" when he's outside so she can run around some, but not leave the yard.  He lives in an area with bears, coyotes, and cougars so it's not safe for her to be let out to just run free.

I saw an episode of My Cat from Hell where a guy had a Bengal and it was really acting up from so much energy.  Jackson had the owner leash train him and take him for walks to get some of the energy worn off him.

[tabitha2]

Foster Kittens shortly going to furever homes:

Amelia”I am not fat i’m Just fluffy, Mom!”the Tuxedo and Angeline the Brown and white tabby  

[Playagirl]

16 minutes ago, Curious said:

I would love a Bengal, but I don't think our laid back household would work very well for one.  They are so beautiful though. 

I have a friend that has one and he puts her outside on a "chain" when he's outside so she can run around some, but not leave the yard.  He lives in an area with bears, coyotes, and cougars so it's not safe for her to be let out to just run free.

I saw an episode of My Cat from Hell where a guy had a Bengal and it was really acting up from so much energy.  Jackson had the owner leash train him and take him for walks to get some of the energy worn off him.

I leash trained Playakitty last year and we'd go for walks every evening. We couldn't go over the winter as the road salt hurt her paws and when the snow finally melted 7 months later I tried the leash again but she wanted nothing to do with it. Bengals are stubborn as well as energetic and they howl like nobody's business. We tried putting her out on a chain in the yard but she spent most of her time getting tangled up in plants and other stuff in the yard and I spent all my time untangling her. After a few weeks of that we finally gave up and let her go free. 

I researched the breed before getting her and thought I was prepared. HA!!! Nothing can prepare you for the reality of this breed. 

[Silly_Rabbit]

13 minutes ago, Playagirl said:

I researched the breed before getting her and thought I was prepared. HA!!! Nothing can prepare you for the reality of this breed. 

The same goes for Savannahs, my kids are beautiful but they wreck EVERYTHING ?

[FluffySnowball]

On 6/21/2019 at 5:33 PM, Zebedee said:

I love all the pet pics, but I have a mild obsession with ginger/ginger&white cats (just because I want one, so I can call it "Pfifferling" (a ginger coloured mushroom in Germany, and I love the "PF" sound in German!). But seeing all the lovely black cats is wonderful. Can't believe how much harder they have it when it comes to finding homes and people.

Anecdotally, about half of the ginger/&white, or tortoiseshell, cats I've met have been slightly sociopathic. I've never met a black, Tux or tabby cat who was anything less than sweet and devoted to their person (even if a bit nervous of strangers). The one fluffy white cat I've met I adored, but she hated everyone. And all the Burmese or Blue cats I've met have been friendly, but aloof Clearly, there are likely friendly fluffy white cats, and sociopathic black cats. I just haven't met enough cats. 

Someone needs to pay me lots of money to spend my time petting many cats, and "researching" this. I'd need to study at least ten generations of every type of cat before I could draw any preliminary conclusions though...

Yours would be a more worthy cause for a GoFundMe than all the grifting of Derjerk and Jill has ever had. Combined! Ever!

And I’m not joking. Yours would benefit you and a lot of well cared for kitties, their missioncations suck for everyone involved, even Jill. 

ETA: Not closely related, but I came across this image recently and think it makes a good point. We still live in patriarchal societies and have to deal with a variety of stereotypes due to being women. 

Edited June 22, 2019 by FluffySnowball

[Curious]

3 hours ago, Silly_Rabbit said:

The same goes for Savannahs, my kids are beautiful but they wreck EVERYTHING ?

I was just going to mention Savannahs.  They are also so gorgeous.  I did some research into them and again found that I don't think they'd do well in our house.  Well, they might do fine, but the house not so much

[SilverBeach]

On 6/17/2019 at 7:32 PM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

No way to prepare...I’ll co-sign that all day.

this October will be 25 years since I lost my dad.  Yesterday was his birthday as well as Father’s Day. 

26 years for me, also in October. Something will always be missing.

[Thorkim1954]

This is my German shepherd Loki now.  However, notice my avator of him as a puppy, I always thought his puppy picture looks like the baby picture of Jessa that someone here uses for their avator. The one where she looks surprised, which I could find it.  

A close up of baby Loki/Jessa.           

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Thorkim1954
Found it.

[FluffySnowball]

2 hours ago, Curious said:

I was just going to mention Savannahs.  They are also so gorgeous.  I did some research into them and again found that I don't think they'd do well in our house.  Well, they might do fine, but the house not so much

I not only enjoy the cat pics and feline story time, but also that you, @Curious, and others in this thread express that you like certain breeds but think about whether their needs and temperament actually align with you and your fam. That’s something a responsible animal lover does ❤️ 

@Thorkim1954 I looooove German Shepherds and your Loki seems to be about the cutest out there! 

Edited June 22, 2019 by FluffySnowball