About me

I have decided to create this blog to share with you my love of all animals! I will sharing the lives of my critters, product reviews, pet information, photos and more. Before we start, here's some information about me.

My interest in animals has been with me as far back as I can remember. My favorite cartoons when I was little had animals of some sort, from Little Mermaid to Cinderella. When I got older I always had Animal Planet or the Geographic channel running in the background while I did homework or chores. At least half of the books I read (which was a lot!) had something to do with animals.

My true love for animals came when I trained and cared for Prissy. Through her I was able to experience so much of the relationship we have built with animals. I can honestly say that ever since her I have truly loved every animal that has crossed my path. I love to see the difference in personality, behavior and interaction that each species and individual animal has.

From the very beginning, despite growing up in the city, my life was full of animals. We had chickens, ducks, rabbits, cats, dogs and a guinea pig. I was also an avid insect collector. I never killed them though. I had several jars that I put holes into and I would set them up to look like the place I found the bug. I'd gather dirt from the area, twigs, grass, and something for them to hide in. I once had a pair of grasshoppers successfully mate and lay eggs! However, they did not hatch to my great disappointment.

My Mother also bred toy poodles for a while. I did a lot of participating in the birthing of puppies and raising. I spent many hours researching care of the dam and pups along with training. I often had the puppies pad trained before they were 6 weeks old.

Together my Mother and I did a lot of rescue work. We often fed the local stray dogs and cats. More than once we drove long hours to see a listing of adult dogs from the paper. These dogs were typically in a puppy mill situation. They were in small runs that they could barely turn around in, dirty, smelly and scared. My Mom would buy as many as we could afford at the time,  take them home and rehabilitate them. (Sadly, even though we called the city about these places they said there was no local humane officer so there was nothing they would do. So the rescuing was left to us.)

Once they were home with us the first thing was a shave down and bath. Sometimes I spent up to 4 hours shaving a small dog, because the matts were so tight and it was difficult to get them off without cutting the dog. The days after that were spent potty training them and for the scared ones, teaching them that people weren't all bad. Some dogs we found homes for and others we kept.

One particular dog took over a year to approach people. At the beginning she would hide from every human in the house and bite when touched. After several months she began to warm up to the family, but repeated the behavior when strangers came to visit. About a year later she had her first major break through. A friend came to visit and she followed our other dogs into the living room as they hopped around wagging their tails. As our visitor sat down she promptly hopped into his lap! My Mother and I were in tears. The moment had taken so long to come to, but here she was happily greeting a stranger! Who obliged by giving her lots of attention. By the end of her life you would never have believed she could have been so scared before. After her rehabilitation you  pick her up and do anything you wanted to her, she wouldn't flinch. She loved all people and especially food!

When I was in my mid teens we moved to the country where I acquired 4 horses. Unfortunately, they had to be sold during my parents' divorce. We also had a large iguana that resided in one bathroom that my father got in the divorce, my Mother wasn't a fan. But my Mother bought us several hamsters to try to lighten the blow.

When I lived in the city I groomed dogs out of our house. But after trying to make a business work in the boondocks, I decided at 19 to get a job with a corporate petstore about 45 minutes away. During this time I acquired a rat and a chinchilla. And had the pleasure of meeting many fun and exotic animals.

Still living at home in the country I was often the wrangler of many wild animals. More than once I had to catch opossums that found their way into our bathroom. I caught many non-venomous snakes, releasing them far away from our house and my Mother. I also had to keep the armadillos away from our fences because they liked to dig holes under them.

When I turned 20 I decided to move out of home to be closer to my job, and honestly to live a slightly more exotic side of my animal interest. Those, which are my current critters, will be introduced to you in upcoming posts. I hope you enjoy meeting them and are able to be a little open minded! Don't worry, I have cute fuzzy ones too. :)

There are many people in this world that scoff at my devotion to animals. But it's only because they have not experienced the joy that lies within having them. I am not saying these people have never owned an animal, many have. But just like anything else there is a difference between simply "being" with something and having a relationship with it. You can have a dog that spends 90-100% of it's time in the yard. You don't see him except to feed him and yell at him to stop barking or digging. Or you can have a dog that lives inside your home, that you train and love. You create a bond with them and most of us end up calling them our children. Because they rely on us as such and we love them like one.