My menagerie

I suppose if I'm going to do this blog I ought to talk a little about myself and my home life. I don't much like talking about myself, so instead I'll write a bit about my menagerie.

Most people I know have a pet. Most have one cat, maybe two, or a dog. When my husband and I moved to Nashville from central Illinois last year, we moved 2 cats, Josie and Lilly.

Josie
I acquired Josie from underneath my uncle's couch. She was the quiet one in the litter, so of course she's turned out to be the devil. She loves me, but only me. She's a hisser and a growler and will attack you if you look at her wrong. Somehow I interpret that as love. I guess that's what sets an animal lover apart from just a plain-ol pet owner! I think it's cute when she bites and even sweeter when she attacks the hairbrush. This adorable behavior is what caused me to get Lilly.

Lilly
I figured getting another cat might calm down my cantankerous Josie. Lilly is the sweetest cat on the planet. She walks around talking to herself all day long and will even answer you when you talk back. She's an orange cat, which is extremely rare for a female. Something like 99% of orange cats are males. When we first got Lilly they fought like, well, cats. There was lots of flying fur and constant hissing. She and Josie don't exactly like eachother but they do peacefully coexist now.

Before we moved, we had been talking about getting a dog "someday", but had no plans to do so until we bought a house. We will be moving into our first home next week. Needless to say, we didn't wait.

Rory
About this time last year a lady at work brought in a little chihuahua mix puppy looking for a new home. Romantic that I am, I thought my husband would be so surprised and would think I was the greatest wife ever for getting him a puppy. I even put the little rascal in a box and gave her to my hubby like a present. After recovering from shock it took about a week to convince him that the little girl puppy we soon named Rory would be worth the work and extra money. Turns out I was right (and yes, my husband will admit that!) and we couldn't imagine life without our Rory.

Faith, Hope & Joy - and Mocha
A couple of months after we brought Rory home, we were walking her in our ghetto apartment complex (more on this later), and found a litter of kittens and the mother cat in the bushes. Suckers that we are (you're probably picking up on this by now), we took them in. We did find a home for the mother cat with another pair of suckers that we know, but kept the 3 kittens, christening them Faith, Hope & Joy. Since one good turn deserves another (or one act of suckerdom deserves a slap in the face), when those other suckers I mentioned found a whole litter of black kittens at Halloween, guess who took one in? Yup. Seeing a pattern here? We named her Mocha because she's black with a white spot on her chest - coffee with cream.

Maggie
Nope, not done yet. I decided that once we got the house, Rory should have a playmate. 6 cats are fun and all, but she can't really play with them. Oh, she certainly tries, but they don't much stand for it. So I surfed the web, went to pet stores, checked the newspaper...anything that had the word "free puppy" in it my eyes were drawn to. I had planned on getting another puppy. Something cute and cuddly and small. But I ended up with Maggie. I got off work early one afternoon and went to our local pound to look for puppies. I really didn't think I would find one since most pound puppies (yup, like the cartoon from the 80's) will grow up to be BIG dogs. I walked in and made straight for the puppy room. My suspicions were confirmed. All going to be huge monster dogs. So, I made the rounds in the adult dog room, just to see if maybe there was an overflow of puppies in there or some smaller dogs. On my 2nd lap around I saw her. She's a year-old, part Cocker Spaniel part Dachshund, and I fell in love instantly. She came home 2 days later and she's Rory's new best friend, and ours.

Rufus
Last one! I promise! This weekend we found Rufus. He was being chased around our neighborhood by the millions of parentless children (again, more on this later). He found our dogs very interesting when they went outside to use the bathroom. We coaxed him to the patio to eat some food, which you could tell by looking at him that he hasn't had for a while. He was wearing a collar but no tags and when we had him scanned for microchips he was without that too. He was filthy and you can see his ribs and spine. Someone obviously does not care for this animal. He is such a sweet dog and I just can't understand how anyone could let him get this way! A man in our complex mentioned that he might be a dog that was accidently let out of another apartment by the maintenance crew a few days ago. Obviously the "owner" doesn't much care. Rufus, as we're calling him, was in the neighborhood, visible, for hours on Saturday. Besides that, the dirt on him and the lack of nutrition are enough to show that someone doesn't care for him. Rufus will have a home as long as we're able to give him one.

So, there you go. A bit about me...well, my pets at least, which when you think about it, tells you an awful lot about me already.