Our Pets

What would a personal web site be without pictures of the family pets. Here are a few pictures of ours. I will add a separate page about each one later with more pictures.

This is Pooh, given name Timber, and Tig. Pooh is 11 years old now and grew up with two cats that we had when he was a pup. That may explain why he took so well to the new kittens when they came into the house. Pooh played with the kittens when they were small and groomed them just like they were his own. He still grooms them, but they don't play like they did when they were kittens.

It seems odd that an 88 pound dog would be such good friends with cats, but they get along very well together.

This is Smoke, given name Smokey. He is about 3 years old now and last visit to the vet he weighed in at 20.2 pounds. Yes, he's a big fellow. It is odd that he is the largest of the cats because he is also the most active. Smoke loves to play fetch, but often he forgets to bring what ever toy it is all the way back to you. He will also make up his own games, such as dropping a toy into a shoe and then trying to get it back out. For a while he would drop everything in the water bowl and try to fish it back out, but he hasn't done that lately.

Smoke is also quite smart. We had to put child locks on the cabinets under the sink because he could open them as fast as we could, and there are things under there that he doesn't need to get into. We have bi-fold doors on the wash closet and he can open those as fast as we can also, so sometimes we have to put a bungie cord on the doors to keep him out. At one time he knew how to flush the toilet, something I tried to discourage him from doing. His latest trick is opening the closet door in the bedroom. It is a regular door with a magnetic latch. Now he opens it nearly every night just because he can.

This is Tig, given name Tiger. He and Smoke are brothers but they don't look anything alike. Tig has a larger frame than Smoke, but he only weighs about 18 pounds. Tig is the typical tiger pattern cat, but has more of a black undercoat than brown. The pads on his feet are black instead of brown, and his whiskers are even stripped.

Unlike Smoke, Tig is more laid back and spends most of his time sleeping or looking out the patio doors. At times Tig will go through the evening crazies like a lot of cats, but not as often as the others. Unlike the rest of the cats Tig is extremely high strung and is constantly jumping at the least little thing. He also spends a lot of time lying next to Pooh, often right up against him and even using Pooh's paws for a pillow.

This is Missy, or to use her given name Muffin. She is about 3 years old now and weighs about 13 pounds. We got her from my sister after her husband found her in a dumpster. At that time she was at least 2 months old according to the vet, but only weighed 8 ounces. She had a cold and a sore throat and the vet said she would never have lived one more day. He was surprised she was still alive as it was. For a couple weeks I had to feed her with an eyedropper, first milk and then the juice from canned cat food. After that we had to mash the canned cat food into a kind of soup, it was the real meat chunks kind. She was so weak and under developed because of malnutrition that she couldn't stand up to eat. She would get her head over the food plate and use her hind legs to bulldoze her way through it. She fought hard to make it and never gave up. After several weeks she was strong enough that we let her out of pet carrier that was her temporary home and let her explore the living room. She was still weak and would take a couple steps and then her front feet would just roll under and she would be on her elbow. Over time she built up strength and became best friends with Pooh, a then 80 pound dog.

For some reason Missy has a thing for boxes. If you put a box in the floor for just a minute she will be in it, even if she is way to big for the box. In this instance she actually has one that she can stretch out in and take a nap.

This is Bear and he has been with us for about a year and a half. He is a very old Chow that Ann found on the side of the road. He had been hit by a car that knocked one of his canine teeth almost out, it was hanging by a thread. His foot had also been run over and was cut open and bleeding.

When Ann took him to the vet to get fixed up they discovered that he had been neglected/abused for a while. The collar was so tight around his neck that it had formed a groove that is still there. There was a long scar on one leg that went from his foot half way up his leg. The first 6 weeks he was with us he gained 10 pounds, going from 60 to 70 pounds.

Bear is so old that he sometimes has trouble getting up and stumbles occasionally when he walks. He spends most of his day sleeping, but really loves being petted. His eyesight is going and he doesn't like to go outside unless you go with him. If you put him out by himself he will stay within 15 or 20 feet of the door. Star is the only one of the cats that likes him, the others just tolerate him. Pooh really doesn't like Bear and we have to keep them separated at all times. It makes things interesting at times. We decided that Bear has had such a hard life before we found him that we will try to make his last years as comfortable as possible.

This is Star, the latest addition to our zoo. She has a lot of Russian Blue in her, but you can see a little tiger strip in her tail and legs. She is about 6 months old and all kitten. She shares one trait with Smoke and Missy, she likes to play fetch.