Where Bloggers Live 02.2022: My Fine Furry Friends

 

Sweet friends…thanks for joining me for this month’s Where Bloggers Live 02.2022:  My Fine Furry Friends.  In this month’s edition the gals and I are sharing our furry family members with you.  Seems only fair that you finally know the pets behind the blog.  I mean, you’ve met my master bedroom and bath, peeked at my junque, and had a look in my trunk.  You already know nothing’s off-limits with this series!!

Pets, present and past, have been more like members of the family rather than animals that just happened to live with me.  Let me introduce you to everyone real quick and then I will tell you a story about 2 precious pets.

WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE 02.2022

 

As a child, I didn’t really have pets.  Unless you count the 2 ‘male’ mice my father rescued and brought home from his research lab who promptly proceeded to have a litter of 10 ‘pups’.  Which strongly suggested they weren’t both males after all.

When we moved to our ‘forever’ home in Memphis when I was 10, my parents decided to get a Beagle in hopes that my sister would overcome her extreme fear of dogs.  Poor Buckshot had a true dog’s life.  Valerie never became comfortable with him, so Bucky was sentenced to life in a small pen in the backyard.  I wish I could have a do-over for that sweet pup.  He deserved so much better.

After Buckshot, I didn’t have pets until I was an adult, married with a home of my own.

Furry Family Past and Present

 

I adopted my first very own pet in Panama.  A tiny baby kitten that had been abandoned by its mother in the interior of Panama.  I had never seen or held a cat before in my life.  After Celeste, it was a constant stream of canines and felines, and the occasional rabbit.

Celeste – kitty; Chim-chim – kitty; Polo – Siberian husky; Princess – Siberian husky; Taffy Ann – kitty; Mickey – kitty; 10 strays baby kitties I found homes for; litters of pups between Polo and Princes totaling 17 dogs who lived with me until we found them homes; 2 tropical birds whose names have escaped me; Midnight – kitty; Shiagra – kitty; Halloween – stray kitty; Licorice – kitty; Cinnamon – kitty; Quik (as in Nestle’s Quik)  – kitty; Cocoa – kitty; Doughnut – kitty; Pepsi – bunny; Dr. Pepper – bunny; DJ Brownie Mix – bunny; S’more – bunny; Cinn-a-bun – bunny; Bootsie – stray kitty; Cici – poodle-husky-sheep dog mix; Cheyenne – wolf-husky/Pyrenees mix; Piggy – corgi-chow-chow mix; Silly Cat – kitty.  Mixed in, here and there, are tropical fish, including those who lived in an aquarium in my library.

The Pups

 

[source]

Although I have had more kitties than pups, I consider myself a dog person.  These days I am making a little extra money doing drop-in visits and dog walks through Rover.com.  It is a wonderful way to be around pups without having the 24-hour responsibility of another pet.

Panamanian Pups

Polo and Princess were AKC registered Siberian huskies we purchased in Panama – an unlikely climate for the breed.  We had our own kennel name for the puppies they had together, Tennapan…because I was from Tennessee and my (now ex-) husband was Panamanian.  They were beautiful dogs, and I was devastated when they died.  For almost 7 years, I lived in Panama away from all family and friends while my daughters’ father was stationed there with the Army.  Polo and Princess were my family, my best friends. And my babies when I thought I couldn’t have my own babies.

El Paso Pups

In 1994, the girls and I adopted what was advertised as a husky mix for $35.00, here in El Paso.  Cici was a fluffy bundle of fur who, from the start, looked more like a sheep dog than a husky.  Cheyenne was a freebie.  Our next-door neighbor had a litter of wolf-husky/Pyrenees? pups and we took one to keep Cici company while we were gone to work and school each day.

Where Cici was absolutely crazy, Cheyenne was loyal and loving to the core.  I had the tiniest galley kitchen in our little house.  So small that you couldn’t open the refrigerator doors and walk through the kitchen at the same time.  You couldn’t load the dishwasher, then stop to check something in the oven simultaneously.  The doors to the appliances couldn’t be down at the same time.  But I cooked every single dinner with Cici and Cheyenne underfoot.  As underfoot as they could be in that shotgun kitchen.

Piggy entered the picture shortly before PC and I were married.  We were at a pet store where they were having an animal adoption.  Paul wandered by Piggy’s cage and was instantly enchanted by this stocky red-haired pup who wouldn’t meet his gaze.  Although Piggy’s official name was Rusty, we called him Rusty the Pig-Dog or Piggy, for short, because he oinked, grunted, and rolled around like a pig.

Present Pets

 

My current pets include Purrsimmony – kitty; Purrsnickitty – kitty; Fluff – stray kitty.  And Brennyn’s cats, my grandkitties, Baelish and Sansa and Lauren’s dog, Pumpkin, my grandpuppy.

I’ve shared photos of Sim and Snick many times on my blog and Instagram feed.  Simmie was a tiny 3-day old stray who a teacher friend found out in a rare El Paso rainstorm.  Brenda brought Simmie to school and I was in love.  We adopted Snick a few days later to keep Sim company.

 

And a few months later, I had to retire and have neck surgery.  My kitties became my lifesavers.  I bought a pet stroller and would load up both little kitties for short walks around the block until I regained my strength.  After being in public education for 25 years, I was sitting home alone with an empty nest day after day.  Sim and Snick became my surrogate daughters, students and friends.

Fluff is a neighborhood kitty that adopted us when her family threw her out.  Only the coldest and hottest days, Fluff comes in to warm up or cool down.  But Sim and Snick are not terribly hospitable.  We have been feeding and loving Fluff for over 3 years now.  She has a heated house on our patio for winter nights when we can’t coax her inside.

 

A Story

 

I have a story to share about Cici and Pumpkin but this post has gone too long already.  And I want to give the story some thought.  So, I will write it up this weekend to share as a Part 2 to this post.  And as an installment for #write28days.  It is very uplifting.  Hope you will stop back by for it.

Have managed to write for 11 days.  Only 17 days left to the #write28days challenge.  But hope by the end of the month, writing will be part of my every day agenda.

Thank you, dear ones, for popping in today.  What’s on the docket for your weekend?  I have to do a drop-in visit for Lucas, then hoping PC and I can have a date night tonight.  Tomorrow, Saturday, we are going to have Cami and Cia come over for a play date.  Hoping to heaven we can get back to church on Sunday.

Off to start the day.

Hugs and kisses,