If you continue to look at the website, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of animal posts whether it be on the home page or as a cover of a blog post. Maybe you don’t care that much. Maybe you are wondering why there’s so many animals around here. Well, I figure that could be my blog post for the day. Stick to the end to find a new change I’ll do for daily blog posts.
Animals are a huge part of my life. I don’t know if I’d even be alive if it weren’t for the animals that my family has had in my lifetime. I’ve done the math multiple times with my girlfriend, but I can never count accurately how many cats and dogs we’ve owned in the family during my lifetime. We got around to twenty but lose count after that. About 10 dogs, 10 cats is what we can come up with.
About half of those animals came before I reached consciousness (another blog post for another day, there’s a lot to be said in this subject). But I can name the ones that lived with us while I was still a child/teenager. This will be a long post, so buckle up. And keep in mind, there’s still more animals I couldn’t list.
Dogs
I’ll do dogs first because I’m a very cat-centric person. The first dog that was brought up was Buddy, a blind black lab. I don’t remember him being blind when we first got him, but I think he had an accident (or maybe it was glaucoma?) and had both eyes removed. He was one of the sweetest boys, and a big boy. He passed away while I was still young, but I remember that he could demolish entire apples. Even the core. Looking back, that probably wasn’t best for Buddy.
Another black dog, Sammy, was the most anxiety riddled dog we ever had (and it makes one dog later in the list look like a saint in comparison). He had been in a very bad situation and since rescuing him, he latched onto my mom but still let everyone love on him. I’m not sure on the breed he was, but he looked like a bigger black fox. For Halloween one year, we dressed him up as a shark.
Callie was one of the most recent dog losses we had, and it hit my family hard because she was such a good dog. We had her since she was just a puppy and another rescue (adopt, don’t shop). She passed away in early 2024 while I was abroad and had a long standing issue in her leg from a year she slipped on ice and injured herself bad.
We had one dog named Rupert we adopted but only had for roughly two weeks. He was already very old and on the way out, but we wanted to give him a proper send-off and life to live. I don’t think I have any pictures of Rupert, but I will find one eventually for the blog.
The hardest loss I took in pets was Charles, and he wasn’t technically “my” dog. He was technically my sister’s dog, but he was a champ for the kids of the household. He was always ready to play, and we could do just about anything with him. We even took him down on the sledding hill and he just went with it. Up for the first couple of years, he slept with me under my sheets until we found out I was allergic to dog dander and that show was shut down. He loved snuggling under the sheets. There’ll ever be another dog like Charles. He was the best dog anyone could have asked for. You’ll see a LOT of him on here.
Impy was never ours to start with, but my grandma’s. Once my grandma’s Alzheimer’s kicked in full gear, we took on Impy because my grandma couldn’t take care of herself, let alone another thing. Impy is smaller than any cat we ever had, a mixed breed but mostly chihuahua if I guessed. I would say maybe a “rat” terrier, based solely on her size. She doesn’t have any teeth (they all rotted) so her tongue sticks out to the side. She’s silly, sweet, and annoying all in one.
The last dog we’ve had was adopted in Feb. of 2023 while I was at school, a doodle mix. Her name is Allie and to be frank, I don’t like her much. She must have been abused by someone that looks like me before us adopting her because she can’t be near me without freaking out. I was hesitant even putting her here but she counts as a dog we’ve owned.
Cats
I took up a LOT of space writing on the dogs, and as a cat person, I’m not doing each cat justice by shortening their biographies. But alas, my hands are tired. All cats we’ve had have been domestic shorthairs, for reference.
The first cat that comes to mind is Clara, black and white. I don’t remember too much of her, but I do remember one night she was out and never came back. So that’s depressing.
We also had Joey and Alex, two male black cats. They were actual brothers. Joey was a hunter, and once caught three mice/chipmunks in a day. Alex was an indoor cat and was very quiet and gentle. Joey passed away first, then Alex.
We had another set of black twins, Crystal and Samantha who were adopted specifically for my sister and I. Crystal was “mine” and Samantha was “my sister’s”. All in all, I think they both favored me. Crystal was the fattest, sweetest cat to ever grace this Earth and I will argue this until the day I die. Samantha was a very skinny, skittish cat. However, she always came around at nighttime once people were settling in. She loved play-fighting and sleeping with me. Those two cats were the best cats I could’ve ever asked for. I miss both of them more and than anything in the world.
Puma we adopted sort of at random from a PetSmart. We had taken out a few cats to see how they played and acted, but Puma was the only one that seemed right. So we adopted him, but glaucoma took over both his eyes, and either by choice or force, he became less skittish and came around a lot. He loved scratches.
The last cat I can name right now is Mittens, who currently sits next to me on a giant beanbag. She’s a white-toed Siamese. She’s extremely sassy but loves attention. She was previously an outdoor cat that came in at night, but now she’s more indoors since moving to a more remote location (with more wildlife and treachery).
That’s all for this post. Here’s the update you read from above: for Blog Post pictures, I will now be taking a picture from a previous year on the same day. So today, January 9th, will have a picture from January 9th, 2015-2023. It will vary based on what I have and what I’m feeling. So enjoy!