You just wouldn't believe the variety of animals....but
here are a few. I had worked for a local animal shelter for two years, and a
veterinarian for six years. I handled a lot of wildlife only because I had
Rabies Pre-exposure shots. This page only gives a small sample of the pets we've
had.
As we would receive baby wildlife, we would keep them until they were able to
be released into the wild. The skunk was a lot of fun...got along fine with
other animals....and she never sprayed us. We never had the 'special surgery' on
her because she would need those defenses when released back into the
wild.
We also had a Raccoon that really did sleep in the bed with
us...at the foot
of the bed....under the covers. A rule in the house was to be litter
trained....and
they were. Poor ol' Les....do you think he ever saw all of this coming when he
married me???
Mitten, Not-Mitten, And Biscuit
I
have to start
somewhere
and I guess that I should start with the first cat Les and I had together. We
had been married for four months and he surprised me with a little black
mitten-toed kitty...Mitten. A little over a year later we moved down south and
we ended up with another black kitty...Not-Mitten. Okay, we weren't in the mood
to come up with a name...and she looked exactly like Mitten, but she wasn't
Mitten...so she became Not-mitten. Not long after that I began work at a local
animal shelter and adopted my first shelter kitten...Biscuit. She was the first in a
string of cats and kittens I'd be adopting.
The Rodent, Batman, And
Max
I brought home a lot of
kitties, trying to
save all the strays that I could.
We all go through that when we first start working at a shelter. So many of them
steal your heart. But you do reach a point where you have to be practical and
realize that you can't save them all. You have to make sure you can feed the
ones you have, provide good vet care, and get them spayed and neutered. And some
kitties were with me on a temporary basis...till I could find them a home.
Of course, it helps when you work for a vet
and get good price reductions. As a matter of fact, I got some more
film, and I took a picture of my 'trophies'. (pictured below) I was able to
neuter two male cats by myself. I am so proud! They are displayed, to this day,
in my living room. I've often been called by my friends, the 'testicle
police'.
The vet watched me, step by step, and I had seen surgeries a
gazillion times, so I wanted to do it myself. And these were my own male cats. I
would never have done surgery on anyone's cats but my own. And I never attempted
to do a spay...that was way too involved for me. I never considered it. But I
had no problems neutering a male!
The Trophies
Noffles And Sammy
We
got Sammy from another person, not a shelter kitty. He was one of
the best cats Les and I ever had, until Cecil, of course. But we only had him
for six months. When he was given to me he had Feline Leukemia. He died and it
devastated us. All of these pictures were from a long time ago and in other
homes we lived in. I still think of Sammy and how lively he was. Cecil has been
the closest thing to Sammy that we've seen. Harley was another cat from the
shelter. He was a real sweetie.
Spec, Respec, And The
Killer Lunch-Box
Okay, you
may
have some mixed emotions with this one...it's alright...we've all been there. I
had a little black kitten named Spec. Then, some friends of ours gave us a stray
kitten they found in some bushes. It was even smaller, so we named it Re-spec.
You know how I am by now.
Little Re-spec had potty problems...couldn't go. You
can tell in the photo how 'full' he looked. Anyway, one morning Les
was going to work...it was about 5:30 in the morning and I could hear Re-spec
meowing at him. Then I heard a quick meow and then silence.
It took Les forever
to come around the corner to the bedroom, look me in the eye and tell me he just
accidentally killed my kitten with his lunch-box.
Now, look at that
lunch-box...and I filled it up, too. I felt like I was married to Fred
Flintstone. He was backing out of the doorway with the door in one hand, and his
huge lunch-box in the other and it slipped out of his hand and landed on the
kitten. How horrible! I don't cry easily at all, but that really upset me. I
felt so bad.
I called a few friends of mine and even the most avid animal lover
couldn't help but to snicker as I re-told my tale of horror. They were saddened
by the tragedy, but the humor of Les' killer lunch-box had them rolling on the
floor laughing. After we had gotten back the roll of film we noticed that Spec
was standing right beside the killer lunch-box. This was not the kitty who lost
it's life to my husband's food. Needless to say, we got a different lunch-box.
Sorry...but it was a tale that had to be told.
I also have a lot of farm animal photos, but if you've seen
one pig and cow.....of course, it's not like that with cats and monkeys!
If I find or
gather some more pictures of animals we've raised, I'll be sure and post them
here to share with you.
