My Life with Animals

Warning: My story is kinda long because I've had pets my whole life and I'm practically middle aged. Eeeeeeeek! Did I just admit that? Well, here goes...

When I was born in Bellevue, WA, my family had a dog named Moppet. She was a black, curly haired dog. I don't know what happened to her, but when we moved to California, we had a gray tabby cat for a short time whose name I can't remember. After him, we wound up finding an orange tabby cat in our yard and named it N.A.L., which stood for my sister's and my names, Nancy, Amy and Laura. It turned out that N.A.L. was our new neighbors cat, and we had to give it back. I was so upset that I begged and begged for a new cat, so my mom rescued an orange tabby from the pound and we named him Honey.

A girl and her horse

When I was about 6 years old, my dad took me to see a rodeo. When the horses came out to do the barrel racing, I was mesmerized. That was basically it for me, I became obsessed with horses (and what little girl doesn't?). We moved to Palm Springs shortly after that, and I took horseback riding lessons. I begged my dad every single night to buy me a horse once I'd learned how to ride. Apparently, I made a lot of noise when I REALLY, REALLY wanted something, but I wasn't a spoiled child, read on...

Meanwhile, Honey disappeared, we think he'd been eaten by a coyote. Once again, I was very upset that my cat was gone, so one day my mom went to the pound to see if she could find him. She brought home another orange tabby that had been hit by a car. Someone had generously paid for his surgery, but didn't want to adopt him. At first, my mom tried to play it off as our cat Honey, but I knew as soon as I saw him that he was a different cat. We named him Sunshine. I had that cat until I went to college. I also had a St. Bernard/Mastiff mix named Vicky for about a year. She was very protective of the family and extremely aggressive toward men. Back then we didn't know about dog training and we just lived with it. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, it wasn't fun for me or my family and friends, so we found her another home.

Unfortunatley, my parents got divorced and we moved to San Bernardino. My dreams of owning a horse were crushed, it was very apparent that our income was drastically reduced. Amazingly enough, on my 11th birthday my dad said he'd buy me a horse if I found a place to keep it and if I'd be responsible for taking care of it since he still lived in Palm Springs. I found a place to board a horse almost immediately and it was just around the corner from my house. Then I bought my first horse, Candy. Yay! See what happens when you stop begging?

Candy was a red roan and she had one blue eye and one brown eye. I eventually sold her and bought an Appaloosa named Princess. I was told that Princess was 'green broke', and my trainer and I thought we could finish the job and turn her into a show horse. I think the truth was that she was really 'red broke' and on top of that she was impossible to train. Not even my trainer could stay on her and she threw me off innumerable times. The last straw came when she smacked me in the head while I was on the ground walking next to her. She knocked me out and caused a severe concussion.

Everyone thought I'd never go back to riding after that, but the accident didn't deter me. I just didn't want to ride her again. So, I sold her to a different trainer and bought my last horse, a beautiful Pinto/Quarter horse that I named San Domingo, I called him Mingo for short. It was love at first site and he became my show horse. He enabled me to fill my bedroom with ribbons and trophies. I had him until I went to college.

The return of the kitty

After college I didn't have any pets again until I was about 25. I missed having a cat, so I adopted a gray tabby and named him Ziggy. When I met my husband, he had two rescues, Marlon and Squeaker. When we moved in together we then had three cats. At first I thought it was going to be a lot to deal with, but it was great to see Ziggy play with Squeaker and Marlon and I realized how important it is for cats to have playmates. Eventually Ziggy passed away, so we adopted Oscar, another orange tabby. He passed away, and then Squeaker passed away, so we adopted Bosco and a couple months later, we adopted Duffy. We never felt right having less than 3 cats around.

Here comes Smoochie

One day while at the shelter where I volunteer doing Massage and Reiki on the dogs, one of the dog walkers brought out an adorable little white dog. He was shaking and was obviously terrified. I asked about him and they said he had only been there for about 3 days. I told the dog walker to bring him to me for treatment when they got back. I did Reiki on him and while I was treating him, I couldn't stop thinking that I needed to get this dog out of there, I wanted to put him in my car. I've fallen in love with many of the dogs I treat at the shelter, so I just tried to put it out of my head, I didn't think we could handle a dog yet. A couple weeks went by and all I could think about was that I wanted a dog even though the timing didn't seem right.

I finally told my husband that I wanted a dog and I wanted him to meet this dog at the shelter. We brought the dog home and named him Smoochie. Aside from being very sweet and intelligent, he was a complete mess; he was terrified of everything and had terrible separation anxiety. We hired a trainer, took him to obedience class and did a lot of research on behavioral problems. Now, after 9 months, he's doing really great and continues to improve every day.

So, that's my story and I'm stickin' with it. I hope to have a horse again someday. Toodles!