Our Menagerie

Yep.  I got 'em.  My wife calls 'em furkids.  I call them self-motivating obstacles.  Especially the Big Dog.  She likes to lay right in main path through the living room.  She's a big sweetheart, but she's taken to chastising Kharma, our Pomeranian Devil, for no discernible reason.  She's a dog wrestler, intent on pinning her opponent.  He's getting a little old and she not only pisses him off, but she hurts him while doing it.  He thinks he's the dominant dog, so having her do this makes him a bit crazy.  He's smart, but a bit... narrow.  Can't conceive of not being the alpha, so the whole thing confuses him.

 

So, left to right, we've got Kitsune, Bella, Bejjing, and Kharma.

Dog-wise we started out with Kitsune, then got Kharma to keep him company--and because the wife thought she wanted a lapdog.  Kharma turned into a 30 lb Pomeranian Devil, and therefor not lapdog material.  He's our watch dog.  And, yes, yappy as hell.  He's bitten my dad twice, but there's certainly no love lost between them.  Dad doesn't like little dogs much and Kharma knows Dad doesn't like him.  So he makes his own mutual dislike known.

 

This is Kharma with our poor lost Dami-cat.

We don't get a lot of company, and probably won't until we relocate to a place where we can... isolate... the little beast.  Unlike Jing, he doesn't take our word for it that someone's okay.  They have to prove it.  And then he's just annoyingly friendly.

Boo's the min-pin.  Momma's baby.  She's a bold, energetic, black and tan piglet.  Who sleeps under the covers between us in bed.

 

Boo hanging out with my cat Bastion

Kitsune's the world's friendliest dog.  He just loves people.  Particularly people he doesn't see all the time or he hasn't met yet.  He wasn't a decent watchdog even before he got old and lazy.  Fair warning:  his is not a typical Shiba attitude toward humans.

  

Kitsune

Bejjing's a rescue, and the reason we had to quit fostering.  She decided that no other dog not already in the pack had any right to get between her and Mom.  Which really wasn't fair to the poor fosters.  But she's fiercely loyal to Mom and far more trusting of me than she started out.  She'd been abused and didn't like or trust men in general for the longest time.  Even now she's not a big fan of anyone in a uniform.  She's Kharma's silent backup--55 lbs of canine recon specialist.  She moves damn silently for a dog.

 

Jjing--taking a well earned break from guard duty

On to the cats.  It wouldn't be fair if I didn't introduce our late Dami-cat.  My wife had him before we met.  He tried to brain me with a potted plant by dropping it on me when I was housesitting soon after we got together.  I was amused but I always got the feeling he was waiting for me to take my revenge.  He got diabetes and despite all our efforts we lost him in the end.  He passed in my lap late one night.  You'll see him above in the picture with Kitsune, sitting by the heater.


Now we've got Bastion, Deja, and Sterling.  Bastion chose me the moment we went to see him as a kitten.  He's a weird cat, but not quite near as weird as Sterling.  Deja's a long-hair, which means he's a 24/7 cuddle.  And more or less a normal cat.  Bastion, on the other hand, acts as though he thinks he's a dog.  He comes when he's called--every time--and actually does what he's told most of the time.  He also likes to close the door and lock himself in the bedroom--and then bitch about it.  And he doesn't like wet cat food.  Dry only, thank you very much.

 

Bast showing me what he thinks of photography in general

Sterling has a fascination for water.  Flushing the toilet or running a bath will bring him straight away.  He's thrown himself in the bathtub more than once without first checking if there's water in it.  He's not so weird that he actually likes getting wet.  But he likes playing in the bathtub right after it's drained.  Apparently he enjoys wet feet.

He's a polydactal.  Six-toed cat.  Into everything.  He likes finding bits of plastic and dragging them out of various places to play with them.

Which leaves us with Deja.  He's just a sweetheart.  Who doesn't eat nearly enough.  He's all fur.  Bastion, like Dami before him, is a brick with legs.  Deja is like a big fluffball with no substance.  He's taken Dami's place as Mom's cat.

 

Deja as a kitten.

So that's our menagerie from bottom to top.  It's only been through great effort on my part that we haven't found ourselves with a miniature goat or domesticated pig.  That and the fact that we have hunting dogs--as I keep telling my wife.  A big goat, maybe.  But a miniature one?  Forget it.

Goats and pigs don't belong in the city.  Having grown up on a farm, I know a little bit about it.