Hey, Girlfriend!

My family and I have always been animal lovers.  As a child I grew up with dogs, cats, horses, fish, birds,

and as an adult allowed my young son to bring home a snake. I made the mistake of telling him if he found a snake he could bring it home, all the while thinking he would NEVER find a snake.

Guess what?!? He found a baby California King snake and I had to keep my promise. Talk about a lesson learned!  He named him Larry Boy, after his favorite Veggie Tales character. To my horror, I found out from the day that slithering thing entered our house I was doomed to make regular trips to pick up pinkies from the smelliest store I’ve ever had the displeasure to frequent.  It was full of reptiles and creepy crawly things. Of course, Nico loved that place. The smell is still fresh (NOT) in my memory.

If you are unfamiliar with pinkies, no, they are not little fingers, but newborn mice. On more than one occasion I had to be their executioner and drop them in the snake’s cage. Thoroughly disgusting!  Finally, Nico grew disenchanted with caring for Larry Boy and I was able to convince him to release the snake on the hill above our house so he could be with his snake friends. Good riddance Larry Boy!

Birds are okay, but they are messy and hard to keep safe from the cats.

A boy and the family parakeets

Over the years we have had an array of cats and dogs.Tabbies, Siamese, Feral, Golden Retrievers, Miniature Schnauzers, and currently we have two Chiweenies, which is a fancy way of saying they are a mixed breed of Dachshund and Chihuahua.  Ah, yes, the designer dog. Ha!

I never thought I’d have a Taco Bell dog, but my charming (and sneaky) daughter, Courtney brought a puppy home and it was love at first sight. In fact, when Courtney moved out to be on her own for the first time, we wouldn’t allow her to take the dog, Macy, for fear of something happening to her.  Then we acquired Oliver, Macy’s brother.  Is that the relationship? Not sure.  They both came from the same parents, but different litters and look nothing alike.

Macy Lou and Oliver

We are not the only people who love animals in our circle of friends.  Frankly, I don’t trust people who don’t like animals.  Here are a few snapshots of our friend’s fur babies.

Melissa and her beloved Mamba.  Yes, Mel dresses her up!

Tofu, a rescue.  Not mentioning names but her parent’s bought her a stroller.  Notice she has her own pillow!

Bella, another rescue, I saw in a shop in La Jolla. The sweetest service dog I ever met.

As a family we like to travel but find it hard to leave our fur babies.  So, occasionally we take them with us.

Oliver, Dad’s copilot

One of the last trips we took and brought our dogs was to Lake Tahoe.  We have friends there and decided to meet them for dinner.  We brought a portable crate with pillows for our puppies, and tucked them in for the couple of hours we would be gone.  The extra room in the hotel had a television so we left Animal Planet on to distract them.

When we arrived back at the hotel we were greeted by 8 lb. Macy.

Macy with her paw in a cast

She was so excited.  We went into the room to check on Oliver and found him still in the crate. Oliver is 25 lbs. and was so mad that Macy was able to squeeze out of jail, that he chewed the electrical outlet next to the crate that lead to the television mounted on the wall.  Thank God he didn’t get electrocuted and Thank God our friends are handy.  The boys had to go to the hardware store to fix the damage so we wouldn’t be charged for the destruction.

Dogs and their destruction

Even though we love our fur babies, they are not joining us on our next getaway.  Do you have any funny stories to tell? Please share!

xo,

Valerie