Something often overlooked on our blogs is the ‘other’ family member that sleeps at the end of the bed.  We fail to mention our fur children even though they are a huge part of our lives. Is your ‘pet’ is really the king or queen of the house? Maybe you just tolerate having an animal because the husband or kids can’t live without one. Or some of you might be ‘animal free’, take issue with ‘just another responsibility’, or find that you’re deathly allergic to dander. With as much a part of our personal lives as pets tend to be, I figured it would be good to share about our animal friends (or the lack of them).

Who doesn’t love looking at furry critters - even if they aren’t your own? Some of us spend more time inhaling them than looking at them (cat belly can be addictive). Let’s not forget the slimy froggies, swimmy fish, feathery birds and other interesting creatures that some keep, also! Do you have an exotic pet to tell about? Or a neat animal story? Have you ever rescued a wild forest animal or had something strange wander up on to your porch?

Tell us your pet history. What was your first pet? Which was your most memorable? How about today? How many pets do you have? Do they help or hinder your homeschooling?

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We have one cat and would you believe I can't find a picture of him?  Not taken on a digital camera anyway.  I thought that odd, since Kennady loves to take pictures and I know she's taken many of the cat, but apparently I don't save them.  Hmmm...  Well,  our cat is named Blue and here is his story:  before we had kids, I was an office manager for a heavy construction company.  One day, one of our engineers came in the office and told me and the receptionist that the yard cat had apparently abandoned her 'nest' and one of the kittens was still there.  We went out to see, and found that a kitten had slipped down between the rolled-up construction site tarps and the fence they were stacked against.  The 'nest' had been on top of the tarps and it looked like the mama cat had moved her kittens to a more sheltered spot but she couldn't get at this one.  I asked the engineer to take up a board or two of the fence so we could get the kitten out and I took it inside wrapped in my extra sweatshirt and listened to it cry the rest of the day.  After work I took it to our vet (we had another cat named Monkey already) and found out it was only a few weeks old and just barely ready for solid food.  The vet recommended we try feeding it strained meat - as in baby food! - mixed with baby cereal to start with!!  So that's how Blue joined our household.  He is named after Don Cherry's dog, by the way.  Blue is about 17 years old, which is positively ancient for a cat, but he is still relatively spry.  We think he may be going deaf though.

Blue doesn't have much affect on homeschooling at all, and since he is old enough that he prefers to sleep about 22 hours a day, we barely notice him some days.  When he IS awake, he tends to yowl LOUDLY (contributing to our theory that he is hard of hearing) to indicate that he wants food or water.  And most of the time, he HAS food and water, he is just too lazy to go to where it is.  LOL

Harrison also has two pet turtles, but he's not that emotionally attached to them.   I don't think they even have names.  I call them Mary and Terri, in honor of the Maryland Terrapins, but those names haven't stuck.

Our past pets include the aforementioned cat named Monkey, a cockatiel named Spike, and a parakeet named Jester.  When I was growing up we had parakeets - I can't remember how many, but I think they were all named either Billy or Hank. 

We have several cats in our neighborhood that like to root through our recycle bin, and we think they sometimes take up residence under our pool deck too.  We have started referring to them by names, and mostly try to ignore their presence.  Soupcan Cat is so named because he is the one that got his head stuck inside a soup can in the recycle bin last spring and ran around the yard with it on his head.  Hysterical!  There's another one we named Bob, and one we call Tumor.  Tumor got up on our roof a couple of weeks ago and then was uncomfortable coming down.  We assumed he would get cold or hungry and would figure it out, but by Day 3 of the standoff we figured we'd better help him out.  I posted about it and shared a couple pictures here

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