Meet My Pet Family

You may have noticed already that I love animals.  I have quite a few. 

This is Caspar (aka Caspar the Friendly Horse).  He's an 11 year old 15 hand (5' at the shoulder) grey quarterhorse.  (Did you know grey horses can be born any color?  They get lighter every year until they are bone white.  You can tell the difference between a true white horse and a grey horse from the color of the skin.  Grey horses have black skin.  White horses have pink skin.)  He was a little surly when I first met him (he was 3.5 years old).  He had been "ranch broke" at a ranch in Mexico.  Some horses do ok with that style of training, but Caspar wasn't one of them.  After I got him I used John Lyons methods that I learned on the web.  We spent the first year doing training on the ground while we learned how to communicate with each other.  Once he realized he wouldn't get hit if he didn't get it right, he relaxed and started learning.  I love this horse.  He is a little nervous.  But otherwise he is pretty fabulous.  I can ride him bareback, english or western.  When my legs are bad, if I fall getting off him, he never steps on me, even if I fall underneath him, he stands still and lets me balance against him.  I love teaching him new things.  The latest things are "kiss" and "hug".  You can see hug below.  I guess there's a size limit, because it won't let me add kiss.

 

I currently have 5 cats.  In the box is Sebastian, playing with orange Eragon.  They are my youngest at 2 and 3 years old respectively.  I've had them since they were 7 weeks old.  Both were saved from a life on the streets.

Pywacket adopted me.  He showed up at my door in the winter in 2001.  Temperatures were below freezing and snow was on the ground.  I let him in at night, sequestered in the bathroom to keep him away from my other cats.  I let him out during the day so he could find his way home.  But he kept coming back and pretty soon he just stayed at the door all the time.  So, after notifying the local shelters in case his family was looking for him, I took him to the vet for a checkup and adopted him.  He was 1.5 years old. 

This is Py and Zeri. Zeri is short for Scherazade.  I named her after the exotic courtesan who tells the stories to stay alive in 1001 Arabian Nights because she's so pretty.  I adopted her from the Humane Society when she was 6 months old.  (I adopted another cat, Kasey, at the same time.  But Kasey died 4 years later of a neurological disorder.) Zeri has a tendancy to pee on anything soft (bedding laundry, etc.) so she is confined to my office where she can't do much damage.  Both Py and Zeri are love-muffins.  They couldn't possibly have enough petting.

D'Artagnan is another kitten that was adopted from the street.  I got her in 2007 at 7 weeks.  She is a spitfire and when she wants attention she'll let you know.. lol.  She is named after one of the 3 musketeers.  She's tiny at only 6 pounds (half the size of my biggest cat, Eragon).  But boy, is she feisty.

The aquatic turtle is Valentine (named after the character Valentine Michael Smith from Stranger in a Strange Land).  When I first got her in 2006, she had 2 plecos in her tank.  She went down to see one and I thought.. aww.. how cute!  She's meeting her new friends.... CHOMP!  Bit the poor guy right in half.  And then went and ate the other one too.  I was traumatized.  I realized then how very different our cultural mores were.. lol.. hence the name.  She has recently moved to a new 120 gallon aquarium and gotten a bunch of new friends.. cichlids.  She has gotten along well with cichlids, which are a semi-aggressive fish -- aggressive enough that she doesn't eat them.  But we try to keep her fairly well fed just to be on the safe side.. ;-)

In addition to these animals, my hubby brought along a salt water tank that has a bunch of soft corals, a shrimp, a damsel fish, and a brittle starfish.  We recently added an emerald crab, who is quite pretty.  (Her name is Emmie.)  He also brought along a dachshund, Lilly, who is 11 now.

Robert would prefer a few less pets.  So, after the current population passes away, there will be no more kitties.  (Or maybe just one.. not sure.)  And eventually I'd like to have another dog. 

<3

Jen