Digression: Furry Critters
http://fuzzy.dragoness.net is about our children: Ninja, Pirate, and Samurai. We are such dorks that we made a webpage for our pets. Luckily, we have cute and/or entertaining pets, so it's all good. If you're swayed by fur, go check them out.
The pets serve as our children, making us question whether it's a good idea to have our own kids. The pets are all within a couple of months agewise. They also all came to us very young, so they got to be babies with us. As a result, they all get along reasonably well, though they can be obnoxious in their siblingish fighting. We owned a house in Washington when everyone was young, so we didn't stop to think that we should set a limit of two on pets.
We also assumed that we'd get a dog, but didn't know we would get cats. However, when we started our search for the dog in around November of 2005, we ended up at shelters first, which put us into contact with tons of adorable kitties. We stopped at many shelters, and almost had picked out one or two when the place kicked us out. I was a bit pissed off about that because had they warned us they were within the final moments for possible adoption or something we'd likely have adopted some kitties right then and there. We ended up going to another shelter some 30 miles north of where we lived and met Ninja and Pirate, who came home with us that evening.
We picked Pirate first. He was in a cage with another kitten who was named Ashton. Pirate's shelter name was Kavu, but he doesn't know that and I'd appreciate it if nobody tells him. Anyway, we took the kitties to the acquaintance room and played with them. Ashton was a black kitten who was a bit runtier than Pirate, and both he and Pirate were exceptionally skittish. Pirate looks like a tabby who's more orange than striped, and when he was a baby he was just an orange cat. I thought Pirate was the cutest thing ever, and James thought Ashton looked sickly, so we separated them. We occasionally wonder what our kittens would be like now if Ashton became Ninja instead, and hopefully he was adopted and doing all right now.
The shelter that closed had a two kitten rule: if you wanted to adopt a kitten, you had to take two so that they can have each other. The NOAH shelter did not enforce this, but at this point we were convinced that we wanted two kittens anyway. We looked at the caged kittens some more and took one named Lucky out of his little realm. Lucky was a black baby kitty who was within one week of the other kittens' age. When we took him out, he climbed upon our shoulders and meowed. We took that as a sign that he was trying to come home with us, so we took him and renamed him Ninja. It's probably all right if Ninja knows his name used to be Lucky since he's already been through two surgeries in his little kitty lifetime.
We had an extra room in the house, so that became the kitten room. We outfitted them with everything a little kitten could want. Both were litterbox proficient, thankfully. Pirate remained skittish but Ninja is selectively outgoing and still quite the fucking climber.
A couple of months later, the kittens got a little brother. James finally had found the dog I had always wanted, and as a gift to me arranged for us to get a puppy. Like I mentioned earlier, we had figured we were going to get a dog. We had to debate for a while what kind of dog we'd get, and we had different favorites: mine was the Keeshond and his was the Husky. We decided that the Keeshond would be easier to deal with since it was a friendly little ball of fluff. Unfortunately, Keeshond puppies are very difficult to find - I met my initial Keeshond in NY and hardly anyone who grew up much further west of that have heard of this breed. That's also why we didn't have much luck looking for a dog in shelters. Anyway, Samurai joined our family in February of 2006 and he wasn't much bigger than the kittens at that point.
So, our critters are now going on 2 years old, and we keep them all cooped up in an apartment. They seem to like it, and everyone's somewhat snuggly. In fact, Pirate, who earned the nickname Purry with his loud and constant purring, is lying down behind me and soliciting pets. Samurai is wandering around scrounging for food. Ninja is likely in the back bathroom trying to scam some pets or treats.
The pets serve as our children, making us question whether it's a good idea to have our own kids. The pets are all within a couple of months agewise. They also all came to us very young, so they got to be babies with us. As a result, they all get along reasonably well, though they can be obnoxious in their siblingish fighting. We owned a house in Washington when everyone was young, so we didn't stop to think that we should set a limit of two on pets.
We also assumed that we'd get a dog, but didn't know we would get cats. However, when we started our search for the dog in around November of 2005, we ended up at shelters first, which put us into contact with tons of adorable kitties. We stopped at many shelters, and almost had picked out one or two when the place kicked us out. I was a bit pissed off about that because had they warned us they were within the final moments for possible adoption or something we'd likely have adopted some kitties right then and there. We ended up going to another shelter some 30 miles north of where we lived and met Ninja and Pirate, who came home with us that evening.
We picked Pirate first. He was in a cage with another kitten who was named Ashton. Pirate's shelter name was Kavu, but he doesn't know that and I'd appreciate it if nobody tells him. Anyway, we took the kitties to the acquaintance room and played with them. Ashton was a black kitten who was a bit runtier than Pirate, and both he and Pirate were exceptionally skittish. Pirate looks like a tabby who's more orange than striped, and when he was a baby he was just an orange cat. I thought Pirate was the cutest thing ever, and James thought Ashton looked sickly, so we separated them. We occasionally wonder what our kittens would be like now if Ashton became Ninja instead, and hopefully he was adopted and doing all right now.
The shelter that closed had a two kitten rule: if you wanted to adopt a kitten, you had to take two so that they can have each other. The NOAH shelter did not enforce this, but at this point we were convinced that we wanted two kittens anyway. We looked at the caged kittens some more and took one named Lucky out of his little realm. Lucky was a black baby kitty who was within one week of the other kittens' age. When we took him out, he climbed upon our shoulders and meowed. We took that as a sign that he was trying to come home with us, so we took him and renamed him Ninja. It's probably all right if Ninja knows his name used to be Lucky since he's already been through two surgeries in his little kitty lifetime.
We had an extra room in the house, so that became the kitten room. We outfitted them with everything a little kitten could want. Both were litterbox proficient, thankfully. Pirate remained skittish but Ninja is selectively outgoing and still quite the fucking climber.
A couple of months later, the kittens got a little brother. James finally had found the dog I had always wanted, and as a gift to me arranged for us to get a puppy. Like I mentioned earlier, we had figured we were going to get a dog. We had to debate for a while what kind of dog we'd get, and we had different favorites: mine was the Keeshond and his was the Husky. We decided that the Keeshond would be easier to deal with since it was a friendly little ball of fluff. Unfortunately, Keeshond puppies are very difficult to find - I met my initial Keeshond in NY and hardly anyone who grew up much further west of that have heard of this breed. That's also why we didn't have much luck looking for a dog in shelters. Anyway, Samurai joined our family in February of 2006 and he wasn't much bigger than the kittens at that point.
So, our critters are now going on 2 years old, and we keep them all cooped up in an apartment. They seem to like it, and everyone's somewhat snuggly. In fact, Pirate, who earned the nickname Purry with his loud and constant purring, is lying down behind me and soliciting pets. Samurai is wandering around scrounging for food. Ninja is likely in the back bathroom trying to scam some pets or treats.