Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: February 21, 2024

The Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.  This week’s topic is: pets i used to have or wish I could have.

Ah, pets, one of my favorite subjects.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of animals.  As a kid, we always had dogs.  That is, until my dad decided he needed to take a trip back to visit his family and asked us to care for his cat.  Said cat never went back to my dad.  To this day, I don’t know what went down, but that little Siamese became my pal and turned me into a complete cat lady.

I’ve had a lot of fish as well, mostly betas because they’re low-maintenance and hardy fish.  They’re also gorgeous.  Had one cat who thought it was fun to sit on top of the tank and drink the water out of the filter.  *sigh*

There were also hamsters and bunnies, and, eventually, my younger kid managed to convince her dad to get a bearded dragon.  Sampson was the funniest little critter, too.  The cats were obsessed with him and he was very curious about them as well.  Here’s a picture of him and Nayla not long after we got him.  Troy always referred to this as lizard TV.

I think half of the obsession stemmed from the heat lamp.  And if you’ve ever had a cat, you know how much they like to be warm.

It’s safe to assume that I’ve had plenty of cats, too.  Nayla, in the picture above, we lost just last year to cancer.  She was 11 and we’d had her for 8 years and it was rough losing her.  But it was funny, in a way, because right before she was diagnosed, my boss said, “Hey, Amy?  Want a cat?”  As it turned out, his cat had just had kittens – all four of them ginger tabbies.  I laughed and told him I had enough, and then we lost Nayla two weeks later.

Currently, we have four cats: Violet, a tabby Maine Coon, Sunny, a SIC – standard issue cat aka mackerel tabby, and The Boys – Gideon and Fawkes, both ginger tabbies.  Orange cats are nuts, guys.  The rumors are true.  These two are insane.  But they’re fun and the girls – Sunny and Violet – have adapted well to having them around.

Violet and Sunny.  Miss Violet is the fluffier of the two.

And these are the boys.  Gideon is the one with the white paws/chest and Fawkes is the pure ginger.

On the subject of pets I’ve always wanted, a good friend of mine had Guinea pigs for years.  They’re so cute, curious, and the sounds they make!  Just fun little critters, although I’ve never managed to get one.  Probably for the best with the current cat situation. Hahaha.

So, what about you?  What kind of interesting critters have you had?