Our current furbabies

Our kitty Samira was originally intended to be a companion for our aging Border Collie mix Cindy. But Cindy left us about 6 weeks before Samira was able to come home. (turns out that was probably for the best since Cindy was really stubborn and so is Samira!) We brought Samira home on Halloween 2012 ... she was 3 months old and weighed less than 3 pounds. We’d been told that she didn’t really like the other cats at the cattery we got her from but I was still surprised that she immediately took over the house and never cried for her mom like previous kittens I’ve had. For about two weeks prior to bringing Samira home I’d been searching rescue listings for another dog. I was looking for another Border Collie mix but wasn’t having a lot of luck. While searching, I kept running across a listing for a 6 month old puppy that the rescue group thought was a German Shepherd / Border Collie mix ... and I kept ignoring those courtesy posts because I really didn’t want a puppy, and I really wasn’t enamored with the thought of how intense a shepherd/herder mix would likely be. But after running across at least 7 courtesy posts on the same pup, I had to go look at her page on the rescue groups site ... and knew she had to be here with us. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but it soon became clear. We met Phoebe 3 days after Samira came home and we brought her home too. The first few weeks were a little chaotic. At first Samira was all teeth and claws, hissing and spitting at Phoebe any time she came near. But Phoebe just wanted to play with Samira and after a couple of weeks kitty calmed down and they got to know each other. The two of them are now best buddies. At some point we figured out that Phoebe was neither German Shepherd nor Border Collie. She’s actually an English Shepherd mix. I’d never heard of the breed before, but after looking them up decided they were really awesome dogs. They are at least as smart as German Shepherds and Border Collies but no where near as intense. They love rules and once they learn the “house rules” they become your “enforcer”, making sure that all the other people and animals residing in the home (or on the farm, they were originally farm dogs) follow those rules. What that’s meant for us is that whenever Samira does something mom doesn’t want her to, Phoebe steps in to gently redirect her. And yes, I do mean gently. Usually she just uses her nose to nudge kitty away from whatever she’s interested in. They love to play together (check out their videos on the “Fun Stuff” page here) and at least twice a day they chase each other around the house ... yes, Samira chases Phoebe too. Samira loves to play hide-n- seek and Phoebe is always happy to oblige her. Most important, Phoebe is Samira’s protector when we’re out of the house. Both of the girls are most comfortable when we’re together so whenever one of them needs to see the vet, when it’s vacation time, or just a run to the feed store to get food for them, we all go together.

Some of our previous pets

I don’t have a lots of pictures of our previous pets, and many of those I do have are printed from film and I haven’t found the time yet to scan them. But I did find a few that we had scanned ... the first two here are of our darling Cindy. She was 15 when she finally moved on, and the first photo is of her on her last vacation with us in Mt. Shasta. The other photo of her is her first Christmas with us when she was about 18 months old (we found each other when she was 10 months old). The kitty in this group was our daughter’s cat Butterscotch. He was a pound kitty we took home when he was just 2 months old and he was 20 when he moved on to his next life. I still have 5 tanks full of fish, but I haven’t taken any recent pictures. These shots are of some of my favorite fish pairs that I’ve had over the years. All three are actual pairs ... male and female partners that adored each other, and all had spawned at least once each. I figure they must be happy if they’re laying eggs.