Four Legged Family

Four Legged Family

February 11, 2011

Well since I have nothing else to blog about I thought I would introduce you to my family… my four legged family… and a couple that have two legs but a set of wings also…. I am talking about my animals.

My dear sweet Molly. We have had her for almost ten years now. She is part Lab and part German Shepherd. When she was about two years old Molly sacrificed part of her vision for us.  We had went to town and when we returned home, we noticed she had a cut that run along her head and a huge bump and would not open her eye. She was tied beside our shed and so I put two and two together. She must have been hit by someone when they tried to break in. My suspicion was increased when our neighbor come over a few days later and Molly went crazy trying to get at him, she had never before been aggressive to anyone. After that, anytime his truck would drive by she would bark like crazy and try to chase him. Nothing was missing so I know her sacrifice was not in vain. She did her job well.

Next, is our ornery miniature Donkey. He has a pretty bad rap sheet. He bites when he doesn’t get attention, rears up, and kicks up. He has bitten off one of the pigs tails off, has bitten our other dog Kelev’s belly and left a scar, and has taken the pygmy goat by the neck and thrown him around. All of that aside, anytime I walk outside I know I will be greeted by a beckoning bray. He is a bit jealous and that is why he is mean to the other animals. He wants attention and when it is not given in the time frame he thinks it should be, he acts up. He will try to bite me when I do go to love on him, so I put my fingers inside his mouth between his front and back teeth where a bit would go and hold him. I let him bite my shoe or sleeve and tug on it. I know he has anger issues and I love him in spite of it. I only fear one day he will seriously hurt one of my smaller animals.

This is the two little pot belly pigs, Ophelia and Gerty. Gerty (the black one) is “top pig”. When she and Donkey are penned next to one another she will squeal and grind her teeth at him showing him that he is in her space. When Kelev tried to herd them Gerty stands her ground. The only way to love on these girls is if you have food in hand. The only way  to their heart is through their stomachs. They will wag their tails happily as they eat. Ophelia has a half tail now thanks to Donkey during one of his fits.

This is Poo Cat… Anna calls him Spots, but he is Poo Cat. He was always so pot bellied when he was a kitten we always joked that … well …it looked as if he needed to… you get the picture. One day when I was trying to give him medicine, he bit and clawed me up something awful, so his “not-so-nice” name stuck. Now that he is older, he and I have made a mends and he will let me pet him, but I still do not try to give him any medicines.

These are some of the chicks. We have went through many rounds of chickens. We purchased fifty baby chicks which was suppose to be an “egg business” for Austin.  I am not sure why but the chickens must have had a civil war or maybe it was a gang territory thing but they ended up murdering the other half of the chickens and now we have twenty-two.

“Orangee Porangy Pudden and Pie” or Orangee and he is our rescue cat. We found him dumped out at a water park we visited two years ago.We brought him home and he immediately took to our chickens. He would crawl into their pen and rub on them and let them peck his fur. He would sleep in their nesting box but never touched the eggs. It was funny to watch him swat the chickens on their backside as they walked by much like a coach would his team before the big game. He has never been one to hang out with the other cats. Now he has made friends with Kelev and will just lay there with the pup as he chews on his tail, giving a pleading meow when the play get to rough. His favorite place to rest is on the top of our window unit air conditioner right outside the kitchen window, I like to think it is so he can be close to the family, but it is really probably only to be the first to get left-overs.

This is our sweet little man Buddy…or Goaty as I seem to always call him. He is a pygmy goat. When we first brought him home, we had to play momma for a while and bottle feed him. He would jump all around the house, from coffee table, to couch, to the back of anyone who was sitting on the floor. Now he is outside and pretty much full grow but still a little thing. He doesn’t try to jump on us anymore but will follow you around bleating to get attention.

Our guineas. We have three and they are very good guard guineas. Anytime they feel threatened they sound their alarm call and we go check on the chickens. They are the only fowl we let keep long wings. We want them to have run of the place so they are free to fly in and out of the pen.

Here are three of our barn cats: Agent 11 (named because he was the eleventh cat and needed a name),Einstein (because he has crazy ear hair like Einstein and he is smart enough to learn how to let himself onto our screened back porch), and Al Fraidy Jr. (named after his dad who, like him, was a Fraidy Cat). Here they are enjoying some left over fried chicken. We have one more named Sarge, we joke about him because he always looks completely unimpressed. They all hang out at the garden and feed shed keeping the mice out of the feed, mainly because they do not want to share. They are pretty much wild but the kids can catch them sometimes. If no one gets out to feed the animals in a timely fashion, they all stand around our back door meowing loudly trying to hurry Austin along.

If you come to our house and see this dog running at you looking like this… do not worry he is only smiling at you. This is Kelev, our very smart Australian Shepherd. He has learned to smile.. (trust me this is a smile.) We would always smile big at him and talk sweet when we would walk out the door and he has learned to smile back. He was running to me happy to see me taking his picture and flashed me a huge teethy grin. He is the dog version of Dennis the Menace. He has chewed through our phone line two or three times leaving us with no phone or internet. He has chew on the satellite cable causing a bad reception. Practically ate a small plastic resin bird bath Adam bought me. Loves to eat plastic water bottles, shoes, rugs, cups, toys, and cats. The last thing he has done was chew the washer fluid line in half from under our car. He is a brat but we love him.

All of our animals hold special places in our hearts (even though some are kind of high maintenance.)

We are animal lovers, and I can not imagine a life without my animal family.

Pro 12:10  A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: