Those of you who know me will know this is an easy one
for me, talking about my pets!
I have two very special pets / fur babies in my life, one
dog one cat, they go by the name of Ellie and Finley.
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| Ellie - 8 weeks old |
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| Ellie - 4 years old |
Ellie
DOB - 2 June 2009 (4.5 years old)
Breed – Border Terrier cross Poodle
Fur colour – black
Favourite toy – ball
Best trick – “Bang” and she falls down on her back and
plays dead
Ellie is my diamond girl.
We have had her since she was 8 weeks old and we chose to get her from a
reputable breeder that was KC registered.
I know a lot of people will say you should rescue not buy a puppy, but
for both of us, Ellie was our first dog so we wanted to start fresh as we didn’t
really know what we were doing. If we
were to ever get another dog, now that I have had her and trained her for over
4.5 years I would certainly feel comfortable looking into rescuing a puppy next
time round.
We had the pick of the litter with Ellie, there were two
boys and five girls in the litter. We knew we wanted a girl straight away so
that narrowed it down to 5 of the pups.
My husband had a curly haired pooch snuggling up to him and I ended up
hugging Ellie (the only straight haired pup of the litter). We took these two
inside the ladies house and played with them both a little bit more. After a while, the curly one my husband had
held wanted to get back to its brothers and sisters and had grown tired of us,
whereas Ellie was still by us and wanting attention. We like to think that Ellie chose us, rather
than the other way round.
Since that day we have never looked back. Ellie is a hugely important part of our
family and we like to have a mini-break once a year where we take her on
holiday with us. We have always taken
her training. She started off going to
puppy training, and we progressed through the classes with her and she used to
do agility. She has also been awarded
The Kennel Club Good Citizens Award in both Bronze and Silver. Unfortunately, in the last year or so we had
to stop taking her as it was held on Sunday mornings and we had a lot of other
commitments to keep. I am certain that
once our house renovation is complete I will start taking her back to training
again as she really enjoyed it and liked socialising with the other dogs she
was very familiar with. Everyone always comments
on how calm and how well behaved she is and I think that is 100% down to the
training we have given her.
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| Finley - 12 weeks old |
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| Finley - 1 year old |
Finley
DOB – 3 June 2012 (1.5 years old)
Breed – Bengal cross
Fur colour – brown, tan and white
Favourite toy – cat tree / hairband!
Best trick – Spin, Sit and Paw
We got Finley when he was 12 weeks old. Again, we did buy him as we wanted to get a
Bengal and as you can imagine you do not get many Bengal kittens to be rehomed at
Cats Protection! His mum was there to
view and she was a beautiful large Bengal.
We can only presume that his dad was a black and white moggie as one of
Finley’s sisters was black and white without an ounce of Bengal in them whereas
all the others had Bengal markings. The
guy with the kittens had let her out one night without intending her to get
pregnant but hey presto, she did!
Some of you may remember my post on the DIY 7ft Cat Tree
myself and my husband made for Finley a little while ago, if you didn’t see it
you can find it here (LINK). This has
really helped him strengthen his claws and let off some steam, he still uses it
all the time and it is genuinely the single best thing we have ever got him or
in this case made him. He also likes to
sleep on the top platform throughout the day and evening as he really likes
being up high to survey the land (this is a Bengal characteristic I am told).
Despite what some people think cats or maybe just Bengal’s
in particular can be trained! Lucky for
us Finley is very food orientated and so we have been able to teach him spin,
sit and paw before he gets his meals. I
am sure there is a lot more we could teach him, it just takes a bit longer for
it to click and become habit but he knows those 3 commands now very well.
When we got Finley, we also got one of his sisters from
the same litter as a present for my parents-in-law. It was for their Ruby wedding anniversary and
they called her Ruby to mark this.
We were actually going to get one for his parents and
were not bargaining on coming away with one for ourselves too! I was quite
worried that Ellie would not get on with a cat but in the end was hopeful that
if the cat knew her from young it would get used to her. We took Ellie with us and quickly took Finley
out to the car to try him out with her, there was a bit of hissing but overall
the reaction was quite good so we went for it.
The hissing remained for a while but he never went for
her. Nowadays their relationship is
still very up and down. Sometimes he
wants to play with her and she acts scared, other times (normally when we have
visitors) she wants to play with him and picks on him like she is the
boss! Sometimes he will try to lay with
her and she will get up and move away from him, other times she will still and
they will cosy up together. All in all I
think it is a love hate relationship!
So, yes, that is a (somewhat longer than I had hoped) run
down of my family pets. They make our
home complete and we wouldn’t have it any other way. They will always be our family and they will
have a place in our home for their entire life and we shall do all that we can
to make sure that they have the best life possible. I strongly believe pets should be there to
enhance your life, we chose to get them and they certainly enhance our life and
bring us so much love and joy, they deserve to have that love and joy reciprocated
back.
What pets do you have?
How did you come about getting them? I would love to read all your pet
stories in the comments below so please be sure to write.
