(Be-lated) Nov. 28th - "I'm Thankful for: "

    Our "creatures" whom give us 'comfort'.
    In the Nov. 7th posting about "the 'modern conveniences'" type of 'creature comforts' that we have in our home (such as stoves, refrigerators, etc.), I told you about how after I had posted the Nov. 3rd posting, about our homes 'creature comforts' (such as having a furnace, and running water, and electricity, etc.), Jill Roed. had sent us a comment saying, that when she had read the words 'creature comforts', she had thought I was going to be writing about our pets. ;-p
    Jill (and every one else) this one IS about our pets. ;->
    The very first pet our little family had, was a gerbil. We named him "Shreddaskal" (combination of shredder and rascal). Yes, he had originally been one of our sons (Benson to be precise) classroom pets, that came home with us during one of the breaks, and then permanently once the school year ended.
    He loved to interact with us! If we were up close to the cage talking to him, he would play hide-n-seek through the different holes in the McDonalds type, cardboard beverage carry trays, which he absolutely loved to climb all over and then shred up. Or if we had given him an empty cardboard toilet paper or paper towel roll, he would charge through them, we swore he was racing his own time speeds! Eventually, they too would get shredded.
    There were even times when HE would tap on the glass trying to get us to pay attention to him. Comical!!! ;-p

    Our next pet also came via one of Benson's classrooms. This time it was a Guinea pig, which we named "fluffy". Oh how Fluffy could squeak with excitement! ;-p!  Like the times, after all of the boys were down for the night, that dad would take him out of his cage and allow him to run back and forth along the back of the couch between us. Silly critter!  Or the times that he was allowed to roam free and play on the front porch with Benson, while Benson was out there taking over the whole porch building cities. Fluffy didn't always stay on his assigned paths to navigate - and then he heard about it! ;-b Or when Brian would bring the left over salad home from a catering job, and we slowly fed it to Fluffy. You know those hard sections most of us don't like to find in our salads? He squealed in delight over them!!! Fluffy never realized that he was "only" a guinea pig!  And that made him fun!

    I'm pretty sure that our fish bowl and contents originally came via a classroom too, but I'm not positive on that one. But we did have fish. And we did buy fish. Several times. And then we caught on to the fact that the reason so many of the fish we bought kept disappearing, was due to one of the now large sized gold fish eating them. Gee-sh! We also learned that the algae eaters were well worth their cost!!! That is, until they too evaporated. But thankfully they did manage to survive for a long time.
    While we did not allow the fish to be removed from the bowl/tank ( something the now humongous gold fish must have had problems with, seeings how after a few years of tank living, he jumped out one night ....) the boys did find them entertaining anyways.

    And for eighteen years Rascal was a part of our lives. Very much so! He always considered himself more of a puppy than an A-typical cat. He loved to inter-act with us. He insisted that we not 'ignore' him!!! And when we had been gone for what he considered to long of a period of time, he would cling to the leg of his chosen capture (usually Benson, but not always) thus assuring himself of at least one person staying home.
    We had gotten his front claws removed after the time while we were sitting at the table eating and Brandon had suddenly started howling and trying to stand, and howling.... Rascal had chosen his bare leg (due to wearing shorts) to try to climb to get up where he could be with us (which was NOT allowed!).
    And we had had him neutered. Brian had carried him into the vets. A fact which Rascal took a l-o-n-g time to forgive!! ;-p
    When we had brought him home from the barn, he was barely old enough to leave his mother, and he was so small he fit in one of Brian's hands. But he grew. And he grew! At his end, his head kind of over filled Brian's hand. And to the end, he lived up to his name. He was a Rascal!!! We still miss him!

    Two years ago Brent added Boo to our lives. Boo is a dog. A mix of a black lab and a Rottweiler. And before he'd been taken to the pound, his previous owners had abused him. So he entered our lives at the age of eight months old, with a LOT of meanness showing! Every day Brent got warned that we weren't sure if we were going to allow him to keep Boo.
    My brother Craig (along with others) claims that Boo is a huge case in point of what a difference loving and nurturing a dog can make!!! He is so-o-o different than he was when we originally got him. (Excuse me, when Brent originally got him o;-p) He's such a cutie! And a charmer! And so full of character! Oh man is he! He gets us laughing so hard, so often!!! Silly dog! ;-b

     I am indeed thankful for our 'creature comforts' called pets!

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You might also enjoy these postings (from our old blog site) about our pets.
{ For previous postings from this blog site - check our archives list, under "Boo" and "Rascal".}
[And yes, there are probably more (actually a lot more) postings back there about our pets .... someday I'll track them all down.]

Aug. 21st, '05 - Night vision - Rascal, yes, Mom, no. (the first section of that posting)

Feb. 8th, '08 - Our house was used on a time share basis between Rascal and Boo.

Feb. 11th - '08 - (the very last paragraph of that posting) the lump under our covers .

March 25th, '08 - at the second  "~"  Boo and our pizza delivery.
                         at the fifth "~" Boo playing with Brent ;-p

May 26th, '08 - Boo and the 'beggar' at our door

Dec. 15th, '09 - (first section of that posting) Boo and the TV remote control

Dec. 23rd, '09 - Analyse and Boo ;-p


The 2010 "I'm Thankful for: " Challenge   - if you don't know what this is, follow the lead on our side bar.