Pets and Animals

[LightningDragon]

Lab testing-
No. I just don't approve of it. I'd hate to think about what could happen to the animal.

Abuse+Neglect-
I strongly support humane treatment.

General Animal Rights-
Animals can feel, they have emotions. They should be treated so.

Show animals(Movies, Television, Circus, etc.)-
So long as they're well treated, I'm fine with it. And I mean well treated for their entire lives.

Farming-
Humane care. They should be treated well.

Veganism/Vegetarianism-
I'm not personally a vegetarian, but I don't eat much meat. It's up to the person.

Fishing etc.-
I don't support fishing/hunting until the species is endangered. We need to monitor them, give the species a break until they can build a healthy population back up.

Overpopulation (Humans AND Animals)-
It would almost definetely be solved if we stopped hunting down the natural predators.

Pets-I think your pet is your choice. My neighbor had goats, not for meat or milk, but because she loved them. I have a horse, and I know in some places he would be considered a delicacy. If you own a pet, and consider it a pet, then by all means treat it right.

Hunting-
If the entire animal is used, or if it's a matter of life or death, I can understand it.

Trapping/Fur-
Nope. I've heard of so many species that've gone extinct. If you hunt something, don't just use a little bit of it and toss the rest away. It's a waste of life.

Culture/Religon-
I don't really approve of sacrifice, but I can understand it if it's your religion. I'd need a particular setting to be sure of whether I approve or not.

[TxCat]

I moved the contents of my post to the front of the thread as it details what the thread should contain.

[ErrantMisty]

My other dog Mac.

We can see boxer in him, maybe Boston terrier to give him the buggy eyes, some people see American Pit Bull in him.

Back Story: Well all we know is he was originally found in a kill shelter in KY. The people who got him called a Boston Terrier Rescue and swore up and down he was Boston so the lady too him in. We brought Emie to visit him to see compatibility and out of 5 dogs besides him she and he singled each other out and played all day. Instant Yes lol. He was maybe 2 years old when we got him.

Home Now: He LOVES people. Has NO concept of the body bubble. Will get on your lap and just beg for attention. He loves Emie and will play with and groom her. He easily gets dry flaky skin so we buy dog food specifically for skin issues and it helps him immensely. He has scars on his back legs, from what we don't know. He does have other dog aggression which we socialize him a lot for. Once he gets to know the other dog however he is best buds forever. He is only about 20 lb but thinks he is a 300 lb dog .

PS: To Raneth,

Snip. . .We had a scare with him after we neutered them both-he came back with his eye swollen shut, and he acted far more dazed from the anesthetic than the other cat. Snip. . .

Our cat Lexy had the same reaction. We took her back to the vet and he said that all cats have a cold germ and stress (like from getting fixed) can sometimes bring it out in the cat. He said she would get better in a week or 2 and if not to let him know. She did thankfully! Just thought I would share.

[DoomedDaphnia]

My puppy!

Spoiler

Name: Brandy
Nicknames: Baby, Pointy, Li'l Pup
Breed: Australian Shepherd (a medium-sized dog)
Age: 5

My family got Brandy in December after Christmas from a breeder. We suspect the breeder's husband may have abused the dogs by hitting them on the head because she's hand-shy She also doesn't like tall people for some reason. Particularly tall men

She's fed lamb and rice Eukanuba dry food, Milkbones, and sometimes Greenies. She's also probably one of the only dogs I've ever seen who likes green beans and peas as much as steak

She's strangely afraid of critters that are smaller than her (cats, small dogs, etc.) but really likes larger critters (horses, bigger dogs like Great Danes, etc.).

[GoldenPhoenix]

She's fed lamb and rice Eukanuba dry food, Milkbones, and sometimes Greenies. She's also probably one of the only dogs I've ever seen who likes green beans and peas as much as steak

My dog loves veggies as much as steak. In fact he eats anything we happen to cook, and we share, except anything known to be poisonous or extremely unhealthy.
We tried feeding him a raw Baby Bella mushroom last night, but he wouldn't eat it. But he at the ones cooked in the pot with the pot roast. Lol
He also likes potato skin peelings, which makes clean-up a bit easier. He even eats spicy foods, granted he will probably puke it up later, but still, so we avoid feeding those.
Jack also doesn't like fried chicken livers... or hearts. Anyone have a dog or cat that turned down liver?

[Imposibibble]

My mom has a dog. It HATES beef but likes chicken. But my parents have this idea that all dogs must like beef, so they keep buying different brands of beef dog food and beef flavored treats. She never eats them and so she goes after my cat's chicken/turkey cat food which I get really pissed at (and they don't understand why I get mad). She also gets table scraps and other bits of "junk food."

They often ask me tips on how to feed. I give them ideas which they follow for a day or 2 and then they revert back to their old feeding habits. Nowadays, I just don't say anything any more because it's not like they're gonna follow my advice any way.

[Sochitelya]

Because I like showing off my boogers.



My cats, being their lesbian selves. The black one is Aska, who I adopted from the Humane Society when I was 19. The other one is Vaela, who was given to me by some Mennonite friends of my parents. They're both spayed females; Aska is around 5 and a half, and Vaela is nearly 4.




And this is my boogerbutt of a horse, Riff Raff, with a friend of my mom's. He likes giving kisses. He's a ten-year-old (ish) bay Appendix gelding, bought when I was 17, unbroke and afraid of people because he was likely abused as a baby. He was a PMU baby from Alberta who was scheduled for slaughter/food for the lions at the African Lion Safari here in Ontario, before my riding instructor rescued him. I broke and trained him myself. He's very sweet and kind to riders, and I won the Baby Green Reserve Championship on him at a local show before I gave up on competing.

[FennecFyre]

My Madison
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j42 ... diePic.jpg
Nicknames: Maddie, Maddie May, May-may, Puddin' Nose

She's a pitbull rescued by my aunt, who fosters pits. She's sweet and friendly, not to mention lazy and fond of cuddling. She's friends with our cat Smokey, who's pretty much senile and goes with us on walks down the driveway, and a mortal enemy of Rikki, our other (bratty) cat.

[TxCat]

Pets have been a part of my life ever since I can remember. There has never been a time in my life when I did not have at least one pet, even if it was just a turtle or a goldfish. Seven years ago, I moved out here to a five acre tract of land zoned for agriculture so that I could realize my dream of owning a farm and have enough room for all the animals I could care for. We're still working at getting things ready for livestock, since we have to carve each habitat out of the swamp and we don't want to disturb the existing wildlife, but I do have several babies.

Spoiler

This is Freyja, a purebred American Eskimo dog of the miniature variety. When I first decided I wanted a dog, my husband and I did all sorts of breed research. We were living in an apartment in the city and it did not have a dog walk or dog run so we decided that a smaller breed would have to be considered. We wanted an animal which could adapt to apartment living with the same sort of smartness as a Labrador or similar breed. This was what came up in our repeated searches. There didn't seem to be much written about the breed, although there was plenty about their larger cousins the Samoyeds, and I wasn't impressed by a single line in the one book I could find about them:

"God made them cute so that their owners wouldn't kill them."

I'm well aware of the pitfalls of buying from pet stores and am adamantly against doing so but my husband wanted to see for himself what the breed looked like. She was the last one in the crate and plainly the runt of the litter. She didn't look particularly healthy either. I told him not to touch the puppy but he insisted on getting the puppy out and taking her to one of the play areas in the store "in order to see what their personalities are like". I told him again that we would not, could not buy from a pet store and then we went outside to discuss our options in finding a reputable breeder.

She set up a howl from the moment he put her down and continued while we sat outside discussing what we wanted to do. Finally, he couldn't stand it any more and went back in and got her. It turns out she would have been 'recycled' to the breeding facility because no one had bought her (meaning she would have been destroyed). I count her a rescue for that reason and boy, am I glad I did!

Freyja demonstrated early on the ability to sense when a seizure is coming. She never barked for any other reason, but she would tug on my clothing and whine softly beforehand. If I ignored her, she would bark and stand in front of me so that I had to either deal with her or trip over her. When we realized she could alert, I began training her for service. Noise is unacceptable in a public place for a service dog so we refined her alert to a paw on the lap and a tug at the shirt sleeve. When I did have seizures in public, she would keep me from wandering off and would sit down beside me. She never bothered anyone trying to help, she just stayed there. Later, we trained her to carry both her paperwork and mine.

Freyja is retired now because she's getting old and doesn't like to go out any more. She goes to sleep in the middle of errands and she's started snapping at small children. Around the house she still does things for me like handing me things I've dropped, reminding me to take my medications, and alerting to seizure activity.

We don't feed our animals ANY table scraps but most of the dogs have at least one vegetable they adore. Freyja's favorite is carrots, the little baby kind. She'll also eat zucchini if you give her a chance at it but we've been told it's not good for her so we try to keep her out of it. Once in a great while she gets a grape or two, peeled with the seeds removed (yes, we're aware of the potential problems with grapes and raisins but it takes an incredible amount to poison the dog and the vet has told us one or two won't hurt). Once a month I distribute raw chicken wings to my dogs. We can't afford to feed them raw all the time but it makes a good treat (the bones are only bad for them if they're cooked; raw, they do not splinter and are easily digested per the vet's recommendation). No one gets canned food because we want them to retain their teeth.

Freyja's favorite toy is a tennis all in the shape of a doughnut. She'll chase this and play tug with you until its soggy. The other thing she likes isn't exactly a toy. It's a 'woobie', a little wool thing roughly in the shape of a Gingerbread Man but it had no other features. She carries this around like a pup and sleeps with it.

She also adores our rabbit. She'll seek out his cage, gaze lovingly at him between the bars, and whine. If you ask her, "Where's your bunny?" she will go straight to his cage, even if we've moved him.

Her one big drawback is her dislike of the cats. We messed up. Before we had this house, we moved to suburbia to see if we could handle a house payment in the budget. When we moved, we moved the dog first and it took a few days to collect the cats. By then she thought the house was hers and hers alone. She would not permit them around without attacking them. Today, they're separated by half the house. Freyja can only play in the house supervised and when she can't be supervised she either goes outside with the other dogs (with whom she apparently has no issues) or she stays in her crate.

Her name, by the way, came from a Norse goddess...who uses a chariot of cats to ferry her around. We liked the pun combined with the fact that she's a Northern breed.

[shiann]

Appearently I keep breaking Magistream. >>

This is my baby:

Spoiler

(Only picture I have of him not eating. Also shows his actual color.

His body type... He has a gorgeous chest but his legs aren't the best. He's still mah baby.

I got King about three years ago. He had been abused and neglected partially due to owners that weren't exactly mean, but ignorant about caring for horses. They let their kids ride him when his tail was still only 7 inches long and his eyes and ears were huge (not a baby but maybe more like a toddler... I'm trying to put it in terms everyone will understand easily). So his back, I think, hurts him a bit. He must be about five, because he was two when we got him. My stepdad and I trained him (mainly my stepdad in truth) but I still don't ride him... He's part racehorse, so his brakes don't work that well. Anyways he's skittish sometimes around new people, but I spend enough time around him that I think we understand each other. He's more of a pet than anything.

Oh yeah, and I didn't name him, he came already named.. I wanted to name him Phoenix. But no one listens to me.

EDIT: The other one in the pic is my stepdad's horse. He's a pain. LOL.