What Animal Do You Have?

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Many people raise animals. They may be cats or dogs or other animals. What are yours?

I will begin. At the moment I have a Cat. It doesn't have a name. I have not named it yet. If I gave it a name I would probably call it a Fraidy Cat. I think he is afraid of his own shadow. My wife put out the word a few months ago that we were looking for a kitten. One of our relatives came forward and gave us a cat that was over 6 years old. I also suspect that it was a stray cat.

According to the Internet: Pet or indoor cats are socialized to people and stray cats have been socialized to people at one point in their lives. Feral cats are not socialized to people. While they are socialized to their feline family members and bonded to each other, they do not have that same relationship with people.

So my cat is most likely a Feral cat that at an older age became adopted and humanized.

When we first got the cat, it ran away and hid. It then went off into the woods and disappeared for a few days. But it finally returned and I began to feed it and become friends. Now each morning it is looking for me. It it sees me it comes out and wants to be petted. We have built up a friendship. The cat has bonded to me. It knows me.

So what kind of animals do you have?

I like that name Fraidy.

Right now I have a 13 year old dog, and five cats (ages 20, 3, 2, 1, 1).
The cats are all indoor except for the very oldest.
I was ready to put the oldest down last year.
Then I got the kittens (now aged 1).
My oldest bonded with the male kitten and he got a little better.
I think it may be that time again soon.
My little kitten will be sooo sad.

Mice and I have pads all around my apartment so I can catch them. I can't wait until the new building is built and open.

I have had many animals over the years. Normally I have one cat and one dog. They are outside animals. When one dies I replace it with a newborn. Then I train them to become friends. I have learned how to do this. The key component is smell.

I will take one of the animals and hold it down so it cannot move. Then I will let the other animal come up to it and smell it. Then I reverse the process. Once they have learned the smell of the other animal, they lose some of the fear and become friendly towards each other.

I remember I had a dog, an Irish Setter, that was a pointer. It was a wonderful friendly dog. It would spot something and point. One time I went outside and the dog was pointing. And my small cat was standing on the back of the dog and it was also pointing.

I also remember another interesting event. I had a large female dog. But then I got a very, very small kitten. The kitten was so small. It was afraid. So the dog would let the kitten approach it and breast feed the kitten. They were that close together, like a mother and a baby, but two different species. When I came close the dog realized what it was doing and quickly left the scene. It was embarrassed, like it had broken a cardinal rule that exist between animal species.

As I said before, I had many animals during my lifetime. As a small child around age 3 or 4, I would go into the deep woods, far into the woods alone and live for hours with nature, with all the animals that lived in the deep woods. I was alone and I felt safe. There were so many animals and they had so many different characteristics. It was a wonderful place to explore. And I would spend many hours alone.

During this time, I would come across snakes. They were interesting. So I found a spot in the woods, a deep spot were the pit was surrounded by stone. So it was very solid. Then I began collecting snakes. I would capture them and place them in the pit. So in a way, snakes were my first pet.

Just my inner party animal.

We had a dog when I was very young. Got hit by a car and killed when I was 4. My sister had a guinea pig for a while. Other than that I had some feeder goldfish and neon tetras and an aquatic African frog for a while.. until my mom got tired of me not cleaning the little hexagon tank, so she took them out, cleaned it with bleach, added new water and put them all back in and they died. Oh, and my sister had a couple beta fish over the years & I had one in a crystal head vodka bottle for a while - looks like a glass skull; great for one small fish.

two cute lil cats

In one of my first jobs, I worked in a 5 & 10. They called it a 5 & 10 because everything in the store was inexpensive such as 5 cents and 10 cents. The prices rose and rose over the years. But back then a nickel or a dime could really buy something. During Easter, the store would sell small baby rabbits for Easter. It was a custom back years ago. So we would get in a shipment of small rabbits.

One day I came to work and the young employees were in a state of turmoil. They had got in a shipment of small bunnies and one was dead and they didn't know what to do. I went over and picked it up. Indeed it was dead. I put it on my lap and began to pet it. After about a minute, the small dead bunny came back to life. The other employees were very amazed. They didn't know what to do. They alerted the manager of the store of what happened. He was also at a loss. How could he sell a bunny that had risen from the dead. So after much thought he decided to give the bunny to me free of charge. I took it home and he became one of our animals.

I have a cat, she is over 15 years old now. My other cat died a few years ago.

Some people think cats can give you schizophrenia. But I think some people with mental illness or autism are just more likely to get cats for pets because they're not as high-maintenance, and cats are often misunderstood which makes them more relatable . Also the USA is statistically one of the few countries in the world where dogs are more popular than cats as pets. So does that mean schizophrenia is worse in most other countries?

I have 2 dogs; one is a cross between a retriever and a boxer (Pete) (he looks like a orangeish/redish German Shepard) and one is a pug mix (Eppie)( she has the creme color coat of a pug, part Rhodesian Ridgeback and part Pointer w/o the smashed-in nose) and a black long haired cat that lives outside.

A black cat named Lovecraft.

The thought crossed my mind that there may be a difference between NTs and NDs when it comes to pet animals.
My wife (NT) views an animal from an entirely different perspective then myself (ND).

She looks at an animal from the perspective of function. A cat kills mice and she hates mice. A dog defends us from threats (other animals or people). Therefore they are a useful creature.

But I look at them somewhat differently. They are my friends. They are almost a relative, a younger version of humans. They are smart, have emotions, they know love, they can become friends.

For example, some people use a form of dog for defense, such as a pit bull. They use it as a type of weapon. When I visit the local Humane Society, Pit Bulls are in abundance.

I should add, the cat is the writer's spirit animal, his/her totem, proven by the fact that H.P. Lovecraft, William Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski, and others were cat people.

I've got plush cats and a plush velociraptor.

I would much rather have a plush velociraptor than a living one.

I’ve got a dog and Winnie-the-Pooh. Winnie-the-Pooh has to be rescued from the jaws of death on occasion. It’s not easy being a plush bear.

I think movies have made them seem scarier than they could have been.



I figure an animal that size isn't that much of a threat.