16 Pets and Counting

If you are an animal lover you probably consider your pets’ family. Throughout my life my family has had a total of sixteen pets, at one point my house had four family members and nine pets. We had three dogs, a cat, two rabbits, two fish, and one turtle. Growing up, Kayle and I were always playing with our dogs and rabbits, we tried to play with our cat, but he was mean and would always bite us. I loved growing up and being surrounded by all of the pets we had, but I hated when they passed away or if we had to put them down.

Our dogs were my German Shepherd, Bo, a Chocolate Lab, Hershey, and a Basset Hound, Buster. While Hershey and Bo were always wrestling, Buster would bark, he thought he was the referee. Having three dogs was a lot of work, they went through so much dog food and that resulted in there being mounds of cow pies in the yard. Thankfully it was my sister’s job to take care of that.

I had a rabbit named Midnight, she was a dwarf bunny. Kayle had a white rabbit named Snowball. I would be extra careful with my bunny, I considered her a baby. Kayle on the other hand, would run with Snowball up and down the driveway in a stroller. Snowball also loved to eat beef jerky and Oreos. I only fed my rabbit apples and carrots because I did not want her to die from having high cholesterol or anything. One morning Midnight and Snowball got out of their cage, they must have thought they traveled far and that they had to fend for themselves because out our dining room window we could see them the dirt hill next to our swing set. Snowball was digging a hole and Midnight was behind her smoothing out the dirt Snowball was throwing.

Throughout my life we have had three turtles, each one was named Swimmer. Swimmer One died because my grandma forgot to give him water while she was watching him, the Swimmer Two just died, and Swimmer Three was lost. Kayle decided to take our turtle for a walk. She picked him up and put him in her pocket. That poor turtle. Kayle went out and walked around the whole yard, field, and pool area. When Kayle came back I asked her where Swimmer was and she told me in her pocket, she looked there and began to scream and cry. When she took him for a walk, he fell out of her pocket, although we were very sad, the turtle was probably happy because he did not have to deal with two crazy girls anymore.

Today, my household consists of two dogs and a kitten. Kylee’s rabbit recently died, sadly, they do not have a long life expectancy. We still have Hershey, we rescued about seven years ago. We are unaware of how old he is, but we’re guessing he is around eight or nine now. Our other dog, Duke is a Black Lab. He just turned three a couple months ago. Both of our dogs are spoiled rotten, they sleep in bed with us, go on car rides all the time, and even have a five hundred dollar blanket to lay on. Our cat, Tootsie we rescued over the summer. She showed up on our porch and my mom let us keep her. Even though we do not have as many animals as we used to, they still fill my heart with love.