I grew up in a home that LOVED animals. My parents truly believed that animals teach responsibility and love to children so much and we always had pets growing up. Mainly dogs, but we did have a few cats and there was the rabbit phase... Also hamsters (yep... M.C. Hamster and Baby) (But we won't talk about them because we found Baby dead outside one day... TRAUMA!!!!).
You are welcome for these jewels! The top pic is my siblings and I with our dog Moses... aka, the best dog that ever lived. And the one below it is me with one of our Shih Tsu's, Winnie the Pooh girl.
Kyle married into having a cat, much to his displeasure, my cat... Lucy. The story of Lucy actually starts waaaaay back to 2001, two days after the September 11th attack. I was a Sr. in high school and we got up for school to find a box holding two orange kittens on our door step. They were TEENY TINY, estimated only about 4 weeks old. We never did find out who left the box. We named them after our favorite Atlanta Braves players, naturally: Tom "Glavine" Wood and "Chipper" Jones Wood. We had to feed them bottles and vitamins and everything. Long story short, Chipper, my cat, didn't make it but Glavine, Cassie's cat, did.
When it comes to animals passing, my parent's are also really big about getting back up on the horse again, so to speak, and so my dad took me to get a new kitten the next week. That's where Lucy comes in. My college roomies hated her (sorry girls!), Cassie and Joel called her Lucifer. But I loved her and she sat on my lap and soothed many a broken heart from dumb boys. Also, she loved to eat Macaroni and Cheese. A few years ago, Kyle was gone on a trip, and Lucy suffered a stroke and didn't recover. LK and I were both so sad. She really had turned out to be a wonderful family cat and we still talk about her and miss her.
By the way, Glavine is still alive and still remains everyone's favorite cat. He lives at my parent's house so we still get to see him frequently.
When Kyle and I married, Kyle had a Black Lab named Knox. Knox was a graduation present for Kyle and he was this beefy, big black lab. Kyle adored him. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, we had to move from our house into an apartment and couldn't bring him with us so we had to give him away. I still feel so awful about this, even after 10 years. He was an awesome dog. (I dont have a picture of him unfortunately).
We got Sookie, a mini schnauzer, for Laura Kate's first birthday as a gift from my parents. Kyle and I actually picked her out and she has been the best dog for our family. We named her from Gilmore Girls because well, it's the best. She potty trained in less than a week, has the sweetest spirit and everyone in our house adores her. She rarely barks and loves to snuggle. She has been AWESOME with our kids and has survived all of them learning to "pat pat love love" and not "grab grab yank yank"
Sookie is only 7 years old, but we got some very sad news about her this past month. We started noticing a significant amount of weight loss and that the whites of her eyes were turning yellow. I had Kyle take her to the Vet for tests because I didn't think I could handle the bad news I felt was coming. Sookie has lost over 1/3 of her body weight and after some tests we found out she has tumors and liver disease, likely cancer. She wouldn't likely survive the exploratory surgery to find out more. She doesn't seem to be in pain at this point so we are just loving on her the best we can and watching till we feel like she is in pain or suffering. We are all so sad and heartbroken about her. (Pssst... my kids know she is sick but not that she is dying so if you see them, we would appreciate it if you didn't bring this up with them... thanks!)
For Christmas this past year, we gained another mascot... a hedgehog names Tonks! It's kind of a crazy choice, but she has been fairly low maintenance and a lot of fun! She got her name from Nymphodora Tonks in the Harry Potter series. (We really like character names :). (Also, we tend to go for female animals now that LK and I are outnumbered for girls in the house!)
And finally, you may have read here that we are getting a new puppy later this Summer!! After we found out about Sookie's health, we started looking and watching for breeders in our area (in an effort to "get back on the horse again". We felt like this might help the kids with Sookie whenever her time comes). I had promised Kyle that the next dog we get would be a big dog for him to field train to hunt and also for us to have a good sized family dog for when Kyle is gone. Two different breeds we were looking at was another Lab or a Boykin Spaniel. It just so happened that we found a mix of the two breeds and it sounded perfect for our family. So coming at the beginning of August: Gilmore "Gilly" Wiley. (yeah, we are sticking with the Gilmore them :).
(photo cred: Michael Gibson)
So that's the story of the Wiley Mascots!
Other Show and Tell Posts:
Sweet, sweet pets! Sorry about Sookie - that will be so hard when she goes, but you are doing the right thing by "getting back on the horse."
ReplyDeleteBlessings!
Thanks for the encouragement!
DeleteOkay thats really cool that you guys have a hedgehog! I always find them to be such adorable creatures. Love the name too! We're big Harry Potter fans!
ReplyDeleteThanks Erin! We have really loved her! I expected her to be more high maintenance than she is, but we have had a great experience with her.
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