Something you never knew about me

Something you never knew about me…. I love my pets!

Okay, so that’s not something new really… but here are some never before seen pics with me and my pets.

My first pet was a budgie called Fred – at least, he was in the household when I was a toddler (not sure when my family got him) and he died when I was about 7 so don’t remember him much or have any photos.

The first pet that belonged to me was a Jack Russell called, Susie, and we got her for my 7^th birthday. However, she managed to get out of the house and got run over (by my poor father who didn’t realized the dog was out and had followed him!). So while we were away on holiday in Bournemouth visiting my sister (we lived in Essex) we bought another Jack Russell who I named Susie…. (I was very original then!). Here is me and Susie with my young niece.

I do have a story that links Susie to Fred the budgie – the latter had a cage on a pole and Susie used to delight in running around the cage barking madly. Fred, however, got his revenge. He used to wait until Susie was snoozing in her bed, fly to within a few feet of her, squawk loudly then when she woke up and rushed after him, he would fly away singing, ‘Na na na nan na!’ At least that’s what it sounded like to a 7 year old. Every now and then his claws would get stuck in the carpet and his song would become a strangled one of distress when he saw a slavering dog bearing down on him until Mum quickly grabbed Susie on her way past mum’s chair!

Had an amusing incident when Dad and I took Susie to the local park which had an ornamental lake (I was about 13). Dad suggested I run across the bridge and call her from the other side – meaning for her to follow me across the bridge….. however, when I called her name she jumped straight into the water!!! And promptly got stuck in the reeds and Dad had to take his shoes and socks off and wade in to rescue her! LOL. We played together all the time!

Susie lived until I was 23 and it was heartbreaking when she died as I’d had her so long (even though I had long since moved out). Actually I used to go home at the weekends and Dad would drive me back to the station on Sunday evenings. When he got home Susie would be sitting in her basket facing the wall and would refuse to have anything to do with him for the next couple of days as she thought he was taking me away!! This went on for two years before she accepted the situation. *sigh*

My first pet I bought myself when I was living in Bournemouth was a budgie, Kelly. Here were are (when I was in my ‘blonde’ phase).

He lived about three years and after that I always had two together. So I next had Fluffy and Muffet. (Fluffy didn’t last long but Muffet travelled over three hundred miles with me when I moved to the Lake District and I got Charlie soon after as a mate for her), then when Muffet died I got Dixie. Now Charlie was a gay budgie. He was in love with my friend’s budgie (Yankie). When the two of them got together Dixie (and Yankie’s cage mage, Billie, got thoroughly ignored!!). I gave up on budgies after Charlie and Dixie died aged 11 and 9 as I’d had enough of their squawking!

At the same time as I had budgies I also had hamsters, having been in the pet shop one day and on an impulse decided to buy one (along with cage and relevant accessories!). My first was Snuffles (who travelled to the Lake District along with the budgies above).

Since hamsters only live a few years (the longest living was Max at just over 3) I had a succession: Wuffa, Frodo, Sooty, Pipkin, Annie, and Max (see picture).

One of my hamsters (can’t remember which now) was abducted by aliens.

Really! They were in their ball (as below) and I realised after a while that I hadn’t heard them banging about so I went searching for them. No sign. I did another search. Still no sign. I then searched cupboards including ones I had closed on my initial search and there they were – in a cupboard!! A clear case of alien abduction!! LOL

I loved the hamsters but missed them terribly when they died – often quite quickly - and gave up after Max died.

In addition….. I decided one day to buy a guinea pig! Her name was Scraps (see pic which was actually taken a few years before the one with Max above) and she lived a good life (died about 7). But guinea pigs don’t do a lot apart from poo for England! Scraps, Max and the last two budgies moved with me when I came to York.

There, all of them being quite elderly, they gradually died in the first year or so until I was left with Scraps and when she died I was suddenly without a pet for the first time in a long while. So I dashed to the pet shop to get another guinea pig… and fell in love with Gimli the lop eared rabbit.

Now, Gimli was very much a boy. He loved playing football and could dribble

the ball around the room better than many of the world’s best footballers! Although every now and then he would stop and hump it (what can I say?!)

Unfortunately he died quite young and his replacement was Lucy who disdained the football. “I’m a girl,” she would give me a look! She much preferred playing in her castle (well, eating her castle!)

My current bun is Holly (just a year old) who is the most mischievous of all the rabbits having eaten her way through the wire in my fridge freezer, telephone and other items necessitating new equipment, but also the most loving! She will sit on the arm of my chair and push her head between my shoulder and chin. *awww* I also had an escape drama (no aliens this time – at least, not that I am aware of) when she managed to get out of her rabbit run and ran in the opposite direction towards the prickliest, most inaccessible part of my garden whereupon she sat and grinned at me! Only the lure of food brought her toward me… I now chain the sides of the rabbit run together with reinforced steel! (You can see the look on her face above - "How can I get out of this one?"!!!!! Picture: courtesy of Janine Ashbless)