My Zoo

[AmazingH]

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My guinea pig Buddy. Adopted him from the shelter I work at - he is 8 years old... ancient for a pig! He was unlikely to find a home but is the sweetest pig ever!

More to come....

[AmazingH]

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This is Charlie, a 26 pound bichon frise.
His owner passed away 2 months ago from her battle with lung and bone cancer. We had dog-sat him before, he would spend weekends with us if his owner needed a break - he spent two weeks at Christmas with us.
He was put on the will, and so we now legally own him.
He is registered with the CKC (Canadian Kennel Club) as non-breeding/non-showing because he was the runt of the show-quality litter and was expected to not meet the breed standard. At 4 years, he's a very big boy! The only fault he has is a very long back.

Sorry for size.. suddenly GIMP won't open my pictures... :spam:

[AmazingH]

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This is Mattie/Mat/Girl
We adopted her 3 or 4 years ago from the same shelter we got Buddy from.
She was found living on the streets and seemed to be totally wild....
Somewhere I have pics of when we got her.. she was covered in mats (hence the name :D)
She was presumed viscious, and it was a battle against us and a family that had a baby and seemed to be acting very.. um... inmaturely..
She spent her whole time howling and being very stressed out..
We took her into a testing room and sat on the floor. She went over to my mum, collapsed, sighed, and went to sleep in her lap within seconds.
It took our groomers a whole day of just working on her - and that was with 5 groomers!
She was shaved right down to the skin and given a nice oatmeal bath.. she felt so good after!
Before she was shaved, she was taken to the vet. He was so shocked when he saw her.. and she hada huge mat that was 5 inches long and 1 inch wide - we all thought it was an extra leg before an examination and x-rays were done.
For the first 2 years we spent alot of time very frustrated at her behaviour towards strangers and other dogs.. she was a growler and was very insecure.
Now, she is a total sweetheart! She loves the dogpark, where she (being 12 pounds) happily stands under great danes for shade, and protects new puppies at the park. She gets along with every other dog and person.. although she is the pack leader at our house. She tells Charlie (above) when he can eat, what he can eat, where he can sit.. etc.
She loves giving kisses and is a total lap dog now.

Again, sorry for the middle pic size.

[AmazingH]

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This is Darien.
We won't say where he came from.. we made the huge mistake almost 4 years ago by purchasing him from a store 2 weeks after we had to put our 13 year old pom x poodle down. We're more educated now.

He is almost 4 years now..
He is a 7 pound poodle and is by far the best little guy ever.
I started training him when he was 9 weeks.
He is a graduate of puppy class and grade 1. He was asked to join a flyball team when he was a pup - we had to refuse the offer because jumping him so young could really damage his joints.

He is trained with both hand signals and voice.
With the flick of my hand I can send him over a single jump, double jump, circle, move out, come in, bounce, weave, tunnel, chute, sit, down, side (roll on side) shake, other paw, high five, other paw, stay, here, off, leave it, take it, quiet and more.

When he was about 6 months he was in a talent contest for kid handlers. I was 12.. I didn't know any better xD.



Ugh. Epic fail on that huge pic. Sorry.

[AmazingH]

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I also own a while cat who is around 10 years. She is white and a huge meanie (but not to my dad - he's the food source!).
We've had her since we picked her out at the breeders as a kitten and brought her home in a strawberry basket.


My tanks -
29g freshwater community
10g swordtail tank
5.5g betta tank
Goldfish tank (my dad's)
and am setting up a 5.5 and 2.5 for an attempt at re-entering the world of betta spawning after a year break.

Used to have lots of other small tanks when I had 20 odd bettas.


Also.. what breed do you think Mattie is?
She has the tail of a Bichon, hair of a poodle and schnauzer, the voice of a schnauzer, the energy of a jack russel and shows some of the traits of a maltese when her hair gets an inch long.

[Sharon]

A[Only Registered Users Can See Links.] sweeties!:ssmile:

[Oscar_freak12321]

That is quite a zoo! Wow, I've had lots of animals before, but not all at the same time like you have them! I'm jealous!

[rich311k]

What a beautiful group of pets you have. I love Bichons.

[AmazingH]

Thanks :)

We have been asked to take a maltese we dog-sat for a month a few months before when the owners were getting divorced.

I once found a malamute puppy (okay, so she was around 6 months.. lol) on the road and we "surrendered" her to the shelter so her owners could claim her after keeping her at our house for the night.

We had 2 hamsters, one from a shelter, the other from another place. 1 week after purchasing the one from the other place, I picked her up to find a litter or babies under her. I screamed and dropped her from the 2 inches I was holding her in the air out of shock... it was like a horrible dream.. all of these little hairless things :/ We raised them and 1 went to a home, then the runt got sick and it turned into a whole case of wet tail.. we had a hamster in every room living in a makeshift plastic drawr habitat. Sadly, they all passed away despite the medication and all of the effot we put into them.

I have owned a total of 3 adult hamsters and 8 babies. All have since passed on.

We had a pomeranian x poodle my parents got a year before I was born.. we had to put her to sleep when she was 13. We didn't last 2 weeks before we purchased Darien.

Until last September, we also had around 20 bettas at a time in as rescues.

We are constantly being asked to take dogs home from the shelte I work at by adoption staff.
Unfortunately, 3 is the legal limit where I live... so we can't take them.
There has been two 12 year old little 10 pound dogs who needed a home they could spend the last of their time in... one was blind and depended on the other.. they even dressed them up in dresses. They were such little ladies!

There have been small dogs who were older, who needed medication for the rest of their lives.. had jaw issues that showed unattractive overbites.. etc.

Can't convice my parents to let me adopt some more guinea pigs...
We had originally planned in late September that I would be allowed to foster a guinea pig litter in January.. then I found Buddy in late October and decided to adopt him instead.

It seems like we're always being asked to take in more animals :hmm3grin2orange:

[Shelz]

Very nice to meet all your pets...more the merrier I always say thumbs2: :22:

[William]

Wonderful pets! Sorry family!

[AmazingH]

Here is Mattie when we first got her.
As you can see, we still had the hamsters.

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No, we did not put them on the table.
We opened the door, and up the table she and Darien went to chill out for a while. Wierd!

[AmazingH]

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Oh, and her coat doesn't look that bad in these pictures., but that was after an attempt at the shelter to relieve her of the pinching.. but even with $200 clippers.. it failed after removing most of it on her back and stomache.


And after the day at the groomers...
a new dog emerges from the blanket of tangled matts!

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"What's out the window?"

[AmazingH]

.... and three months later, she mourned the death of Sammie, a male hamster who was found as a baby with his littermates in a paper bag in a trash can in a park and was at the shelter for 9 months.
We put his cage on the floor at the door because we were going to go outside and bury him, and she went over, layed beside the cage, and cried for a whole 48 minutes.

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[Shelz]

Mattie was definately a MESS when you got her. I'll bet she felt wonderful after getting all that matted hair off her. Awful sick, whoever dumped those baby hamsters to suffer like that as well. Good thing you were there to help them.:22: :11: thumbs2: