Comments on: America’s Pets

By: Jeff Murray

Jeff Murray — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:23:37 +0000

8rustystaples,
Several friends and I are avid West Indian boa collectors. We had a pair of Epicrates gracilis but lost the adult female and all but 1 male baby. She died shortly after a difficult birthing process and all the neonates were preemies.
Any idea where your vine boas went or where we can acquire more to add to the breeding group?
I can be reached at:

boidsonly@att.net

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Jeff Murray

By: Carol Ruby

Carol Ruby — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:23:00 +0000

One of my girls reminded me about the pet I miss the most!
When I was in Jr Hi (middle school), I had a donkey my Dad had rescued. His name was Pedro and he had the cross on his shoulders. We had many adventures together; I rode him with just a rope halter. He loved to jog downhill and lower his head so I would bounce off and he would nip me on the way down. Then he stood just out of reach and would raise his head and laugh at me! He didn’t bray, just raised his lips and tossed his head while keeping a wary eye on me.
On my 14th birthday, I snuck out and went for a ride. He was feeling very mischievous and dumped me in the powdery dust in front of the recreation center. As if that wasn’t enough humiliation, he actually sat on me and laughed! And laughed! It took six grown men to pull him off me!
I dragged him back to the corral and went home, knowing there was no way I could sneak into the house without being seen. Dreading it, I stepped into the house and my surprise birthday party! Mother told me (much, much later) that they heard the story of what happened that day from many friends who witnessed my humiliation by my beloved Pedro.
I miss him still and always.

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:54:00 +0000

And the fish! How could I forget the fish? Silly me!
In addition to the fish past, we presently have silver lyre-tailed mollys and a 16 year old plecostomous who is about 14 inches long.

By: Carol Ruby

Carol Ruby — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:57:00 +0000

I got my first cat at age 6; when she had kittens, the only way she would stay in her box was if I stayed with her!
When I was still a child I had several cats, a couple rabbits (one housebroken), hamsters and a chameleon lizard. Lizards eat meal worms which turn into meal bugs if you buy too many. Mother was not pleased by this lesson. I also captured several horned toads which I kept in a cage for a few days and then released them. The same with scorpions and black widow spiders. Mother wasn’t thrilled, so I kept them on the porch. My brother had already taken over the back porch with TV repair business, so I had them on the front porch. I have since wondered what the mailman thought.
She really wasn’t thrilled when one of my grasshoppers got loose in the house and had babies. Just as we were sitting down to dinner one night, someone brushed the drapes and a cloud of baby grasshoppers erupted over the dining room table and into our dinner.
I trained one of my many cats to climb up my jeans and get on my shoulder. I did this with bits of raw hamburger. One night Mother was fixing hamburgers for dinner… in a dress. I untrained my cat in a hurry!
I didn’t have a dog as a kid; Mother didn’t like them. When I left home I had cats and dogs and when my kids came along we had cats, dogs, lots of rabbits, a chicken and a pigeon. We counted 16 critters at one time. Now I’m down to just one cat and my loving husband. I rescued my cat when she was a week old (her mother was chased away). She is 11 years old now and has made it clear she is going to be an only cat!
I feed the birds and have to defend the birdseed from squirrels and javalinas (a peccary, not a pig). The squirrels are easy: trap and release with a Hav-a-Hart trap. The javalinas are not so easy. I have tried barricading the bird feeder and the special pepper spray to no avail; so I find myself outside chasing javalinas at all hours of the night! Even though they can be dangerous and do bite, I have my trusty pepper spray and I chase away up to 12-15 critters at a time.

By: Marc Brooks

Marc Brooks — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:56:00 +0000

At one point, I had a dog, a pet crow, two African Gray parrots, 2 pigmy hedgehogs, 3 degus, 2 pigmy opossums, 2 tigers oscars, a plecostomous and a wife.

I love most of them. :)

By: kt

kt — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:36:00 +0000

I have raised several tadpoles to froggyhood. That’s about as exotic as my menagerie gets.

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:56:00 +0000

My daughter and I “adopted” three kittens when their feral mom was attacked by my neighbor’s pit bulls. They had just opened their eyes so I had to bottle-feed them. They are 4 months old now. We also have a rat, a hermit crab, a dojo loach (a scale-less fish; he looks kind of like an eel) and four Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Yes, I’m a science teacher!

By: Nikki

Nikki — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:15:00 +0000

Right now I don’t have any pets of my own because my apartment complex is very uptight about them, but throughout my life my family has had: the usual cats & dogs, an iguana, rabbits, a baby possum, fish, tadpoles (that never turned into frogs), a snake, salamanders, hermit crabs, ducks, baby wild turkeys and turtles. My dad had a house-trained racoon when he was in high school, which I’ve always thought sounded cool. This really makes me want a pet!

By: gus

gus — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:28:00 +0000

I had a possum live in my cellar one winter when we had a prolonged cold snap. The night time temp dropped to minus 20 on several nights. I called the possum Elvis, he ate cat food and left in the spring.

By: gus

gus — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:19:00 +0000

I used to have pot bellied pigs. They are very intelligent. They, all three, would sleep by the woodstove. I would tell people I was roasting pork from the outside in. They lived in the house during the winter. We lived on a farm and had fancy chickens, around 2 dozen, the potbellies, several cats and a Sheltie.