Bert, the dachshund:
What a wonderful little boy. My first dog (all my own- not a family pet) was Isolde, a miniature poodle mix. She died suddenly one afternoon and within a month, a friend told me that his brother and sister-in-law were having trouble getting rid of a male dachshund. Awww...what the heck. We drove over to check him out and he was mine!

I'd never owned a purebred before - I prefer getting my animals at the Humane Society, but there he was - my little guy. What a weird feeling I had as I brought him home. This 'little dog was my link to the future. For all of you parents out there, that¹s something that I'm sure happens at the birth of your first child. Before Bert, all I saw in my future were the things that I was involved in. Here was something outside of myself that would be going ahead for years with me. How exciting!

Howard, the cat:
I have NEVER been a cat person. In fact, my earliest memories of cats were awful. The first memory was when I spent the night with a girlfriend in high school who owned two (mean) Siamese cats. I woke up in the morning with one standing on my chest, hissing in my face. The next was my Grandfather's cat - Tom. Mac (my grandfather) had died on Friday and Tom had to come live with us. We already had two dogs (OD - Other Dog and Genghis Khan - a Shih-tzu). Sunday morning the family was getting ready for church. Tom had been relegated to the upstairs because he tormented the dogs. The door to the upstairs was opened, the dogs came up to find all of us - and as they were heading back downstairs, Tom leaped over the edge and rode OD all the way to the bottom, claws dug in - everyone screaming (including all of us humans).

Luckily for Tom, friends came up to visit and share with us as we were grieving Mac's death. They took Tom home and he lived happily ever after somewhere else!

Anyway, on to Howard's story...
Max and I were getting tired of the mice that continually entered our home each March. Max was trapping them like crazy. When we reached 14 and they were still walking casually through the living room and dining room to find Bert's water and food bowls, we knew there was never going to be any relief. It was time to buy a cat.

I'm NOT a cat person but I know that there are some things I need to have in my house before a cat gets there: litter, food, a litter box, (anything else? I had no clue). We planned to go to the Humane Society, but headed to PetSmart first to buy things we needed. They had an adoption area - and we just wandered through to see what was available. They only had a few cats that were litter trained (I wasn't ready for that, too!) I put my hand into one of the cages and the cat, though he was sitting in his litter (stupid cat), didn't hiss, didn't bat at my hand, didn't bite at me, nothing! He just allowed me to pick him up. And once I did - I knew that he could go home with me.

Howard was a lab rescue - they had done feline innoculation testing on him and was used to having people pick him up. Somehow he had learned to not hiss and bite. What a wonderful introduction for me into the world of felines!

However, upon bringing him home, I lost him! I was so naive. I put the baby gate up between the kitchen and the rest of the house so that Bert couldn't get to him. Put the litter and the food/water out there and went to bed that night completely oblivious - any good dog would lie down and wait for the newness to wear off. Not a cat, I soon discovered.

I came down the next morning and - no cat - anywhere! We looked everywhere. I was worried that Max had not seen him bolt out the door when he left for work. Every terrible thing that could possibly happen to that cat - went flying through my mind. I was fortunate enough to have a friend around who assured me that my home had a million hiding places and Howard was in one of them - somewhere. Ok...panic subsides.

We searched throughout the entire house that night - nothing. The next morning - nothing, the next night - nothing. But, we did see that the food was being eaten, and litter was being used. Ok...he's hiding here somewhere. I finally found him (looked there before - wasn't there) under a bed in an unused room upstairs. I talked to him - but, there was no touching. Two weeks passed like this - Max and I would search him out, sit outside the enclosed area he had found and wait for him to pay attention to us.

Then, one night I came downstairs to do something and he was curled up on the bathroom rug. I pulled back the baby gate and sat down on the floor, just talking to him. Then...he walked past me. I put my hand out and he walked under it. Over and over again. I didn't want to move - because I would startle him, but I wanted Max to see this! Finally he went to get some food, I got up - yelled upstairs to Max to lock the dog in the bedroom and come downstairs.

Max came down, sat on the kitchen floor opposite me - and Howard walked back and forth between the two of us - while we simply held our hands out at his level and he allowed us to touch him. That was the end of his fear of us. Thank heavens!

But, because he¹d been such a hermit, I decided that his name was Howard - Howard Hughes.

Ichabod, the cat:
I guess that my life as a cat-lover was just beginning. In early November, a friend of my sister¹s was in a complete panic. She was getting married, had to move back in with her mother and couldn't take her cat with her (her mother had just put down white carpet). Her fiancé was deathly allergic to cats - and the only other option was to take her cat to the Humane Society and pray that he wouldn't be put down. If I heard that story from Carol once, I heard it a million times. And I relented. So, her friend brought "Peekaboo" to my house - pulled him out of the cat carrier - and that brat hissed and growled and moaned and groaned at all of us! And he was huge!

But I'm not a quitter. I told her to leave him and we'd do everything we could to work this out. If I had any major problems, I'd let her know, but I'd make that cat love me if it was the last thing I did. I put him upstairs in the front bedroom. He had his own litter, food, water, the door was closed so that neither Bert nor Howard could freak him out and I spent hours in there with him.

I'd come home every day after work and spend 45 minutes in there. Just sitting beside his box on the floor, talking to him - reading a book, anything to make him comfortable with me. It really wasn't working, every time I would get too close - he¹d reach out and bat at me with his front paws (there were no claws, I lived through this!), he'd growl at me, hiss - all of the things I hated about a cat. But, we spent a lot of time together in that room. Two weeks went by and he was no better. And I'd had it. This cat was going to like me - and I wasn't going to be intimidated by him. So, I made him accept my hand on his back. And I made him allow me to pick him up. Then, I opened the door and put the baby gate up. Bert couldn't get in - but, Howard could - and Ichabod was going to have to get used to these other animals in his world!

It took nearly 4 weeks before I dared take the baby gate down and Ichabod was ready to face the rest of the world.

But, now - Ichabod is the one who loves to snuggle on me. As soon as I lay down on the couch, he insists on being on top of me - snuggling into my face. He still hisses and growls every time someone invades his space. He runs scared of Bert, but he loves me and that's all that matters!