Our Fur Babies
My husband, Josh, and I have had pets for as long as we can remember and they mean EVERYTHING to us. Our pets are our kids since we don’t currently have/aren’t currently planning on having any human children. So since our pets are our kids, we definitely treat them as such and they are all spoiled rotten. They are all a huge part of our lives and their care takes up most of our time so it’s only right that I tell you about our furry (and scaly) babies. In the order that we got them, these are our pets!
Allegra:
Species: Felis catus
Breed: Norwegian Forest Cat
Age: 6 yrs (little old lady!)
Nicknames: Legs, Legra, Floof, Floofy-snoof, Floofer-snoofer, Flooter-snooter, Peanut, Little One, Monkey, Snuffa-fluff-agus, Nugget
Josh got Allegra after he started fostering kittens with his mom. He had always prefered long-haired cats over short-haired so when they got a fluffy foster kitten named Boo, Josh knew that he wanted to adopt her. Sometimes foster kittens can be very ill when they are brought into a person’s house and this was the case with Boo. One morning, Josh woke up to find that she had passed away underneath the chair in his living overnight. He was so torn up about it and the woman who ran the foster program felt awful that he had this experience. She knew that he loved long-haired cats so one day she showed up at his door with fluffy little Allegra as a present for Josh. She quickly became the princess of the house and she still is.
Allegra is curious, loves to talk to people (beg them for food), and lay in the window all day watching birds. She does not do that chattering thing that cats do but she does shake her tail when we gets excited. She loves to play but only by herself and her favorite toys are tiny stuffed ones and those plastic balls with the bells in them but she is not a fan of catnip. She also has a weird obsession with bags and boxes. We once kept a giant bag in our living room for 2 weeks because she loved to lay on it at night and play in it during the day. The real reason we actually threw it away was because she shredded it to pieces one day playing inside. She loves being outside which is a no-no without parental supervision and a leash so she tries to escape all of the time. We think that this is how she ended up at the shelter in the first place. A day in the life of Allegra is sleeping, self-grooming, eating, smacking the dogs, watching birds, and begging for food. She is a registered Emotional Support Animal for myself and she is very good at her job! While she is a princess and only wants attention when she says so, my theory with her is that the more you harass and love on her, the more she loves you back.
Apollo:
Species: Canis lupus familiaris
Breed: German Shepherd/Rottweiler
Age: 3 yrs
Nicknames: Apeeellooo, Peelloo, Pollo (not ‘chicken’ in spanish), Big Nose, Donk, Dingle, Big Head, Dingle-Dongle, Goob
Josh got Apollo while I was still in college and he was also almost full grown when I first met him. His mother was a German Shepherd and his father was a Rottweiler. Josh picked up Apollo when he found a lady who was about to take all of her dogs to the pound, including Apollo. German Shepherds usually have one master and Josh is his master which is problematic when Josh goes out of town for work because Apollo turns into the biggest baby acting pitiful and he also doesn’t listen to anyone.
Apollo is not the brightest doggy on Earth but we love him anyways! He enjoys tearing apart all toys with the exception of squeaky rubber toys and a large rubber tire toy that he has. All toys are Apollo’s toys which is still a behavior that we are trying to work on with him. He hates veggies but loves to eat melon. He gallops like a horse and although he is almost 100 lbs, Josh still picks him up like a baby (which makes him believe that everyone can hold him like a baby). He was raised with cats so I believe he thinks he’s a cat. He curls up like a cat and he also attempts to lay across the back of the couch like a cat. He also thinks that he’s the size of a cat… He is not very good at catching anything but Cheez-Its and if we could make money off of him catching Cheez-Its, we would be rich. He knows words like “potty,” “Cheez-Its,” and “outside,” but if you say any word excitedly, he thinks he’s going outside. Josh asks him if he wants to do to the dump all the time and it kills me how excited he gets. A day in the life of Apollo is running around like a horse, acting like a cat, tearing up toys, and barking at every little noise he hears.
Maggie:
Species: Tiliqua gigas
Type: Merauke Blue-Tongued Skink
Age: Unknown (we’ve had her for almost 2 years)
Nicknames: Magnolia, Wizard, Grump, Grumpy Wizard, Sausage
Maggie was the first pet Josh and I got as a married couple. Josh is the fish and reptile person in our relationship (I do birds, mammals, and reptiles) and he had always wanted a Blue-tongued Skink. We found a couple who were selling their favorite skink in their collection in order to pay their rent for that month so we decided to buy her from them. We didn’t want her to go to someone who wouldn’t take care of her the best that they possibly could because she was this couple’s baby so for my birthday, I decided to buy her for Josh.
Maggie is a character. She loves to drink, eat, and sleep. She looks like a grump 99% of the time. She could go without ever being touched or held. Her favorite things to eat are Hornworms and pinkies but her main diet usually consists of Blue Buffalo canned food mixed with 1 piece of fruit and 1 piece of veggie from whatever is safe for her to eat in our fridge at the time. She hates being wet despite her cage having to be humid all the time. Other than her being grumpy all the time, she is actually really sweet and loves to explore for the best hiding spots while we have her out of her cage.
Gus Gus:
Species: Felis catus
Breed: York Chocolate
Age: 5 yrs
Nicknames: Gus, Gus the Bus, Guts, Goose, Goots, Chunk, Monkey, Pumpkin, Panther, Big One, Oh My Gus
My sweet sweet Gus Gus! Adopting Gus was one of the best decisions Josh and I have ever made. My second year of college, I took Allegra to school with me. My roommate for my last year of college also had a cat so while she and I were in classes all day, our cats were able to keep each other company. After I graduated, Josh and I got married and moved into a little apartment. We were only allowed to have 2 pets so we had Allegra and then we got Maggie. Apollo had to stay with Josh’s mom. Our apartment had 2 bedrooms so one was ours and one was the pet room/ Allegra’s room. Allegra used to stay in her room during the day while we were at work and when we got home, she would immediately come out of her room to greet us, harass us for food, and love on us. Everything was great until a few months after being in the apartment going through this routine, Allegra stopped coming out of her room when we got home and she even stayed in there when we were home on our days off. I could tell that she was getting depressed and I felt as though if we got another cat, they would be able to keep each other entertained while we were gone all day and maybe she would go back to being social and talkative.
While Josh and I were still deciding if we could afford to take care of two cats and a skink and break the rules in our apartment building, we fell in love with this long-haired black cat named Gus Gus and long-haired senior white cat named Polar Bear (which are my favorite animals btw) who lived together at PetSmart. We saw them both consistently there for an entire month before we decided it was time for us to get a second cat. By the time we were ready, Polar Bear had already been adopted and the day I went to get Gus he was gone too. Josh made a decision that he wanted to get a kitten instead so we ended up adopting a long-haired Siamese kitten. We were both so excited and we thought that he would be perfect for Allegra and she could teach him how to be a cat. My excitement wore off when I started to see that the kitten had too much energy and was stressing out Allegra. We had fallen absolutely in love with this kitten but when we woke up one morning after about a week of having him in our apartment, and saw that Allegra was extremely ill and had lost her voice, it broke our hearts. We knew we had take back this kitten that we loved so much already and see if we could find an older cat who would fit Allegra’s personality more. Don’t worry, the kitten already had a new home lined up for him before we returned him to his foster mom.
We spent a couple days nursing our little girl back to health and then went back to PetSmart to see if there were any older cats there that looked to be a good fit for us. Guess who was there! Gus Gus!! I was so confused to see Gus back at PetSmart so I asked an associate what happened and why he had gone before. She informed us that a man had adopted him and brought him back a little over a week later because he didn’t want him. This news made us both sad and excited. We felt like the universe was telling us that we had to get this cat so we did! We brought Gus Gus home and shut Allegra in her room in order to give Gus the chance to explore our little apartment and when we felt as though he was comfortable, we let Allegra out to meet him face to face. He was so shy and quiet that we thought we couldn’t have picked a better cat to be friends with Allegra.
A few days after having Gus with us, we were laying in bed one night and all of a sudden we hear the loudest meowing and wailing we have ever heard in our entire lives. I woke Josh up thinking that the cats were murdering each other so we both jumped out of bed and opened the door to our bedroom only to see Gus Gus sitting right in front of our door and Allegra laying in her room. Gus had never made a peep besides some hissing on his first day meeting Allegra so it was shocking to us to hear him finally meow. We gave him a pat on the head, shut the door, and went back to bed. A few minutes later, the wailing started again. I decided to get up and open the door to let him in and then I laid back down. Gus proceeded to walk around our room just meowing away and he hasn’t stopped meowing since that day. Our quiet shy black cat turned into the loudest cat that we have ever owned. He wails when he’s bored, when he can’t find you, randomly yells at inanimate objects, and we wouldn’t have him any other way.
Gus Gus is also the scaredest cat we have ever owned. He jumps at everything and it cracks us up. He jumps when I sniffle, if I move my feet unexpectedly when he is near, and he will even position himself over the vent in the floor and flips out when it turns on. He loves to play with Allegra but he is twice her size (literally) and she is a princess so she can dish out some pops to Gus but if he even tries to retaliate, she screams bloody murder. His favorite toys are objects he’s not supposed to have such as hair ties and pens, but his absolute favorite toys are pom poms. His front feet are declawed but that doesn’t stop him from attempting to shred up the furniture. All he wants is to be loved so he will harass you by screaming at you until you pick him up and hold him for approximately 5 minutes every morning and night. While he’s being held, he lays his head on your shoulder and purrs and squeaks, then he will growl at you in order to be put down. A day in the life of Gus Gus is harassing Allegra, eating a lot, playing in the kitty drinking fountain, smacking dogs, sleeping, and begging to be loved on. He does this head flip thing that looks like he’s being dramatic and meows whenever you look at him. We are thankful everyday for choosing Gus and we couldn’t imagine our lives without him
We also have 3 aquariums but explaining how we got each of our tanks and who is in them is a little overkill, don’t you think? I hope you enjoyed learning more about our little family! If you have pets, what do you have and what are their names?
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