ANIMAL PERSONALITIES

I have four pets, three cats and one dog and with all them they have their own very unique personalities, as I am sure all animals do. Sometimes I wonder how they all seem to get along living under one roof but somehow they manage. There are times I have to pull my hair out with them because like kids we have our squabbles and I get stuck in the middle-playing referee. Sure life could be easy without them but really I couldn’t imagine life without them. They all have their way in some respect keeping me sane (and sometimes that is a really hard feat).

Tigger is the oldest of my pets, an orange and white cat that can be moody and is the biggest wimp of all my pets. Tigger will run from his own shadow and if you say boo to him, he will run in sheer terror. He is the pure definition of scaredy cat. Tigger can also be the sweetest cat when the moment suites him. He will do anything to sit on your lap and be petted and if you don’t pet him he will head-butt you until you do. At night he is surgically attached to my husband, Jeff trying to soak up his body heat (a good source of heat, my husband is known as lava man for the heat he puts off). How Jeff can sleep with Tigger so close to him is beyond me. The funny thing with Tigger is he loves to talk; you can carry on some great conversations with him. He will meow his head of until you respond to him, then once you do, you’re stuck because whatever he has to say is of extreme importance and he needs to be heard now!

The second of my pets is Jinx, a huge 20 lbs., gray black tabby cat we adopted at the shelter to give Tigger a companion. Great idea we thought at first but as things go Jinx became Tigger’s nightmare. He wasn’t Tigger’s buddy he became Tigger’s bully and bully is the best way to describe him. When I hear Tigger’s loud piercing scream, I know that Jinx has just jumped on Tigger’s back scaring the ever-loving crap out of Tigger. There are moments although fleeting that Tigger and him get along but Jinx sees himself as the supreme king cat of the household and nobody better try to take that away from him. Jinx’s life is ruled by his stomach and if he is not fed when he wants to be fed he will drive you nuts until you do feed him, hence the reason why he is so huge. If you say “git-r-done” Jinx will appear out of nowhere looking for the laser light to chase, that is Jinx’s crack. He can even hear you get the light out the drawer and he even knows the smell of that light.

Then Kodi came into our lives, a little black kitten that I almost turned into road kill (trust me, I wasn’t looking to get another cat after everything we had been through with Tigger and Jinx and their love/hate relationship). I brought him home and he became almost immediately the mediator between Tigger and Jinx. He looked at Tigger as his father figure and he was the challenge that Jinx needed to his thrown and also kept Jinx distracted from jumping on Tigger all the time. The little peacekeeper cat fit right in and became the little love of my husband with his squeaky little to almost nonexistent meow. He also loves to see how he can irritate Jinx by giving him a taste of his own medicine and jump on him when he least expects it and will sleep with Tigger because he knows how much Tigger doesn’t like to sleep alone. Kodi lives for his furry little mice toys; he is a collector of them. Many times when I am cleaning I will find his stash all over the house. Most of all Kodi makes an art out of sleeping. I have never seen a cat sleep in the positions that he does, he is the epitome of relaxation.

Finally there is Baz, the only dog of our pets. We got Baz because I pleaded with my husband to let me have a dog. So for my last birthday he broke down and let me get one (best birthday present I ever had). I thought it was best to get a puppy since we had three cats and didn’t want to take a chance with an older dog and it not liking cats. Jeff and I went to our local shelter and there was Baz with his two brothers. Baz is a lab/rottie mix and we picked him because he seemed to be the calmest of his littermates. Well as we found out looks can be deceiving. Baz is a spaz but a lovable one at that. Baz is happy go lucky and a true bewilderment to our cats with the exception of Tigger. Tigger loves him and I only think that because Tigger must look at Baz as his protector from Jinx and also when Tigger was a kitten I had a golden retriever that Tigger thought was his father so he was use to dogs. Jinx on the other hand looked at Baz as a threat to his reign over the household. Here was this puppy that was about the same size as Jinx and looked nothing like a cat. To say Jinx was beside himself was an understatement, he was ticked off we got him and to this day Baz and him test each other for complete ruling of the house. Kodi just plain doesn’t know what to think about Baz. Baz does his best to try to figure out these strange feline creatures he lives with and does his best to try to get them to accept him but only time is going to do that. I think first he has to get out of his puppy stage and calm down before they truly accept him. Baz is now close to 80 lbs at nine months and still thinks of himself as a lap dog. He loves to chase his tail and chew on his rawhides and has a real knack for driving my cat-loving husband up the wall. But all in all he is one big ole dopey dog that I love to death.

Life would be easier without them but then again it would be boring also. I need my scaredy cat, bully cat, peacekeeper, cat, and my big ole dopey dog because each one of them fulfills a need within me. They are part of our family and a great source of entertainment.