Our Pet Family

Here are a few photos of our pet family.  Enjoy!

Dreamer is the oldest member of our pet family.  He is a retired racehorse who was neglected.  He joined our family in 2011. He is a very sweet boy and seems to adore our kids. 

Misty has also been with us for the past 4 years.  She is a 6 year old Araloosa (Arabian/Appaloosa cross).  Misty was diagnosed with recurrent uveitis.  She is slowly losing her eyesight.  Her night vision has deteriorated to the point that she is almost completely blind at night.  She was just starting under saddle when she had her first episode and we learned that she would most likely go blind.  We have taken her back to ground work so that we can teach her voice commands to make life easier for her once her sight is gone. 

Rose is an 8 year old quarter horse mare.  We bought her from our ex-landlord just prior to moving although she and Misty have been together for the past three years.  Rose was almost completely unhandled when we met her three years ago.  You couldn't halter her and she would only allow the briefest of touches.  Originally I worked with her just so she wouldn't be afraid of me when I was in the pen with Misty.  When we discovered Misty's eye issues, I realized that Rose had been protecting Misty all along.  She doesn't allow Misty to do anything that would get her hurt.  One day I was walking into their pen and something spooked Misty.  She was running toward the fence and showed no sign of slowing down.  Rose had been in the barn getting something to drink, but as soon as she heard Misty running, she came out.  When she saw Misty heading for the fence, she bolted towards her and literally threw herself in front of Misty!  She was knocked off of her feet, but she stopped Misty from hitting the fence.  Since we have moved, I have truly realized how blessed we were to be able to purchase her.  Rose spent the first day guiding Misty around the pen.  She stayed between Misty and the fence at all times.  She has relaxed a bit in her guard during the day, but at night she continues to put herself between Misty and the fence.  Rose has come a long way.  She now halters easily, allows herself to be fly sprayed (in fact she stands for it better than Misty does!), allows a fly mask, leads, and loads in a trailer.  She loves to be brushed and scratched. She also lets me lean across her back a bit.  I think with more work she will be an excellent riding horse.

    Here is Misty rubbing her head on Rose.  Rose puts up with a lot of Misty's goofy antics!

     The horses hanging out in the new field.  Fleet is separated into his own field.  After four years together, Misty and Fleet still fight with each other if put together in a field.  To keep them from hurting each other, they must be separated. 

Valient and Screwy are full brothers.  They also joined our family four years ago, just shortly after Misty and Fleet did.  We originally planned to only get one puppy (we had lost our dog several months before), but when we got to the farm that had them we couldn't decide between them.  So we decided to take them both.  They are high energy dogs.  Both of their parents were registered, but they are a mix of Golden Retriever and Golden Labrador.  Screwy is the more laid back of the two.  They are extremely smart and love to hunt!  In this picture Screwy is on the left and Valient is on the right (it is hard to see from this picture, but Screwy is slightly darker).   In the second picture, you can see Screwy sleeping.  What you can't see is that Valient is also in the doghouse!  They have always shared a doghouse.  At the place we used to rent, there were two doghouses and we were glad that they would each have one.  They surprised us because they would still sleep in the same one!

Puffy is the large grey and white cat.  He is 11 years old this year.  When he was a kitten, my dog found him and brought him home.  He didn't have his eyes open yet!  We searched for his mother and his siblings, but couldn't find them anywhere!  I ended up bottle feeding him with the plan of finding him a good home once he was old enough.  What I realized was that I couldn't give him up.  Pistol is the black and white snuggled with Puffy.  She is 10 years old this year.  Pistol came from a no-kill shelter that I worked at in Arizona.  Her mother's family brought her into the shelter.  I was on duty in the front office because the manager was at lunch.  The father brought Pistol's mother in and said that if we didn't take her that he was going to dump her in the desert.  At the time we were full and weren't supposed to take in any more cats, but Pistol's mother was in active labor.  I could see her contractions as the man held her up by the scruff of her neck.  I couldn't reach the manager, so I made the decision to bring her in.  Pistol's mother was in labor for three days, but refused to let the babies come out.  The vet had to induce her and force her to have the kittens (5 total).  Pistol was the third kitten born.  She got her name because as the vet helped her out and wiped her face off, she was already hissing!  She hissed at the vet until she placed her with her mother!  At first the mother did well with the kittens, then on the third day she decided that she was tired of nursing and caring for them.  She wouldn't go any where near them.  So each of the staff members took kittens home to nurse.  Pistol was still hissing at people, so no one wanted to take her.  She ended up coming with me home that first night and then she travelled back and forth with me to work so that she wouldn't miss her feedings.  She became a good buddy to Puffy and is the sweetest cat ever. 

  Puffy likes to hide under the couch!

     This is Pistol at a year old.

  Pistol used to like watching Mr. Rogers on TV!

Clyde joined our family three years ago, shortly after we moved into the place we were renting.  His momma was not a very good momma.  She originally had her kittens in the middle of a rainstorm.  That doesn't seem bad until you know that she had them under the downspout from the gutters!  I moved her and the kittens into our front porch so that they could get dry and to make sure everyone was okay.  The next day I found that she had killed a kitten.  I at first assumed that it was an accident.  Then my landlord came by and he said that she typically ate all of her kittens!  That night she killed two more kittens.  I decided that for the safety of the kittens, I would remove the two that had survived.  We named them Bonnie and Clyde.  Unfortunately with their rough start, both Bonnie and Clyde got an upper respiratory infection.  We were unable to get Bonnie to pull through and lost her about 2 days later.  Clyde struggled with the infection and we did not think he was going to make it.  He was starting to get better when we noticed that he had a cloudy looking area over both eyes.  We took him to the vet and he said that the infection had spread into his eyes.  The vet said it was possible that he would lose his vision.  After several weeks of touch and go, Clyde made a full recovery.  He gained most of his vision back as well, but he does have some issues with his depth perception.  In the first picture you can see the cloudiness is still in the left eye.  The second picture shows Clyde stealing my son's favorite toy!  Clyde loves to ride the vacuum cleaner!

When we bought our new house, the original owner asked if he could leave the stray cats that he was feeding.  They had never been inside.  There is a momma cat and one kitten at this time, but we believe the momma is now pregnant.  Hopefully we can get her spayed after she delivers this set of kittens and her older kitten neutered before we have a lot of little outside cats around.