Animal Lover

Growing up in Alexandria, Virginia we had animals in our home all the time.  Our favorite dog was a dachshund and at one time we had 3-4 of them.  Rebel was the name of the first one and lived to be 21 years old before my father had to put him down from old age pain the Vet said he was experiencing.

Since dachshunds, I have had labs, goats, and cats as pets.  My wife and I treat these animals as if they are members of the family and will spend whatever money it takes (within reason) to take care of them.  One cat needed shoulder surgery which was not cheap.  Another cat needed to have a cancer removed.  And still another cat went through several tests to determine they had a respiratory infection and would need steroids for the rest of their lives.

Cats are easier to take care of than dogs, especially since you can no longer let a dog loose without being on a leash.  Cats don't need leashes and don't need to be walked so they can go potty outside.  Cats have a litter box.

However, cats shed their hair more than dogs do and cats of all ages scratch furniture with their claws despite having cat trees and scratching boxes all around the house.

Dogs bite and chew furniture when they are young and grow out of that annoying behavior.

On the other side of the coin, cats like to jump around on furniture and are oftentimes careless when they jump up on things, making all sorts of messes.

Neither cats nor dogs know when they have made q mess even when they see the mess they have made; therefore, we as ADULTS have no business getting mad at animals when they misbehave.  We need to overlook that behavior or calmly try to break them of that behavior, similar to housebreaking a dog.

If you mistreat an animal, you have no business having an animal as a pet.  

If you want to keep the dog outside, then make sure he has a warm place to sleep during the winter, like a heated doghouse and make sure he has a fenced in back yard so s/he can run around an exercise.  Just putting a dog outside on a chain leash anchored to something is cruel treatment for your animal.

We had cats that like to go in and outside whenever they wanted so we had a cat door put into our garage door in the basement.  There was another cat door in the door going down to the basement which we kept locked at night so strange animals could not get inside the house.

Our basement had several places, up high where the cats could go with blankets to keep warm.  Inside the garage was 20 degrees warmer inside than outside in the heart of winter.  So, if it was 20 degrees outside, which it seldom was and if it did get that low, it did not last long, and 40 degrees inside the garage.

Bear in mind that their garage beds were up high and heat rises, so it was warmer up there than down on the garage floor.

They were always sitting by the door down to the garage in the mornings waiting for us to open the door and let them in.

We replaced those two cats when they died with three others and neither of them like spending too much time outside, especially our Siamese who goes outside for 10 minutes, then wants back in and back on his heating pad.