Pets (assorted)

We call our blog "It's a horse life", and we mostly talk about our horses, but we do have several other animals living with us.

I think I have spent a total of about 2 weeks of my life with no animals living in the house with me. Cats, dogs, snakes, frogs, turtles, rabbits, lizards, salamanders, a squirrel... our kids weren't a problem for my wife, I was. Hey, it just followed me home (of course, I was dragging it by the neck....).

We currently have one bird, Phoenix, a domestic white dove captured in Rocky Mountain National Park by a butterfly researcher that was probably released for a wedding and didn't find it's way home (the dove, not the bug guy). We have two cats that live in our bedroom, Voodoo, the old man, and Kitten Kaboodle, the younger female. They live in our room because it is a cat's job to sleep on every pillow it can find, and we have WAY too may pillows here at the lodge. We have a box tortoise named Scooter that is currently in school in the first grade class our younger daughter teaches. We have 3 horses and we have our Lodge Dog, Sophie.
We got Sophie 8 years ago from the Humane Society down in Longmont, Colorado. We had lost our older lodge dog, Sam just before Christmas in 2001, and, though we weren't ready to replace Sam, we sure weren't ready to be without a dog. We had made several trips to the "dog pound" and come home empty handed each time. Finally we went down on Valentines Day, and met Sophie, sitting quietly in the back of her cage, surrounded by the normal bedlam of a dog jail. I checked the clipboard on her cage "Oh, your name is Sophie" and she walked right up and said hi. She followed us home. Today is our 8th anniversary with the Sophie the Lodge Dog.

It's hard for me to imagine life without animals in my home. You have to put up with a some extra mess and smell, but if you give them a little affection, and keep them fed, they will love you.
Gosh, is that what it's like having a husband?

Happy Valentines Day Juanita! I love you.

Bill