How did you come by your love of animals?

For me, it was passed down from my grandmother and my mom. My grandma kept all kinds of pets - even a pet racoon This was when my mother was a child - my mom has told me all kinds of stories about growing up with a menagerie. I honestly don't know much about my great-grandmother :/ She passed before I was born.. but my mom obviously got her love of animals from my grandma. When I was a kid we had, at one time or another, cats, dogs, fish, gerbils, mice, hamsters, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, and lovebirds. My stepfather drew the line when my mom said she wanted a goat

One of my earliest memories to do with animals is being on a long drive with my mother and my stepfather, when we drove past a house where a man was beating his dog. My mom insisted we stop, and she got out, with my stepfather behind her, and yelled "what the *bleep* are you doing to that dog?" The man said "lady if you want that dog, you can have that dog". So... she took him And persuaded my stepfather not to hit the man and get the police called on us, lol. I remember how scared the dog was at first..and how he responded to our love, opened and became more confident..stopped shying away if you put your hand in front of his face... His name was Swoop, and he was my doggie from when i was really young until I moved away from home in my teens. It was a graphic thing that no kid should have to see, obviously - an animal being beaten - but I think that's why I feel so strongly about protecting animals, and I get SO angry and upset when I see/hear of them being abused.

I'm curious tho - did anyone here grow up in a household with no animals - if so how did you come by your love for them?

Well, almost all of my family had pets, cats, dogs etc. i enjoyed being able to play with them. also worked on the uncle farm, during the summer when i would visit there.

we had a few pets growing up, but they always died. later, we found out that there was reason to beleave that my father killed them. we(me and my sister cant prove it) Even now, he says he is going to kill my cats. which is why is no longer has the key to my house, and no longer allowed over here.

i guess i was just born, this way. i love to have animals around.

I have always loved animals.Mostly dogs though.My love for cats didn't come until about 5 years ago when we found a Calico girl covered in fleas and ticks.

Originally Posted by theimp98

we had a few pets growing up, but they always died. later, we found out that there was reason to beleave that my father killed them. we(me and my sister cant prove it) Even now, he says he is going to kill my cats. which is why is no longer has the key to my house, and no longer allowed over here.

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Awww that's so sad It's great that you were able to identify with that behaviour was wrong and develop a love for animals.

My family are all pet fans. My mum is one of 8 children, and everyone has pets except one uncle who travels for work for weeks at a time so can't take care of a pet, but he still loves cats.

3 of my aunts are involved in animal rescue/volunteering - one rescues and nurses back to health wildlife and birds, one volunteers regularly at the SPCA in the Seychelles and assists in surgery, and another get suckered into adopting hopeless cases, and helps her local vet who does a lot of rescuing by doing up regular newsletters, and maintains their website.

We're very much an animal loving family!

We had cats and dogs and fish and birds most of my life growing up. I loved them all. Mom was actually pretty good about letting me have a pet!

My love for animals just has always come natural. I have always had a soft spot for them. I will never understand people that don't have pets or people that don't like animals

Originally Posted by theimp98

Well, almost all of my family had pets, cats, dogs etc. i enjoyed being able to play with them. also worked on the uncle farm, during the summer when i would visit there.

we had a few pets growing up, but they always died. later, we found out that there was reason to beleave that my father killed them. we(me and my sister cant prove it) Even now, he says he is going to kill my cats. which is why is no longer has the key to my house, and no longer allowed over here.

i guess i was just born, this way. i love to have animals around.

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That's terrible that it was your father that was doing it - I'm glad he's not allowed over there anymore.

Originally Posted by Trouts mom

My love for animals just has always come natural. I have always had a soft spot for them. I will never understand people that don't have pets or people that don't like animals

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Me neither...I can understand an indifference to them, but not dislike. Our landlords mother (who lives with her) - wait, that sounds confusing. Its a husband, wife, two kids, and the husbands mother, who live in the apt upstairs from us - the wife is our landlord. The wife said we could have 1 cat, but the grandmother hates cats. She allows ours, but if a cat wanders into our backyard she yells at it and even once threw something out the window at it to get it to leave. I'll never understand that mentality. That cat just likes to be in our yard cos it gets a lot of sun - it just likes to lay on the concrete patio and sunbathe, it's never gone to the bathroom in our yard or caused any problem whatsoever - but the grandmother yells at it everytime she sees it. That behaviour baffles me. How can you have that much hatred for an animal?

when I was born my grandmother was already a registered wildlife rescuer. She always had abandoned or injured animals in her house. My earliest memories were playing with a bunch of abandoned racoon cubs. I shared a kiddy pool with 2 baby beavers.

I love all animals. I think I was born into it.

Originally Posted by Sibohan2005

when I was born my grandmother was already a registered wildlife rescuer. She always had abandoned or injured animals in her house. My earliest memories were playing with a bunch of abandoned racoon cubs. I shared a kiddy pool with 2 baby beavers.

I love all animals. I think I was born into it.

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Learned a lot about water from those beavers? Sounds like fun.

I guess mine was hereditary through Mom. She grew up on a farm and loved the cats. Even told Dad that if he proposed he's get a wife, daughter (sis),and a cat. Dad never had pets but soon Mom's cat became his cat.

I also grew up around animals, we just had cats and dogs though.

But one time we had to try and raise some baby squirrels.

Never had any animals until Twitch. My love of them comes from jerky friends, I got sick, missed part of my junior year of high school. The only ones there for me were Twitch & a black lab pup of mine.

My Mom is a real animal person- definitely a certified Crazy Cat Lady. All we talk about most of the time is the kittens!

We used to live up in Northern Canada and there were forest fires one year when I was about 6. A feral cat appeared around this time, as she apparently was forced out of her old territory by the fires. My Mom, being the Crazy Cat Lady that she is, adopted the little thing. The nearest vet was 2 hours away on a really bad gravel road, and it was coming on winter, so we couldn't get her in to be spayed immediately. So we spent the entire winter and early spring with a truly psychotic, feral, cat in heat trapped in the house (my Mom was adament that there would be no kittens- rightfully so!!). I remember wanting to pet her and play with her sooooo badly (this was the first pet cat we'd ever had since I was old enough to remember) and she'd hiss and scratch and bite, and yet all I wanted to do was play with her, no matter how nasty she got. I remember for years thinking that all cats were so unfriendly, but still wanting to be best friends with them.

My Dad pretends he doesn't like animals, but I know he secretly does, and he's so gentle with them all the cats love to go to him and snuggle. So I guess my love of animals comes from both parents, but mostly my Mom.

I grew up with many animals, both my parents loved animals, and also grew up with lots (horses, pigs, dogs, cats, reptiles, etc.). My extended family and siblings own & love them too. Holidays are always fun.

I was born an animal lover and having animals (dogs and guinea pigs) growing up makes me love animals even more and I haven't had a love for cats I mean I loved them and always have dreamed to have one someday.. me and my brother would always try to catch feral cats in Nevada when we lived there to have a cat. because we have never had one in our family until we got Miagi and Tiger and that sure changed. I would always ask for a cat and now we have 2 and they are the best cats we could ever ask for.. and I know my love for animals just comes naturally. maybe now I should ask for a horse.

I've loved cats longer than I can remember. I have vague memories of getting my first cat Tinsel at the age of 2. My Mom had a dog growing up but my Grandmother really didn't like cats as pets. Mainly because my Great-Grandmother loved them so much she always had a lot of cats in the house and I think they got more attention than the kids sometimes! (My great-grandmother was generally unhappy from my understanding....married just to come to the states.) My Mom currently has 3 cats and 2 dogs. My Dad has had dogs (1 at the moment) but I think only as an adult. My Aunt and Grandmother have allergies that can be pretty bad, though my Aunt does have a dog now.

Both of my parents are animal lovers so I got it from them. I always had animals at both my moms and dads houses. I have had mice, frogs, lizards, snakes, chinchillas, hamsters, birds, dogs, cats, all sorts of critters...for a little while we had 2 raccoons at my dads house....Ren and Stimpy. I had a horse at my grandmas boyfriends daughters house named Emmy too.
My first day of school I found a stray cat on the steps and had my mom bring it home.
My mom also let me bring home baby wild bunnies that my brother found and tried to raise them. They lived for a couple weeks but they didn't make it.
She brought me 2 baby sparrows that she found laying on the sidewalk to take care of once too. They were tiny, naked, and didn't have their eyes open. 1 baby made it to the time it was flying and we took it to a wild life rehab.

My grandma on my dads side is an animal lover too and always had birds and cats. One of my aunts on his side had a farm and we would go there to see the animals...my favorite were the horses.

I grew up on a farm so I grew up around animals. I always had a dog. It was always a stray that someone had brought out to the country to dump off so they were friendly from the beginning. The one animal I never got a soft spot for was snakes though even though there were a lot of them around.

It's hard to say, only that I've loved them ever since I was a baby. We've always had pets, it's just the way it's always been. As for animals themselves, there is a special mysticism about them, something that we all yearn to understand. Although its my belief that animals understand more about us than we're led to believe. They are beautiful in every sense of the word, even insects and other "gross" animals, because they created just as we were and there really isn't a line between them and us at all. I mean, if you really look at a spider (or a picture of one ) and see how delicate it really is, that is a wonder to me. You know i'm rambling, sooo .... We've always had pets and I love nature so it clicked and that's that.

we always had dogs when I was growing up, never cats when I went to live on my own, the 1st thing I did was get a cat always had cats since then

I think it's something you are born with and I got it!

Originally Posted by Sibohan2005

when I was born my grandmother was already a registered wildlife rescuer. She always had abandoned or injured animals in her house. My earliest memories were playing with a bunch of abandoned racoon cubs. I shared a kiddy pool with 2 baby beavers.

I love all animals. I think I was born into it.

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There are some folks that believe what your mom did is wrong - they should not interfere with nature and she should have left them to suffer and die as nature intended.

Fortunately (at least I believe I am fortunate), I do not share those beliefs. My personal opinion is that we help any creature in distress if we can.