How did you decide to add to your household?

[mamacat]

Our two came as a set, like bookends.

When DH (well, at that time he was BF) and I decided we were ready to take the plunge and get a pet together, we decided right off the bat that we should get 2 kitties, so they could keep each other company while we were at work. Nedicks and Nathan are sister and brother who were abandoned together in the same carrier in the parking lot of a PetCo. store where the local rescue shows its kitties who are up for adoption. We picked them out on Petfinder, went to meet them, and loved them instantly. The day we got them home, Nathan ran into the coat closet and hid for about 6 hours, but Nedicks kept running between the two of us on the sofa nuzzling us like she was completely starved for affection.

Sometimes I think of adding another kitty or two, but we don't really have the space in our apartment. Last year our doorman asked if we wanted two kittens, because he knew someone who was adopting out a litter their cat had. DH and I kind of looked at each other and we were both thinking, "Yay, kittens!"

But in the end, we decided it was better for everyone, including the kittens, if we let them go with someone else--Nathan is my baby boy, but he can be kinda ornery sometimes, and occasionally he womps on his sister. Nedicks can hold her own with him, but I would feel terrible if we brought a kitten into the family and Nathan hurt it. And like I said, I don't think we really have the space for more...but if we did, I would definitely think about adopting one or two more adult cats.

 

[sharky]

Kandie came from an opps litter when I was 11 ... My moms Nikko passed at age 19 three yrs proir and I begged for a kitty . I picked out Tiffany for my new girl well Kandie was the only girl in a litter of five and she wasnt a Tiffany ..lol..

Zoey came about thru a pet store I go to locally ... see I mentioned wanting a siamese and the fish gals best friend was a intern at the shelter ... I got a call that she had a calm young 18 months ish siamese mix so I went to the shelter and met Mama she was lovely but long haired... I drag mom to the shelter money in my pocket only to hear she is a great cat but I dont want another long hair ... So Mom and I wander into the fixed males and females room and little Zoey rubs Mom .. Mom bends over and says is she pregnant>>?? the shelter lady says no she was just spayed after nursing her litter and some orphans .. Supposed age 2-3 she was tiny and about 7.5 lb s chubby ... turned out I brought home a feral kitten of 8 months ... But I love her to death...

Oh and I dont recommend feral kittens for helping keep 16 yr olds active...heheheh

 

[laureen227]

well....both! i was very happy with my two, & Cable was found...a little, scrawny tabby, crying in the road in front of the school i teach at. i couldn't not take her home, now, right? and was so glad i did, when Mouse passed only a few months later - Pixel still had a cat friend! then Java was found, also outside the school, so i took her, too - & Cable had a young kitten to play with, & Pixel to go to for licks & snuggles. Chip was for me, tho. Mouse was such a meowmy's girl, & i really missed her. Chip is a real snugglepants, loves to sit on my lap & purr - he's really eased my

 

[momofmany]

All but 2 of mine were born around our old house. These are the ones that I could tame and fell in love with them immediately and couldn't adopt out, or were just a bit too wild to adopt out. The 2 that weren't born around the house were adopted from the Humane Society in a weak moment when I had just lost 3 indoor cats and a host of outside cats to FeLV. I was grieving and wasn't thinking very logically at the time. Someone else would have given them a good home and I was full at home already. That doesn't matter now - I love them all equally!

The dogs are a different story. Steve absolutely LOVES dogs. He relates to them on a level that most people can't fathom. I love them also, but will never have the bond that Steve does. We adopted 5 dogs shortly after we married, and after the last one died from cancer, we took a year off and decided we couldn't live without them. We adopted Sam and Spike (brothers) to fill a very large void.

(and I just started another thread on this, but found out there is a new litter of kittens at the old house that moved in after we moved out. There's a part of me that wants to trap them and bring them here and another that says teach the owner to handle it - the latter argument wins, even though old habits die hard)

 

[lizk729]

I LOVE reading all these stories........Thanks for sharing.

Well we decided about 2 years ago that our family needed a pet. My son was 1 and my oldest 13 so off we went to the local No Kill Shelter. We had decided on an older dog because we had a puppy about 10 years ago and had no idea what we were doing. Had her for year and then had to find a place for her because we were dumb....Wish we would have kept her and worked with her.........anyhow.....so we adopted a 3 year old lab mix. Brought her home and the very next day she bite my 6 year old (at the time) in the face.

Took her back and they ended up not taking her so had to take her to the APL. Called the next day to see how she was and were told she failed their test and had been put to sleep. They said there is no way she should have been put with children.

So then I said no way no pet no how........but a few days later the No Kill shelter called and said they had a 12 week old female beagle and wanted us to come check her out.......so home came Daisy. Then we said we were done.....Daisy took alot of work to train right but she is a wonderful dog and I didnt want to mess with that. lol
But then we went to my girlfriends farm and her cat had kittens. They had homed all of them but one. So of course my girls fell in love with her. My husband finally agreed to let us have her. So then came Stormy. So from one pet to two in 6 months..........Then 7 months later at our church we find this stray thats as friendly as can be. Shes a beautiful calico and we all fall in love with her. We tried placing her in a shelter but it was going to cost us to put her in a shelter so we decided to have a lady help us and we decided to foster her. At first we had thought she was pregnant but it turns out she was not.

Well once the cat was in our home.......she was ours, so we adopted her. Thats Snickers............
Well we dog sat for my parents this past week and realized how much Daisy loves having a play mate. When we decided to visit the No Kill Shelter again we saw Dixie.........she was all alone in a cage and sleeping but seemed so tiny and helpless. WE got her out and played with her there for over an hour and I knew she had to come home with us. So now we have four..........
We are DONE!!! lol Financially we probablly shouldnt have gotten Dixie but shes here now and we can pay for the vet bills so shes well taken care of and goes in to be fixed in December.
But like when we knew we were done having babies........5 kids are enough......I know we are done with pets.

We are complete.
So two we were looking for to adopt......two found us without us looking.

 

[dixie_darlin]

Originally Posted by MuttigreeMom

At my maximum I had about 15 or 16 cats. Of all of those, not one was preplanned.

It went something like this:

We had no cats until one day a stray got accidentally locked in our garage. We couldn't find her owners, so decided to keep her, named her Rumpleteaser (I think I had just seen Cats for the first time

)... found out she was pregnant and had... I think FIV? We're going back about 15 years on this, so I'm not 100% on what it was. But whatever it was, I remember the doctor telling us that the kittens could get it and it would be horrible, etc. So after having her for 1 week, we had her put down. We were newbie cat owners and did what we thought was in the best interest for her and the kittens.

After having her only one week we were still heartbroken. I still remember my mom and I sitting in the parking lot of the vets office sobbing for almost an hour after we brought her in. Luck would have it that the next day we went to visit my mother's aunt only to find out that her cat had gotten out, came home pregnant and she had a litter of very adorable babies.... and we came home with Gemini. The next year the same thing happened and we came home with Apache. On one hand you would think my mom's aunt would have gotten her cat spayed, but then if she did we would have never had Gem or Pache.

A few years later I went to one of my all time favorite stores, Medieval Mayhem. As soon as I walked in the door I saw their little westie going NUTS. When I asked why the owner ran in the back of the store and brought me this huge box with a little black ball of fuzz in the corner. She said she had found him abandoned behind the store and couldn't keep him because she was allergic to cats. I took him, figured he was about a week old, ran to the pet store to get a bottle and formula... and that's how I got Mayhem.

A few months after getting Mayhem I was moving to a new apartment. I was taking Mayhem to the vet to get all his records to give to my new landlord when I saw a little orange tabby in a cage at the office... horribly frightened of everyone, every thing, every noise, etc. He had been beaten horribly by the neighborhood kids, but when they let me take him out of the cage he was immediately attached to me. He wouldn't stop licking my face long enough to let me write out the check for his adoption fee! I couldn't let him stay there and be scared, and I knew mom was keeping Gem and Pache at her house since they were really her cats... Mayhem needed a buddy at the new apartment... and that little tabby boy, now known as Azrael, came home with me.

A little after I had moved into my new apartment I went to the nail place at the local mall, and low and behold there was a pet store next to the nail place. While walking past I noticed a little black and white kitten in the corner of the window who just looked like he needed a friend... and home came Jack.

After I moved back home, a stray cat had two litters of kittens under my mother's shed... and thats where we got (ok lets see if I can get this straight...

) First litter: Samson, Isosceles, Gizmo, Angel, Bootsy Second litter: Cleo, Max, Tabby, and a fourth we never named because we found her a home.

Shortly after this, yet another cat showed up on our doorstep. He lived on our front porch (voluntarily) for three months until it started to get cold and we finally agreed to let him in. I nicknamed him John Doe figuring hey, we don't know who he is... Once he came inside he became Johnny.

And then, after I moved to Florida, I went back to NY last september for a visit. While there I was visiting a friend in the city who lives near Fort Tryon Park. While sitting on a bench against the wall of the park chatting with my friend about nothing in particular, we heard a rustling in the bushes behind us. We jumped up expecting a rat only to find a severely emaciated kitten trying to make friends with us. We fed her and tried to get her into a no kill shelter. When that didn't work, I tried to get her into a shelter with a 90% adoption rate. No go. Instead got yelled at by the manager for "not thinking of this sooner!" because I had to hop a plane back home the next day. And as funny as this sounds... when I was at the shelter talking to the manager, the kitten peed on me... and I thought "this is her way of telling me she just does not want to be here". So with a roll of my eyes, I left the shelter, paid the extra $50 to Delta and flew her to Florida to live with me.... and now we have Tryon.

I always joke that I never need to go out and adopt a cat. When there's one out there who needs me, he/she will just show up!

dont mean to hijck but where in fla?

 

[shengmei]

All of my cats are totally accidents. None of them were planned. I didn't even like cats until I had them.

I see homeless kittens. I take them home.

 

[dicknleah]

Great stories everyone....here's mine.

We had a cat, Hannah, when we bought our house. A year later Quki kitty showed up on our doorstep and never went away.
Another year went by and we decided to adopt a dog. That's when we got Niki.
3 months later we decided Niki needed a friend so we got Bozy. Okay, 2 cats and 2 dogs, that seems reasonable right?....NOT!
Buzz was captured at 4 weeks old back in 2003, so cat #3.
I then got a case of the I wants and bought a puppy, Cody. That, I will never do again but needless to say I love her all the same.
A few months later a plea went out to get a Border Collie out of a high kill shelter so I did. That's when I got dog #4 my Buddy Bear.
A few months even later I attended our local Dog-O-Thon and they had kittens for adoption so in comes Emmie and Missy to make 5 cats.
Last but not least was Ashly the cat that MaryAnne and Eddie helped to get to me 1 year ago last may.

Hannah has since left us and I am now fostering a Border Collie so I currently have 5 of each.

 

[lizk729]

Originally Posted by dicknleah

Great stories everyone....here's mine.

We had a cat, Hannah, when we bought our house. A year later Quki kitty showed up on our doorstep and never went away.
Another year went by and we decided to adopt a dog. That's when we got Niki.
3 months later we decided Niki needed a friend so we got Bozy. Okay, 2 cats and 2 dogs, that seems reasonable right?....NOT!
Buzz was captured at 4 weeks old back in 2003, so cat #3.
I then got a case of the I wants and bought a puppy, Cody. That, I will never do again but needless to say I love her all the same.
A few months later a plea went out to get a Border Collie out of a high kill shelter so I did. That's when I got dog #4 my Buddy Bear.
A few months even later I attended our local Dog-O-Thon and they had kittens for adoption so in comes Emmie and Missy to make 5 cats.
Last but not least was Ashly the cat that MaryAnne and Eddie helped to get to me 1 year ago last may.

Hannah has since left us and I am now fostering a Border Collie so I currently have 5 of each.

All I can say is WOW!!! lol And you are wonderful to have all those pets .