List number three: Pets I’ve had

Growing up, we had loads of animals. Chickens, ducks, geese, ostriches, sheep, goats and cows.

Leigh and I also had the odd rabbit. And there was also a horse once.

I think though, you can only use the word ‘pet’ to describe animals you’ve named. This is my theory anyway. So herein, lies my list of pets:

• A gold fish named Ryan was my first real pet. I named him after a boy in my class. I also had a black, googly eyed fish that I called googly eyes. Yep, pretty original.
• After the fish were flushed, my next pet was a cat named Abby.Dad is hugely allergic to cats so she had to live outside but Leigh and I would sneak her in through our windows . We’d dress her up in our dolls clothes and if Mum or Dad came into our room, we’d quickly put her into the dolls cradle amongst all the other toys. That was probably as naughty as we ever got! Abby was bought from people who lived across the road. She wasn’t that old when she decided to go for a walk back to the house she came from. The poor thing didn’t make it across the busy road and we found her alive, but in bad shape at the top of our driveway. I was devastated. Particularly because my Mum told me animals don’t go to heaven. As a side issues, isn’t that the meanest thing ever?! Mum also told us that the clouds didn’t move but I knew this wasn’t true either.
• A few months after Abby passed on, we got another cat called Tiger. It was the most feral cat to ever live and I hated it. In fact I think that to this day, the reason I really dislike cats is because of Tiger. It used to pounce in our faces on a regular basis and was always scratching me!A family friend ran him over when he was only a few months old. Mum and Dad made up a fib about how he died because they didn’t want us to hate their friend. Really though, they could have just told us the truth. I hated that cat and wasn’t sad to see him go.

And now…drumroll please….

Mishka

The most beautiful dog that has ever lived

Until our gorgeous Golden Retriever came along, I had always been scared of dogs.

I was in year 12 when we got her, and she was kind of meant to be Leigh’s dog. I was so disinterested that I didn’t even want to get out of the car when we went to choose her. I was of the opinion that it was ludicrous to spend such an insane amount of money on a dog.

But then she came home.

And it was love at first sight.

I had never and still have never experienced love in the way I loved Mishka. She was dependent on us and really, I became dependent on her too. There’s nothing in the world like coming home to someone who is happy to see you every single day. Someone who doesn’t care what you look like, you just need to have time for a belly rub :)

I know my fellow dog lovers will get what I’m talking about.

Mishka and I spent pretty much all of our time together. When she died, I cried for such a long time.

We were also blessed with five of her puppies. We sold them but not until they were 8 weeks old. To this day, I think those 8 weeks were some of the best in my life. There was Major, Princess Bubbles, Drew, Jimmy Squeak and Fatty Jackson. They were absolute bundles of joy that made us laugh A LOT!

I can only dream of having another Golden Retriever like Mishka. We were blessed to have such a good soul living with us for so long.