Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge : Pets

This week Cee has chosen pets as her challenge, Those cute adorable creatures that we nurture, feed and love. They sneak their way into our hearts and become an integral part of the family.

As a child in UK my Mother would not allow me to have a pet. So I adopted other people’s pets and had a menagerie of other people’s dogs that I would walk and care for when the owners were at work.

As I mentioned in my last post I eventually had a dream come true and had ponies as my constant companions.

When I moved to New Zealand and married and had a family we lived on a farm and of course we had a procession of dogs and cats that became part of the family, as well as ducks, chooks, lambs, calves, birds and other stray creatures and of course horses.

Time moved on. The children grew up and left home. I was planning to travel. So when my daughter left home she took the dog with her…

So I am now back full circle to looking after other people’s animals. A surrogate mother…

We belong to a house sitting organisation and when we travel we occasionally look after other people’s houses and their pets. Of course I always fall in love with the dogs and cats we look after and enjoy walking and caring for them. But it is like Grand children lovely for a while but good to hand them back and carry on our way. Travelling with pets can be difficult…

So after that rather long preamble my photos this week are of dogs and cats we have house sat with….

Dan

We looked after Dan on a 5 acre farm at Gympie. He is a Maremma breed that originated in central Italy to guard the flocks of sheep from wolves and other predators. A small flock of 6 sheep wandered around the paddock but Dan tended to either chase them or ignore them. The farm was his territory and he was very protective and would not allow strangers anywhere near the property. We had to bond with him for 4 days before the owners went away. He had to know that we were friends of his family before he would accept us.

Thunder a Cavoodle

 

Thunder is a cross between a cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Poodle. He looks so sad when he gazes at you with those big brown eyes, but he is just the opposite, loving to run around and chase balls. Show him the lead and he will jump and prance around waiting to go for a walk. He lived with a Burmese cat called J’adore. J’adore was on a strict diet and had to be shut away when Thunder was fed because she would gobble down her food then take over Thunders dish. We’ve looked after them twice.

Rim the dog and Ginger the cat both would like to sit on my knee

 

Who will win this confrontation? Both want to sit on my knee and they won’t share….

Rimfire, Rim for short, was a Jack Russel and loved being near you. He had his own bed but I would wake up in the mornings to find him curled up at the end of my bed. Big Ginger, the cat was definitely the boss. Look at Rims nervous expression…

We looked after them in Cairns.