I am a cat lover. I wasn't always a cat lover. In fact, I wasn't allowed to have pets growing up. My parents always told me that when I had my own place I could have my own pets. This was always an obvious statement. Of course I could do whatever I wanted once I was on my own. I think my parents were just trying to give me hope in the pet department when there was none. I never failed to remind then that all of my older siblings got to have pets when they were younger and it's not my fault that I was born last after they were "done having pets." It never worked so needless to say, my childhood was somewhat pet-less.
Well, that's not even entirely true. When my brother moved back home for a while he brought his dog Lestat--an overly hyper dalmation that would rip off the heads of my Barbie dolls and tear around the house with them in his mouth quickly enough that we couldn't tell what it was he had. I wasn't sad when that dog died. I was sad for my brother I suppose, but no tears shed.
Later, that same brother came home again with Cody, a well trained, super friendly, rotweiler. Again there was a pet in the house--despite my parents continued arguments against myself obtaining a furry friend of my own. They argued that my brother was an adult and fully responsible for the critter, but that if the pet were my own that they would end up doing the brunt of the work. This dog didn't take much work though. He was completely potty trained. You could leave a plate of food on the floor and he wouldn't it eat unless my brother gave him the signal. I loved that dog. When my brother went away for the Marines he couldn't take Cody with him and my parents wouldn't let him stay. They gave me the speech that he went to live on a farm which I thought was code for dead. It turns out that he really did go live on a farm, and he's still alive today. I cried a lot when Cody left.
Fast forward a couple years. I was in college moving into my first apartment without roommates. I went to the pet store with my fiance (now husband) to pick up something for his family's cat. While we were there we saw the cats waiting for adoption. I fell in love immediately with a cat named Toast. He was a giant maine coon/ American long-hair mix. Needless to say, I made him my very first pet.
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