I know there's a thread for posting pet pictures, but I was wondering if anyone would be down with another one just to ramble/chat about pets or other animals that are in your life and you like interacting with? Because friends aren't always human, you know? Like, take Lupin for example. She's a longhaired mixed breed tabby cat, and she is literally in every way my oldest friend. From the ages of about 12 to 20, I literally had no others of my kind that I could talk to that weren't related to me. I was badly bullied at school, and my home life wasn't exactly perfect, let's leave it at that. Lupin was literally my only friend in those times. I got Lupin (named after my favourite flower at the time) as a kitten when I was 11 and she was 10 weeks old, and I swear there has never been a more tolerant, affectionate, loving cat on this earth. She seems to have a sixth sense as to when I'm upset, and never fails to come and climb into my lap for headbumps and loud purring. She even lets me hug her and literally cry into her fur, something I'm told is rare for dogs to tolerate, never mind cats. She's 15 now, and luckily I now have other humans that I can call good friends, but I know for a fact that if I hadn't had her through my teenagehood, I wouldn't be here today. She's old and worn, and waddles more than runs when I call her now, but I really, really hope we've still got a few more years together.
:) What a good cat. I had a cat like that... she unfortunately got out of the house and was struck by a car a few years ago, but before that she was the only reason I stayed alive for several years. Sometimes when you've got nothing left having something that depends on you is what you need. She had a knack for detecting when I was upset and coming to knead bread... she would come lay on my chest for several minutes before bed, but then retreat to sleep in her own corner. She was a Russian Blue with big lemondrop eyes and I still miss her most days. These days I have a little bird! My fiance is allergic to literally everything with fur so I did the research and wound up with a Green Cheek Conure as the right size and volume and intelligence for an apartment bird. His name is Foggy and he is clever and sweet and snuggly; he doesn't talk very much but he has learned to say "Good night" when we shut out the lights at night, and has a couple of times broken it out when we stay up too late. He has learned to imitate my fiance's remote car lock chirp and peeps at the door when she gets home every day; when she's out of town he will stare worriedly at the door at the appropriate time and try to summon her by peeping.
J and I have a cat. His name is Nazara, after the vanguard of our destruction. He is a lazy cat who is kind of dumb most of the time, but extremely friendly. He is mostly quiet except when he is hungry, and then he either yowls or meows pitifully until we feed him. We got him when he was 3-4, from the humane society where we were living - he was a stray, had been picked up, wasn't neutered yet so had been a street cat. This means he's never gotten the hang of "hey food will come, you don't need to scarf it all down immediately like it will never exist again" - so we have to feed him on a schedule or else he becomes a very fat cat. He will cuddle pretty much anyone. He is slightly terrified of young energetic children, but will hide rather than be antagonistic. (or he will be resigned to his fate, if the child finds and cuddles him.) He is very good at telling when you are unhappy and will come cuddle with you. He also will come cuddle with you if you are on the floor for any length of time. He likes to headbutt people. He is a domestic shorthair tabby of some sort. Very pretty. Very fluffy.
I've had my cat Mewer (yeah, I was a very creative child :P) since I was four. I've known her longer than anyone who isn't a close blood relative. She likes to curl up in the bathtub when it's still warm after being emptied :3 She really feels like a friend to me. I learned a fair amount of my habitual body language from her, because I was a weird kid and took cues from my cat more than other kids about that stuff. I feel like I can communicate with her. I know her well enough that I can tell pretty precisely what she's "saying" with a certain meow or ear position, and since I've had her since she was 8 weeks old she also knows what I mean by certain gestures or tones of voice. It's like a whole little pet-language that I've been speaking nearly all my life. She loves to come and sleep loafed up on my chest and drool directly onto my face, though I can usually persuade her to move to a pillow. She also knows that I'm a total sucker so she pesters me for wet food more often than anyone else, haha. She likes being carried around the house and if I hold her for long enough she'll fall asleep in my arms. And I don't know if most cats do this but she'll go on walks with me around the yard and garden and in the fields behind the house, even in places she doesn't like going alone. Most of my childhood memories of home include her somewhere in the picture. There are pictures of both of us sleeping under the same blanket with our heads poking out, it's seriously adorable. I don't actually live with her right now, though. I moved away from home and across the country around two years ago and she couldn't come. She's used to my family's house and she would hate living in my apartment, but I really miss her. Spoiler: morbid worrying about my old cat, death talk I also worry because she's an old lady now, seventeen this past thanksgiving. She used to be an indoor-outdoor cat, would keep pests down and bring me presents on the porch, but in the last year or so she went deaf and since the house is right by a road she has to stay inside now. She's also been getting more arthritic for years and having thyroid problems that make her lose weight. I'm so worried that she'll die when I'm not there and the last time I saw her will be the last time I ever see her. I'll never get to talk to her again. And she misses me when I'm not around, my family tells me that she acts happier when I'm there, and I don't want her to be sad when she dies. I always thought I'd be around for her last years, but I can't undo everything I've accomplished just to be with my cat when she dies and I can't take her away from her home for no reason that she'd understand and make her miserable. So I'm just going to. Get a phone call one day and find out that my oldest friend is gone. Also, the only times I've been able to really cry and feel all of my emotions the way you need to sometimes in the past... I don't know, since before I was a teenager... have been when I was holding her on my lap. If I don't have Mewer things just feel locked up somehow. So I don't know if I'm even going to be able to really grieve for her. ...wow, this got really morbid, I'm sorry. Apparently I needed to get this off my chest. I will add a spoiler tag.
@eschatoLegation Your birb is the cutest! I've always wanted a birb, but my mum is super houseproud and somehow I think the lack of a voluntary poop control would not sit well with her. How long do conures live? The lady who runs my local-not-a-chain petstore has one, and it took me ages to realise that they did not actually have a bell installed above the door - they used to, long enough for birb to learn sound and associate it with door opening, but it broke and he took over the job XDD @Kaylotta Nazara is an awesome name for an awesome cat :D I used to volunteer at a cat sanctuary, and I knew an old tom just like him - formerly stray who just wanted to settle down for some free meals and lovin' now his wandering days were done. And @adisagestar - Spoiler: more morbid talk about pets I know exactly those fears, about having an old cat you're really close to. Somedays I hold Lupin or her sister, Tiger - who has more health issues - and cry because I love them so much but I know all life is finite and one day I'll wake up and they'll have left for some other place, leaving their body behind. Tig worries me more than Lupin because she's so much more independent - she's exactly the kind of cat who will just up and vanish one day and maybe in a couple of years we might find her bones under the hedge, you know? At least Lupy I know she's more likely to just curl up on my bed and never wake again.
They live at least 10 years if they don't get sick! They haven't been a huge part of the pet trade for that long so the numbers are all approximate, but I've heard of ones living 20 or 30. (Poop control in a limited fashion is possible! But accidents will always happen and training is always variable, so... yeah. But they are great! Not as loud as the suns and jendays, better at being on their own than a larger parrot, and smart enough to be trained...) The bell story is adorable. Foggy is always excited when there are noises he can imitate more easily than words; over Christmas, my fiance and her mom and brother were looking at old pictures and cracking each other up and he got really into "laughing" with them. For the rest of the night he kept breaking it out whenever there was a lull in the hope he could get us started again. And he loves to chat with to R2-D2.
Heee, have you seen this vid of a budgie doing his best droid impression? It's one of my favourites XDD
