Ahhhh Pookie :-)
I raised these 5 since birth.
Bottle-fed, the whole works.
They do not know they are cats.
Shhhhhhhhh!
Maybe when they are 18 I will tell them.
We will see.

I only have a blue Beta right now (his name is Sushi) and I'm planning on getting two bulldogs named Monsieur boeuf de tete (means Mr. Beefhead in French) and Roscoe P. Coltrain.

Hmmm pet names. Ok I am going to play this legit even though I am so tempted to be frisky.

Most of my pets have given way more than they ever asked of me. Funny how God's creations help meare mortals.

The first a fat beagle who was anything but Peppy much after the early stages of puppydom. A lumbering old dame that seem to torture my souless guardian with vervent pleas to go out in the cold winter nights and howl unmercifully if not remembered when in her charge but slept peacefully at my bedside when I was ill for days.

Later and ageing bird dog named King that use to meanace anyone who tried to bother me or my garden near his dog house. A welcome retreat from a violent child hood. His dark soulful eyes seem to watch after me like the Grandfather I missed so much.

Godiva a huge white mare that let me slip onto her back from the upper branches of a walnut tree and feel the native blood that was too often denied out of fear of genocide. A gentle mother as my long frail legs didn't have great strength to hold her if she had ever wanted to buck me off. She never tired of my frequent predawn t boughts of currying her and braiding her mane telling her the woes of my teen life. Immortalized on the bumper of a classmates truck to the humiliation of my tormentors impotencey in a childhood rebellion.

My only house cat River who could streach his ink black self like a meandering section of the Mississippi when drapped along the back of the sofa or across my shoulder. A good luck charm he kept me good company in a lonely time and then attached his comforts to my younger sister and nephews for many years saving me a painful fairwell.

Later a tiny Yorkie so frail you wondered how she could support the "Silky" hair she dusted around the house in and the uncanny ability she had to warn me of impending falls due to barely recogniseable seizures. So devoted to being near it was not uncommon for her to jump in the tub if I drifted off to sleep as the water chilled.

Or Mercy who was only breaths away from death when she was dumped on my front lawn with a gangrenouse tail. But so trusting and bonded that the Vet I took her too gave us a huge discount to save her. And though I am sure she would have rather just peacefully died kept fighting and return to life with a passion that made me feel like I had done something miraculouse loving her to life again.

Mr. Blue who despite his rather desolate life as a caged keet seems to sing and light up some really dark moments for me as a caregiver of the Princess who remembered her mothers birds and would mellow out from the most severe depth of her dementia when he danced around.