Do you have a strange pet story?

[Brian Kent]

Brian, that story has some great openings for wise cracks but I don't want to get in trouble with the mods so I'll just say

You are right, and I didn't even do that on purpose!

[Brian Kent]

My dad got an offer to raise chinchillas. We got two for starters. With their fur they are about 6" or more across the back. But it's all fur. Inside the fur, the body is about the size of a mouse.

So they got out of every cage we had, ran around the basement for hours. Every time we would corner them or grab them as they ran by, they would slip right through our fingers. We just couldn't bring ourselves to squeeze that much to get a grip on the mouse-size body.

That idea lasted about a week. He never did mention to us kids that he wanted to raise them and strip their skins off for chinchilla coats.

The Horny Toad would go for walks with us, with a string around its neck as a leash. The alligator was totally boring. He would just sit there in the terrarium.

[Ron Schmitt]

Several years ago when my son was about 6 our dog was getting to the point where we new he wasn't going to be with us much longer.
My wife has a friend in Alabama whose dog just had puppies, the friend posted an ad in a local college paper to see if any students were heading to Wisconsin for Christmas and would they take my sons new puppy with them.

No takers, but the story was picked up by the local paper and posted in a truck stop.

The puppy was picked up in Tuscaloosa Alabama, and transfered from driver to driver along the route until we met with the last of the "relay team" in a parking lot on Christmas eve.

That was one happy kid and one jet lagged puppy!

[Jim Mattheiss]

I'll keep this going. . .

We rescued a 2 year old cat from a shelter this spring. He had been a stray before ending up in the shelter. He lived with us for 8 months. We had a little house emergency in the first week of October and he escaped. He's a generic tan tabby - do you know how many tan tabbies are in my town? Apparently hundreds given all the sighting that were reported.

After I while we figured he wasn't coming back. On Monday LOML calls and says - Guess who I'm looking at? I have no idea! It's the cat. He spent all day Monday trying to get inside my next door neighbors house. Stupid cat was at the wrong sliding glass door!

He was on the lam for 8 weeks - it apparently took a snow fall for him to want to come home. He's fine - save an injured pad on one of his rear paws. The good news is that his time in the wild has dampened his predatory urges - he no longer tries to get at our Chilean Gerbils.

He's currently sleeping on the couch opposite from where I'm sitting typing this. He's not a real cuddler but he has no problem with you handling him - my daughter carries him around upside down and sideways and he's fine with it.

Cheers

Jim

[keith ouellette]

thanks for posting all your pet stories. We enjoyed reading them all. hope they keep coming.

I was finally able to post a picture of scampi (my wife changed it from my original name 'little flee bag'. The giant cat in the back is 9 pounds, most of it hair. This was taken a few weeks after we found him and now I would say he is about 12 to 14 pounds.

He's still afraid of the door bell. Some guys came to clean the carpets, rang the bell and he ran off and hid. It was 3 hours after they left till scampi came back out

[Mark Rios]

Lil Scampi looks like he'd be mighty tasty with some butter and garlic.