The Great Remodel Part 3: some people should not have pets.

Before I start my new blog I want to assure all my animal loving friends that we do like animals and we sincerely tried to make them a part of our lives. They just didn't seem to like us much. We do promise not to get any more so you can rest easy.
   Our first animal ownership was a couple cows.  These cows ended up being fence jumpers and, with fire poker in hand, I was constantly chasing them back home. I ate them with a sense of justice and satisfaction.
   Then we got a little black ball of fur and we named her Licorice. She was a part of the family for about five weeks. We had just put new insulation under our house and for some reason that pup crawled under the house and pulled it all out, strewing it all over the yard. She was quickly relocated for her own protection and even given a new name.
  I bought a cat from a silent auction once and his name was Charlie. The owner told me he was strictly an indoor cat. I got Charlie all settled in and left for work the next day. When I came home that afternoon, to my nose's horror, Charlie had sprayed all over my couches and my freshly sheet-rocked walls. Apparently my house belonged to him now. In a true hostile take over I decided Charlie was now an outside cat. He climbed about forty feet up a tree in the back yard, where he stayed for about a week, even resisting the can of tuna I opened as a peace offering.
   As I was checking on Charlie through the binoculars after about a week, I was sure he had left us for good. I asked my husband to remove his little carcass so the children didn't have to come home each day to see a Charlie skeleton hanging in the tree. Terry climbed the tree dangling a chainsaw by his side, cut off the branch only to witness Charlie fly through the air like a great flying squirrel and hit the ground running, it was pretty amazing. Sadly Charlie met his demise in the road in front of our house two months later. Of course it was on the day after I had him neutered, I've always wondered if  his death was self inflicted.
  There was frosty, our white American Eskimo who thought he was so good looking the night I had him professionally groomed.  He decided to go carousing and ended up a victim of the road too. (I think there was a lesson in that one for my kids, something about disobeying and being where you shouldn't be. I think I had them good and scared for a while.)
   Don't even get me started on Wilbur the goat. He came from a friend (my BFF, she almost lost that status because of him) The term ornery goat described Wilbur to a tee. He was supposed to eat our weeds but preferred my flowers and Japanese maple. The first time he head butted me in the posterior was when I started working on getting rid of him, I think that was his first day with us.
  Giving up on the four footed variety, I bought five baby ducks thinking they would be easier to raise. It was a miracle I actually got them to adulthood. Terry was building the kids a swing-set that summer and the minute he came in for lunch they gobbled down all the nuts and bolts he had nicely arranged on a piece of cardboard. Needless to say we had to wait twenty-four hours before finishing the swing set.  I found almost all the bolts in their little wading pool, a little chewed up but still useable.
   They decided they liked the warmth of the pavement on the road better than the safety of the back yard and it didn't take long for my little gaggle to disappear.
   I did have two favorite pets though, Sadie our black lab, she was a terrific guard dog and Litters, our successful in-door cat who was born in a litter box (hence the name litters). Both actually made it to a good old age.
   Four cats, three dogs, five ducks, two cows, one goat, one bird, three Japanese fighting fish, one turtle and countless gold fish later we have decided it is best for man and beast that we just remain pet free.