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Sunday 26 January 2014

A trip down Animal Memory Lane

Hi all 

After my post for my Moving along with the Times this last week it set me off thinking about my pets over the years and over on our DT blog we've been sharing photos and stories and I have so enjoyed it - so decided to share here too.  if you're an animal lover you might enjoy my trip down memory lane - if not just switch off now!!!

I went off looking through our boxes of old photos after I persuaded my DH to get them out of the loft.  I didn't find them all -you'll be glad to hear!  -but it kept us all amused this cold rainy weekend and gave me these old and not so old photos to share with you here.....

Me and Kim
Kim - my first dog that I had from about the age of 7 and she lived until she was 15, (I think I was about 10 in this photo) she was from a litter of puppies my Grandma's dog had - my Mam said she knew that we'd end up with one -  and we did!! - We'd had a black and white cat (Cookie) before that who just disappeared one day - the way cats do, I know I've got a couple of photos but  didn't come across them.  While I was young my Dad also used to breed budgies - think that's where I got the animal gene!!

Next came Sunny the dog we got shortly after we got married, she was a border collie cross - more cross than border collie!! We had her for 13 years - she had that awful trip to the vet just weeks after my youngest son was born.

Sunny
We had a break of a couple of years with no dog but we had budgies (Peter and Wendy) and guinea pigs.   We had 3 guinea pigs, who were brothers they were long haired shelties like little yorkshire terriers - I used to have to bath them and cut their hair! 
They were called Badger, Cuddles and Tiny.  This picture is of my son Matthew with Badger.  We had them for about 5 or 6 years
Matthew and Badger

It really kicked off  when we got our first Labrador Heidi
She was a lovely gentle dog - if not a bit nuts!!
We had her for almost 14 years
Heidi aged around 2

At the same time we got our brown tabby Persian Toby 
- the most beautiful cat of all
(terrible photo I know)
and terrible carpet - it came with the house!!

Toby
he was closely followed by Jack the ginger mog
and the British Shorthairs that I bred and showed 
We had a lilac colour point Lucy

Jack and Lucy

Lucy was a lovely cat but suffered from progressive retinal atrophy and went blind before she was 3
She couldn't cope in a multi cat house so she went to live with a  friend of mine and lived happily until just a couple of years ago.  I never bred from her and was so glad because the condition was hereditary - but I would have loved colourpoint kittens.

Toby and Lucy

Lucy as a kitten
Matthew with Jack - out of my 3 kids he is the one who loved the animals most
We bred mainly British silver tipped and my breeding queen was  Rosie

Rosie
She was mum to my lovely Barney and his sister Annie
who we also kept

Barney,Annie and their brother Casper aged around 8 weeks

We also had a British blue Tilly and had a couple of litters of British blues from which we had
Chandler our gorgeous boy - I couldn't find most of my photos - so he's not pictured here I'm sad to say he was a lovely chunky boy.

Tilly
I only ever had 2 litters of kittens in a year and even that was only once.  We had such fun when the kids were little and made some lovely friends and had quite a lot of success in the cat shows. - many people came back and bought another kitten - they were very well brought up kittens with lovely natures.  - but so hard work and cost a fortune - there was never a profit made out of breeding cats in our house!!
Our other British Shorthair male Bailey who was the youngest of the cats became Grand champion - he was an enormous cat over 16 pounds in his prime
Bailley

After our Labrador Heidi died we got Glenn who is now 4
here he is just a few weeks ago in his Christmas bandana






So now we're down to a one pet household - very quiet compared to our busy animal years - but its right for us now, we like to go on holiday too much - and thats the choice I've had to make

I've enjoyed my trip down animal memory lane!  - seeing all my beautiful boys and girls again was a lovely way to spend an afternoon -most of these photographs are pre digital so the quality is not that good - don't we just take technology for granted these days!!

Congratulations if you made it this far lol

hugs Judith xx



6 comments:

Squirrel x said...

Awh hun, what a bitter sweet trip down memory lane this must have been, and what gorgeous furry friends you have had to share your life with. Thank you for sharing them with us. Hugs xx

brenda said...

Oh dear me Judith, the tears are welling but ones of the nicest kind.

When we lost Buffy my lab last year my hubby mentioned the the vet it's such a shame that our pets lives are short compared to humans. His answer was that it was a good thing as it would be so hard for them to fit into new families if they outlived us as a normality.

And I guess there is a lot of truth in that comment.

B x

Craftin Suzie (Susan Wykes) said...

Lovely to take a trip down memory lane with you Judith.. Susan x

Evas Pyssel said...

So interesting to read about your cats and dogs. It's the same here. Then we moved out to the country many years ago, we have had several cats and three dogs. Now, since the kids moved, we only have a dog and a cat. When Ajax was young we went around at shows. It was so much fun. He became both Swedish, Norwegian and international champion. Now he is almost 13 years old. I was so inspired by your last card so I also did a dog/cat cards. Have to ask ..... do you go to the fair at Alexandra Palace in London? Have a great week are Eva

Whisper said...

Oooo what a fabby look back at your pets and they are all so cute and adorable, Luv Sam x

KraftyKoolKat said...

What a gorgeous array of pets, I wasn't allowed any pets when I was growing up. I have made up for it since being married. My Granddad use to breed budgies, I use to love visiting him to go into his shed with him.
Hugs
Cathy
Xxxx