It's my turn to kick off the blog hop this week! I chose a non-writing topic: What kind of animal person are you? Do you have pets? If so, how do they influence your writing, or don't they? What is the most unusual pet you've had, either as a child or adult? I grew up with animals. When we lived in town, we had a cat, and once we smuggled in a bantam chicken (I named her Henny Penny) into our backyard for a few months. But once we moved to what we called our hobby farm when I was 9 we started collecting in earnest - chickens and ducks and horses and goats and rabbits and cows (not really pets – we didn't name them so we didn't have to worry about eating them). Two unusual pets do stick out, though. My grandparents had a Yellow-headed Amazon parrot, and we inherited him. Peterwas in the family for thirty years or so, and was definitely a one-woman (my mother) bird. What a crank pot he was! We also had a chinchilla. My mother rescued him from a local farm – he had deformed legs and the other chinchillas were picking on him. We named him Rocky. But chinchillas are social animals, and he died of a lonely heart only weeks after we adopted him. As an adult, I've always had at least one cat. If there is such a thing as reincarnation I want to come back as a spoiled domestic feline like our Gilligan. Nothing to do but eat and sleep and be cuddled! Our family has also had two dogs. Our first, Kasey, was a black labrador/retriever cross that we adopted at the age of 5, and who gave us almost 10 great years. When she passed on, we waited a couple of years before we decided to get another dog. While I've never worried about leaving a cat along all day while we were at work, it just doesn't seem right to do to a dog, especially a puppy. And that's where Aspen comes in. She's our newest family member, a beagle/spaniel cross. We've never had a puppy before, so it was a bit of shock having a "newborn" for a few weeks. But she's settling in wonderfully. When it comes to pets and my writing, I've only given one of my characters a pet. Justice, from When Time Falls Still, has a Bernese Mountain dog names Chaucer. Some of my readers have said that Chaucer steal the scenes he's in, and I had a lot of fun writing him! As I write this post, Aspen is wandering around the backyard keeping herself occupied with rawhide bones and old gloves and ropes. She and I are the only ones at home, and I have to admit – while a home needs a cat, a dog is definitely good company, too. The next stop on our blog hop is A.S. Fenichel. Is she a dog or a cat person? Find out here!
4 Comments
Aspen! Love the name and what a pretty girl! We used to always have two dogs. Now that we are down to one, it is harder to leave the "fur baby" home all day. Luckily our son is in an out often while attending community college and working part-time and hubs is off during the summer.
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Brenda Margriet
8/9/2016 07:05:43 pm
She is very cute, when she's not gnawing my ankles. Luckily enough, we brought her home when my daughter and son were home most of the time, so she had care most of the day up until recently. Plus, we work only ten minutes away so can stop in a couple times a day if we need to.
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Brenda Margriet
8/9/2016 07:06:29 pm
She's a beagle/spaniel cross, although when she was younger everyone thought she was a golden retriever. But she's gotten very long and gangly now she's a "teenager"!
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