Pets can be the heart of the home

Houses love pets as much as their occupants do. They really have no preference but do prefer creatures who can be trained to treat a house with respect.

Dogs, cats, birds and rabbits make good pets, though some make better house pets than others. A friend had a pet raccoon who never really got good grades in the housebreaking classes. The humans and the house still loved her despite her lack of self-control.

When we kids were growing up, we shared our various houses with all sorts of pets. We had dogs, which our father insisted must live outside. We had cats, which pretty much came and went as they liked. We had parakeets. The birds produced an egg, but it fell out of their nest and removed all our hopes for a baby bird.

We kids would sneak our dogs inside when it stormed and hide them under our beds. Dad must have known because those dogs were beagles and staying quiet was not in their nature.

My Taller Half and I adopted a puppy several weeks before our wedding. The poor pup had to live in Taller Half’s car because his apartment didn’t allow pets and my family had all the pets they could handle. That pup grew up with a fear of small spaces and never really outgrew it.

Once we were married and moved into our new apartment, we had to find a new home for our pet. Some kind friends adopted him and gave him a wonderful home, complete with a fenced yard.

But because we had never lived in a house sans pets, we rescued two small kittens and brought them home. For whatever reason our apartment allowed cats. They grew up driving our apartment, us and our neighbors crazy. Those kittens were hyperactive and loved attention. They calmed down a bit as they grew older but not by much. Despite their wildcat behavior, that apartment loved them, and her windows dripped tears when we moved out.