Reply #35: I had three great pets growing up.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

My golden retriever--I got her from my mom's friend, who had picked up two of them from a divorced couple but had to give one of them away. So there was my dog and my dog's sister. So when I went to go choose one of them to bring home, I played catch with the both of them. My dog's sister would run out after the ball, snatch it up, and immediately bring it back to me and drop it by my feet and race back to get another throw. My dog would mosey on down to wherever I threw the ball, slowly reach down to pick it up, circle, and plop herself down. But because I loved the underdog (literally), I chose her over her more energetic sister. And I don't regret it. She was the nicest dog ever. Never snarled or snapped at anyone. Would rarely bark unless she needed to go out or in. Would always come by to lick my hand if I ever felt down. Just a sweet dog.

My black and white tuxedo cat--We first saw her running wild in my dad's garden out back. For months, she was shy and unapprochable, until we slowly got her to become somewhat more tame to the point where she could eat out of our hand. Then, one day to our surprise, we found her in our garage with three newborn kittens. Although we gave away the three kittens for adoption, she became much more domesticated from that point on. I remember having to console her after we gave her kittens away, and from that point on she really bonded especially with me. She would always run up to me whenever she saw me. I remember she loved eating potato chips, and I would just feed her chip after chip after chip when I was sitting on the bed watching TV. And amazingly, even though she was once a wild cat, she became so tame that she didn't even flinch when I clipped her nails.

My gray tabby cat--This cat used to belong to my Ukrainian grandmother, and she got her when she first ran into the house as a kitten and refused to leave. Of course, my grandmother would pamper her seriously, feed her three cans of food a day, so she became rather large, lazy and was somewhat grouchy. Until my grandmother broke her hip and came to live with us. She moved from my grandmother's house in the middle of the city to our house in the country, and seemed to take to it rather well. And I remember the first day she really bonded with me. I was up late watching Game 6 of the 1993 World Series and all of a sudden she popped up onto my lap and curled up. And we watched Joe Carter hit a home run to win the Series and I remember looking down at her and thinking "You just witnessed a great moment in baseball history and you don't even know it!" From that point on, she became a lot more affectionate and a lot sweeter. I remember after my grandmother passed away this cat being a part of her that lived on, so she became very special in that sense.