Tell me about your pet(s).

I had a cat.

He was an accidental unintentional acquisition. Very long story short: I saved him as a 6-week-old kitten, and then ended up with him by default, without even wanting to acquire a cat. He hung around for the next 18 years.

He was fearless. Absolutely fearless. Nothing would faze him. And pushy. Very pushy.

About a year after I acquired him, I moved into a new unit. One day I came home to hear a cat meowing from below the building. His face was peering out of a grate in the brick wall at ground level (the unit's wooden floor was about 30cm above ground - he was in the space between the floor and the ground). I panicked because I didn't know how he got down there, and I certainly didn't know how to get him out! I went inside to find out how he got down there, and he climbed up out of the hole behind the stove (where the gas pipes came up) as if nothing had happened. I tried blocking that hole repeatedly over the next few months, but he kept insisting on going down there; I often came home to him meowing at me through that grate.

Then one day I came home and found him sitting calmly on the little patch of lawn outside my unit. Somehow... (ahem!)... that grate had magically fallen out of its setting.

That was the day I realised he was never going to be an indoor cat, and that I wasn't in charge.

He was part menace and part adorable. When he was a kitten, he was literally small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. For a while, I used to carry him in one hand while I did things around home. He still wanted to be carried even when he was big enough to reach from my fingers to my elbow! It was comfy for both of us: he sat there on my arm, totally relaxed, watching while I tried to do chores one-handed (hmm... maybe it wasn't comfy for both of us!).

He demanded things. He wouldn't sleep outside the bedroom. We eventually "compromised" on that - I would let him sleep on my bed, and he would stop crying at the door all night. It seemed that the only reason I ever sat down was to provide him with a lap to sit on. If I didn't let him up, he would start batting me with his paw. He always had to be in the same room as me.

And smart? Once I figured out he was going to be an indoor/outdoor cat, I did what I thought was the right thing and put a bell on him. He used to catch birds even with the bell on! And he would bring them home occasionally.

Then there was the time he accidentally brought home a tiny terrified baby possum. He was out and about one evening, and somehow acquired the baby possum who mistook him for its mother and clung to him for dear life. It was confused but unharmed. I gave it to the RSPCA the next day.

He was so annoying.

I miss him.

It's been ten years since I've had cats [spouse's allergies], and I miss them terribly.

I grew up around a barn cat collective, and spent many childhood hours playing amateur naturalist. They were better company than most of the humans in my sphere, with a range of temperaments and behaviors that were endlessly fascinating. Some, but not all, were extraordinarily friendly to humans, even without any effort in domestication. (We'd leave out dry food and water, but otherwise, there wasn't any enticement with treats.) One attached herself devotedly to my father, and followed him everywhere like a dog. She eventually trained herself to ride his shoulder - up and down ladders, in the car, while he mowed the lawn...

I wound up working in the rural wilds of outer New York State during an intense grad school internship, and in a fit of loneliness, wound up adopting a pair of barn kittens. One was a bouncy ball of orange fluff, male, and the other, female, was a sleek, calm, purring, compact package of marbled cream and gray.

Since they seemed so inverse to one another in looks and behavior, it seemed natural to call the male kitten "Mandelbrot", and the female, "Julia". [Yes, I was, and remain, a pretentious snot.]

Dial forward a year or two of bemusement - Julia grew up into one of the calmest, most attentive cats I'd ever had the pleasure of living with. I'm fairly sure she had a distinct "theory of mind" - the ability to project the existence and nature of mental states in other creatures. Julia was neither demanding nor frightened of strange people; she'd hang out and observe before deciding who was worthy of her affections. She had an uncanny knack for knowing when her company was welcome; there in your lap if you were available to pay attention to her, away emulating a solar collector otherwise. She even figured out how to sit in my spouse's lap without touching his bare skin after he became allergic. Julia never needed to be shooed away from trouble more than once, didn't challenge the outdoors without permission, was vocal only when there was a precise, specific desire she could guide us to fulfill for her.

Julia recognized moving images of cats and figured out instantly that they weren't real. She could also recognize herself in a mirror, and she took up grooming herself before it with regard to her reflection. In old age, when she developed renal failure, she was able to tolerate a year of subcutaneous dialysis treatments not only without fuss, but with a resigned appearance at the correct time, purring while she got her daily infusion.

Mandelbrot, on the other hand... Little did I know that I had accidentally become the property of a Maine Coon cat. The charmingly boisterous orange floof kitten kept growing, and growing... and didn't stop until he was three years old, at which time he weighed more than eight kilos. Not a gram of fat, either - he was an athletic monster who could jump three meters from a standing start, regularly appearing on top of bookshelves and cabinets. He could howl to make the rafters ring. No bird, beast, bug, house plant, or laser dot was safe from him.

I once saw him take down a bat, and he brought it into the house before I could stop him. Mandelbrot hunted it in great bounding leaps for half an hour, destroying everything in his path in single-minded pursuit. He laid a dead two-kilo city rat at the doorstep, made an even bigger raccoon sorry for its life, and generally depleted the neighborhood wildlife.

No food that touched the ground was safe from Mandelbrot's depredations. He was carefully trained to stay off counters and tables, and never rewarded for begging food. But one day, we had guests over and some seating on the floor. The instant a plate touched the carpet, that bastard cat pounced, grabbed a French fry, and was streaking away up the stairs - he'd gamed out the food hunting rules.

Mandelbrot wasn't a people-friendly cat - I was his, but anyone else generally sent him running away. This could be a problem, because he was one of the most attractive cats I've ever seen - everyone wanted to stroke that inviting orange-and-flame-red plush. He'd tolerate being Julia's kitten for grooming purposes. She was just half his weight, though, and when he wanted to play, she'd run like the wind - she'd let him chase her until she found a comfortable, defensible hiding spot. Mandelbrot was tireless, and completely at home with seeking entertainment from sleeping humans. He never quite learned that claws were unwelcome, and had the full complement of razors out randomly, in the middle of apparently desired belly skritches.

Lest I miss any of his less-welcome qualities, Maine Coons have a thick undercoat and need daily grooming to avoid mats and hairballs. During the spring shedding season, Mandelbrot would resist brushing, preferring to groom himself instead, and coughed enormous hairballs all over the house at all hours of the day and night. It was tricky to hold him still long enough for proper brushing, since it required pausing after every stroke to pull a handful of fur off the brush. [I did experiment with spinning and felting cat wool, as he regularly produced half-kilos of it.]

In spite of all this, Mandelbrot was robustly healthy - never an unplanned moment at the vet, never a parasite despite his wild appetites. Though he became anxious and depressed for a while after Julia died at 16, there was a rapid return to his usual ways. The last year or so of his life, he started to lose some hearing, for which he compensated by howling more loudly and frequently.

Mandelbrot remained a mighty hunter until the final moment. He passed away overnight from a stroke at the age of 17, having killed and eaten a lizard only a few hours before.

Edit: I didn't have photos handy, but someone apparently hijacked an old Flickr archive and turned it into stock, so here's Mandelbrot.

I have two cats, Tony and Boots.

Tony is my chubby little boy, and he's a total coward and kind of a hell-raiser. He's afraid of any sound bigger than he is, but he's clever as all get out. He can open any cabinet and get inside despite all my attempts otherwise, and they're his favorite place to be. He's a total love-bug, and is chronically starved for face rubs. When he's not in a cabinet purring loud enough to be mistaken for a motorboat, you'll find him hanging out on my bed. Now two years old, I got him only a few weeks old. My partners friends' friend found a pair of kittens outside near a dumpster and put it out for anybody interested. I had been looking for a second cat as a companion for Boots, so I quickly and enthusiastically jumped on the opportunity. His twin sister went to somebody else in my friend-web, and from what I hear she's much the same as he.

Boots is my beautiful cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure. She's the dumbest cat I've ever met. Her brain might actually be entirely smooth. She's fearless, not because she's brave but because she's just too stupid to feel any sense of fear or self-preservation. My best cuddle buddy, she'll be on you in a second to steal your body heat if you stop to sit or lay down. If she's even a little hungry she'll be looking for the nearest human to scream at with urgency in her eyes. She tries her best to be a cat, but doesn't do a very good job. I got her at about 9 months old, but as a stray kitten her back legs got well mushed by a car. A wonderful human being found her and got her mended as best they could. The paperwork I got when I adopted her came will a rather thick medical file for a cat so young. At about 3 years old now, you'd never know what she'd been through other than her utter lack of jumping prowess, and how absurdly tiny she is. She's perfect and I love her, even if she sneezes on all the things I hold dear in the world on the daily.

Boots took to baby-Tony without a moments hesitation, and they're best friends to this day.

I saw a black kitten listed on the city pound's site and went with my husband to meet her. While waiting to do so, we read the wall of rescues and there was another kitten, completely different colouring (orange), with the same entry date. We met the little black kitten, who walked right up to us as if she was expecting us to take her home. The little orange kitten was really scared, but came up to us eventually when he saw that we didn't eat the black kitten. We asked if they were friends and if they were found together. Turns out they are the last two kittens from a litter of six that were born at the city's rescue. We couldn't leave one behind, so now we have two cats. (And I learned that one litter can come from multiple tom cats!)

The little black cat actually got really sick shortly after we adopted her. She wasn't producing red blood cells all of the sudden, and almost died. A few nights in the hospital, and three blood transfusions later, she started getting better. It's been about two years since then, and she is happy and relatively healthy (she is very food motivated, so we're working on her weight).

Both cats demand cuddles. They will sit and paw at you until you make a lap space for them. They sleep in our bed and literally cannot be kicked out. One of them will sleep on my arm and when I try to move it, she will use both paws to pull my arm back into place and heavily rest her head where she wants.

Parents have a cat which I enjoy hugging when I come over. Very soft, makes nice sounds when happy, and doesn't smell. It's amazing how autonomous and low maintenance cats are: not only they are fully capable of cleaning themselves and using a litterbox without the need for walking a few times a day, but they are also mentally tough and self reliant, a cat usually can entertain itself most of the time and isn't very needy. Also chases a laser pointer

I have a black DSH named Onyx. I grabbed him up 2 years ago from a Home Depot that just can't get rid of a mother cat running around their garden section to this day. I had to climb up onto a shelf where they were living in a pallet of soil, and then all around the store as they inevitably got away the first time. I tried to grab his long-haired tuxedo brother first, and I actually managed to get him into the carrier, but I forgot to close the carrier completely and the resourceful lil shit squeezed out and clawed an employee pretty good. So, I got the timid little brother instead. He would sleep close to me at night and I lived in constant fear of rolling over and squishing a little kitten. I'm glad he's far too big for that now

Nowadays he's a slightly chunky but very loving house panther that has thankfully warmed up to my girlfriend. My favorite thing about him is that he loves to nuzzle his cheeks against my nose/bump his head into mine. It's the cutest damn thing when I come home after not being there for a day or two to see him greet me with a nuzzle. He'll even sit on my lap while I'm on my computer like my very own evil villain lap cat. He also loves playing fetch and is crazy obsessive about lasers.

Recently, I had 2 family cats die, so we decided to pick up 2 more. Echo, a Main Coone/Bengal mix, and Ash, a tabby whose coat I can only best describe as soot with stripes/spots, who is currently licking/nibbling my fingers as he lies down on my chair with me. They both acclimated well to Onyx, but Echo seems to not like Ash much. Ash has been pretty adventurous and recently learned what fire was after we didn't think to extinguish candles with him in the room. He now has a few singed/curly eyebrow whiskers, and if I didn't feel so bad, they'd be really cute.

Jackie -- the living teddy bear.
Winnie

I was at work one day, and got a Snapchat from my fiance. It was a picture of a adorable black and white dog. A few minutes later I get another Snapchat from her, and it was a picture of her and the dog in her car. I get home from work and there is the dog on my couch. His name is Mako, and he is the best boy ever. He's a border collie mixed with something else, we're not certain. He was found wandering the Wilds of rural Utah with no tags and no microchip. He's estimated to be about two years old, and he's clearly had training before cuz he's amazingly well behaved and knew sit, stay, come Etc. While he can sometimes be a pain in the ass because he is very smart, he's incredibly friendly to people and definitely interested in other dogs, though he doesn't want to play with them so much as herd them.

This is my first dog on my own, and I have never been more enamored with a dog. I love my Mako.

I have a 17-year-old beagle. Sometimes I joke that he wakes every day and screams at the sky: "Why, god, why? What do you want from me! Just take me off this rotten Earth!". He's blind, wears diapers, is restricted to the kitchen (because otherwise, he gets "stuck" on the furniture - it's kinda hilarious) and keeps spinning all day (a symptom of dementia). We got him after our previously beagle died from eating poison.

He was always extremely grumpy and neurotic. When we got our poodle (no longer with us, but not dead), he drooled for two months non-stop. The hardwood floors looked both nice and disgusting because of the constant layer of saliva. We worried about his hydration, but he was in love and there was nothing we could do.

He also shakes a lot, especially when he's happy because we're petting him. My dog was never able to relax and enjoy himself. I think he needed some psychoanalysis. But he's too old for that now, he'll probably die in a few months. There won't be a substitute. I already miss my old defective grump.

I have two persian cats, retired show cats. I love their personalities, they are cat-like, but different.

The female is a super-confident 5 lb white persian, who is sure she owns the house. 25 people here for a party? She's walking around like it's an empty house with her tail straight up in the air.

The male is just smart enough to find the food dish. his hobbies include staring at the wall, and not understanding. Cat intelligence is highly overrated, because he's also just the sweetest boy cat ever. He doesn't know how to be aggressive, I have never heard him hiss.

We have many cats living in our garden, and coming into and out of our house. One of them is from the lineage of our "family friends", his grandma Arap with a mixture of dark colours, his mom who had short grey-green-brown fur and loved potato chips and mercimek köftesi, were all our cat friends. He is called Gümüş, which means silver. We named him after his rich, big and beautiful, uniformly silver coloured fur. He had a sister whose name escapes me, she was an erratic cat with a tendency to panic and agression, but she loved me petting her. When she first had babies, she'd let me pick them up even before when they didn't have their eyes open yet. The poor thing got hit by a car one night. We discovered it the day after, and took care of the three kittens up until when they were good enough to make it outside. We had to let them go because we got a serious flea infection as they were too little to apply meds for that. We had to quarantine the room we kept them in for three months as we fought with the fleas, which are ambitious bastards with a huge will to live. We miss her and miss kittens because she was the only female cat left around friendly enough to let us handle and play with the kittens.

Gümüş is a thing of sassy beauty. He is beautiful especially in the winter when he has a huge lush fur on him. He is also a cool bastard, he'll come to me only ever when he feels like it, and I need to go to him to pick him up or pet him. Most of the time when I approach him he rolls around lovely, but sometimes wants to be left alone. He loves my mom tho, partly because she is the one who feeds him boiled eggs, which he loves. He can't meow, but only squeak. He didn't make any sounds up until when he was one year old actually. But he is calm, cool and gentle. One lovely cat.

Then there is a white old rough one who when you try to push him over won't even move, and turn back and mock you with a croaky meow. He loves being petted though. Then we have a tabby female one, she meows at you when youre far away or leaving, but hisses when you try to touch her. She'll respond when you meow back at her.

I think all the stray cats and cats in cafes and other public places in Istanbul count too. You'll always find a cat which will cone to you for a cuddle when you call them. In cafes where they adopt them, they will come up to you and hop on your lap if they like you. They were everywhere even in my university campus, they'd wander into the lectures and mess about freely. Same with dogs, too, except they are allowed in less often because well, they are dogs and they like being dogs. But quite a few places let them in, which is beautiful. They will sit on all the paths and block passage to extort a little petting out of everybody passing by.

So you can have many pets everywhere here without really having one :)

My mother hated cats due to some irrational fear of them stealing a child's breath or some stupid shit, so I only had dogs growing up. I became Choo's stepdad when my wife, then girlfriend, moved to my state. Choo was a big black and white fluff who was friendly and vocal and loved attention. The absolute best starter cat anyone could have wished for. She had lots of chirps, meows, and a big purr. She loved to be petted and get tummy rubs. My wife had her from a kitten and she came into my life when she was six. She LOVED butter and bacon grease.

She was a large (size not girth) cat, so much so people assumed she was a boy, but in 2012 she got VERY skinny and lethargic. I took a day from work and sat in the waiting room of the vet office crying because I was worried so was dying. Turns out she had hyperthyroid. So she went on pills and improved a bit. She had ups and downs in weight as her body got used to the pills and ramped her thyroid up again.

Last year, she got a lump under her chin, which got larger very quickly and turned out to be cancer. We made the SUPER difficult decision to put her to sleep in April last year. I had lost dogs before and tons of people so while it sucked I was still operational. My wife, however, hadnt lost anyone and Choo was her first pet. She was devastated and spent the months leading up to and after the event in a haze.

That happened in upstate NY and we were set to move back to the DC area. My job started first so I was staying with friends during the two week stretch before we could take our apartment. I stayed with my sister on the weekend to give my friend and his wife some alone time. I had stopped at a park and was relaxing by the lake when I heard meowing. I look behind me and there is a little orange scruff looking right at me and calling for me. I walk over and after some initial hesitation, he does the leg rub thing. I pet him no problem. Pick him up no problem. Play with his paws no problem. At this point I decide this guy is WAY to nice and trusting to be out on his own. So I look up the closest shelter and take him there. While in the car he alternates between relaxing on the back seat or in my lap.

I text my wife and sister and both of them are unanimous with "You cant give him away! He chose you!!!". Admittedly he was super adorable, but I had nowhere to keep him (no apartment). So to the shelter he went, but they held him for a check and said I could have him when the waiting/check period was over. Long story short we now have a large (girth not size) orange fluff who is much quieter than his predecessor but no less affectionate.

Ahh, forgot the cat tax.

Miss Choo Floof
Autumn Girl
Happiest Girl

Little Man helping
lion king theme plays
Little Man floof

I have quite a few pets.

First, I have a dog, Rigby. We named him after the song "Eleanor Rigby" because we're all big Beatles fans. He's pretty goofy, but super sweet. He was a rescue so we don't know to much about his background besides he was moved around from shelter to shelter a lot. He's probably about 6 but there's no way to know for sure. He's very timid and cowers a lot, which is kind of sad, because that means he probably was abused in the past. He never barks, only whines and he's only yipped around 5 times or so since we got him, and that was when someone accidentally stepped on his foot or if he was super excited. He's usually pretty good except for whining and pulling on walks.

Picture of Rigby

Then I have Paulie. She can be kind of mean sometimes but normally she's pretty nice. She doesn't like Rigby too much and swats at him sometimes. She stays indoors mostly and bosses us around and acts weird.

Picture of Paulie

Lastly I have the three ferrets: Ruby, Tuesday and Jade. Not much to say about them. They're pretty cute, they poop a lot though. They make pretty adorable sounds when they play or sleep.

Here's a picture of Tuesday staring out of her pen while Jade sleeps in the background
Here's a picture of all of them together. From left to right: Tuesday, Jade, Ruby.