I see that many members use pictures of cats and dogs as their avatars (I myself am using a picture with Dark, my female and favorite cat ever! She has passed away after having more than 30 kittens (not all at the same time and that was not the reason for her death) and she was weird and moody, the most difficult "person" (as she believed she was) I have ever met in my entire life.

 

She is unforgettable and using the picture of us together is just a small tribute comparing to the amount of happiness and love she brought to my life during her short and "productive" life.

 

I wonder if the picture some members use (like juliag and dobrawaa, to mention just a couple of names) as avatars are their pets.

 

The other day, when Giovanni told me to let her know when I visit my sister in Canada I wondered if the dog she uses as avatar is her pet and felt like asking her if I �d meet her dog too..

 

 

 

Thanks for your answer!

I too used one of my pets as my avatar. We have two dogs (also taken in animal shelters) and over the years we have always had a cat or two. The cat in the avatar is 5 years old and he is absolutely unaware of being a cat! He sits on the sofa like a real prince and we are his ... servants! He loves to play and is best friend with our younger dog.They eat, sleep and spend most of the day together.You have to see it in order to believe it and I always think - why can �t we people learn some "togetherness" from our animals!

 

Have a lovely day

 

Bruce

One week after the accident Jasmine, our new member of the family came into our lives.  She helped fill the void we were feeling.  She is such a joy, and looks very much like Rosie.

So, to make a long story short,  that is one of the reasons why Rosie is my Avatar.

Yanogator, we had a ferret when my daughter lived at home.  Our cat and the ferret were quite entertaining.  We would laugh at them playing all the time.  Ferret �s are so funny to look at when they play!

Yes, the dog is mine. We have now been together for the best part of 9 and a half years. She is called Pimo, which is a story in itself, as  I just randomly strung two sounds from Japanese together and even to this day so many Japanese people ask me what her name means in English, and so many non-Japanese people ask me what it means in Japanese when actually it doesn �t mean anything it either language, I just thought it sounded sweet.

 

Pimo, too, was an abandonned puppy, found by someone in the village up in the hills/mountains near here with her brother when she was so small she could easily lie in the space between my stomach and my chest. It is also somewhat funny that I was actually scared of her at first as I �d never had much contact with dogs before other then to be scratched by one when I was little! In fact, it wasn �t me who brought her home to keep her - it was my boyfriend of the time. She used to spend the days with him while I was at work, but I was always the one who would walk her and take her to the vets etc., and so when we split up she came to live with me, though not immediately. Anyway, even though I was terrified of the little bundle of fur at first, I �m so glad that she came into my life. She has taught me the joys of having a pet, and as it �s just the 2 of us (Pimo and I) living together, it is so nice to have someone (and she too is convinced she �s a person I �m sure) to come home too, and someone that is so pleased to see you, too. Thanks to her I have to walk (which I love doing anyway) twice a day no matter how busy I am, which must help to keep me healthy and is certainly a pleasure living in this beautiful area. And thanks to her again, I am now a lover of most other dogs, too, except for the scary ones. I �m sure you �ll be glad to know that her brother was also taken in my someone in the village. I didn �t know for many years where he was, but he lives quite close to where I do now and very occasionally we meet him when we are out on our walks. I always wonder if Pimo knows he is her brother. Although she is very good with puppies, she is not usually so good with fully-grown dogs until she gets to know them well. But when she sees him she is always interested and wants to smell him and they wag their tales. Does anyone know whether she could possibly recognize him after all these years? I would be so interested to hear any stories you have.

 

So although this post is already far too long, to tell you just a little about Pimo. Well, she is a real character. As I have already mentionned she is really gentle with little things - puppies, small children, and even went so far as to raise three abandonned kittens on her milk (though she has never had a puppy herself), who have all sadly died since. But she is a very strong character and will often stand up to much bigger dogs than herself, growling in the back of her throat and causing them to back away ( - sorry all you owners of big dogs) if she feels they are invading her space. This usually only happens when she gets jealous, so it is something that is most likely to occur when there is food involved. Don �t touch my food, she growls, and everyone hastens to obey, one poor dog even jumping backwards over chair in his haste to do as she bid. Despite this large flaw in her personality she is usually very loving and all the kids who study in my house (I teach here once a week) adore her, and I am very proud to say that several children who were scared of dogs before they started coming to English class are now not so thanks to my dear little Pimo. (Please don �t get the idea that we don �t study any English in class and only play with Pimo, while we are studying she usually opts to sit and look at the window. But as the kids walk here direct from school they often get here early, sometimes 2 hours early (!) and then their favorite activities are to play with Pimo, use the clothes in the dressing-up box to dress up, and to play with the puppets/plastic fruits and veg etc.).

 

She obviously thinks she is the boss around here. She loves to lie in the kotatsu - a heated low table with a big blanket over it to keep the warmth in - in winter, and if I get in first it �s fine, but if she gets in first then she is so indignant when I put my legs in and she has to move over a little for me to fit. She also loves to eat and to play in the snow, especially being thrown snowballs, and, like Frodo, to follow the scent of other animals. I �m not sure if she would actually be strong enough to kill anything she found in the mountains out here, but on the occasions when I do let her off the lead (not so frequently these days as I know there is a fifty percent chance that I will have to wait for anything between 30 mins and 3 hours for her to come back from her antics - bad training I know) she will soon rush off into the woods with her nose to the ground and not come back till she has satisfied her instinct to hunt. These can lead to some quite interesting experiences. Many a time she has come back so covered in burrs that I have had to brush her for over an hour to get them all out, very often she comes back covered in mud and has to go straight in the hated shower, and on one very memorable occasion she came back covered in the poo of some other animal and had to be hosed down with the hosepipe before I would even consider carrying her through to the shower.

 

A real character as you can see, and sometimes a lot of work for me! But for all of that I love her very dearly, she is like family to me and I hope we still have a good few adventure packed years together, though no more poo-covered experiences please!

 

 

 

 

Pets really get to me, and such stories of love and companionship always make me too emotional.

 

Thanks a bunch once more, you made my day, my week, my month...

 

Love is still a possibility!