Introducing

Squeaky the cat
Poppy the Papillon
Millie the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Stripey the tom cat

Squeaky

Squeaky joined us at the beginning of 2001. In the winter of 2000/ 2001, a few cats started visiting our garden. There was an extremely shy black tom cat, a very old black and white cat, similar to Squeaky. And then there was Squeaky. The old cat was quite friendly and would let me touch her, the black tom cat never came close to me, Squeaky was shy at first but then she came to me for food and cuddles. The cats never stayed for long but came at least once a day for food. I know the old cat was also fed by somebody else in the village and in the end it was only Squeaky who visited us regularly. Then one day, possibly early spring 2001, she decided to come into the house. I was sat in the lounge by the back window and opened the window. She used to eat on the outside window sill or below it and this one day she came into the lounge. She jumped onto the floor, looked around, had a look upstairs and she must have decided that this was good enough because she stayed... :-)

We had birds in the lounge as well. 2 cockatiels and 2 budgies. They had their cage on a sideboard and a branch from a tree screwed to the ceiling to sit on as well. They were never caged. And safe on their branch. But we didn't want to leave Squeaky in the lounge at night so before we went to bed we used to put her out. This became more and more of a struggle, darling Squeaky did not wish to go out at night. She'd try and get upstairs and hide under our bed. She complained loudly when she was put out. Then in about May 2001, the weather turned really nasty. Very cold, windy and wet. I felt sorry for Squeaky, there's a barn sort of next door for her to go into but I didn't want to put her out. So this was the first night she was allowed to stay in and she was never put out at night again (unless she went out and didn't come back). We left the light on in the lounge for the birds and they were never harmed by Squeaky.

I'm not really a cat person and wouldn't have gone out to get a cat. I don't like the fact that they can jump on kitchen work tops and get everything "dirty". But I adore Squeaky and have changed my mind about cats. I always liked them but wouldn't have had one before Squeaky. Squeaky is very cuddly and when I have a lie down, she comes and lies on top of me or by my side. When I had food poisoning for 3 weeks in December '01, she was lying down with me all the time. She's not very active or playful but loved cuddles. :-)

Poppy

Spring 2002 we happened to watch CRUFTS. I never watch it, I don't think much of dog shows. But I turned the TV on and the show was on TV and they happened to have the toy group on. I fell in love with the little dogs, especially the Papillon. They were so beautiful and elegant. We also liked toy poodles, Italian greyhounds and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Then I couldn't get the dogs out of my head and wanted one sooo much. I also thought if we had a dog then I'd be forced to go out for walks which would do me good. Having chronic fatigue and depression, I am so tired all the time and lie down a lot in the afternoon so I thought if I *had* to go out then maybe I'd become stronger... Fresh air and the sun would do me good but I wouldn't have gone outside if I didn't *have to* (i.e. if I didn't have a dog who needed to go walkies).

For a few months I researched all toy breeds on the Internet and it seemed like the Papillon had the least health problems so in April/ May 2002 we started looking for a Papillon. We got the advertising paper and there was a litter of puppies advertised and I phoned one day after the paper came out and all puppies had already gone... We discovered that Papillons are rare and litters are gone as soon as they're ready. Then no litters at all for weeks. Until I looked at the advertising paper on the Internet, we were prepared to travel for one so I looked at nationwide adverts. And we found a litter near Marlborough, near Swindon, which is about 190 miles away. On Sunday 19th of May 2002 we went to look at the puppies. The drive was nice and the countryside near Marlborough was stunning! The puppies were on a smallholding, they had many dogs and also horses. The puppies were so cute, unfortunately already 18 weeks old but we chose one and brought her home. Poppy was pretty quiet at first, didn't want to know us, didn't want to cuddle. But luckily it changed and soon she loved both of us. She's very suspicious of strangers and when people came to visit us, Poppy would come running to me and sit on my lap. It took months (half a year?) before she would go up to our neighbours, even though she saw them almost every day.

The only bad thing about Poppy was her house training. We would take her out every hour but she never went to pee outside. But as soon as she got back in, she would do her business behind our back. Or she did a pee outside and then another inside. We did all the right things, praised her, gave her treats when she went outside but she still continued to go inside as well. She would go on the sofa and pee and poo up there. She would drive us insane sometimes. She never messed in front of our eyes, always when we weren't looking so we could never tell her off. Then around October/ November '02 she finally realised that she was supposed to go outside and became house trained very quickly. :-)

Poppy is a little crazy thing, she is *always* active, she can't sit still. She doesn't cuddle much, she always wants to play and will bring her toys so we can throw them for her. We wanted a little dog because we thought they'd be quiet, yeah, right... ;-)

Millie

As time went by, we thought it would be nice for Poppy to have a friend. So we were looking at the toy breeds again. Then we happened to see a note at our vets in November '02 that somebody had Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppies for sale. So we rang up and had a look at the puppies and the mother was so cuddly and the puppies as well so we chose one. We still had to wait a week as the puppies weren't old enough but then on the 15th of November we fetched Millie. She was so cuddly right from the start and all she wanted was to be close to either Pete or me. When I was on the computer, she'd put her head on my foot or against my leg. She tried to get as much contact as possible. She was such a cute puppy, when we first got her she could barely walk and it was amazing to see her grow up.

She loved her raw food from the beginning, she ate the first night she was here and from then on her appetite grew and grew until she became our walking waste disposal unit! I soon had to give her big pieces of chicken wing etc. because she'd try and swallow small pieces and I was scared she'd choke. Poppy has such good eating manners, she eats slowly and chews her little pieces well while Millie just wolfs everything down. But it is such a pleasure to feed Millie and watch her eat, she doesn't refuse any food and eats everything so well. :-) It was funny when she was teething. She usually ate her wing so quickly but suddenly she was still sat there after half an hour. She was sucking the wing as all her milk teeth had gone and she hardly had any new teeth... So then I gave her small pieces to swallow while her new teeth were growing. But that didn't stop her from eating a bird! Squeaky sometimes catches birds and sometimes they end up dead. Millie must have found a bird that Squeaky killed and while I was preparing lunch I looked out into the garden and thought "What is Millie eating???". A bird. She sat there munching and munching and every now and again a wing or leg stuck out of her mouth and eventually the bird was gone... It looked like a starling.

Millie's housetraining went quite well and she didn't have many accidents and not for very long. I'm happy to say that both Millie and Poppy are clean now. They do have a big cat flap in the kitchen door so they can go out into the garden anytime. They spend a lot of time outside and play a lot. When we first got Millie, Poppy was a bit jealous. But after about a week she welcomed her new little friend and realised how nice it is to have a play mate. Now the 2 are inseparable and play sooo much, chase each other and are just generally mad.

Millie was spayed this month. She felt very sick from the anaesthetic but a day after the spay, she was back to normal. She jumps up for her food and all sorts of reasons and it was so hard to stop her jumping all the time. I’m surprised her stitches stayed in! She was a bit more quiet than usual but not for long... Poppy (who will be spayed in June), is sooo playful and energetic and kept asking Millie to play all the time and didn’t understand why Millie was more quiet. So all the pestering from Poppy made Millie play instead of rest... But she recovered well and healed well so luckily playing didn't harm her.

Millie really is a very sweet thing, she looks at us in such a cute way, when we talk to her she tilts her head and tries to understand every word we say.