Tell about the pets you have had.

Bunnies: When we were little we had a rabbit hutch in back of our garage and we always had bunnies, and they were always having baby bunnies. We had a black one named Midnight, and that is the only one I can remember - although I think there was a white one named Snowball too. Every winter we would stock up on hay to put into the hutch when it was cold. Thinking about the bunnies makes me remember the boots and mittens I used to have that would change color/pattern when they got cold. I loved to go out to see the bunnies so my boots and mittens would change. Every day we had to go get their water bowl, bring it in and run hot water on it to thaw out the ice that formed and bring it back out with fresh water. It was sure a pain doing that every day, but it was worth it for the bunnies. There is a picture somewhere of me sitting inside the bunny hutch when I was little.
*12/20/06 - UPDATE - Those mittens I wrote about are called Freezy Freakies (snow gloves, created by ski glove company Swany America that revealed fun colors and designs when exposed to cold temperatures). Thanks for your help Wikipedia!

Hamsters: My sister and I always had hamsters. I think that hers were named peaches and mine were named patches, or vice versa..... Whenever one died we would get another one and name it the same thing, only with a new number behind it (Patches #1, Patches #2, ect...). The last I remember we were on number 4, but who knows how many we really ended up with.

Fish: In my bedroom I had two goldfish - the kind with the weird bubbly growths on them. Their names were Spot and Heart because that is what their spots looked like. Mom always had a fish tank going too. We had kissing gouramis, a plecaustemous, shark fish, bettas, neons, and a bunch of others. I remember that the gourami's got a disease once and my mom had to cut them in half with a scissors because they were not going to get better and she wanted to put them out of their misery. Poor things. I also had a fishbowl with snails - but it got out of control because snails lay alot of eggs! Every day I would have to scrape all the eggs off the side of the tank otherwise there would be too many. When my main snails died I buried them under the crabapple tree at our house (6826 46th Ave No Crystal MN 55428).

Dogs:
Brandy - When I was a baby my parents had a German Shepherd named Brandy. I don't remember him but there is a funny picture of him where he broke right through the basement door. I hear his back came up to the top of the table - he was a big guy.
Max - Then there was Max - Maximillian, actually. He was a mutt, and I think we got him from the pound. Most of the time he would have long shaggy hair, like Benji only bigger, but then there were the times that my mom took him in to get groomed. She would have all of his hair cut off except for a few tufts around his ears, and I think his paws. I remember once when he got into some lobster shells in the garbage and he got really sick and pooped all over the house - he spent a whole day dragging his butt around all over everything - it was really gross. One day he was eating something and my mom went by him - he snapped and bit her pretty bad in the leg and couldn't snap out of his madness. They had to have him put down. He was pretty old and I think part terrier, so that might explain it.....
Skeeter - Then we didn't have a dog again until Skeeter, another German Shepherd. We got him the year mom died when we had the pet store. When he was a puppy his teeth were so sharp, like a mosquito - hence the name Skeeter. But when he was little he was very naughty. After mom died, Dawn and I lived in the house for awhile and had to leave Skeeter home alone when we went to school. One day he literally ate the couch. We came home and the arm of the couch was gone and stuffing from the couch was all over the place! Then when we moved into our new house Skeeter figured out how to open the fridge when he pleased so he could have a snack. Dawn just found out recently that he had cancer and they had to put him to sleep.

Cats:
Jasper - Jasper was the first cat we had in our house - I believe that Dawn got him for Valentine's Day? He was an orange Tabby. When he got older he got diabetes and Dawn had to give him shots of insulin twice a day and had to give him fluids through an IV too.
Stripe - When I was 10 or 12 I was out at my dad's house and their cat had kittens that were ready to be separated from their mother. He let me have one but I had a hard time choosing which one I wanted. I was in the bathroom curling my bangs (yes, curling my bangs...) and one of the little kitties came up, rubbed against my leg, and meowed at me. That made me decide which one was right for me - it was a little white one with a black stripe on his head - so I named him Stripe. As he got bigger, the stripe disappeared, so the name really didn't make sense anymore. I remember I used to draw a black stripe on him with a marker! I am planning on writing separately about my 'memories of Stripe' so I'll keep it brief here. He lived to be about 17 years old. In April of 2006, when I was pregnant, he really started to go downhill. I knew that I would know when it was time to have him put down, and it was definitely time. One day he was fine and two days later he couldn't even walk anymore. When we were at the vet we weighed him and he weighed only 3.8 pounds - that was about the same as what Lijah weighed in my belly! He was so skinny and frail - but the vet was so kind during the process. We then took him home and buried him in the backyard of our new house.
Chirp - Chirp came from the shelter off of Como in St Paul and is a calico. When we were at the shelter it was between her and a big brute of a cat named Magnus - he had a big scratch across his nose and face. He was very cute, but thought he might be a bit territorial with another cat in the house. Before Lijah was born Chirp would be by my side at all times and would follow me wherever I went (same for Chop Chop) but now that so much of my attention is on Lijah they have backed off a little.
Chop Chop - Chop Chop is another cat that came from my dad's house - and she is also a calico (Chirp and Chop Chop look like sisters). We decided that we should get another cat before Stripe died so that Stripe could know her, and so that there would be a smoother transition for Chirp when Stripe died. We didn't want her to be all alone and missing Stripe and then have to deal with a new kitten at the same time. On the way back from our vacation in Winnipeg Canada in July of 2005 we stopped by dad's house to pick her up. It was so hard to hold her on the way back to Minneapolis because she did not want to stay in the box we had for her. Then she pooped her pants and it smelled in the car the whole way home! Her mom was a black cat, and I was wearing a black shirt - and she thought I was her mom and tried to nurse off of me! She has grown up to be quite a naughty kitty....but we're working on it.....