[theBCnut]

Hi Jan, I loved hearing everyones history!!

I was a Vet Tech and dog trainer for many years, so I’ve had more dogs than I can recount here, so I’ll stick with my current ones.

Gideon is my first Border Collie, I’ve always had GSDs and Mals, so I was used to the working temperment and the time was finally right for a BC. He is tricolored and will be 3 the middle of next month. We do herding and agility with him and he is just an all around great companion dog. Micah is my second BC, much sharper busier dog than Giddy. He wil be 2 at the beginning of March. He has food intolerance/hypersensitivity issues and is the reason I’ve learned so much about dog food and raw feeding. Angel, my JRT, will be 12 near the end of February, but is in excellent health and acts like a 7 year old. She used to belong to my vet, but her husband didn’t like the terrier personality. She went to another home and was an adoption fail because she harrassed their cats before she found her forever home with us.

We also have 4 cats. 13 years ago we adopted 2 feral kittens, Peek-a-boo and Fluffy, thinking we could tame them and then they would be our barn cats. They never really tamed enough that we wanted to risk letting them loose, so they are our house cats, except that they are shy and don’t like the busyness of the house so they mostly hang out in the garage. About 3 years ago, we adopted 2 more kittens, Max and Leroy, from our local kill shelter to be our barn cats. That means they sleep in the tackroom at night, because we have too many animals around here that will kill a cat. And during the day they come up to the house or wander our ten acres as they please.

We have 4 horses, Magic, Paint, almost 19, Rose, Haflinger, 9, Felix, Paint, 4, and the little old man, Smokey, mini, 27. We also have 5 goats, Beth, Bell, Liberty, Jubilee, and Remus. And one calf that we haven’t named but we fondly refer to him as Cheeseburger or Chuck Roast, he goes in the freezer in June, and since he uses me like a squeaky toy, I can’t wait. We also run a retirement home for chickens, I think I have 38 right now, more than half are too old to lay, but they will live out their years with us.

We had a colony of guinea pigs, but are finally down to just one old lady(Scrabble) left. We also have a ferret, Pogo, a Yellow Nape Amazon, Rain, and a cockatiel, Zigzag, that flew in one day and adopted us.

I’ll apologize now for any I have forgotten, but I think you can see why.