Our pets

My friend Amber at one time on here wanted to know what my dogs looked like. We currently have two large dogs and a cat. The dogs are both about 8 years old and our cat is a little over 7 years. I like to say that we became a blended family when we first got married. I had one dog and Jeff the other and then we got the cat together.

The dog that I brought to the marriage was Kaikamahine. Her name means daughter in Hawaiian. We call her Kaika (ka-ee-ka) for short. She is a labrador/bloodhound mix. She is roughly 100lbs and very tall. She is a big girl. She has some of the saggy skin like a bloodhound when she sits down. She also has the coloring of a bloodhound but looks like a lab. We rescued her from the Idaho Humane Society when she was just 4 months old. She had the biggest paws of a dog that we have ever gotten. We convinced my mom that she would not be a big dog. We now know that was not true at all. She is incredibly protective of me. If we ever had an intruder, she would be the one to take them out. She loves to chase the squirrels in our yard. She loves to chew rawhide bones and play fetch or tug of war. She is a pretty silly, lazy girl.

Jeff brought Rusty to the marriage. Jeff actually got him when we just started dating. His Viszla (Orsen) got hit by a car and so he wanted a new dog. There was an ad on a bulliten board at Boise State University about puppies. Jeff called and we went to pick one out. There were a bunch of them that looked like Rusty, but there was one that looked just like Kaika. Unfortunately it had already been called for. It was between Rusty and this little girl puppy. Jeff decided to pick the cross-eyed, goofy looking one. Jeff later told me that he did not want to have to live with a dog that I picked out if we never ended up getting married. I wanted to call the puppy Dakota but Jeff wanted Rusty and that is what he is. He is a mixture of everything. He is a Rotti mix. He is a big boy too. Not as big as Kaika. Honestly I have no idea what he weighs. We have never had to take him to the vet. He is the healthiest dog, unlike Kaika who has been several times for health issues. He has a really calm, laid back personality. He does not care to fetch or play with chew toys. He would rather bury the bone than chew it. He is the complete opposite of Kaika. If we had an intruder, he would become friends with them. Gunnar is in LOVE with this dog. He just loves him and Rusty tolerates Gunnar incredibly well. When we first brought Gunnar home from the hospital, he wanted to know badly what the baby was. He probably thought that he was a cat. Kaika could really care less for the baby. We were a little worried, however it turned out that he is the absolute best kids dog. Gunnar pulls his tail and climbs on him. The other day Gunnar was blowing his nose with a tissue and was chasing Rusty around the house trying to teach him how to blow his nose. He would put the tissue up to the dogs nose and then make the blowing nose noise. Rusty just did not get it. He looks a little weird in the full body picture because he is a little camera shy. He has never really liked the camera for some reason, unlike Kaika.

It will be really sad when one of them passes away. They have only known each other in the house.

We had been married a month when we got Sarah, our Domestic Long Haired cat, from Jeff's mom. She was actually solid grey when she was born and then eventually evolved into a tabby. We got her as a teeny tiny kitten. She was a strictly indoor kitty and then has slowly become an all outdoors cat. She is a purr machine. She purrs instantly and constantly. She too is really tolerant of Gunnar. She has let him pick her up and chase her around without retaliation. A lot of people assume that she is a teenager because of her size. She is pretty tiny. She is about 7 lbs with a little body under the fluffy fur. She gets a long well with our two dogs and is not fond of strange ones. Rusty was a cat killer as a puppy, so we were totally surprised he took to her. They bark at the fence at strange neighborhood cats, but when they see Sarah walking around, they leave her alone. Jeff is actually allergic to cats, but this one has never seemed to bother his allergies to them.

We are just one big house full of pets. We will always have dogs and most likely large ones but I am not so sure I could say that about cats. This is a little about our current pets.