Meet Arlo. Arlo is our 4 year old American Eskimo Dog. He wrote kiddo a letter when she was in residential before she came home, introducing himself and letting her know how excited he was to get a sister and how he hoped she was wanting a fuzzy brother like him. He's been instrumental in helping kiddo with how well she's done so far....
One of kiddo's "requirements" of a family was it be a family with a dog, she has always adored dogs and he's one of her "coping skills". They "got married" with him wearing her Yoshi shirt and her wearing my wedding dress, while playing dress up. He will not swim with us, but he'll play in the snow and chase snowballs all day.
Happily, she fell in love with Bonkers pretty quickly too. Bonkers is our 12 year old cat, we inherited from my mother. Bonkers, however, was not amused to have a sister that dressed her in baby clothes and pushed her around in baby carriages.
One of my favorite memories is kiddo's first night with us. She came in our room late and woke us up and asked me to come "get this crazy cat, she's scaring me, attacking my stuffed animals". She'd given her a TON of catnip right before bed. Lesson learned.
Those are the 2 pets she had to greet her when she first came home.
Our pet lover wanted more though. While we were on our first family vacation, we found out about a bengal (1/2 Asian snow leopard) that was looking for a forever home. The day after we got home from the beach and I went back to work, Daddy and Kiddo made the trip to Maryland to get this crazy bengal. She was 3 at the time (4 now) and we named her Rocza. Rocza and kiddo are kindred spirits. Very much tomboys, climbing over everything, very chatty. Rocza doesn't "get" love. Kiddo said they are alot alike, they don't "not" love, but they don't really know how to show it that well and feign independence. Crazy cat even climbs on the jungle gym with her.
and last, but not least, despite that the bengal was adopted on the spur of the moment, that didn't get us out of the promised dog.
We promised kiddo a puppy when the adoption was final. It took several months after finalization to find the perfect puppy, but meet Lucifer, our Siberian Husky.....Kiddo's pride and joy. Luce looks up to kiddo like she hung the moon and these two are never far from each other. This one is the crazy pup and he just turned 9 months old this month. Lucifer goes swimming with us, he naps in the hammock with us, claims a couch when watching movies and even gets in the shower with Kiddor.
He even jumps on the trampoline with her.
So, this is life in our household. Our pets are great for all of us and help us get thru the bad spots. They'll help us this time too.
(she's even adopted a terrapin from the yard before as well)
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