my codependancy with animals

as most know me at any given time i may have several pets from dogs to reptiles. currently i have 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 parrot, 2 sugar gliders, and a turtle. im know to take in animals and find them new homes, some times it works out and sometimes it doesnt. when i came off of crack i wanted something to give me responsibility, after getting a job a girl i wirked with had a dog she was looking to find a home for, a pekingese puppy named snoball, i took the dog in she was very spoiled, after i met richard came rainer another pekingese. i could go on about the dogs we have had but it will make this very long, but all of our dogs have lived to be 13 to 18, the one who lived to be 18 was a yorkie names susie, she was given to richard for his 16th birthday, then when he was sent away he wasnt allowed to have her, the 16 years later when she went blind and deaf his mother sent her via his sister to him she lived 2 years with us. i had a chow chow for 15 years, i had to put her down due to a tumor growing in her stomach, how i got her was we were at his step mothers house she bred chows, k was a 3 month old puppy, the adults in the yard jumped on her and tore her shoulder open, i ran outside richard cranked the car i jumped the fence and we took her to the er vet, while we were there we got the estimate of how much it would cost to have her shoulder stitched up, we called his stepmother and she said bring her back and ill pour peroxide on it til it heals, we explained her muscle was also torn she still refused, so we paid the cost and told her we were keeping k.

we bred and raised birds from finches to conures, we had around 67 birds, we loved what we did. our main focus was maroon belly conures, now they seem to be rare, green cheeks are more common. richard had a red lory named sam, as a baby sams mom got startled and in the process of trying to protect her chickes she killed one and broke sam's leg, leaving him handy capped.

sam died at the age of 9 due to getting his bad leg stuck in the bars and breaking it all over again, the shock killed him. we raised birds for about 13 years.

after getting out of birds we bred rats, hamster and gerbils for a few years, you richard had a pet rat named baby she free roamed our apartment, he had her from 6 weeks old, i got a male rat and we ended up with 18 babies after letting them play together. so we were breeding rats and finding homes for them, then that christmas richard got me a pair of hamsters, then my birthday gerbils. we what ever critter we were interested were able to find either a breeder or someone who had them.

in 1998 i got an iguana, named him max he was about 18 inches long when i got him, didnt really know much about iguanas so i researched as i was told just to feed him lettuce, and that didnt sound correct, i bought the book iguanas for dummies by melissa kaplan and followed her diet routine, max lived to be 13 years old and five and a half feet long, he died sooner than he should have because i had moved to a new place and one evening in novemember while we were at work there was a power outage and his heat shut off, i had his heat plugged into a digital power strip which the outage caused to to clear.......i also had a four foot iguana a woman i worked with her son had him and was about to get married and wanted to find him a home so i took him i named him brazil. brazil was 7 when he came to live with us, he was going through kidney failure due to being fed meat based diet, igs are strickly herbivores he died at 9 years old.

then we were at a doll class and we were talking about pets and a lady in the class mention to us sugar gliders this was in 95, we researched and bought a few books on them. after researching and learning we decided we wanted one, we went through alot of people to find one we found an umtamed one we named tilly at that time sugar gliders were hard to find about a year and a half later i found a male named chip, he was also untamed, so after several bites i decided to breed them tilly turned out to be an awful mother, after the two babies detatched from her teat and came out of her pouch she rejected them so i was left to hand feed the babies. it was a boy and a girl, the boy i found a home for the girl i kept she was bonded to me, i would take her with me to work and she would sleep in the bonding pouch while i worked.thats was in 2001 arie died in 2009. chip was neutered due to tilly being an awful motherin 2004 i receiveda female named morgan, sugar gliders are social animals, meaning they do better in pairs or groups several months after getting morgan i took in merlin, be for i could have merlin neutered morgan had a baby, he became super bonded to me and john so much that when we opened the cage he would jump out on one of us and if we had one a shirt with a pocket he would climb in and curl up. soon after johns colon cancer diagnosis i had to sell morgan, merlin and danu thats was the baby to get johns meds for treatment as he didnt have insurance.

during my short time with john he got a quaker parrot named elmer when his cancer grew worse he decided to give elmer away, elmer loved john the day the guy came to pick him up before they left elmer said i did good and laughed, that was a sad day.

then there was early 2000s when i got into ferrets, when i was a teen i had one, so i found an ad in the paper for a male i adopted him, the lady told me he bite when he wants down poor guy had never really been handled at the time i had 8 ferrets at home i had rescued, two from a coworker whose roomates werent taking care of, to one the guy was moving to a place that didnt allow pets, 2 were abandoned in an apartment, then one was left with a friend while the guy went out of town to never return. then the last one was abandoned at a vets office.we had ferrets for about 8 to 9 years, after the last one i decided to no longer keep them due to how common adrenal gland disease is in them.

then from 2002 to 2021 i had at least one snake at one point i had 35. the one that was my favorite was vesta a 9 ft red tail boa, i got her from a guy that lived in military housing and was not supposed to have pets, but he had her he kept her in a rubber made storage boxso for 18 months she was kept coiled up in that box only being fed every 2 weeks when she was placed in the bath tub to eat her meali had vesta from 2006 to 2014 soon after richard passed i sold her to handle "extra" expenses along with one of my remaining parrots.

i know this entry jumps around alot, but in order to tell it right i had to.

now as the final part, the animals i have now since richard passed.

soon after he passed i did sugar glider rescuei had 10 sugar gliders, most of which were bought at the kiosk at the local mall, the people knew nothing about their care or diet, i met a girl on social media who was interested in gliders so i gave her 2 females..... the due to things happening beyond my control i had to rehome the other 8 to a rescue.

now there were 2 hedge hogs i briefly kept to find a home for they were pretty cool.

before richard passed he made me promise him id keep his dogs and parrot, and find a new place for the parrot before i die, the one dog bella passed awa mothers day 2021 she was 15 years old. then theres andy she 14 now and she seems like her age is started showing. the parrot mozzy was richards baby, he would let richard do anything with him, he tolerates me, he has his times where he will let me handle him, then other times he bites the mess out of me. every morning i try to let him come out after i feed him. before i die i plan to give him to either a parrot sanctuary or zoo.

then i have poggy the turtle a neighbor kids brought him to me he is a mud turtle.

patty is my big dog, she akita chow mix loves me follows me just about every where, i got patty april 23 2014 as a 5 week old puppy.

christina the little chihuahua is actually kathie my roommates dog, but i have spoiled her, she only weighs 2 lbs.

now for my crazy cat oliver, back in 2015 i received a call about a lady who moved and left the cat there, i went to check things out to find a beatiful fluffy cat that had been declawed in the front, the lady who called me came out and spoke to told me the cats name was oliver, he was part mainecoone and part siamese, i took oliver home with me hes a great cat but also crazy if you make him mad he will push stuff off the counter. oliver is 7 years old.

then there is wilma and betty my 2 gliders i recently got, the thing i like about sugar gliders is they are so challenging to keep from diet to caging to bonding to toys.

last summer i took in 2 guinea pigs i found on the side of the roadin a cage with a sign that said free i though it was an empty cage, walked up to see 2 guinea pigs the temp that day was 91 way to hot for them. later i took in a baby female, then took in a group of 2 boy and three girl two of the girls were pregnant. then one day during cage cleaning a male got with another female so i hade there litters. after placing all the babies i found homes for the adults.

then briefly i took in rats i had 4 girls and 6 boys i bought appropriate cages and found them homes.

during the time of having the guinea pigs and rats i felt like my 2 gliders i had at the time were suffering so i sold them.in the process learned gliders are my passion and finally got 2 girls that will remain here and have the cage setup i want