its all so quiet...bit too quiet!

Good evening everyone!

So I have finally got my first module for my animal first aid course and oh my lord I have a lot to study! Looks fun though because you have to take photos to show you know how to do certain things, like wrapping bandages. They say you can either use a stuffed toy for this or a trusting animal...I am sure Darkley would be amused if I did this! Excited to get started though!

So update on Holly, she now knows "stay" and "lay down"! awesomeness! As she is still settling I haven't been doing full on training sessions but just making sure I use commands a lot in day to day activities so she slowly learns them..she is picking them up fast though as she now knows, sit, paw, down, stay, bed, go out, get down and we are nearly there on her recall. She she is better on her own on walks..with darkley it is still a nightmare (I turn up to clicker class and agility all flustered and annoyed as the walk with them two does me in a bit!) I have the weaves set up in the garden for practise and I asked Holly to come try them..she followed a treat through the weaves like a pro then she trotted off to herd her basketball! Even though the vet is saying that she hasnt put on weight I really do think she has..her ribs aren't showing as much at all. She has also gained another inch in hight and is now 22inches shoulder to paw! just one short of Darkley! All in all she is doing very well I think and I am proud of my little girl!

 
This week Darkley has become a Cranefly/ daddylonglegs eating machine! Those bugs dont stand a chance.. he leaps up in the air and nom..gone! It is impressive to watch! So I have been working on Darkley's weaving and he is making some progress.. changed the command (by accident!) and he now enters the weaves better-ish! He is responding to hand signals further away from me now too so I don't have to be right next to him. The main issue I am having though is that when I tell Holly off for something Darkley always thinks I am telling him off even if he is nowhere near me and even if I use Holly's name. He also freaks out when Holly barks and attacks the lawnmower..he ran off and hid in the kitchen for ages! (I told Holly to bugger off and she sulked back in the house and kept an eye on the lawnmower from there!) Darkley also clipped a claw in a playfight this morning and has been feeling sorry for himself about that..no idea how he did it!

Something I haven't mentioned on here is that one of my rescued geckos ( Rain) is pregnant..they are unfertilised eggs (unless drizzle has been sneaking in to their viv at night!) but she has gotten heavy and huge! It isn't even the time of year for them to be doing this..so I am on gecko egg watch at the moment!


so nothing too exciting going on with the animals but the last time I said that drama came around! 

proud and ranting!

Right so this post is going to be a mixture of things!

Firstly who saw the dog training on bbc ones “the one show”? It is on bbc iplayer and it is on about 30minutes in. I heard a lot of comments and complaints about what people had seen and had to look at it. Frankly I think it was irresponsible of the BBC to air that. They showed a small dog with food aggression and the cure to that is to stick your foot in its mouth? Really? Apparently they have had a lot of complaints concerning the segment on the show (including dogs trust and other charities!) but they have also had a lot of people asking for that man to “train” their dog.  The guy was there for 3 hours apparently and I don’t believe for a second a behaviour like that can magically be dealt with within that time.  They made it look easy and made the guy look like he could be a quick fix for their dog’s problems. When it comes to dog training there are SO many different methods out there and it can become confusing for dog owners to know what methods work best or work at all. I never rule a method out until I have done my research on it and I would never try it on my dog unless I was 100% happy with it. A lot of people are against Cesar Millan methods (an idol of the guy on “the one show”) as he uses dominance techniques such as pushing a dog down etc etc. I bought his books and I went to one of his shows and I learnt a lot. I now don’t humanise my dogs (as much!) as I used too, his books taught me the importance of keeping calm around my dogs as they will feel what I am feeling and that the best way to teach your dog boundaries is to be confident and consistent.  I don’t however use dominance on my two or pin them etc!  My main point is, do your research please and do not try things with your pups if you are unsure what you are doing. If you go to a trainer or get advice do your research there too. If it looks like an easy fix, it most likely is. End rant! Haha! 

On the subject of training and food aggression I had a tiny breakthrough today with Darkley. He still shields raw food from me and other dogs, but that is all. No snarling, biting or growling anymore and if I had to take some food away from him for some reason he would let me. (such a proud pup mum!)  So today I gave them a raw bone each for lunch, I shut Holly in the kitchen and Darkley was out in the garden eating his- giving them their own space to eat. Darkley finished up first and strolled in and lay down and the crunching stopped in the kitchen. Holly starts whining to come out, so I let her out  and she sped off to be reunited with Darkley. Darkley spots a bit of bone left in the kitchen and decided to finish it off while Holly plays in the living room -not bothered by it at all. Holly then slinks off ninja style to the kitchen and I see Darkley wander in to the living room and lay down. Holly then follows with the bone in her mouth! Darkley did not seem to care and curled up and settled down for a nap! Not a huge breakthrough but enough to make me proud of my boy.

Holly went to the vets today and they are happy with her and we are going to try and cut down her medication soon. She has lost more weight though! When we got her they said she was around 17kg when we picked her up, she dropped to 16kg two weeks later and now down to 15kg. The vet just said to feed her up more as he would like her around 18kg. I have been giving her extra food but I didn’t want to throw too much at her straight away, so I am adding in a 3^rd meal and see how it goes. 

Haven’t mentioned my terrible twosome Buddy and Buzz much, but my two little budgies have started to get night terrors bless them. There were a few rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightening the other night which gave them a fright. They are covered up and in a room with the curtains closed so I am guessing it was the noise that frightened one of them which in turn set the other one off. Since then they have been having the odd fright now and then even with a light left on for them all. Hoping they will settle down again soon the poor little guys!

Right I think I might have a cheeky nap with a pup that has fallen asleep on my knee!

busy bee...

Been busy busy! With work and going away for a few days to London I haven’t had time to update much!

Oh how I missed my trouble makers when I was away. Like a worried mum I called home to check up on everyone.  Thankfully they weren’t too naughty for my mum so I think she would look after them all again if I asked very nicely! Holly went on a pear stealing binge. We have a pear tree and the pears are ripe and falling so we have been trying to pick the pears up before a certain pup can get them. My poor mum tried to get as many as she could but Holly is sneaky! She finds the pears and collects them up in a pile and then sneaks over and nibbles at one!

Darkley was in full sulk while I was away. He refused to play much, barking at all noises and generally being an “old man”. This morning my mum told him “Mum is home today” and Darkley ran and sat at the door excitedly, he is too cute. The welcome home from him and Holly was awesome.

The only other animal to play up was Drizzle my Gecko boy. I have wedged paper in his glass to make sure a certain Holly pup cannot open the vivarium with her nose by accident when she is being nosey. This is not stopping Drizzle from trying to escape and my mum found his glass door slightly open….sneaky little thing!

I popped in to The British Museum yesterday and went on a hunt for animals in history. Took a few interesting photos which I shall have up soon. I was outside a club in Soho on Friday night, surrounded by a lot of drunken people and a guy was just standing there chatting with his old Labrador just hanging out next to him …took me by surprise! The dog did not care at all about the mass of drunkenness around him! I also saw a very preened and polished Boston terrier strolling along with a very polished a preened guy in the middle of Oxford street.

Hopefully get this blog back on track soon!

it was way too quiet in the house...

Oh my it has been one of THEM days! I should of just of hidden under my covers and stayed in bed I think!

So Tuesday marks me having Holly for a month and so far she and Darkley have only been on short walks around the block together. They are still a pulling nightmare but our walks are short enough that it doesn’t get overwhelming for me and frustrating for them. We also do not tend to bump in to many people or dogs on the walk….oh and there aren’t pigeons about too! Today I was brave and thought I would take them to the park at the end of my street. Soon as we got half way up the road someone saw us and crossed over and then a woman was walking towards us with her two dogs that went mad and started fighting with each other because they saw my two! The woman gave me a horrid look and snapped at me “don’t worry I will cross over!” Nice. So we get in the park and Holly spots a group of pigeons and starts getting worked up and Darkley spots a dog the other side of the park and becomes all alert and desperately wants to go look at the dog. Suddenly from behind me a cocker spaniel runs past and starts barking and chasing all the pigeons. Holly loses it and Darkley starts yanking even harder on the lead. A woman strolls past me on her phone ignoring everything that is going on, while I am entangled in leads and trying to gain some sort of order in my dogs. The spaniel comes flying over to my two who were polite but bouncing with excitement. The spaniel runs off and my two try and follow (dragging me behind them!) and are only stopped when this woman’s second dog comes over and plonks itself down between my two and won’t leave. Finally the woman notices she is a dog missing and half-heartedly calls its name and it trots off. I take a deep breath and drag my two to the nearest bench where I sort out their leads and try and get them to calm down. It took ages but we ALL calmed down finally and I was dragged home with my tail between my legs.

So as the weather was semi nice I thought I would hose down all of the bird cages and give them a good scrub. Both pups were lurking about and Holly thought she would help by trying to eat the hose/water. She yaps and runs about like she is processed which scared the hell out of Darkley who ran and hid behind the tree and refused to come and play. So I hose the last thing down and Holly leaps in to a muddy puddle that has formed next to me resulting in mud everywhere! There are splashes of mud over everything I have cleaned, the patio doors and me! So I rewash everything and dry it all and get it back inside and call Holly in to dry her and notice she smells a bit…nasty! She must of jumped in to something while hose chasing (even though the garden was poop free to my knowledge!) ugh! So I take Holly upstairs and try to bath her, she was not having any of it though! Darkley came in the bathroom with us and laid down and watched as I wrestled Holly in to the bath. Soon as I turned the shower on she bolted over my shoulder and sat looking distraught at the bathroom door. I kept her in the bath for five minutes until she leapt to freedom again but this time covering me and the bathroom in soap suds and water. I plonked her back in and calmed her again to get the bubbles off. Finally I dried her down and let her out and tried to make the bathroom look presentable again and not covered in muddy paw marks and fur. Darkley had run in to my room and sat by the hairdryer as we usually blow dry his fur after a bath. So he didn’t feel left out I dried his tummy down as he had gone for the hose a few times earlier. Holly decided that me doing this meant I was trying to kill her even though I was not anywhere near her! She ran about my room trampling over bags and other random mess on my floor before diving across my bed and trying to hide under my pillows. I rather abruptly told her to get the hell off the bed to which she responded by dropping on to her belly and laying as flat as she could on my bed, as if to make sure she could get the bed as wet as possible.  Mojo was watching from her vivarium with a smug look on her face as if to say, “See you should have stuck to keeping just lizards!”

So I finally got Holly off the bed and I tried to finish cleaning the birds out. Holly is still fascinated with them all, which is not her fault as they are pretty exciting little birdies to watch! Holly however is still hyped up from the bath disaster and comes running in to the living room and jumps up to see Casper. She knocks the cupboard under Casper’s cage which makes a loud thud just as I shout at her to go to her bed, resulting in a very freaked out Holly. She did however run and lay in her bed, which is a command I did not think she knew yet! While running away she knocks over a seed pot and there is now seed all over the floor.  Great. My mum keeps an eye on Holly as I finally finish cleaning the birds and I turn around and then kick the same half empty seed pot that goes flying across the floor spreading the seed over the other side of the room. Great, now I have to vacuum cleaner out and freak Holly out more.

My friends have been awesome though today when I nearly lost my mind on the walk. (I have made some awesome friends through my pups!)  Going to attempt to walk to clicker class tomorrow with both of them and try and get Holly started on learning her manners and to remind Darkley of his. I have to say though that Darkley has been pretty soppy after getting in from the walk, lots of cuddles and kisses from him!

I do hope the rest of today is uneventful…that would be nice..

Zombie Caterpillars!

"A single gene in a caterpillar virus sends its victims running for the treetops, where they die and their bodies liquefy, sending an ooze of virus particles on their brothers and sisters below."

wait what?! a virus is turning caterpillars in to zombies?! and they then ooze puss?!

full article is here http://www.livescience.com 

oh nature you can be creepy sometimes!

all quiet in the house for once...

So some of you know that the only job I could find after leaving university was two night shifts in Sainsburys. It is one of them jobs that is the same thing every week. I turn up, the shop is a mess, I clear it up and it is back to being a mess when I start my next shift. I have wanted to work with animals for a while now as it is one of the main things in my life I am passionate about but I have needed that push to get me going. So today I enrolled in an online Companion Animal First Aid Course! I thought that if I do this course it could help me in many animal related jobs as well as helping me with my own animals. My two pups are as clumsy as I am so I know it will come in handy even if I can’t get myself in to a job!

For those who saw my Holly pup on the Dogs trust website you will see that the first words they used to describe her were LIVEWIRE! In all fairness in the kennels she was and she definitely is super hyper when she wants to be. Today however her “greyhound” side shined through and she was lazier than Darkley! (even me saying that Darkley is lazy can shock people!) I have been snoozing for most of the day after doing a nightshift and Holly has been snoozing next to me the whole time- even though she slept all of last night! In the house both of them are so super chilled out, they have bouts of playing and running about but they are nothing like how they are when they meet people!

The welcome I get when I get home from work or from going out is amazing. Darkley bounces about (doesnt jump up anymore yay!) and Holly wags her tail that much that her whole butt wiggles about! She also just gets so excited that she sometimes yelps out she is so happy and today she even grabbed one of my shoes and ran down the garden with it! 

So me and the animals don’t have much planned this weekend, doing a full clean out of the birds and lizards which was a lot easier without two pup noses poking in to everything! Holly still needs to learn “lay down” which she is really struggling with, she is doing well though with stay though which is awesome. Just bought a dog tricks book so might see if I can get Darkley doing something new too! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

fact of the day!

Random fact for you all!


Darkley was originally called Darky in the rescue center. This did feel slightly racist to me and I really did not want to be shouting that down the street!


At university I studied film and watched many random films but I was drawn to one in particular because the love of my life Robert Downey Jr was in it, it was called "A scanner Darkly"

its okay for me to a photo on here of him..it HAS got a dog in it! haa!

So I added the L and E and Darkley got his name! Also discovered there it a town in ireland with that name and Darkley is Irish! 

three weeks with two pups and i am still sane!

Hello everyone thought I should do an update on things!

Firstly the great dane mentioned in my news post is doing really well it seems! He is walking a bit more and trying to play more which is awesome, sounds like they got to him just in time. The 13 year old collie stayed with another family member in the end, sounds like someone came to their senses. Sadly though Floyd the pup with the horrid amount of hair had so many other health issues that it meant that the kindest thing to do was to put him to sleep. My heart sunk when that email came through, I hope my donation can help with another “Floyd” that will come through their doors.

So tomorrow marks three weeks we have had Holly and she is really finding her feet now! I have been keen to find out if it will be Darkley or Holly who is in charge and it turns out to be tiny Holly. Darkley is just more laid back right now it seems, he lets her have his toys and just  lets her get away with all sorts. Holly’s fearfulness seems to be slowly fading too and her confidence is replacing that. She started barking at our neighbours today as they were too close to the fence, very bold of her! Darkley half-heartedly barked and backed her up! Her interest in the birds in the house is slowly going also, she only really pays attention to them when they are fluttering and excited. She got a telling off today for knocking the cage with her nose; luckily the birds couldn’t care less about it. Holly however ran away and sat in her bed and then came and nudged me to say “sorry”.  The similarities between how Darkley was when we got him and how holly is right now are spot on. She still likes a good chew but only with toys, she will dig to china if allowed too and she has lost enough puppy energy to have a good nap in the day! Darkley still digs when he is bored; he digs little holes that you don’t see till you fall down one in the middle of the lawn! One of which I have kept filling in for the past few months. Holly has decided she would like to have a go at this hole now and I caught her with her head right down it with her bum in the air! I have to say our garden is very dog friendly, there are only a few places they aren’t allowed to go so I don’t tell them off for digging but they will get told to bugger off and do something else if I catch them!

Took Darkley to agility tonight and had lots of fun. Once I worked out what I was doing wrong (always the handler never the dog!) Darkley was a dream to handle over the first jumps! He did however seem determined to skip most of the course and head straight to the tunnel!  Walking home in the dark and rain was a harsh reminder that summer is over though!

I caught Holly at 4am lurking about my room last night with her nose around the lizards. Yoshia the gecko was having a hard time shedding last night so I am guessing she was being more noisy then normal and this sparked Holly’s interest. I have introduced Holly to the geckos and Mojo and they fascinate her. She knows not to touch but it does not stop her looking and trying to stick her nose as close as she can to them! I told her to go back to sleep and she thankfully gave up her search for the geckos and thumped back down on my bed. The cheeky monkey!

I have booked to go away for a night in a few weeks and I am already being an over protective mum and thinking about all the things I will need to do to leave them with my mum.  I leave them all twice a week to work nightshifts but still I am being super over protective about it! I am sure they won’t care if I am about or not really!

what is holly?

So there is much debate on what breeds Darkley and Holly are! 


So Holly was called a Border Collie cross by the rescue center..what do you think? love to know other peoples opinions on this!

news type stuff

Yesterday I heard about a great dane called Chance. http://www.examiner.com/dogs-in-national/a-sack-of-bones-his-name-is-chance

yes a great dane! the poor boy was found just wondering about about. Thankfully an amazing person is working hard with him and he has made it through the dangerous first 48 hours! she is updating his fb page..cant wait to see a healthy pup on there at some point https://www.facebook.com/pages/Giving-Chance-a-Chance/143688105723285

another pup needing help https://www.facebook.com/notes/suzie-helpindogs/oldie-needs-a-new-home-or-he-will-be-put-to-sleep/10150370122353385 a poor old lady has gone in to hospital long term and her family are threatening to put to sleep her poor 13yr old companion! Grrrr!! please pass this on if you know someone who can help!

okay every now and then I stumble across something that makes me go eh?! 

apparently people dip these chicks in buckets of paint or inject the dye in to the eggs so they chicks come out like this. who thought of this?! So weird!

Also in the news a dog walker was killed by some cows while walking through the field. walkers have been told to let their dogs go as the cows are just after the dogs. i know my two could out run the cows but I think i would be the fool who takes on a cow for the sake of her dog!http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-14759924

 

and finally credit to "for the love of dog" blog on dogster have covered a story of a woman punching a bear to save her dog! http://dogblog.dogster.com/2011/09/01/alaska-hairdresser-punches-bear-in-face-to-save-dog/ crazy or awesome woman? sounds like the kind of stupid thing i would do to save my dogs...i have nearly started fights with people as it is over darkley. insult my dog? you insult me!

meet the family!

So I thought I would do a little blog about what pets I actually own so when I talk or mention them you will know who I am going on about. Should have done this at the start of this blog really!

So first we have Darkley. He is my 2 year old goofball! I rescued him from Border collie trust in Birmingham in May 2010. He had only been with them a few weeks and had only just been okay-ed for rehoming. They had gotten him in from Ireland where he had been found a stray (they think) at about 5 months old. On his paperwork it said he was shy and had no interest in toys. Couldn’t be further from the truth, sounds like he really hated kennels! He is a collie cross and is a big lad now. He likes to think he is everyone’s best friend and is a huge cuddle monster. He is a very excitable pup though which was probably one of the reasons he was in kennels so long. I am so used to it by now though that I just see it as him being him, he is a lot different in the home though. We have been doing agility now for about five months which he absolutely loves. Give Darkley a few tunnels and an A frame you have a happy dog!

Two weeks ago I adopted Holly. They estimate she is around one year old and is a collie cross (think she is very lurcher like!) Another Irish pup brought over by Dogs trust. When she arrived she was constantly sitting in a puddle of pee and they could not work out why. They did test after test and finally they sent her to the small animal hospital in London where they discovered there was something wrong internally with her and operated on it. The peeing magically stopped in the next few days until she was spayed. The peeing started again and they changed up her medication and so far it seems to have worked! She is still on it now with the hope we will be able to wean her off it in the future. She was described as a live wire and nervous girl, which is true. She loves to play with Darkley and bounce about all over the garden with their toys. She does however sleep just as much as Darkley and I do. She tries her hardest to stay awake and usually falls asleep sitting up and jerks her head up as she wakes herself back up! Her shyness is going slowly and a polite little pup is showing through. She is a cheeky thing though and still has a lot of puppy-ness about her!

Now too the birds! Louie is my grumpy cockatiel who is around 17 years old. My grandparents went out to buy me a canary and arrived home with a tiny 13 week old Louie! He loved my granddad so so much and would be the friendliest bird around him, the rest of us get the grumpy hissy bird! He doesn’t really like to come out his cage these days and his happy to snooze the days away. He chit chats to you and will tell the dogs off if they come too close to him! He is getting on now and I cherish every day I get with him.

I also have a tiny white canary called Casper. While in a pet shop back in February 2010 my mum heard this beautiful singing from the other side of the shop. As we went over to investigate the singing stopped but I noticed that amongst all the canaries there was a dazzling white canary. As we walked back off the singing started again and we asked the shop keeper which bird it was, turns out it was the white little canary. My mum had been going through a rough patch and I was still away at university so I thought a happy little singing feathered friend would be prefect for her seeing as she was very much in love with the little guy already. So with my credit card in hand I got my little finchy friend! Every day he brightens up the house with his cheeps and chirps, he is the happiest little guy.  Through bad breeding he got a huge cyst on his wing where one of his feathers grows inwards (like an ingrown hair for humans!) it gets infected easily. The vet told me that if it got to the point that he could not fly that the “humane” thing would be to put him to sleep. It got to that stage but I refused to give up he was still singing, eating and hopping about happily. I gave him warm regular baths and exercised him more and finally a new feather pushed through and the lump broke off! Casper can now easily fly about and land in my mums pot plants again. There is still a small little lump there that isn’t infected and the feather will grow back each year and cause issues no doubt.  However none of this bothers him at all! He has started to copy the noises Louie makes so if and when I have to say goodbye to Louie, Casper will be here to sing about Louie loud and proud!

Right the next two come as a troublesome pair.  So back in January of this year my mum got very ill again and I was running about all over the place trying to keep things ticking over. My mum wanted to thank me for everything and a tiny green budgie appeared!  We named him buddy and he is a mouthy little thing who doesn’t mind people but would rather not be near us humans! He looked so lonely in his cage and would try and talk to Casper through the bars, so I got an even greener Buzz the budgie! Another budgie that pretty much dislikes me and every other human but is best friends now with Buddy.  They bicker, chat and chase each other about the cage all day and seem to be in their own budgie world! It is so fun to watch them climb upside down and hop about like mad.

I have a little lizard gang also who is led by Mojo. Mojo is a rankins dragon and is about 19 months old now and I really did not think she would be here with us still. I got her from a store that was well known for breeding nice reptiles, apart from Mojo it seems. Soon after getting her, Mojo sunk in to a depressive state. She sat in the same spot all day and would not eat or drink. I tried everything I could think of to get her to eat. I tried putting her in different places, different foods from different places and took her to vet after vet. I kept on asking anyone and everyone I could about her and nothing worked. The manager at the local pets at home was a bearded dragon breeder and had given me great advice with her vivarium lighting and with her in general. He told me to bring her in the store so he could take a look. Firstly he was shocked at her size and he then had a look as told me she was a she! He then placed her in with the other baby dragons and she just sat there under the light refusing food as normal. Mojo does not like her tank as hot as most dragons so after a while she opened her mouth to cool herself down, so the manager rested a worm on her lip and gulp it was gone! So she is hungry and she does want to eat so why isn’t she? He wiggled the worm in front of her again and she again ignored it. One of the other lizards walked past her and she did not flinch.. as if she did not know the lizard was there. Finally it clicked and we worked out she couldn’t see any of it! So we got her to open her mouth again and put a worm in it and gulp gone! She did it with worm after worm! They said she must have been incubated at the wrong temperature which is why her eyesight has gone and why she is still as small as she was when she was born. I have learnt since then she can see shadows, so I keep everything in the same place in her vivarium so she can work her way around it easily. She is not living the full life she could be but she is getting along okay and is cheeky as anything- her favourite thing to do is to scratch the glass and annoy the pups! I am just glad we worked out what was wrong with her in time.

Drizzle

I have 4 leopard geckos now as one passed away about a month ago. It must have been something internal that suddenly made her go downhill and pass on. She was such a brave and good natured gecko who I miss dearly. Her vivarium sister was Yoshia, who is shy and tiny! Never been one to like to be handled really but she is a sweet little thing. My other three I rescued as they were dumped at the local pet store in an ice cream tub. The male is a giant yellow inbred monster but is the sweetest of them all. We called him drizzle (lemon drizzle for the yellowness!) and he always comes out to say hello when you speak to him. He loves his chin tickled too! Then there is rain (she is purple…purple rain!) Who has lost her tail at some point and has a weird regrowth, which does not bother her at all! She is laid back and likes to wait at the food bowl when I am putting new food in, the little piggy! Then the youngest one is Thunder (because she had a temper!) her markings make her look SO moody! When I got them she had not been handled at all so she was a moody girl who took a bite out of my finger a few times. She is now much better but I still have to watch my fingers if I have been touching their food!

I have 3 tanks full of guppies and each has a loach in there too (bones, booth and tango!)  That pretty much ends the list of my animal family! It sounds like a lot but it really does not feel like it. They blend in to my life and my day to day going on and it would be weirder id they weren’t here really. They all have their quirks and I love that about them all!!