Our Family

I love animals. I have loved animals ever since I was a child. Maybe it has something to do with my veterinarian parents and their devotion to caring for all animals. I am not sure. But what I do know is that I just love them. They each have their own unique personality. This blog is devoted to our animals, who are technically our family.

We have four cats. Yes, we’re nuts. I may end up one day as the crazy cat lady, retired in my little log cabin up in Cooke City, with my 12 cats, two golden retrievers, and visiting pet moose, but the reason for the four we have now is because I could not see myself turning them away. We acquired these four strays when we were living in Florida, at our little apartment, early summer of 2004. I had just moved Tiger, my old-timer cat from childhood, to Florida, and we were a happy little threesome until fate directed us to scurrying balls of black racing underneath house in front of us. Upon further investigation, we found five kittens, flea ridden, dirty, and matted, and automatically adopted them as our own. We ended up giving  away 2, and were going to give away the other 3, too. Brad said I could keep one. In tears, driving to a no-kill animal shelter, going to drop them off, I balled and balled until, as if it were destiny, the shelter was closed. Brad said we still had to get rid of them but we eventually became, first foster parents, then official owners of the lovely kittens after the Humane Society realized we had had them for longer than normal adoption period and we became official parents. But hey, not a big loss when the H.S. paid for each of the cats spays/neuters and shots. We adopted 3 more from the same Momma Cat, at one time owning, yes, eight cats total, but gave one up to a good home, lost one to a congenital heart defect, and were left with one, Tenderheart, who became part of the family.

Now it’s just the four: Goober, Angel, Gemini, and Tenderheart. As much as my heart goes out to cats, as easy, self sufficient, and charismatic they are to care for, Brad warns me no more until the ones we have now have gone on to the “rainbow bridge” with our other deceased pets. I am trying to be okay with this.

When we moved to Wyoming, we got ambitious and decided it was time to invest more into our “Family”. I mean, after all, we had a house and a large backyard. We don’t exactly take the cats snowshoeing or camping with us, and they are definitely more self-sufficient than anything else. So we decided, well, why not a dog? For Brad’s Christmas present, we drove to Orem, Utah, shortly after the first of the year in 2009, to adopt Bella. We couldn’t sleep; we got up at 3:30 am and drove down to Orem, Utah, to pick up the puppy we had decided upon after countless months of looking for the perfect dog. She was a little border collie/collie mix, brown and white in color, and so darn cute. Her and Brad became an inseparable duo and we took her everywhere: hiking the back country, camping, swimming at the Palisades, snowshoeing. She was the perfect companion. Albeit she was high energy and constantly wanted to play the minute we got home from work, so we started to ponder the idea of adding another dog to the mix. I mean, we had a nice house and we were great owners, and we both had good jobs. Why not?

We calculated our finances, at the time, and decided to invest in *hopefully* a Golden Retriever, as that is the type of dog I have wanted forever and a day. But when we went to the Star Valley Humane Society, we fell in love with a shy, sweet black lab/pit-bull mix and named her Noelle, adopting her shortly before Christmas of 2009. She and Bella are officially the best of friends and play endless hours outside, wrestling, playing fetch, and then relaxing one on top of the other, in an exasperated heap of fur at our feet.

As we look back, each of our pets have a unique personality and each have their special little quirk. They can be over the top, at times, especially the dogs (I am not the biggest dog person), but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. The only crummy things, from here on out, will be moving again and trying to find a place that allows our friends, without an astronomical pet fee. Brad and I talk about how the “kids” will react to the baby, as they already suspect something is about to change, and we only hope that our instances of behavior issues will not reappear once the arrival of Baby Schroeder in August.  They’re our family, and will always be. Regrets on taking on too many? No. Maybe in years to come we will narrow it down to 2 cats tops and 1 dog, but for now, we are quite smitten with our furry friends.

 ANGEL: I was originally going to keep just Angel. She was curious, playful, and super sweet. Her little face was always so angelic and calm. She loved Brad’s bike helmet. And when she got older, somehow, she gained a white patch above her left eye.

 GOOBER: (the guy on the right). When we first found him, he had such a bad upper respitory infection, his eyes were extremely gunked up and he couldn’t even see. He got the name Goober because of that and is officially the “man of the house”. He is now a whopping 20 lbs and looks like a giant, stealth panther. 

 GEMINI: Well, her name is easy to explain. When people were coming to decide which kittens they wanted to have, she put up a front and was immediately a wicked witch, scratching the one girl on the arm. But she is super sweet, when she wants to be.

TENDERHEART: (one on left). She is sweet as can be and usually walks on her tip toes, curls her tail like a scorpion. She has a white patch of fur on her chest in the shape of a heart, and not to mention the famed Care Bear, Tenderheart, that gave me some inspiration behind naming her.

 BELLA: Brad was dying for a dog. After months of research, we found a litter in Orem, Utah, that we decided to adopt from. She was a border collie/collie mix. After trying to get used to her crying in the middle of night wanting to be let out, we learned quite quickly what a high-energy dog she is and what a sweetheart later she would become. And, no, she was not named after Bella from Twilight. She was named after Cabella’s. No lie.

NOELLE: Because we couldn’t keep up with Bella’s overzealous energy, we decided to invest in a second dog. At first, I really wanted a golden retriever, but when we went to the Star Valley Humane’s Society, we were automatically in love with sweetheart, Noelle. Come to find out, she’s a pit-bull/lab mix, but super sweet. Annoying that she likes to hear herself bark all of the time outside and her whip it tail hurts like a mother; she cowers when she’s in trouble because she thinks she is going to be squirted by the water bottle and she is protective of everyone, especially her BFF Bella.