I have always wanted a corgi, so Aurora is my dream come true. I got her in hopes she'd help improve my lifestyle and get me more active, and there's no denying that she's so stinkin' cute.

Baby has always been more aloof. She loves being petted but doesn't like being picked up and held or cuddled. In recent years, she's started coming to sleep on the bed with me, but she still doesn't like being pulled close and cuddled. Just pets will do.

Dinah was found on the street. Dinah is a HUGE personality, at one point I even had a DeviantArt Group dedicated to her! When combed the right way, her fur has a big heart shaped spot on one side. She's chatty when she wants something, and absolutely loves going outside and is great on a leash and harness. She's the only cat I've ever had that absolutely loves her belly rubbed, just gets absolutely lost in the sauce with belly scritches. She contorts a lot of strange ways that can't be comfortable.

She's also the only cat I've had that's learned to open drawers, usually small sets on top of tables, though why she learned this I have no idea as I've never kept treats or toys in these drawers lmao. Just nosey, I guess! She hasn't figured out faucet drinking, but she loves being in the bathroom and drinking from the cat fountain.

On the same night but not at the same place, Hunter was also found on the street, leading me to believe he and Dinah are from the same litter, given their closeness in age. Due to being let out by irresponsible housemates, he contracted toxoplasmosis, and although he's long since recovered from that harrowing ordeal, he does have a balance issue that causes him to shake his head and then topple sometimes.

He's dominant just behind Tiger (though using Tiger's age to his advantage to try and become top cat). He's got a squeaky meow and loves canned food, and usually leads the charge for everyone except Tiger to harass me over opening a can. They don't even regularly eat canned food regularly, but it's his only love, beside cuddles.

Speaking of cuddles, when he decides he wants to be close to me, he will step on and lay on any cat in his way to do it. He does not care.

Sassy was originally my grandmother's dog, an impulse buy because no one could tell her "no" and she thought $900 on a tiny dog was somehow a good idea. Sassy ended up bonding to grandpa instead, and she became grandpa's dog even after grandma was gone. She's very much a one-person dog, and she is not close to me. The only time she seeks my company is when grandpa is closed in his room for the night, or away at work. She does however get very jealous if you give a different pet attention in front of her, and will come beg for affection if you sit yourself in her territory, ie, the livingroom.

As expected of a purebred dog, her hips are wrecked. She's had vet visits, but aside from extremely expensive procedures we can't afford, there's nothing we can do beyond give her medication. Aside from that, she's fine. I'm not sure how my grandparents managed to potty pad train her, because she's so stupid. I've tried so hard to teach her even BASIC obedience tricks, like sit or shake. She just won't do it. She doesn't get it. I tought Lily "bang" in one night with a single pizza crust. Sassy? Weeks of training and she still doesn't understand "sit" even vaguely.

Because she's an expensive purebred dog, and because the dog kennel is attached to the house off the back stairs, she's not allowed outside. She used to be allowed to go out with Lily when she was young, but after her hips started to go out, she stopped being allowed to go out in the kennel. She's got enrichment inside, but I think it's a shame she can't go outside.

She's pretty cute and cuddly so long as you're in the livingroom and grandpa isn't available to cuddle with instead, but she's also very noisy and barky. Definitely wouldn't get a toy breed ever again though lol.

Whisper is very shy, she takes weeks to warm up to someone new, but once she loves you, she's obnoxiously affectionate and chatters to you when cuddling, trying to get on you and close to your face. She likes to walk around echoey areas of the house and just yell for no reason, and still plays like a kitten when the feather toys come out. She'll even bite you (gently) if you stopped petting her to soon to let you know that she's not ready for you to be done yet.

Cashew was a bitey mouse that only tolerated being held sometimes. He ended up developing an eye problem where his eyes were always dry, causing an itch that tore his face and ears up. He had to wear the tinest cone ever and have eyedrops put into his eyes every day until he eventually gave up the will to fight.

Willie's name was intended to be Merry, to be a pair match with Merry and Pippin, along with Frodo and Bilbo, which are all Hobbits from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Grandpa wanted to name him Willard, after the protagonist in a horror movie based around rats, and I let him since I named the other rats. Willie is younger than the other rats, as he was acquired later. Willie is not unfriendly, as he comes when the cage opens, eats out of my hand, and partakes in the pleasure of having his head rubbed.

However, he hates being picked up. He flails, he squeals, he'll even jump impossible distances trying to get back to the cage, and splatted on the floor from several feet up more than once. (Thank god rats are so sturdy.) He's not aggressive, and he's a perfectly fine provided he's not picked up, so I've always considered it part of his personality. As long as he's affectionate in other ways and doesn't hide from me (he does startle easy and run away, but he always comes back right away), then I don't have a problem with that.

If I take him out and about around the house or outside, he will start pooping himself, on me and on wherever else he is, hence why I also don't try to force him. When he was small, he hid inside my bra, tucked away and hidden, but once he got too big for that, my shirt wasn't suitable anymore.

At least I can be thankful that all four rats grew out of peeing on me.

I've had Tiger since I was a teenager! We had three cats, including him, back then, but both others have passed as of now. I got him with the intention of showing him in the 4H County Fair, and we ended up taking home second place and a trophy in showmanship class. For costume class he was dressed as an organ grinder's monkey with a vest and fez hat, which I sadly don't have pictures of, but he remains a shoulder cat to this day as a result. He has a hard time not being in physical contact with me, and sleeps at my head every night. He even pets me! It's cute and super annoying lol.

He's always been super grumpy, even when a kitten, and bonded exclusively to me. While he was always a one-person cat, in his elder years he's become a lot softer and a lot friendlier to other people. He's extremely talkitive and will yell at anyone to tell you what he's feeling. He loves drinking from the faucet, to the point we were forced to buy a cat water fountain just to stop him from constantly screaming outside the bathroom door.

I wouldn't call Apollo the friendliest, but he's definitely the most affectionate. He's not crazy about being held and cuddled but he's good at staying on the shoulder when I'm walking around with him. He licks all of my fingers when my hands come close, and he's fun to play with (ie, flipping him over, chasing him around with my hand, tickling his tummy, basically emulating rat wrestle play.) He's so excited about ramen noodles that one time he accidentally chomped into my finger so hard it bled (Which is not his fault, it was mine. I didn't give the food to him properly, rats get REALLY excited about their favorite foods.)

However, he has a running history of biting my grandfather. One time was hard enough to draw blood, the other time was biting a rubber glove when cage cleaning and not letting go. My best guess for this behavior is because grandpa hurt him on accident while trimming nails, and Apollo remembers his scent connected to the pain. If not that, then I couldn't say, because Apollo otherwise has no aggressive behaviors and is quite a lovely boy.

Apollo was a replacement rat. We went to get two more rats two weeks after Bilbo and Frodo, and they were to be named Merry and Pippin. More on Merry with Willie's entry. Pippin was not handled properly as a pup and was terrified of me, and screamed whenever I tried holding him. I opted to return him to the breeder for a replacement, as I was a new rat owner and in no position to socialize a timid rat. I wanted an agouti specifically, and Apollo was the only option. He was intended to be kept by the breeder and shown in a rat fancy show, but was given to me instead. I also intended to show him, but unfortunately Covid interfered.

Since I liked the name Apollo, I kept the name he came with.

Bilbo is extremely friendly and curious, he likes to explore when he's out of his cage. Obviously with the cats, none of my rats are able to free roam, but they're allowed to wander surfaces like my desk or my bed or the couch when I'm with them, and he's happy to stick his nose into every nook and cranny, and touch noses with any other animal that enters the space. He accompanied Frodo to all of Frodo's vet visits. He's very easy to hold, he holds still, he takes kisses, and he loves getting scritches in the sunshine outside (he's the first of my rats that I had the pleasure of seeing boggle!), He's just such a lovely boy.

When I told the breeder I wanted a rex with curly fur, she presented me with Frodo and told me I'd have "curls for days." She wasn't wrong, Frodo has curly, soft fur. And, as is natural with the rex gene, with age he's started going bald on the top of his head, around his ears, and on the shoulders.

He's always been a very friendly rat, likes snuggling close inside your clothes, and is very gentle. The only time he gets excitable is when he's getting snacks that aren't part of the usual snacks, like chocolate chips or ramen noodles. He came as a pair with Bilbo, as our breeder was responsible and doesn't allow single rat purchases. As a result, he's extremely close to Bilbo.

He's always been the least healthy, with a long-term sneeze that's mostly cleared up since his quarantine. He's been quarantined in a small cage due to getting a tumor on his leg, which gave us many scares. Abscesses, infection, growths, bursting open, oozing blood, it was horrible, it cost us tons of money, and he needed surgery. Against all odds though, after another abscess formed and prevented surgery, he actually started healing up. The lumps reduced to nothing, he no longer required surgery, the wound healed up completely fine. There's some scar tissue from such a horrible wound, but there's nothing wrong with his leg anymore.

Lily was part of a litter that my mother's dog had. She was the second smallest puppy of the litter, and she came to live with me once weaned along with her sister, Sparkles, whom was the second largest of the litter, and the size difference between them was significant. Sparkles was killed in a car accident after escaping her kennel in 2013, and she was my grandmother's dog rather than mine, hence why she's not listed here.

Lily was very untrustworthy around very small animals, but very loving. High strung, she would bark at everything and the beagle in her made her bray when the door rang. She loved to play, and even up until the end, she enjoyed going outside, but was always very terrible at walking on a leash and I was never able to teach her to heel properly. I did manage to teach her many tricks though, her signature being "bang," which involves pointing a finger at her like a gun and shouting BANG, which caused her to fall over "lifeless."

She had a lot of health complications near the end, including pneumonia in her lung, lung cancer, gastro-intestinal issues. When she stopped eating altogether, we knew it was her time.

The vet provided this for us afterward.

Nugget was a baby mouse discovered on the floor in the laundry room. How she got there, we don't know. We suspect she was dropped by her mother when the brood was being moved. My grandpa found her and showed her to me and I decided to keep and raise her. Unfortunately, a mouse this age needs around-the-clock care, every four hours needs fed and pottied and needs kept warm at all times. Being in the middle of the worst of my fatigue at the time, I wasn't able to keep up with the schedule. I managed for several days before blacking out for over half a day. When I woke, she was dead.