The Water Cooler – What Is The Best Animal You’ve Ever Owned?

Blackie. A 45 lb cockapoo that I grew up with. Dad brought him home when I was 5 and he was a faithful companion until I was away in college. Smart, friendly, and connected to me like no other pet since.

I’ve had several dogs and cats in my lifetime, and one of the best ones is
the Savannah cat I have now. She is half African serval and as big as a
medium size dog. She possesses a lot of her wild instinct and is as smart as
a whip. Sometimes I think she is too smart, she knows how to manipulate
me by purring, meowing, or using her body language to get my attention
when she wants something. She’s highly observant and has learned how
to use specific tactics in order to influence me.
The other animal I had that was a favorite was a German Shepherd
we had when our daughter was born. She was as gentle as a lamb
until we brought our daughter home from the hospital. She would park
herself next to her crib to stand guard and protect her, and if anybody
she didn’t know approached the crib while the baby was in it, she would
bear her teeth and growl.

My first female Black Lab, Sage, I self trained to the Master Hunter level in field trials.
Both Sage and I learned a lot from each other, what a dog Sage was at 155 lbs completely ripped with ribs showing, she was a big girl, everyone thought she was a male because of her size.
I bred her two different times to grandmaster hunters, one from ID the other from MO. I kept a female pup from each liter for myself and one to gift to friends or family and sold the rest for $4,800+ each. My wife removed the dew claws at home and gave them all of their shots, she has been in Veterinary Med. Field, for almost 40 yrs.

The second best pet, actually a tie between the two, that I’ve ever had was female Donkey/ a Jenny. Her real name was Ester, but everyone including myself called “Ayehole”, because she was very stubborn too most people, except for me, she would do damn near anything for me, we had a very tight bond. She would wait at the gate for me to return home from school every day, knowing I would give her apples and scratch her ears and belly, she would roll onto her back baying like she was on fire until I scratched her ears and belly. When I moved out of my parents house when I was 18 yrs old she went into depression, I had to go see her 3x a week until she died at the age of 43 yrs old, she is buried under her favorite oak tree, along with my Mother’s old Quarter horse Gidget, the teenage surfer girl that Sally Field played in the movie Gidget, they were best friends what a cool chick couple of chicks they were. I miss them both so bad, we grew up together as my Dad gave Ayehole to me on my 6th B day. What a cool present for a young boy, “Ayehole” taught me how to care for animals and people, “to say the least, she was a beautiful beast!!!”

I can’t wait to move out of CA so I can buy a small ranch and a breading pair of donkeys, they are so awesome, and protective. They are great alarms, anything out of the normal and they either sound off or attack the threat, be it a stranger, dog, Bobcat, Mt loin or coyote. And you don’t want to mess with an angry Donkey. She used to run my friends out of the arena, she was very jealous of anything that took my attention away from her… Damn, I have a tear in my eye typing this out!!!

Couldn’t tell ya…….nobody owns cats.

Black lab, miss her every day.