Fudge, Licorice, Coconut... And Others Who Go By The Names Of Non-Food Products ^_^!

Hey guys!

I’ve decided to write a blog today because I feel bad that I can’t recall the exact date of my last post… I’m not getting very far too quickly with writing because every two seconds I keep having a fit of coughs… It’s unbelievably frustrating! I caught, what we think is, a summer cold a few days after getting Gadget, the kitten.

So I haven’t been feeling my best and haven’t been out since either… I also am not having a great time because I can’t really talk as much, as that usually leads to… would you believe it, more coughing! And I’m a very talkative person, so when I try and get a long story out in one quick sentence, I’m usually running out of breath at the end so it sounds like a deflating balloon.

As I said, I haven’t been out, so I haven’t got much news… therefore this shall be a very random post ^_^.

Since I’ve been living… I don’t really know any other way to put it… Since I was born! That works, I’ve had an enormous amount of pets… Well my parents had literally gazillions of birds and a couple of dogs on our property in Zimbabwe, but the animals that stand out for me the most are:

Nando, he was my green ring neck parrot when I was one or two until I was three years old. When we were FORCED to leave the country though, I had to leave him behind, so my parents gave him to friends of theirs… He was just learning to speak as well! Since I had to leave him, I’ve wanted another parrot since, not to take over the memory of Nando, of course, but just because I love animals and I’ve always had this vision of a parrot school… Okay, okay! I had that thought when I was seven… and yet, seven years down the line, I still want to make it happen :-P.

Except this time I would love to get an African Grey parrot, since they’re the smartest bird species, and I think they’re so gorgeous! Of course I’d have to get one now though since they can live up to 100 years of age… Hint, hint, wink, wink Mom and Dad! :-P It’d also have to be a baby… because it’s cute… Yeah, I know… lame excuse :-P.

My next BIG pet, well very little at the time, was Franklin my tortoise… or was he a turtle? I always get confused with the two… Anyway, yes Franklin was called Franklin because I was about four or five years old and I loved the children’s cartoon show “Franklin” about the turtle that went to school :-P. I remember Franklin’s first water slide sort of thing, and the way he used his little tiny claws to climb over my hand… And of course, how he smelt, so extremely bad… I don’t think that’s the reason we gave him away though, I’m not sure, but I think it was because we were moving up to Northern Ireland. This was when we were living in Southern Ireland by the way, we gave Franklin to a zoo.

In Southern Ireland I also had two pet fish, Sandy and Danny, because my favourite film at that time was “Grease”. My cousin came to stay with us for a while, and Sandy had guppies… My cousin, being a boy, thought that it would be cool to buy one of those miniature shark fish for my fish tank… Aww how sweet… Not! He put it into the tank, it chased the poor babies which luckily hid away into the castle ornament and survived, but one of my big fish (Sandy or Danny, I can’t remember which one it was) was attacked and killed before we removed the shark fish… I was so annoyed -_-. Before we moved up to Northern Ireland, we also gave the fish away.

We actually obtained quite a few pets in Ireland, my dad took Venetia and I up to a woman and we were allowed to choose a kitten each… Sadly though, this is when we realised that I was allergic and after less than two weeks of having them, we had to give them away.

My dad also took us to get two baby rabbits… I don’t think these lasted with us for more than two weeks as well. The neighbour’s dog kept getting into our garden every time we let the bunnies run around for a while, and once attacked Venetia’s. It was okay afterwards though. But the bunnies proved to be too much of a hassle to look after in the house, they really need to have a large area of land that’s secure.

Then in Ireland when I was seven years old, my parents gave Venetia and I a decision to make, we could choose to go to Disneyland for two weeks, or we could choose to get a puppy Shih-Tzu instead. Of course, we chose the Shih-Tzu!

Gizmo was the runt of the litter, when we went to the old couple’s house, there were a bunch of little puppies sleeping, pretty much on top of each other, all squished up. Gizmo was the quiet one, all on his own in the very corner of the cage. I wanted to get the one that looked like a hamster… but when my mom picked up the smallest one, and showed him to me, I fell in love.

He was completely black except for his chin, his chest and his one paw, so it looked like a little sock. Gizmo was originally called Othello, but soon changed because he looked more like a little gremlin. I think we must of seen him at two weeks, because for the three weeks that followed, on the Sunday, we were sure to drive the hour, just to see him. At five weeks old, she let us take him home.

This is Gizmo, 5 weeks old, in Venetia's (at the time 11 years old) arms... Now you can see how small he really was... Awww!!!

We were absolutely appalled by the fact that she told us that Shih-Tzu’s are to be kept in a cage, and are to be taught to drink out of a hamster/ gerbil bottle feeder… The cage lasted the first night then we quickly got rid of it. He’s a pedigree, his grandfather lived until he was 18 years old, so I’m really hoping he lives that long, or even longer :-P. He even has a show name and the papers, but we think that it’s cruel to keep their hair long, so we let him be, like his show name, a “Sporty Boy”.

Gizmo is my baby! He is the kindest, sweetest little thing you could ever have as a dog! We don't even think of him as a dog, he's far too intelligent to be put under that genre :-P. Okay! Sometimes... he can be smart, most of the time, he's smart enough, in the "smart enough way" to ignore us when we call him, or demand him to do tricks... That's how clever he really is :-P.

We also had “HotRocks”, he was a little orange kitty cat, that my parents brought home one night, as a surprise. We kept him for quite a while actually but soon had to give him to my great grandmother as my allergies were still too bad. He went through a million different names, but in the end, the last name given was HotRocks, because of how he walked :-P… Like he was stepping on hot rocks.

We also had Fudge, my hamster, Fudge ran away once... You see, I woke up one cold school morning in Northern Ireland, to find that one of the tunnels that connected to the hamster cage had come off! I quickly ran to the cage on the other side of my bedroom, to find that there was no Fudge there! After searching my room from top to bottom, I was forced to give up and go to school.

When Venetia and I got home, the hunt began again, a few hours later Gizmo began to bark wildly at Venetia’s cupboard. We moved the furniture to get to it, and placed some hamster pebbles where there was a hole that the hamster could have gotten in to. After being quite for ten minutes and waiting patiently, Fudge slowly emerged. I caught him and returned him to his cage, the fall from his cage must have proved too much for him though, because a week or so later, he fell ill… DUN DUN DUNNNN!

No, honestly though…

We took him to the vet, and he told us that he’d have to put him down. I didn’t realise how much I was attached to Fudge until that day, I couldn’t stop crying on the way home.

Rascal… Now Rascal, my word, did he live up to his name! He was Venetia’s 16th birthday present. A couple of weeks before Venetia’s birthday, we were walking in a park, and suddenly my mom said “Would you like another Shih-Tzu puppy for your birthday?”. It was quite a shock, and suddenly everything just happened so quickly, we bought a “Buy & Sell” newspaper (Not sure if you get it in America… or any other country outside of the U.K. for that matter, it’s just like a newspaper full of ads, by people) and we’d found a woman that was selling what we were looking for.

Rascal - That day

We called her up and within half an hour we were on our way to see her. It’s always how we’ve done it, we just rush into buying pets :-P! Venetia chose Rascal and a few weeks later he was at home with us. He was the naughtiest little thing, that was just so hard to train! Gizmo was very tolerant with him, but eventually Rascal was just too much and we gave him to our great grandmother. Her husband had just passed away so he lifted up her spirits again ^_^. Rascal became very settled down with her, and now is a lovely dog.

Rascal... As The Rascal :-P

In Northern Ireland we also had two budgies. Bashful, was my little blue one. We called him Bashful because of his stance, how he tilted his head, made him seem very shy. Chirpy, was much more lively… and well… you guessed it, very noisy!! Sadly though, one morning, I came down stairs, at 11 o’clock to find… Bashful… he was lying on his back :-(… With his little feet sticking up in the air… Bashful had died!!! I was so upset, we made a little coffin and buried him in the back garden. A little while later Chirpy flew away… It’s not fair that I love animals sooo much but they just don’t seem to work out with me 0_o.

We also, I’m not sure if I’ve already told you, had chickens for a while. That was also a very quick decision… Well see, I’d been wanting them for a while, since we’d moved onto the farm. And one day my mom and Karen (my grandmother) took Venetia and I to this local petting zoo, sort of place… We had just gone to see if they sold them… but ended up bringing six home.

Coconut was mine, Liquorice was Venetia’s and then there was Phoenix, Tawny, Little Feather and Kaleidoscope. They were so cute! We brought them home in a box and put them in the little front room, for my dad to see… Of course none of us wanted to tell him that we’d just brought home six chickens, so we left it to my mom :-P. He was really cool with it in fact ^_^.

Liquorice!

I taught Coconut to run to me and jump into my arms… I miss her :-(. We gave them away after quite a long time of having them, they’d just started laying eggs as well. But because we had two roosters in the lot, and my sister’s bedroom was closest to the barn that we kept them in, there was quite a lot of complaining about being woken up at all hours of the morning by them… It seemed that they didn’t know when dawn was… I don’t think the sun comes up at three in the morning in winter in Northern Ireland…

But that’s not the reason we gave them away of course :-P. We were due to leave for Sicily soon after ^_^.

Coconut!

In my time of keeping animals, I’ve also had “Sea Monkeys” and “Triops” quite a few times. It’s incredible how fast they grow, and they’re a lot of fun to watch, Triops do not have three eyes like the box says though!! They lied -_-!

And then of course there’s Gadget! I’ve told you all about Gadget before but I have even more information on Bengal cats now! So apparently he’s going through a stage that Bengal cats go through called “The Fuzzy Uglies”. It means that they get little white tips on the end of their fur, which camouflages their colours more. That happens at about three weeks old, which is when they would start exploring more in the wild. It’ll pass at around four to nine months so their true colours will show through and their markings will become more defined, so Gadget will just keep getting more and more beautiful! The pictures were just taken with my webcam, I'll get more high-quality ones from my mom another time ^_^.

Aww Cute! See his markings now? I can just imagine how stunning he'll be when he's all grown up ^_^.

I want a lizard. This will be my next pet… I’m hoping so anyway! I just have this thing about them. I love them so much! I caught a baby one the size of my baby finger in the garden yesterday. I was going to keep him as a pet, but thought that it was cruel to take him out of the wild. My ideal lizard would have to be an African Gecko… or a Chameleon, now that would be cool! Never put a chameleon on a black background though! Apparently, they get so upset and angry that their sides split… and they more or less explode… Of course I don’t know if this is just a myth or not, will “Google” that and tell you next time… Oooh, something to look forward to :-P.
Eeek! I’m sorry that I wrote an essay for you guys to read -_-.

It's absolutely stunning weather here, but with stunning weather... comes the sun... and the sun, is at times, a little too much to take. So, thankfully, it's cooled down an awful lot since yesterday, and now I can go relax outside, instead of in front of my fan in my bedroom... Yay, outdoors!!!

- Bianca

In loving memory of Fudge, the hamster. (Even though I know he’s not extremely likely to read this :-P, it feels nice to put it there.)