House of Fur

I’ll start off by saying that my boyfriend is the type of guy who, say, finds a bee having a rough day going in circles on the sidewalk while walking the dogs and brings it home to give it some sugar water before seeing it off. Or follows a loose dog for hours trying to coax it near enough so he can help it. Or brings home a cat he found on the street until we can find the owner. So it should come as no surprise that our house is full of furballs.

Waking up starts out similarly enough: I get up, brush my teeth, and head downstairs to start my coffee. Once they know I’m awake, at least one of the critter crew comes up the stairs to see me.

Lately, it’s been Armando, A.K.A. Tiny. He’s a tiny dog - a “purse puppy”, even smaller than our cats. As such, the only thing he can really reach are feet and ankles, so as I stand beside the coffee maker gathering a mug and creamer, he says good morning by licking and/or nibbling on my feet. Usually he’s gentle about it. He grumbles and growls at me if I don’t pay him attention quickly enough.

“Mornin’ pup,” I tend to say as I crouch to pet him. He is the second-youngest of our current crew. I hear the tell-tale bounding on the stairs that signals our largest pet, Aleu, is on her way up as well, and I begin walking over to the back door to let them outside. Aleu waits by the door, ears alert and tail swishing gently. About 50 lbs, she is a mix. D.N.A. testing we sent in for her came back that she has chow-chow, husky, and, among a few other large breeds, of all things, chihuahua. She’s got a beautiful cookie and cream coat, and has the softest fur and the most heart-meltingly gorgeous brown eyes and lashes. I absolutely adore that pup; she’s our princess, even when she huffs at us. Especially when she huffs at us.

Laundry days take me into the laundry room in the basement, where Agnes sleeps in her multi-level tower. I check her food and water before I begin tossing laundry into the washer and say hello if she wakes up while I start the laundry. As ferrets go, she’s getting up there in age - my partner got her shortly before we met in 2014.

After six months together, my aunt asked if we would take in another ferret. One of her customers at the credit union was moving long distance, and was not going to be able to care for the ferret. We said we would take her in, and agreed among ourselves that we would likely change the critter’s name; Esther just didn’t seem to fit. Yet, once we brought that cute little speckle-nosed ferret home and talked about her, her name quickly grew on us.

We had two ferrets already then; Agnes and Dory, a deaf white ferret. They did not get along with Esther and would gang up on her if we tried to let them all run around at once, but Penny would sometimes play with her, so she at least had her to bond with.

Chrissy, my boyfriend’s British Shorthair from his childhood, was about 15 then, and was a grouchy old lady who only wanted belly rubs from humans. It didn’t help that Dory, unable to hear Chrissy’s complaints, would crawl on her and harass her, so Esther never had a good chance to bond with her largely due to those interactions.

While the dogs are out back, I look at the food and water dishes to determine what needs topped off. By the time I’ve done so and readied my first cup of coffee, the pups are either at the door ready to come back in, or out sunning in their favorite spots in the backyard, depending on the weather. I usually have Armando come back in; we don’t leave him unsupervised in the back long due to his size, as large hawks patrol the skies near our home, among other large, terrestrial predators. It is not uncommon for me to hear coyotes in the nearby park in the summer. Aleu, however, is content to stay sunning in the middle of the raised flower bed… Brat.

We had been dating nearly a year when we saw a sign for an adoption event at a pet store just days before my birthday in 2015. We should have known better, but we went in, “just to take a look”. We stood in line for over half an hour before we even got to see the dogs for ourselves and chatted with an older man briefly before he left with his newly adopted companion. He had picked a white male pup that was simply adorable.

Finally, one of the volunteers began asking what, if anything we had in mind. We explained we were looking for either a pup we could raise alongside our cats and ferrets or for an older dog that was at least good with cats. I wished we could get them all.

I also felt a bit guilty - part of what had spawned our search for a pup was that my dad’s best friend (to the point I was raised to call him my uncle) was moving to a smaller house, and though we had tried to help find a suitable home, he’d had to surrender two of his dogs. They were older and didn’t get along with cats, so we had not been comfortable taking them in, despite how much we wanted to. This was a few weeks prior to our impromptu stop at the pet adoption event.

After looking at a few older dogs and exciting others in their kennels to the point of barking and pawing doors, the volunteer pointed out a mostly white pup. It was a female, and she was just sitting quietly. She wasn’t trying to get anyone’s attention. Later, we came to wonder if it was her brother we had seen with the man we chatted with.

We agreed to take her outside with the volunteer to see how she would react with just us, without all the extra stimuli and noise of the folks gathered for adoptions. We were led to a grassy area just outside the store, and for about ten minutes we all sat in the grass and interacted with the pup. At one point, a squirrel ran out on the tree limb above us, and the puppy watched it intently. Intelligently.

“What do you think?” my boyfriend asked, “Do you think this could be Aleu?”

Growing up, I was a fan of Balto: Wolf Quest, an animated film starring the half-breed protagonist of the first Balto movie and his daughter, Aleu. I had expressed my desire to name my next dog Aleu earlier in our relationship, if the name fit, and was surprised he remembered such a thing.

I smiled happily, looking at this calm little pup with black half flopped-over ears, slowly blinking in the bright summer sunlight.

“Yeah. I think so.”

We technically weren’t supposed to have any more pets in the apartment. We asked, but they would not make an exception, despite all the other animals always staying inside and no damages being caused by the former pets. As it happened, my boyfriend’s sister was looking for a new tenant for her townhome, and he was happy to pay to break the lease with the apartment early and move into the townhome. This also made finishing house-training Aleu much easier, as there was a common yard area just outside the door, rather than going up and down three flights of stairs and through parking lots.

A few years later, we moved into our house, about ten minutes from my parents. Aleu had become a beautiful dog: cookies and cream coat, her ears fully upright, tail an elegant fan of fur. She’s so soft. She also developed her personality. To date, she is still a quiet dog, rarely barking outside of playing, but she “huffs” and sighs at key moments and can look quite serious. She’s a smarty-pants too: it didn’t take her long to learn to ring the bell we put on the door knob for the backyard when she needed outside. She’s not shy about pawing at us when she wants something, though.

It was our first spring at the new house when Aleu brought me the bunny. I had let her out back and sat on the main level to see when she wanted in. While I worked at a small table, I saw her appear at the screen door. It took me a moment to realize she had something in her mouth, and once I did, I sprang up, distraught. My two dogs growing up had been notorious about killing creatures that got into their backyard: several birds, mice, rats, rabbits and others had been killed. I feared Aleu was bringing me a dead or dying bunny.

She brought it to me unharmed. At least outwardly. Perhaps we should have taken it to get checked out for internal injuries after our pup nabbed it, but we saw no puncture wounds and besides being shocked, it didn’t appear to be hurt. It simply had wet, slobbered fur from being in her mouth briefly. Aleu had been gentle, it seemed. We debated keeping it, but decided it would be best to return it to the yard - this time, the front. After releasing it, though, my boyfriend and I looked at a crestfallen Aleu and then at each other.

“Let’s go look at kittens,” he said. I nodded, and we immediately hopped in the car and drove to the nearest pet store.

Catfish is usually the first cat to greet me. She’s solid black, has the biggest eyes, and has two kinks in her tail where it was somehow broken before she was initially surrendered, earning her the interchangeable surnames of Hooktail and Broketail. And she is rotten. She’s the most affectionate cat I’ve ever known, and she goes to great lengths to get attention when she wants it. I spend my time with her divided between showering her with affection and chiding her for breaking into my office, nearly tripping me on the stairs, or kneading her claws directly into my thigh while purring so loud my boyfriend can hear her across the room. She’s the most darling cat I know, even if she’s a troublemaker. Especially because she’s a troublemaker.

Charly keeps to herself most of the time, but she’s come such a long way! She has long, black fur with white socks and chin. Bonded with Catfish when we adopted them, Charly was a skittish cat, and used to find places to hide - like in the basement ceiling. It’s suspected that when they were both adopted together before that it was her behaviors of avoidance that were the cause of their second surrender. They had been there at least a month after. Upon our adoption of them, however, it was revealed that Charly, little more than a kitten herself, had been marked as having had at least one litter before she was surrendered initially, and I suspect that was not her doing, but perhaps someone trying to breed her. Either way, she was not a fan of people when we got her, and was very scared and avoidant.

Now, though, she delights in tumbling around with the other cats, informing me when the bowl is too low with plaintive meows, and nuzzling my face when she visits me on the couch. Which is sweet, up until my allergies kick in. They’ve gotten better over the years, but cat fur from the longest-furred one, straight in the nostrils? That’ll set them off. But for that cat’s nuzzles? 100% worth it. She’s so sweet, and it breaks my heart that two separate times someone gave up such sweet, lovable kittens as her and Catfish.

Penny is now the oldest pet at 10-11 years, and is a small black cat with a white chest patch. My boyfriend and his former girlfriend took her in off the streets and when they broke up, he wound up keeping the cat. She’s not overly playful, but enjoys resting on her own, warm heating pad in her favorite window, brief visits to the backyard, and forehead kisses. She likes to greet my partner and I after our showers in particular, sitting on the closed toilet seat and awaiting kisses.

Milo is the youngest pet - he’ll be two this summer. He is an orange tabby my partner fell in love with on a routine trip to the pet store to pick up cat litter. He always has to see the kittens. I was pouring myself a bowl of cereal when he sent me a picture, and how could we say no to that sweet little face?

Milo was initially Dan. However, he just didn’t seem like a Dan. Most of the pets we named have names of characters from animated films: Dory, the deaf, white ferret was named after Dory in Finding Nemo, Agnes, our remaining ferret, was named after Agnes from Despicable Me, and Aleu was named after the character of the same name from Balto: Wolf Quest. After a night’s deliberation and getting to know the kitten a bit, we decided that Milo would be a better fit, named mostly after Milo of Atlantis: the Lost Empire, but also as a nod to Milo and Ottis, starring an orange tabby Milo and a pug named Ottis.

Milo is what we call, “boss cat”. Before we adopted him, Catfish would harass Penny, which caused me a lot of stress as I had to constantly interrupt when it happened. Penny is older and smaller than all of the other cats: Catfish easily outsizes her and is heavily muscled compared to the others, and Milo is equally as large, but slighter. Once Milo came into the house though, Catfish had someone who would play with her, as Penny would not and Charly did not really know how to play until this last year, as she spent most of her first year with us hiding and slowly getting comfortable. But he’s also kind of a bully, and now instead of breaking up Catfish and Penny near daily, I have to get Milo to release Catfish a few times a month. Overall, it’s been much calmer since his introduction and most of the time they groom and play with each other fairly nicely.

Aside from tossing down with Catfish, Milo enjoys supervised visits outside in the backyard. As the weather gets warmer, he begins pawing at the back door when he sees the dogs outside, meowing and chittering with gusto. There’s days my partner, who is the one who supervises all outside cat visits, has taken him out three times. Charly is interested, but does not actively seek to go outside, Penny is the only one we trust for a few minutes alone in the yard. And Catfish… Catfish climbs trees, so she’s lost her outdoor privileges.

Since my partner and I are lucky enough to stay at our home unhindered, someone is always up to let the dogs out, refill dishes, and, best of all, hand out treats! It is not uncommon for my boyfriend’s schedule and mine to be at odds, so I reach for leftovers at any and all hours. It’s not unusual for the dogs in particular to sit in the kitchen as I reheat food - they often stare me down. I hate dragging food into my office and then having to return the dishes to the sink minutes later, so I stand and eat in the kitchen, and they watch me, expectantly.

When we wound up with Armando, he, of all the dogs in our lives, is the one who won my mother over. Knowing the only grandchildren she can expect from me are those of other species, she dotes on them. She had to get Tiny these dog treats she saw while shopping, but she couldn’t leave Aleu out because that wasn’t fair, and here are some cat treats since she got the dogs something. Oh, and here’s a thing for the ferret (I haven’t the heart to tell her the wood chews she sometimes gets for the ferret are meant for gerbils and other little chewers).

Supplied with the barrage of treats from "grandma", the critter crew has become accustomed to getting several a day - and typically the best time to do it is when I’m eating in the kitchen. They know I want to go back to my office to jump back into things quickly, but they also know I’ll feel guilty if I eat in front of them and give them nothing, especially when they’ve been waiting. So far, the office work has had to wait a few more minutes while I get my darlings some goodies. Because of the size difference between Aleu and Armando, Aleu gets much bigger treats, and each is stored in a different container. Aleu gets hers first, Armando his next, and then Milo and Catfish get theirs. I’ve yet to find one Charly will eat, and Penny gets one for her joints when she wants, but she rarely comes over for them and has been moving much better otherwise. All is well at treat time - except Catfish scarfs hers up and then moves on to try to eat Milo’s.

Armando, or Tiny, was left at my boyfriend’s sister’s house after she had her baby. Their home has a small fence around the yard that this little purse-puppy couldn’t have gotten through or over, so it is believed among the family that workers they hired for a house project around the time placed him on the inside of the fence. They already had a massive dog, and had only recently moved to that house, so we were offered the pup as there were just too many new things going on between the move and the baby. They named him Armando, because they found him soaked and shivering and sad on the doorstep and he, “needed a good, strong name”. And so Armando was named after a beloved family member and dropped off at our place after they gave him a nice, warm bath. I was surprised when I came home from helping my parents with something that day to find this tiny new puppy in our house.

Though it was assumed he had been purposefully dropped off at their home, we couldn’t rule out that this was a missing puppy, so we posted information for any owner looking on sites, careful to avoid giving too much information. We didn’t want someone to claim him who only wanted to do him harm. After a few months with nothing though, we accepted he would be ours.

He and Aleu bonded so well, and he became the “enforcer” of the cats: whenever a cat is chastised, Armando races to tackle and growl at them. We laughingly but lovingly call him the “sheriff”. He struts around like he owns the place - this tiny pup that could fit in a purse.

He’s also my boyfriend’s little sock butler; any time Armando sees him taking off his socks, he runs over and patiently waits for my partner to hand him the balled-up socks, which he then carries downstairs. I wish I could say he puts them in a hamper or something, but they really just get secreted away under the coffee table or couch there. Still. Sock service, anyone?

If he isn’t chasing a piece of his food all over the floor playfully, Armando plays with the ferret tunnel. A ferret tunnel, in this case, is a transparent, flexible tube that ferrets crawl through. Armando has figured out that, when the other critters don’t want to play or are sleeping, he can roll a ball into the tube and either shake it out of the tunnel or will actually crawl beneath the tube to send the ball rolling out across the room so he can chase it! Unfortunately, he doesn’t tend to do this when my partner and I are in the basement watching shows, so it’s rare that I even see it, and I don’t have a video. I often hear about it from my boyfriend, as his office is downstairs and Armando tends to play with the tunnel just outside the room and he gets to see it sometimes. He’s a little smarty pants.

Sadly, ferrets do not live as long as other pets and are vulnerable to many cancers, and within a year of moving into the house, both Dory and Esther passed to different cancers.

Agnes, the last remaining ferret, gets free reign of the basement several times a week. Penny, Armando, and Aleu are allowed in the basement when she’s out, but Milo and Catfish show too much of all the wrong kinds of interest, so they get locked upstairs when the ferret is out to play. Armando enjoys chasing her around, and she steals dog toys and other items and stashes them in odd spots: under the couch, the cabinets of the laundry room, probably behind the washer and dryer. Maybe that’s where my second pair of eyeglasses went... they’ve been gone over a year and I strongly suspect she stole and hid them. When she’s not stealing things, Agnes enjoys the challenge of conquering the cats’ scratching posts and her own home in a ferret rendition of King Kong.

Catfish is crafty. She’s figured out that my office door doesn’t latch, and moreover, she can push the door open and enter. My boyfriend often sleeps on the couch (he prefers to) under a pile of cats and Armando. Because of my allergies, I keep the bedroom door shut so I have a room that is mostly animal free. Fur still gets in through the door, but at least the cats aren’t sleeping on my pillow where I’m breathing it. This doesn’t stop my partner from leaving the door open and allowing the animals in during his showers or when I am helping over at my parents’ or watching my sister’s house, but it does generally help. So when my boyfriend does come upstairs to sleep in the bed, these things tend to happen: at least one cat will come sit outside the bedroom door and meow, Catfish will attempt to push open my office door, just down the hall, prompting me to go shoo her out and replace the trash can I’ve stuck just outside to make her have to push closer to the hinge, making it more difficult to break in, and my partner will find the whole situation entertaining as I tell Catfish she’s rotten with a mix of fondness and irritation. She’s so cute! And so rotten!

She’s also ridiculous. I’m not sure where she found the broken piece of shoelace, but she is obsessed with it. Charly rather enjoys it as well, but Catfish…

First off, she loses it often, prompting a predictable search for it: in the pantry, where it sometimes slides under the door, under the recliner in the main room, or under the rug by the back door. Even when it is in plain sight and she was just playing with it 2.5 seconds ago, since she first found it and started playing with it, any time we open the pantry to get something out, she is crawling around in there looking. She also frequently pounces on it, and goes sliding across the floor. She will even bring it to us and meow at us until we toss it - she’s actually fairly decent with the concept of fetch. When we can’t find it - who knows where else it gets off to - she even has another meow for it. We know by this other meow that Catfish can’t find her shoelace and she misses it, and it’s adorable and sad all at once, because we don’t know where her beloved shoelace is.

“Can’t help you Fishy.”

Catfish isn’t the only one who likes playing with… well, trash. Milo enjoys shiny plastic strips (like the top of resealable bags), my erasers, hair ties, and pens and pencils… I’m pretty sure he knocked my lost pair of glasses off the coffee table and Anges then stole them; it was a team effort. Penny and Charly enjoy twist-ties off bread loaves.

And Armando just likes trash. When my boyfriend is out doing errands and I am all the way upstairs in my office, he sometimes knocks over the small wastebasket in my boyfriend’s office and snacks on leftovers. We also call him a mountain goat, because if my partner leaves his standing desk too low, Armando will hop onto his chair and then the desk to reach food and dishes that may be there. Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes it’s annoying. He’s a clever little bugger.

Nights on the basement couch are generally entertaining. My partner and I will settle in to eat a meal together and watch some shows, and everyone else tries to fit on the couch. There’s cat towers, bean bags and ottomans, and these are usually taken up by the critters, but once my boyfriend and I are on the couch, everyone else wants on. Penny might curl up behind my boyfriend. Charly likes to take her spot behind me and paws at my head. Catfish decides to sleep under the couch. Milo tries laying on one of us and gives nose kisses. Aleu takes her spot curled up between us if we make room. And Armando curls up next to one of us. By the time everyone is on, there is no room to stretch out; we really need a bigger couch. And it’s perfect.

I can’t imagine this house without them all. From my first trip downstairs to my last one up, there’s always at least one critter following and doing their own unique thing. I’m sure many more quirky critters will be welcomed here; creatures won’t stop coming here just because we have a house of fur. The angry squirrels chewing Aleu out for chasing them across the back fence and the woodpecker that likes to wake me up in the fall are proof of that. I can’t imagine sweeter, more perfect critters, though. Folks missed out on all their wonderful little personalities. Nothing beats seeing those happy critter faces every day.