Meet the rest of the Pfreaks

These are the other members of our Pfamily. This is our basset hound Frank (or should I say Pfrank?). His full name is Blaine Franklin. (yeah, we're dorks) Most of you have met him already. He's huge for a basset. The books say males average 50-65 lbs. He weighs 80. He's not just fat either. He's just a bigger dog. He's a pure bred bassie too. They say life expectancy is 10-12 years. He just turned 10 in October. Poor old dog is feeling his age too. He has a harder time getting around. Good thing we don't have stairs because he really can't go up them anymore. He's also got a yeast problem for which he is on special food and a lot of "herbal remedies". He's become one of those high maintenance pets. He was our "baby" before we had any. You could definitely say there was a rapid demotion after Logan was born. But the kids love him. Although, now they think all dogs are stinky and slobbery. Ellie has even pointed out before how another dog "isn't all slobbery like Frank." I'm sure as much as we complain about him, we'll miss him once he's gone. Not enough to get another dog, mind you, but I'm sure there will be a void there.

The cat is Jack. He's huge too. And really beautiful. He has a checkered past. My sister Susan found him abandoned on an apartment balcony in Houston. She had him for a few months, but he didn't get along too well with her other cats, so my sister Erica took him. He lived with her in Dallas for a couple of years. Then when she moved to Austin her then boyfriend didn't want him to live in his house, so he came to live with us. We've had him about 7 years now. He's around 10 years old too. He's a pretty cool cat. He is a freak for fresh water from the fridge and demands it several times a day. He is supposed to use the litter box in the garage. We have a "kitty door" that goes into the garage for him to use. The problem is that he's almost too big for it and has to wiggle himself through. It's pretty funny to watch, but I guess he doesn't really like doing it because he always stands by the door and cries for someone to open up and let him in the garage so he doesn't have to do it himself. He also is a stickler for a really clean litter box and if he doesn't approve of it, he'll just go on the garage floor. Needless to say our garage stinks. But what are you going to do? He doesn't have claws so he can't be an outside cat, although he does go outside sometimes. Everyone loves him when they see him and I always offer for them to take him home, but no one's taken me up on it yet. Also, Ellie would be devastated. She adores him. I always say they have a love/hate relationship. You see Jack is an attention junkie. He loves to be petted, on the head only, and will seek out anyone he thinks will do it. He's not subtle about it either. He'll come over and "bulldoze" into you and try to lift up your hand with his head and "pet himself". Ellie sometimes "loves" him a little too hard. Jack's pretty tolerant of her, but she does get bitten now and then. I don't feel sorry for her either because she always pushes him too far. I tell her to stop or he'll bite you. She just can't help herself.

Our other pet is a gerbil named Daisy. She's our 3rd gerbil. The first 2 were named Ribbon and Rose. Logan got them for his 5th birthday and only learned recently that they weren't hamsters. Originally, he wanted hamsters but after researching the subject I decided that gerbils were better because they aren't nocturnal like hamsters and they are desert animals so they don't drink as much and therefore don't pee as much, so their bedding doesn't get stinky as fast. Don't even get me started on how many times one of them has escaped from their cage and I have had the displeasure of "catching" them with my bare hands. They are small and quick and have been known to bite hard when being caught since they're totally freaked from being chased around. Keep this in mind when/if one of your kids asks for one of these lovely creatures. We had Ribbon and Rose for about a year before the first "mishap". The night before our vacation Rose escaped from the cage and was "murdered" by Jack on our bedroom floor. I think Jack thinks they're toys though, not food. He wasn't trying to eat her, nor was their any blood, he was just licking her limp dead little body. Logan was very upset when we told him. We waited until after we got back from vacation. We decided to get another so Ribbon wouldn't be lonely. They're supposed to be social creatures and don't like to be alone. So we bought another gerbil named Tiger Lily. We only had her about a week and decided to return her because she was a biter. It really hurts when they bite you. So that's when we got Daisy. She was really cute when we got her. Really tiny compared to Ribbon. Then a few months later we went on another trip and when we got back Ellie walked in the house and said, "Mom what's that on the floor?" I looked down and it was a dead little Ribbon. She looked as if Jack had been licking her fur for a few days. Yuck. Anyway, now we have 1. We haven't gotten another one because the kids don't have much to do with them anymore and it's just one more thing for me to take care of.

Whenever the kids ask for a new pet of some kind my answer is always, "No, I can't take care of any more living creatures." I'm maxed out. For a while we had some snails and a hermit crab. I was really maxed out then. But we set the snails free and the hermit crab died. So now I'm kind of waiting for something else to die. Wow, that's morbid. But it's pretty much how I feel. Is that wrong? I don't dislike them, at least not all the time. I'm just tired. I'm tired of taking care of things. And right now one less thing sounds pretty good to me. Anyway, this completes our family for now and probably for a while. At least if I have anything to say about it.