I have always loved animals but as a kid my parents were pretty strict about pets (boo, hoo). I had a dog when I was little (and that was only because my parents caught me trying to pet the goldfish when I was about three years old so they went out and got a dog) but her life was not happy. Huge psychic guilt, saved for another post.

She was a shelter rescue, which makes me happy, and she did have some happy times in her life but overall she did not live the sort of life I'd wish for a dog. At first, I was too young to know any better, and by the time I figured it out, I tried to make changes but my parents were not agreeable to my ideas and then my poor girl died. Sigh...

Anyway, I have always wanted a life with animals - lots of animals. Don't know why, it's just always been there in me. Now I have a place in the pseudo-country (only 45 minutes from San Francisco yet I have over two acres of land, lucky me!) where I live with dogs, cats, horses, chickens and goats. Yee Haw.

But I should back up and talk about how I came to have all of these animals. Other than the horses and chickens, they are all rescues. I have dogs who have endured truly horrifying things, from having at-home tail amputations to being hit by cars to starvation and neglect to attempted murder (by gasoline, ugh). My cats have not endured such trauma but they are all ex-ferals whom I trapped and tamed as kittens - they were lucky to avoid growing up in the circumstances they could have.

All are spayed and neutered, in case anybody's wondering.

Guess that's enough for now.