Day 7 - My favorite animal

My favorite animal is--hands down--man's best friend. My earliest memories all feature canines of some variety. I remember Tina, the Irish Setter (who, in later years, I found out was actually 2 or 3 Irish Setters, as they are prone to running away); Max, the cocker spaniel; my grandparents' cocker, Rusty; my other gradparents' Jack Russell, Buffy; a mangy mutt of questionable heritage named Whiskers; my aunt's cocker named Rusty, followed by a black cocker named Rufus. Add to that the various aunts, uncles and neighbors with pooches and it's been a dogs life for me.

As I got older, I acquired a few dogs of my own. First was Tuppy, the most neurotic little cocker spaniel ever; if Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer) had been offering his wisdom back then, my family and I would have had a much better experience, to be sure. She came to me via classified ad, riddled with phobias (motorcycles, men in uniform) and with the worst separation anxiety I had ever seen. While it eventually evened out over the years, to the day she passed on she was definitely "quirky".

Our current pet, a long hair-short hair mixed Chihuaha named Whiskey, doesn't even live with us. We moved into a 2 story home when he was 8 months old and I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, stumping around with a broken foot. The doctors had me on very limited activity and there was no way I could handle taking this very energetic little guy out for his walks every day, so my husband's brother and his family took over caretaking for awhile. We didn't want to bring him back immediately after the baby was born, for fear he would view her as a new chew toy (he had a bit of an agressive tendency, though neutering him eventually tamed that).

As time passed and the baby became a toddler, then a preschooler, it seemed cruel to take him away from the family he'd been with for so long, though I do miss him very much.