I've always grown up with cats. Before I was able to walk we had a couple of twins called Sooty and Sumi stealing my baby food and batting my head when nobody was looking. Sadly Sumi died young enough that I don't really remember him, but when I was a toddler we got another called Cassandra (Cassie for short). She was a shy thing and only really opened up in her old age, though I can't imagine having a screaming toddler and a 5 year old running about the place when she was a kitten helped much, not to mention Sooty was the sort of cat who would get in fights with the dogs in the neighbourhood. And win. What she lacked in bulk she made up for in cunning though, particularly in the abuse of our young (at the time) dog, getting her to run for her straight into glass doors and knocking things off the counter onto her head and the like. Eventually she grew tired of that and resorted to simple swatting, and then grew too lazy even for that and ended up spending her last days napping and digging her claws into you if you stopped petting her. Our Tibetan Terrier died a few months back now, and now we're left with only one cat, Geoffrey. His age is now in the double digits but he still hasn't learnt that he's quite small and will come off the worst for wear in every fight.
Apart from that we've also had a Hamster (Tallie), Guinea Pigs (Arthur and Merlin, though these live with my sister), Rabbits (Flopsy and Mopsy), a Tortoise (Millie), Stick Insects (Zippy, Speedy, Lidia and Missing - we thought we bought two, then we found a third on the lid, and about a week later found a fourth) and too many fish to even begin to name. With the exception of one (whose name escapes me ironically) because despite being a goldfish without any teeth, she had a habit of sucking off the scales of every other fish in her tank until they bled to death. After about 4 or 5 mornings of waking up to a blood-filled tank we gave up, and oddly she died a few weeks later. We also cared for an albino ferret called Yuki who used to like riding our dog like a bucking bronco. I had her as my profile status on FB for years and is where the "ferret" part of my nickname derives from.
