Our first pet was Aylah, a white cat who was with The Girl in college and moved with us to Cincinnati, Aylah passed away last summer on the morning of July Fourth after fighting cancer and eventually having her leg amputated.
We also had two more cat, Piddiddle (rescued from a friend of The Girl's who was going through a nasty divorce) and Minnie (rescued from The Girl's mother who happened to have life-threatening cat allergies.) Apparently we took one digital photo of Minnie and none of Piddidle, though.
The first of our dogs was LeRoy, a mutt who was loved terribly by Aylah and by us. I still can't write about LeRoy without getting a bit of dust in my eye. He was a spectacular dog and the one pet who was closer to me than to The Girl.
About a year later, Harlan came into our lives thanks to the Save the Animals Foundation over on Red Bank Road. Harlan, LeRoy, and Aylah were a trio with us for nearly a decade, and Harlan and Aylah passed away within a few days of each other last summer.
We were a one-dog, one-cat family for a short while after LeRoy passed away, and The Girl went hunting for a young dog to bring in and keep Harlan company, maybe to be able to pass some of his spectacular personality on to. That's when we got Clementine, a loveable pit bull who came to us pudgy, quickly got fat, and now is a gorgeous, lumbering dog.
Hollis is the last dog to permanently join our home, and he also came - as did Clementine - from the Adore-a-Bull rescue group. He's energetic, loving, desperate to lick everyone incessantly, and a great addition to the family.
We've also taken to housing foster dogs for the Adore-a-Bull group, having had Hattie for a couple of months...
...Walker for a couple of months...
...and now Dot for less than a week so far.
Pepper - a friend's dog - has also visited on a few occasions...
