Unlike the livestock, our Other Animals are our pets even if they have a duty here on the ranch. Take for example our chubby Labrador, Cage. Other people have cats who pretty much take care of themselves. I have the ones who require special diets, special baths, and tear their meniscus running from the vacuum. I won’t even go into how I convinced Jeremy to pay for knee surgery on an elderly cat, except to say that he loves me very much. Are you kidding me? Horses are way too much work, and our ranch is not that big. We do occasionally have real, live horses staying here – but they belong to other people.
Cage is really good at his job, which is to follow us around sometimes, but lay in the shade at other times. He has a keen intuition that tells him when he should do one or the other. If Jeremy is driving the tractor, he follows until it gets too dusty or too hot, and then he lays in the shade, and occasionally takes a dip in the pond. His other job is to not eat the livestock or the other pets. This sounds simple, yet we’ve had some trouble with this in the past – which is why Cage is an only dog, whose brothers have gone off to live in the city. Sounds kind of backwards, doesn’t it?
One of the icky problems that comes with living on a ranch, besides something obvious like poo, is the pests. We get all kinds of bugs, inside and out. We also get mice in our barn, sometimes even rats. We have pest control, of course, but you know what takes care of mice and rats better than a tall man in a little truck?
Tiger
Don’t let his prettiness fool you. He is a fierce warrior, killing and disemboweling many a rat. He is also incredibly loyal, especially for a former feral, and follows us wherever we happen to go on the ranch. His dad, on the other hand, has retired to the porch in his old age.
Simon
It’s hard to see in the photo, but his underside is completely copper-toned from the number of hours he spends sunning himself every day. He’s earned his lazy ways, though. When he adopted us 4 years ago, he was battle scarred and road weary. The vet estimates his age at around 16, which says a lot for his spirit. Their story is interesting and filled with heartache and peril and triumph over hardships, but we’ll have to save that for another day.
We also have three inside cats, and their job is to do absolutely nothing. They are very, very good at this. They like to keep me on my toes, taking turns throwing up in the night in places where I’m most likely to find it (with my feet).
Chloe (super old)
Kitty (pretty old)
Eema (young-ish)
No ranch is complete without a horse or two. We agonized over breed, age, and lineage before we made the leap into horse ownership. Horses are a lot of hard work, and neither Jeremy nor I had ever done anything but ride.
After weighing our options, we decided on this beauty:
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One reply on “Other Domesticated Animals”
Ok, I’ve read all of these animal posts, and I must say that other than the cats, the only one I think I can handle is your horse.
I have former ferals, too and I agree with you. They are the most loyal, and low maintenance, cats I have ever had. But really, really, big.