Love & Horses Blog Hop

There's a fun new blog hop over at Love and Horses, asking us other than horses what other pets do we have?

I think everyone who reads my blog regularly knows about my other pets (I also have pages on all of them here and on my Farmer Life blog), but for new readers this is such a great way to introduce the full cast of characters!

Led Zeppelin

I can't seem to find any pictures of him clean or in his summer coat lol.

Zep isn't technically a horse, so I'm including him lol!  In 2009 (about a month before I got Chrome) my dad bought Zep for really cheap from a guy who never touched him (he was born on the guy's property).  He was being kept on a property with really bad barbed wire fences and TONS of junk and metal in the pasture.  He was also being kept with his mom, dad and sister... he was two years old at the time and not gelded!  Dad is also the one who named him Led Zeppelin hehe.

Ah ha here is a summer shot.

Zep stayed at on my parent's property until January 2010 when I had to rehome my filly (for kicking Chrome in the face).  He and Chrome have been best friends ever since.

He's been the best companion I could have asked for.  Since he wasn't handled at all he is still very skittish of humans.  I started clicker training him a few years ago and got to where I could actually pet him all over except for his belly and legs (but only standing on his left side, he wouldn't let me on his right side).  Sadly when we moved in February 2013 and got busy building our house I stopped working with him and he's reverted back to being skittish.

I can still touch him on the head, but that's about it.  I really need to start working with him again.  We are able to trap him in a pen to deworm him luckily.  I'm currently working on touching his legs and hooves in the pen (we can push the panel in on him like stocks) so we can start trimming him (luckily he has self trimmed fairly well).  

 Zep is seven now (wow that's hard to believe!) and he's still a total character.  Everyone who meets him loves him.  :)

 Jackal

I don't even know where to start with Jackal.  He is the best dog I've ever raised/trained.  Ever since Storm (my Siberian Husky) died earlier this year he is my everything.  He helped me through that pain.

I got Jackal for free from a lady that my husband worked with in March of 2008.  She bred Yorkshire Terriers, but her husband had a pack of hunting Beagles and a Mountain Cur dog.  They were all kept separate because they didn't breed those dogs.  Jackal's mom (the Beagle) got out of her pen and bred with Jackal's dad (the Mountain Cur).  Her husband threatened to kill the puppies (Jackal and one sister) if she didn't get rid of them, but I don't know how serious he was.

We had been wanting a second dog so that Storm wouldn't be home alone all day while we were at work.  Since I picked out Storm (when I was a teenager) I told hubby he could pick the next dog.  He wanted a hunting dog, so when he heard about the puppies (we were originally told they were Beagle/Feist so we thought they would stay small) he said he wanted one.  My only request was that we get the male puppy.  So we brought him home.

I started clicker training him immediately!!  Jackal was the first dog that I clicker trained from a tiny puppy (I didn't discover it until Storm was already grown).  Training Jackal was totally different from training Storm.  I learned a LOT!  He did too!  When I stopped training (real life kinda went ape sh*t) he knew over forty tricks and behaviors.  :)

 Look at how lean he was at just under a year old!!!

I have to be more strict on his diet!

Jackal never did turn into a hunting dog.  He liked to "track" the cat, but he was oblivious to squirrels (never looked up in the trees until we moved here) and deer.  He did like chasing rabbits though hehe.  I don't mind that he never became a hunting dog.  I kept him inside, babied him, spoiled him, etc.  He isn't cut out for the rough and tumble life of a hunting dog hehe.  :D

 I never thought of myself as a hound owner, but he's been the best hound dog I've ever met.  :)  I love this dog!  Here is some more picture spam before we move on to the next pet.

 

 One of the things I love about him is his solid sit/down/stay. 

It makes posing for pictures so easy and awesome!

 More posing!  Good boy!

 I had to hold the end of the stick to keep him still for this one hehe.

Yep this one is posed too.  :D  He's my model!

Gray Kitty

Gray Kitty was my husband's cat when I met him.  He named her.... She Who Must Not Be Named a.k.a. Gray Kitty... yes we are Harry Potter nerds LOL!  I have threatened to give her a real name for years, but I never have.  :)  Hubby got her as a kitten from a retired military German lady in 2001 before he even moved to the state we live in now, so she's traveled some miles.  She's a spayed female cat of unknown breed, but she so closely resembles a Russian Blue that many people ask if she is.  For all we know she may be.  All I know is she's gorgeous, friendly, extremely smart and a total pest!  :D

You can see her starting to turn gray around her nose and mouth.

Goats

The newest additions to the family are these two male Pygmy goats.  We got them a month ago and we still haven't named them!!!  Ahh!  I'm leaning toward band names since we have Led Zeppelin.  Pink Floyd?  Aerosmith?  Hehe.  We will figure it out.

That is not blood on his side, it's from berries.

We have definitely missed having goats, but we weren't actively looking for any.  We were planning to wait until spring to get some (to help keep the undergrowth down in the pasture and off the fences), but someone left these guys at the school where my hubby works because they didn't want them anymore.  No one else wanted them so we offered to take them.  It took a while for them to work out the herd dynamics, but they fit in great now.  :)  Also that collar on the white goat we finally took it off a few days ago and it was tight!!  They've put on a lot of weight!

So that's my current menagerie.  It's probably the smallest amount of animals I've ever had.  We normally have chickens, ducks, turkeys, etc, but something killed the chickens and we gave the ducks away (couldn't keep them off the porch of the house... they are messy!).  Maybe we will get some more someday when things are more settled.  :)  If you decide to do the blog hop please leave a comment.  I would love to meet all of your other pets!!!!