Our Pets

Plato
Boston Terrier

Caligula
Grey and White Tabby

Lucifer Sam
Pug

Dearly Departed

Persephone
(possibly English Shorthair or Russian Blue?)

Hieronymus
Pug

Natasha
Tortiseshell

Vladimir
Grey/Brown Tabby

Stan and I aren't the kind of people to coo over baby humans. But put a four-footer in front of us and we turn to mush. Whenever I visit a person with a cat or dog, said animal will undoubtedly become my instant friend. For this reason, we decided to get many of our own fur people.

When we first moved in together, our rentals only allowed us to have newts, salamanders and lizards. We had to sneak our pet rats. In 1985 we got our first cats together when we rented a small house in Colorado. We got our first cat, Natasha in September 1995 and Vladimir on April Fool's Day 1996.

In 1990 we bought our Madison house, and soon acquired our first dog, Hieronymus the Pug, shortly afterward. Our cats at the time were quite miffed that we introduced a canine into our family, and refused to make friends with Hieronymus. With Stan at work all day and me in graduate school at the time made for a lonely daytime pug, so we got him a little friend to keep him company, Persephone. It worked...he didn't destroy as much of our belongings when he had a buddy to keep him company!

A small house and negligible urban yard keeps our dogs of the small variety, but inside I lust for a Bulldog and a Boxer, although Plato our Boston has the energy of three dogs.

With five pets (including overly hyper Plato), we felt we had enough. But when Vladimir died, we missed the presence of a friendly, grey male tabby, so we then got Caligula, possibly the sweetest cat ever. When Natasha died, we decided to keep our pets at four, two cats and two dogs.