So, I'm having to do research on the years on which certain things happened to Ferdie. I was young when we got her and I can't remember the dates very well. This means that it will be a while before I am able to post her story.

While thinkning on what I was going to do, I realized I could right a short story about one of the animals for you all to read. Then you can learn alittle more about the animals! -and maybe some more about my family and me!-

The other day my sister and me had been babysitting and had barely been home much. So, for either of us, it was no surprise when Sasha went crazy to see us.

I had to go check the messages and Alexi had nothing to do, leading her to go see Sasha first. Now when our dogs get excited they jump around and lick and jump somemore. But something new happened on this day.

My sister went and was about to pet Sasha, but had to stop because I called for her (her boyfriend called and needed her to call him back right away). She turned to come see me and was brought to a halt by Sasha. Firmly, yet not hard, Sasha opened her mouth and held onto Alexi's hand. She nearly through a fit! At first she had thought that Sasha was going to clamp down and try to take her hand. In the end she ended up laughing, because Sasha almost instantly let go of her hand and started to rub her head into my sister's palm.

A few mintues after I called for her, Alexi showed up and practically blabbed on and on about what had happened. We both ended up laughing when she told me what Sasha had done.

So, the next day when we saw our mom; my sister instantly started to relay the story to her. When the story was finished my mom had a bright smile on her face. This smile led to a similar tale that happened to her.

When my mom was younger and was first starting school; she had, had a half German Shepherd-Half Iris Setter, named: Ranger. They, at the time, had lived on a slightly steep hill and was surrounded by trees.

Every afternoon my mother would get off the bus and would instantly be met by Ranger. -When telling the story she would laugh because most parents would pick their kids up and my grandparents would just let Ranger out and let him go get her-
He would gently take her hand in his mouth and lead her up the hill. And wouldn't let go until she was standing on the porch.

Of course my sister immediately met this story with, "Well that makes Sasha greedy. Ranger would lead you home and Sasha just tries to get your attention!"

I like that story because it makes me think of the little saying 'Like Father, Like Son' except this time it's 'Like Mother, Like Daughter'!

Let me see. What other story can I tell you all? I have an idea. Go to my first blog and pick whichever animal you want to hear more about, since it will be a while until I can post Ferdie's full story and I'm not about to skip her again, and I will post a little 'short story' about the animal that you leave in a comment! You can ever pick Ferdie and I'll pick a story to tell you all about!

Hope you liked the little 'short story'!

I've posted my first blog-message-thing and had described all the animals the my family currently ownes. I was excited to see that people seemed to like the blog (or at least wanted to welcome me) and so I thought 'Why not let them know a little more about my pets, before I start to ramble about myself. . . ' So, once again, I was not able to fight with myself.

This brought my to the decision on who to write about first. While must people like to start youngest-to-oldest; I always liked giving respect to elders. This brings me to start with Sasha!

Sasha Marie Staats. The beautiful white German Shepherd was brought into our home right in time for Christmas.

It was around the Christmas of 2004. We had just adopted a cute little mutt named 'Newton',we re-named him to Serge -sounds like 'Sarg'-. He disappeared on April 1, 2007-more about that later-, and we were not really looking to take to many more animals in. But, my step-father being the only non-crazy-animal-lover, we couldn't help ourselves when we heard Alexis and her sister Sable were being put up for adopt.

She had been bred to be a police dog and had even been bought by the local sheriffs of our town. (When they got her they hadn't been sheriffs of our town. But they soon moved here and took the position)

The sheriffs that owned her weren't trained to have a 'k-9 partner' so she was never really raised that way. At 10 months old she was living in a crate for 18-20 hours a day, along with Sable, and when let out was stuck on a leash the whole time.

When my mother heard of Alexis and Sable being put up for adoption she couldn't stop herself from going to take a look. She and my youngest sister went on down to the sheriffs' house, (yes, It was a man and a woman. I feel it a good time to mention that. Since I've been making it kinda sound like one person) which wasn't out of the way, since my grandparents live right next to them, and had arrived just as the dogs were being walked.

My sister was the first to get out of the car and instantly went to see Alexis. My sister was shocked, since neither of us had even seen a white German Shepherd before, and was instantly in love with her.

My mother had liked the looks of Sable more. For when she saw Alexis she could tell the dog had hip problems, and looked far to skinny for her own good,(from being in the crate so much, at such a young age) and was keen on getting Sable.

But, things worked out my sister's way, when my mother figured out that Sable was a cat-chaser (and had even gotten and injured one before) she said, "I think we'll take the white one."

So, Alexis the white German Shepherd came to our home and was instantly renamed to Sasha. Not wanting her to have many connections to her life in a crate.

She was ten months old when we got her (we aren't sure how old she was when the sheriffs bought her) and she instantly took all our hearts by the time she was another week older. She has been the best dog an owner could want and has never caused. . . to many. . . problems.

The worst of her problems being is that she is long-haired and likes to shed alot.

She is now three years old and is currenly doing great. She had alot of fat and muscle on her now. And her hips are better then we've ever seen them!

About a year ago we were looking at the local newspaper and was reading an article about a German Shepherd police dog. (His name was Apollo) My mother and I started to talk about how the dog slightly looked like Sasha (except that Sasha is completely white and Apollo wasn't). She then told me that Apollo was the name of either, possibly, Sasha's father or her half-brother. I was pretty excited to hear more about our cute ol'Sasha's bloodline!

My family, and even now my step-dad, have become big on helping animals. It seemed ever since we got Sasha; our paths have crossed many animals that were in need of homes and we have tried hard to help every single one.

For a moment. I'm going to talk alittle more on Sasha's name.

Let's begin with her first name. My mother had wanted to give her a nice name that started with 's'. Since we now had a little puppy thats named started with 's'.

So we came down to 'Socks' and 'Sasha'. It was a popular vote for 'Sasha'!

Now her middle name. When my sisters and me had first met my step-father (before he was married to my mom) we had taken quite a liking to him. My older sister and him would constantly have matches with one another on whatever they could find.

This continued to even when he was finally married to my mother.

One day they had a nice little match on names. David (my step-father) had been REALLY big on the 'RC' drinks. So my sister would call him 'Redneck Child' (slightly for the fact he had a mullet at the time as well). His come back was 'Queenie' (since she was high-maintence at the time).

This went on for a while until we all realized that we didn't know our own step-father's middle name! Instead of figuring out what it was, my older sister instantly dubbed him 'David Marie Staats'!


The game stopped about a month later. It was never mentioned again unless David did something wrong (like spell our names wrong on our birthday cakes Even the first year knowing us and he spelled our names better then anyone else... so kudos to him!) then came the 'David Marie what were you thinking?'

So, when we got Sasha our little habit some how picked up onto her. If she got into the trash or something we could call, 'Sasha Marie Staats!' For some reason though, it never got picked up on Serge. Oh well. His middle name was 'courage' sometimes. As a joke since he was scared of plastic bags.

And at last her last name. Our father's (as I am now going to refer to him as, since you all have picked up on who he is) last name is 'Staats'.

There is the tale of Sasha Marie Staats. The wonderful dog that has come into our lives! (and even a little more about myself and family.)

I hope you all enjoyed. I hope to make a blog on Ferdie next. . . WAIT! Smoly Hokes! Ferdie is older. Oh well. I'll let the feline get away with age. . . just this once. After I have all the animals blogged for. I'm going to make a little blog-message for the animals we have losted over the past few years!

Thanks for all who read this! I hope you have enjoyed Sasha's little tail! -haha... tail.. tale... I make cheesy jokes-



That's my younger cousin. . . Just for reference!

So, incase by now you haven't been able to tell, this is my first blog. I've never messed around with them much. Don't know why. Just never brought myself around to doing it.

Then I thought, 'Why not try it and see what happens?' Since I'm not good at fighting with myself; I found myself doing just what my thoughts told me to do. Make a blog.

So. . . for my first blog. . . I thought that I would talk about the upbringing of my life and love for animals. Yeah, I don't love/like all animals, but I would never harm them no matter how I felt towards them.

I grew up living with my mom and two sisters, and sometimes living with my grandparents. Since my mom was a young girl, animals had seemed to be attracted to her and this has stayed with her all her life. So, since I was a child, there have been animals around. Stray cats or dogs always turned up on our porch and injured wild animals always found our house.

Currently I live with two dogs, one horse, one cat, and four fish (and my family of course). We usually have more, but after a few losts we have found ourselves not adopting as meaning as before.
-Before hand I would like to apoligize for the images being huge!-

The two dogs are called Sasha and Jordan.
Sasha is a white German Shepherd



and
Jordan is a black and white Pit Bull.


The one horse is named Maya and she is a Tennessee Walker.

Ferdie is my younger sister's tabby cat. [[Sorry. Don't have a picture of her at the moment! ]]

Two Angel fish named Blackie and Spot.





Two Oscar fish named Holey and Moley. (They were given these names for one had a huge hole in his fin when we got him. So came the name Holey and a name to rhyme: Moley.)



As I've said, we usually have more animals. But with a few 'incidents' we have found ourselves a little afraid to.

We adopted some kittens and were so happy to have them. Brother and sister, named: Jack and Sally (from the Nightmare before Christmas).
Jack became sick and soon had to be put down from 'cat cancer' (I'm bad with spelling so I will put that). Sally caught it after him and she had to be put down.



Jack is on the right and Sally is on the left!

Even more recently we went on a little 'animal rescue' and were faced with the worst case of 'lack of treatment'. A momma dog gave birth to puppies that were scattered everywhere outside and had flys land on them and infest them with maggots. When we got there and the puppies were already half way eaten up from maggots. Poor things were still alive to. We tried to get the maggots out with tear droppers, but the maggots had already done to much damage. The puppies had to be put down and the mother is being treated and soon will be put up for adoption. [[Don't have images and I wouldn't put them on here, I couldn't bring myself to make you all look at the poor puppies!]]

I know what you are thinking, 'Maggots don't eat live flesh.' Slightly true. Not all maggots eat live flesh. But some eat young fresh flesh and need it or it won't survive. (Something like that) Visit here to see more on maggots: Wikipedia

So, this is why we have not been adopting animals. With losses like these, we have found ourselves needing time to heal.

Well, it's late where I am and I'm getting a little tired. So, I shall wrap this up. . . I'm not sure how though.

I'll end it with a good night, good morning, good day, good life. Which ever happens when you are reading this blog.

Thank you for reading and sorry if this is not the best blog you've read!