I have always had a connection with animals. Animals have always been a huge part of my life. I do not think there has ever been a time in my life where I have not had a pet living with me. I was born in to a house with two cats. When I was 5, my family got our first dog, Taffy. Taffy was the best. He was a calm, patient Sheltie that I always felt like was a brother/best friend to me. Taffy lived to be 15 years old, so he passed away while I was in college. Don’t even get me talking about his passing. That was the saddest day I lived through my then, 20 years of life. He died in my dad’s arms. My dad was balling. I was balling. We were all balling. A big part of our lives were now missing.
I always wanted to work with animals when I grew up, it was only natural. So, I went to college at Michigan State University‘s Lyman Briggs College and got my B.S. in Zoology, with a double concentration in Ecology, Evolution, & Organismal Biology and Animal Behavior & Neurobiology. My goals were to move to Florida, South Carolina, or California to work in a Zoo in their Education department… You know, life happens. My dad passed away my Junior year of college. I chose to stay home in Michigan the years following, not to help take care of my mom. She didn’t need it. She’s a tough, strong woman. I wanted to be there with her during a very difficult time in our lives. My siblings both already lived in different states, so I chose to stay in Michigan. Maybe it was for her to support me, or us to support each other. I knew one thing, I was determined to make Zoology work for me in Michigan. I got my internship at the local zoo as their first Education intern. Then I was hired in seasonally for the next two years to work in their Education department as a Teacher Aide and Zoo Instructor. Unfortunately, this was in 2008-2010, right in the downturn of the US economy. A great time to be graduating college with an “exotic” degree (NOT). The zoo just became a seasonal zoo, so there wasn’t a chance for me to be hired in full-time. I had to find a full-time position that offered benefits. That’s where my career really took off. I got work in Humane Societies, all because of a fellow MSU alum, who was the Veterinary Director at the local Humane Society. She knew my degree and what I could be capable of. So over the next 6 years, I was working in Animal Welfare in the kennels, Development (fundraising), Public Relations and Marketing, adopting animals all along the way! This led to my path where I am at now, being a Marketing Manager for a automotive dealer group. It’s a very exciting career path, that allows me to support my animal addiction. Even though, I am officially outside of the animal welfare career, far from my college degree, I still donate my time to animals. I volunteer at shelters and I am a member of BISSELL Pet Foundation‘s Junior Board of Directors.
But, hey! I still like to think I work in a similar field. I help find homes from homeless cars!
So, you ask “What is an animal addiction?” Haha! We have 6 cats and 2 dogs. (Since I’ve lived on my own, I’ve had 7 cats and 3 dogs. Two have crossed the rainbow bridge.) Our cats we like to call “the Island of Misfit Cats”. Most of our cats have special needs in some way or another. Since I worked in Humane Societies, I adopted the cats that needed me the most. They are all wonderful, unique babies that I love equally.
My first pet I got on my own was an 8-year-old Lynx Pointe Siamese name Jack. Jack had dental disease and kidney failure when I adopted him. We bonded so incredibly fast. This boy was my heart. He had the best Siamese meow and was my “cat hat” every single night. I had to give Jack subcutaneous fluids for the last 2.5 years of his life due to his kidney disease. He passed away in 2015. We kept his ashes and got a paw print in clay. This one still hurts to this day. He was “my” first cat!
A few weeks after getting Jack, he “needed” a sibling. I then adopted a fire-y 6-month-old calico name Agnes. She came to the Humane Society at 3 months old. She was either dropped from high distance or bit an electrical cord. She had a broken jaw, broken femur, and fractured pelvis. She is the Queen and has the ‘tude to prove it. But she is always my bear cat, who is the sweetest most cuddly girl (on her own time). A little insight on her name… Have you ever seen “Despicable Me“? You know the crazy little girl, Agnes? Yes. She’s named after her.
You guys, I was good with having two cats. I mean, I was single. No man would ever want to be in a relationship with the crazy cat lady, right? The world had a different plan for me, though….
I was working at the Humane Society and there were two office cats. Hadley and Minnie. Hadley was 2 or 3 years old and was set on fire before he came in. Someone put accelerant on him and SET HIM ON FIRE! How awful! Minnie was a semi-feral 6 months old cat that got stuck in a car engine and had a severely injured front leg. They were going to amputate her leg, but she started walking on it just fine. Now she’s just malformed. Hadley and Minnie really bonded during their healing process as “office cats”. They were there for at least one year before the staff even thought about putting them up for adoption. They wanted to see how they would do in a home with other pets, so they asked me to foster them for two weeks. I said “Sure, for two weeks.” Six months went by and the process wasn’t moving forward to find them a home. So, I asked if I could adopt them because I was growing very attached to both of them. Minnie is a shy girl, and was just getting used to my home. There was no-way I could put her through the stress off moving in to a new home again! I was a sucker, foster-failure. I think that was their plan all along.
So, here I was, 24 years old… WITH 4 CATS! Everyone thought I was crazy to have 4 cats. I even questioned my decision occasionally, wondering if I could ever date someone who would accept it. I was obsessed with keeping my house clean. I didn’t want anyone to walk in and tell I had 4 cats, other than seeing them. I cleaned their litter boxes twice a day, vacuumed daily, brushed them… Everything to keep my 1-bedroom apartment clean!
Dating was fun then… Some guys were open, or so you thought…. Until they weren’t… I always knew that I would find a man who would share a passion for animals. And boy, did I find him! Sometimes I think he is a bigger pet fan than I am.
I met Anthony and found out he had a cat… and he had my heart! He found his cat, Lola, while he was in college in Bemidji, Minnesota. He found her in the pouring rain in a Wal-Mart parking lot at 6 weeks old back in 2010. He’s had her ever since! I’ve heard stories of her fitting inside a red Solo cup. Lola is God’s gift to Anthony. She walks on water to him. Lola can do no wrong. Now, I say all my cats are “special needs”. The only thing “special need” about Lola is that she’s obese. There’s no controlling it, either. I am a lucky lady to find a guy who loves animals as much as I do.
Anthony and I moved in together in to a 3-bedroom townhouse with lots of space after 10 months of dating in 2013. We had our next big obstacle to conquer: introduce Lola to my 4 cats… Lola lived as the only cat for a while. This was going to take some serious strategy. Thankfully, I worked in animal welfare and knew how to do proper intros with separation and slow, controlled meetings. It went off without a hitch!
About 5 months after moving in with each other, I was doing an event for work where I had to bring a dog. It was late at night, so I didn’t want to go back to the shelter to bring it back late at night. I asked to bring a dog that was good with cats so I could bring it home overnight… They sent me out with my favorite dog at the shelter, Piston (obviously, I think they had ulterior motives). Piston came home that night and got along with the cats so well! He was such a big scary Pitbull! Anthony walked him and fell in love. Piston was an angel on leash. He loves walks and getting attention. I was getting ready to bring Piston back to the shelter, Anthony said “I don’t want him to go back”. So, I knew Piston was coming back home with me that night…. And he never left…
We all know that Anthony and I have a special spot in our hearts for “special needs”. While at the Humane Society, we had a 1.5-year-old stray, Kit-Kat, come in that was shot with .22 caliber and had to have his front right leg amputated. Anthony and I foster him during his recovery. This cat, was the sweetest, funniest cat I have ever met. He was very sick at first with a bad upper respiratory infection and was healing from his amputation. We kept him the spare bedroom in the basement. He was gross and smelled soooooo bad! He couldn’t clean himself and had nasty antibiotic diarrhea poops! He pooped all over himself that Anthony and I had to give the poor guy a bath in the sink. He didn’t even fight the baths because he was so weak. This was right around Thanksgiving and we had to have around-the-clock care for him. So, we brought him to Anthony’s parents just outside of Chicago for Thanksgiving weekend. Funny side note: we found out he does not like car rides. He did the hat trick in the care within the first 30 minutes. Pooped, puked, and peed. A little pit stop in Saugatuck to clean him and his carrier up! Each day he got healthier and healthier and his spunky personality came out even more. It was only natural for Anthony to ask if we could keep him. So, I said “yes”. From this day on, Kit-Kat was now known at Walter. I am the worst at fostering. I get too attached. I only think I could foster a litter of kittens or puppies. Never a single animal…
Boy, this sure does seem like was have a lot of pets. Let’s count at this point. Anthony and I have had: Jack, Agnes, Hadley, Minnie, Lola, Piston, and Walter. 6 cats. 1 dog.
Well, we might as well keep going!
Ant and I bought our first home together in October of 2015. We had a big yard and felt like we had a lot of love left to give. We were ready to add another dog to our crew. We started the conversation with the Adoption Coordinator, because we wanted to make sure it was the right dog: 1-that was fine with cats; and 2- that Piston got along with. We met with 3-4 different dogs. I wanted to leave the decision up to Anthony. Piston is such a huge momma’s boy, we wanted to get a dog “for Anthony”. Ant decided on a girl name Bonita. We did 4 dog-to-dog intros with Piston and the beautiful Bonita, a grey Pitbull terrier that lived at the shelter for 4 years. She was about 6 years old and was over-looked because she had skin-issues and was high energy in the shelter. Her and Piston got along great. We ended up adopting her in January 2016. She was perfect and had great little “quirks”. She had a blankie that she always had to have with her. She would carry it around wherever she went. It was the cutest thing to say, “Let’s go to bed” and have her run to find her blankie and carry it upstairs to bed. She loved to be under the covers. Every night she would nest under the covers next to our feet. We loved these two dogs soooo much. We even included them in our engagement photos.
Sadly, after 3.5 months of loving on Bonita, she developed Auto-Immune Hemolytic Anemia and it progressed quickly. She left this Earth, way too soon. Our hearts were broken.
We did not want to adopt another dog anytime soon. We needed to heal over our sudden loss.
I was out of working in animal welfare at this point. I was now the Marketing Manager at a two-state automotive dealer group. I still followed the former shelters I worked with on social media and was close with my ex-co-workers. I have connections at local event venues and frequently get asked what animal welfare organization they should support when an animal activist celebrity comes to town. Well, Cesar Milan was coming to town and I recommended my former place of employment to showcase their dogs. They brought a bunch of their adoptable dogs for Cesar to show his training techniques on. Well, there was this 5 months of Pitbull mix named Benjamin. He was adorable and so well behaved. I was following his pictures on social media for a week before the Adoption Coordinator reached out to me to tell me they have the perfect dog to fit in with Piston… Since we had our eye on him, we decided to take Piston out to the shelter to meet Benjamin… Guess what, he came home with us that day… We changed his name to Duncan after my favorite Chicago Blackhawk, Duncan Keith. So now we have a 5-month-old puppy…
So you deserve the truth here… I regretted my decision getting Duncan for about the first 8 months after adopting him… He was so calm when we met him at the shelter… when we brought him home it was a different story! He was a maniac! He did not listen, he was hard to train, and had so much energy, despite taking him to day care for socialization! Guys, do not trust any cuteness of a puppy. They are all the devil. This is the exact reason why so many shelters have adolescent dogs surrendered. They are just like teenagers. They have selective hearing and want to explore on their own. To top it off, Duncan developed bad food allergies and has idiopathic head tremors. He can only eat grain-free foods and gets yogurt twice a day to help with his head tremors. So very high-maintenance! My advice to everyone with an adolescent dog: be strong and patient. It gets better! It took us about 8 months until Duncan finally started listening. And I am so happy we adopted him. He is my shadow, a big momma’s boy (sorry Ant), and listens like an angel… now!
Fast forward 1.5 years. This has been the longest time frame since Anthony and I have adopted an animal. We had no intentions in adding to our crew.
We had to go to a pet store to pick up some items for the pets. It was National Adopt A Pet weekend and rescues/shelters were there. I intentionally did not walk by the pets, but Anthony walked by the cats and I hear “Sar… Sarah…. Sar. Look. at. this. cat.” I ignore him. “Sar. Come here. Sar!” (Everyone that knows Ant, knows exactly what this sounds like). I went over and he pointed to the cat at the bottom, his name was Garth. HE WAS HUGE! This is the biggest house cat I have ever seen! The lady volunteering there asked if we wanted to meet him and Anthony said “YES” before I could even say anything. Garth melted right in to my arms and began purring. Purring is quite possibly the best sound. It is so relaxing and tranquil I then put him down on the ground, he followed us around and flipped and flopped at our feet. Welp… it looks like we’re getting another cat… We filled out the adoption application and were approved on the spot. We made decided to bring Garth home the next day since our house was not ready to bring him home same day. We had to set up an area in the house separate from all the other pets.
Garth was the hardest cat addition we have ever done. Things just weren’t working out well, despite doing all the proper protocol in adding a new in to a multi-cat household. We were soooooo close in to giving up and returning him to the shelter. In fact, I even sent an e-mail to the shelter director to set up a date for us to return him, 3 months after we adopted him… I felt awful and like a failure, so I did some more research. I ended up buying Sentry Calming collars and Feliway Multi-cat diffusers. LIFE SAVERS. We have been using them in our home for about 30 days now, and things are so much more serene. The peace has been restored! Hallelujah! Garth is definitely Ant’s cat. Garth and Ant have bonded. He is always right next to Ant, cuddling away.
So, there you go. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10. Ten pets! I wish I could show you a picture of all of them together… but do you know how hard it is to do that? Plus, two are dead.
As you can see, we have our hands full. I’m thankful to life a lifestyle where Anthony and I can support our pets and their needs. The special needs of our cats to the special needs of Duncan. Our pets are truly our children. Children that we can easily find a sitter to watch when we want to go on vacation. Or leave at home while we go out and do our thing.
We always get asked if we are going to have kids. And the answer is: we don’t know. We are content living the lifestyle we currently are. It’s nice to have some disposable income where we can go on nice vacations, take care of our pets, go out to dinner, and not have to worry about bills or extreme budgeting (yes, we do budget, but it is not a stress for us). Plus, I am still pay student loans off. For a degree I’m not even using…
I have never had a strong attraction to be a mom. Sure, there are days where I do get baby fever. There are days when I’m all about it… but then I take a step back. Daycare: expensive. Medical care/insurance: expensive. Diapers: expensive. Kids = expensive! We are not in a position where one of us can stay home, either. Plus, the majority of our pets are around 6-10 years old. They’re no spring chickens, they’re going to have some old-age medical ailments. We are fully aware that there will probably be a rough few years coming up, as much as I hate to admit it (why can’t they live forever!?).
People tell me I’ll change my mind. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. When it comes down to it. It is our decision. We are not being selfish for wanting to live our lives how we see best for us. We are a young, early 30’s couple just enjoying our lifestyle. Right now, nieces and nephews are good enough for us!
Married without Kids 
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