Pets

[Glen Miyashiro]

It seems like everybody in the islands has a pet -- a dog, a cat, a bird, something! Almost every house in my neighborhood has a dog in the yard, and there are always cats around too.

Do you have pets? What kind? How many?

[Miulang]

We get 2 popoki: Shimai (so named because he was the last of his litter to be adopted) who is huuuuge (is now 19 lbs, used to be 25) and Hoku (because her "English" name before I adopted her was "Star"), and 7 colorful saltwater fishies: 2 tomato clowns, 2 Red Sea yellow damels (really mean buggahs these guys!) and 3 blue damsels living somewhat peacefully in a 45 gallon tank. We cannot get one dog because not fair to da dog to live in one condo!

Miulang

[Albert]

http://www.nahenahe.net/panther/secluded.html

"My" family of cats. I've been feeding the mama since she was a tiny kitten. Then she produced two children (and grandma moved away), then three more. Mercifully, one of the ladies who works so hard at the UH-Manoa campus to get the cats neutered managed to catch Mama (aka "Lady Grey") and she won't be producing any more. Only one of the latest batch still needs to be caught, the rest have been to the vet.

[Eric]

We have two dogs, a cockatiel, and five turtles. Here are the dogs...

[Linkmeister]

I live with a 12-year-old German short-haired pointer named Tigger (because she bounces).

[kamlost]

I have a dog, rabbit, bird, and hamsters, turtles too.

[glossyp]

We have three dogs - Po, Shadow and Lucy. They are all boonie dogs (that's what poi dogs are called on Guam) and we brought them with us when we moved back to Hawaii. We also have three cats - Angus, Smokey aka "evil kitty" and Tucker. They are all from here. Angus was purchased for $5 at the pet store in the Dillingham Shopping Center almost 15 years ago, Smokey was adopted from the humane society 8 years ago and Tucker was rescued from our street starving with eyes glued shut from infection (he was less than 1 pound) this past July. I can't imagine life without animal companions - they don't care if you ate the last slice of pizza or if you're having a bad hair day and they are always happy to see you - could there be a more perfect relationship? :)
P.S. Everyone should check out dogster.com and catster.com - very cool sites.

[pzarquon]

While we love pets, right now we have none. We 'ran out,' after our animal population slowly dwindled due to (mostly) natural causes.

Our last set of companions were cats, neighborhood strays, which we fixed and chipped but still let roam. I think a couple of them were later permanently adopted (or at least I hope that's what happened). One didn't get fixed in time and had kittens, the first I'd ever had to deal with, and while two were adopted, none ultimately survived for a variety of reasons.

At one point, we had two indoor cats, two outdoor dogs, a mix of parakeets and zebra finches and freshwater fish. The parakeets had free roam of the house, and we lost a few to torn window screens. :) The finches turned out to be surprisingly efficient parakeet exterminators when confined in a single cage...

Today, though, we have three kids, and they're "small frantic balls of energy" enough for now.

[Mocha]

We have two dogs...one lab/golden retriever mix and also a chocolate lab. Kula & Coffee! And an assortment of guppies (never ending...since my sons pet project in 5th grade) and he's now 35! We used to have dwarf bunnies but they all went to bunny heaven. :p

[helen]

No pets currently. Grew up mostly with dogs as pets but we had a cat or two along the way.

[Mokihana]

I have:

3 cats: Xanax, Makanani, ‘Ukulele
1 Australian Shepherd: Kukui
One parakeet: ‘Ānuenue
One Beta fish: Blalah

PLUS: 2 Maremma Livestock Guardian dogs in da pasture: Pīkake and Puakea (both white)

7 sheep
2 pygmy goats
2 llamas
and 2 horses that we're boarding.

[Miulang]

I have:

3 cats: Xanax, Makanani, ‘Ukulele
1 Australian Shepherd: Kukui
One parakeet: ‘Ānuenue
One Beta fish: Blalah

PLUS: 2 Maremma Livestock Guardian dogs in da pasture: Pīkake and Puakea (both white)

7 sheep
2 pygmy goats
2 llamas
and 2 horses that we're boarding.
Wow! You get one regular animal farm, yeah? :D Good ting you get plennnnty land foa dakine sheep, goats and llamas (and da guest horsies)!

Miulang

P.S. I no tink I like know how da popoki Xanax wen go get his name.

[kamlost]

Hey... do any of you know much about hamsters? Today, my other hamster attacked her companion and went straight for the throat, killed the poor thing and started eating it. THey have been getting along well though :(

[Miulang]

Hey... do any of you know much about hamsters? Today, my other hamster attacked her companion and went straight for the throat, killed the poor thing and started eating it. THey have been getting along well though :(
I used to have a hamster ("Hamlet") long time ago. Was the one who died a male or a female? 2 boy hamsters probably would get along, and you know what happens when you put a boy and a girl hamster together ;) , but 2 girl hamsters wouldn't do too good together.

Also, you don't have to worry too much about cold weather in Hawai'i, but one time I had Hamlet's cage near a window in the wintertime, and the poor thing went into suspended animation! I had to put him over a stove burner to thaw him out.

Miulang

[kamlost]

ahh.. They were both girls. The shop-person said it's okay to put two girls together. I guess he was wrong.

LOL! poor hamlet - did that make him well-done?

[Miulang]

ahh.. They were both girls. The shop-person said it's okay to put two girls together. I guess he was wrong.

LOL! poor hamlet - did that make him well-done?
Heh. No, more like "half baked"! :D I also had a gerbil named Portnoy.

Miulang

[kamlost]

Are gerbils nice as pets?

So, was hamlet the last hamster you had? What kind was he?

[craigwatanabe]

Heh. No, more like "half baked"! :D I also had a gerbil named Portnoy.

Miulang


as in Jeff?

[Miulang]

as in Jeff?

Not unless that was the name of the main character in "Portnoy's Complaint!"

Miulang

[Miulang]

Are gerbils nice as pets?

So, was hamlet the last hamster you had? What kind was he?
Gerbils (kangaroo rats) are cool. They're quiet, fairly intelligent and have looooong tails.

The only reason I got Hamlet was because he was a "refugee". I think he escaped from one of the apartments above mine (I was living in a dark studio apartment in Boston at the time) and somehow managed to crawl into my place. I had 2 cats then (TC and Charley) and one day both of them went charging into the kitchen area. I followed them in to the kitchen and there, in a corner, was this hamster, standing up on his hind legs, teeth bared, front paws outstretched and these 2 curious cats sniffing the air trying to figure out what he was. I found an empty mayonnaise jar and kept him in there until I could get to the pet store to buy one of those HabitTrail environments.

When I was still on Maui, I had a white rat named Curious George, too. I got him because he was a classroom pet and no one wanted to take him home when school ended, so I hid him in a shoebox in my closet and used to sneak food in to him until one day he got bored and started chewing on the box (rats have to do that to keep their teeth from getting too long). That's when my Mom found him scampering around. I pleaded with her to let me keep him, so we found an old mongoose cage that my grandpa had made years before. You know what? That buggah was the smartest animal I've ever had! He acted more like a dog than anything else. I'd put him in the back yard on the grass and he would come bounding over to me when I called him. And he would bite at anybody else's fingers if they tried to poke their fingers through the wire of his cage. Whenever I did that, he would just grab my finger and kiss it. Cute, yeah? He finally died of pneumonia after when he was about 4 years old.

Miulang

[kamlost]

Gerbils (kangaroo rats) are cool. They're quiet, fairly intelligent and have looooong tails.

The only reason I got Hamlet was because he was a "refugee". I think he escaped from one of the apartments above mine (I was living in a dark studio apartment in Boston at the time) and somehow managed to crawl into my place. I had 2 cats then (TC and Charley) and one day both of them went charging into the kitchen area. I followed them in to the kitchen and there, in a corner, was this hamster, standing up on his hind legs, teeth bared, front paws outstretched and these 2 curious cats sniffing the air trying to figure out what he was. I found an empty mayonnaise jar and kept him in there until I could get to the pet store to buy one of those HabitTrail environments.


Hahah! that sounds really cute. Great cats to survey the scene before attacking. The first time i had hamsters, they were gone the next day :\ The cat discovered their jar.

When I was still on Maui, I had a white rat named Curious George, too. I got him because he was a classroom pet and no one wanted to take him home when school ended, so I hid him in a shoebox in my closet and used to sneak food in to him until one day he got bored and started chewing on the box (rats have to do that to keep their teeth from getting too long). That's when my Mom found him scampering around. I pleaded with her to let me keep him, so we found an old mongoose cage that my grandpa had made years before. You know what? That buggah was the smartest animal I've ever had! He acted more like a dog than anything else. I'd put him in the back yard on the grass and he would come bounding over to me when I called him. And he would bite at anybody else's fingers if they tried to poke their fingers through the wire of his cage. Whenever I did that, he would just grab my finger and kiss it. Cute, yeah? He finally died of pneumonia after when he was about 4 years old.

Very cute. That story makes me want to get a white rat. We had one when I was MUCH younger. But I got scared of it because of the tail. 4 years is a long time for a rodent. i thought they only lived a year at the most.

[AuntieNellieKulolo]

I've got a 5-year-old Senegal parrot named Lani Girl. She's cute but too smart for her own good-kept breaking out of a $130 cage with fancy kine food/water dishes that snapped in and out of the cage-she figured out how to snap them OUT. Finally got one cheap kine $40 cage so I can padlock the doors shut...
Should have called her Houdini.
:D

[kamlost]

Does she talk? If I could, I'd keep my bird out of the cage, but i live with someone who is totally terrified of birds :/

[AuntieNellieKulolo]

Does she talk? If I could, I'd keep my bird out of the cage, but i live with someone who is totally terrified of birds :/

She can say her name and does lots of cute sound effects-laughing, coughing, microwave beeps when she sees me heading for the kitchen, squeaky doors... I caught her saying 'Whaat?' once. She's a little green tita... :D

I usually keep her on a Parrot Tower when I'm at home-she's out of the cage but has her toys, etc. so she's happy and stays put.

What kind of bird do you have?

[kamlost]

I have a black myna.

What sort of toys? I'd like to get toys for this crazy one.

[Linkmeister]

Any of this group of beasties panic at the thunder and lightning we're having? Tigger has gotten a lot more fearful as she's gotten older. Now she hides under beds when there's thunder or even heavy rain. We need to get supplies of tranquilizers from the vet before New Year's Eve, or we have a really shaky terrified dog. Even today she's been scared.

[AuntieNellieKulolo]

I have a black myna.

What sort of toys? I'd like to get toys for this crazy one.

I love mynahs, both the local brown variety and black ones, they're so smart and playful. When I was around 12yo my mom found a baby mynah that had fallen out of the nest, her leg was broken. She splinted the leg and we fed her baby rice cereal and diluted mynah pellets. She grew up nice and healthy except she couldn't run fast on her bad leg, so we ended up keeping her as a pet so she wouldn't fall victim to the local popoki. At first we named her Max but when she laid an egg we knew was one wahine... :) She was a good talker, my mom had a dachshund and every time Maxie heard the chain rattling she'd say 'wanna go for a walk?' Drove the poor dog crazy... :D
She lived to be about 8 years old.

As far as toys go, mynahs don't have the same need to chew that parrots do, but they like mirrors so they can talk to their reflection, maybe a bell or something they can hang from. Does your mynah talk?

[kamlost]

My Mynah's very young so it's only starting to talk. He loves to shriek. And he gets very grumpy if someone is singing off key. He throws a tantrum.

How did you get to teach yours to talk? I will try the mirror and the bell.. but he will drive me insane making so much noise :p

[kumathedog]

If you couldn't tell by my user name, I have a 4yo poi dog...isn't she cute?

[Mocha]

Does anyone have any solutions to the thunder/lightening question? One of my dogs...7months old just starts barking when she hears the thunder...guess cuz she doesn't know what's going on. The older dog just starts shivering and wants to hide under something. I don't really want to start giving tranquilizers. :confused: We do go out and try to calm them down by sitting with them but we're not home all the time when the bad weather comes.

[j3rr3y]

I had a purebred golden retriever... he died about 3 months ago.. got sick, the vets had no idea what it was and couldn't do anything to help him.
he was a cool dog... really gentle. he never got scared form thunder or lighting, or even firecrackers on new year and 4th of july...
he was only 6 years old..

[kamlost]

Does anyone have any solutions to the thunder/lightening question? One of my dogs...7months old just starts barking when she hears the thunder...guess cuz she doesn't know what's going on. The older dog just starts shivering and wants to hide under something. I don't really want to start giving tranquilizers. :confused: We do go out and try to calm them down by sitting with them but we're not home all the time when the bad weather comes.

Maybe you should try let them into the house? OR just make sure that their shelter seems sturdy.

[Pikake]

I like this one...I get just one dog...he is a South African Boerboel imported from Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the Bomb Diggity weighing in at more than 100 lbs at 7 months.

Dis my dog (http://home.comcast.net/~jjragilesjj/Ragiles.html)

[Lalalinder]

We have a dog named "Dexter". He is a mini-dachshund.

[AbsolutChaos]

Got two Bengal cats (both now 8 months old) living on the Windward side that my boyfriend and I adopted--Rishi and Frankie. Have pics of them on my MySpace page. One is tan and black and looks like a leopard, the other is cream/silver with tri-colored brownish-grayish markings (known as marbled snow-bengal). They are a handful! We have to fill the bathtub with a coupla inchese of water and put toys in there so they can play in the water every evening (Bengals like water) or put them outside out on harnesses to try and get rid of some of their excess energy. They are just like kids sometimes!

[alohabear]

52 mice...11 guiena pigs....1 rabbit...2 55gal tanks of fish...2 Jackson Lizards...2 parakeets....and 2 red-eared sliders....BTW, I'm married to Ellie Mae Clampett :D

[Miulang]

2 popoki: Ku'u Hoku Alohi (Hoku welowelo or Hokulele--she has the temperament of a diva!) and Shimai and 7 salt water fishies.

Miulang

[kupomog]

Here's our monsters, old pics but they haven't changed much except for the last two not being pups and one of them not being fat anymore:

http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-kuro.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-nala.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-anakin.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-padme.jpg <--is not fat now that she's off Prednisone
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-sassy.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-smallfry.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-kanoe.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-keanu.jpg
http://members.aol.com/Kudoshido/pics/dog-kaui-patch.jpg