Grady

Mark and I are dog people.  Never cat people, we both equally despise cats.  (There's something up with cats. They don't even like people. They just use you to get food and shelter.  When God said 'serpent' in the Bible, I'm pretty sure he was talking about cats.)  Anyway, we both grew up with a dog that we loved. Just so happen they were both labs.  Big Chocolate Labs. Good dogs.  I love those dogs. They are so smart. So when we settled into 'family life' with Emma and Maddox at the old house we decided we needed a dog.  Mark (and family) built us a fence; we called my brother and got us a dog.  A little chocolate lab pup. She was so cute. See here she is. All cute and little. Playing nicely.

 We named her Cheeto. Soon Very Soon Way to Soon the cuteness wore off and she was W.I.L.D. We completely  underestimated the amount of time we would have to spend with this dog. Plus our kids still wanted attention so we were forced to prioritize.  We couldn't keep up.  Lab pups are rowdy. We knew that Lab pups are rowdy but good LORD! This dog was nuts! Seriously she had this insane look in her eyes. She was constantly knocking down the kids, biting at them, clawing them to shreds. Eventually we just baby gated her off the deck and strictly to the back yard.  At which time she chewed huge gashes out of our deck steps and the kids swing set.  When I would go down to feed her and attempt to play with her she completely malled me.  I hated her so much.  So we gave her to someone that had a huge farm where she could run around and act like a lunatic.

(Because she was one.)   

PAUSE: Tanner is in his bed screaming his head off, be right back.

O.K. UNpause: I took care of that sweet tart.

So, we gave her away and no one cried when we said good bye.

Since then we haven't thought of getting another pet, except for Emma wanting the occassional stray cat. (never going to happen!) The only pet we would ever considered was a dog (like old, fat, lazy dog) and we thought maybe when the kids get older. When no one is crawling, or toddling around waiting to be pounded on.  We didn't want barking and poo in the yard and vet visits and pee on the floor and taking walks and blah, blah, blah.  So what's a person to do?  Enter Grady:

Yep. Proud owners of a 3 month old minirex rabbit. No barking, no walking, no expensive vet visits, no poo on my floors.  He's pretty much a great pet.  He is only 3 months old, but he's full grown.  These minirex bunnies max out at 4 or 4 1/2 pounds.  Great for the kids.  He was  a little frightened of us (go figure?) for a couple of days, But now he's settled in and getting quiet friendly. We love him already.

He lives here in his cage in the garage. (love that part)

And the kids play with him like this:

It's really working out for us so far.  So if you fill you have a little hole in your family that a quiet pet could fill, consider a bunny.