Sunday, January 30, 2011

Chausie Cats

Chausie cats are intelligent, sweet, loyal, and energetic. Often I hear the term doglike (personality) for descriptive phrases. Most enjoy the water. For the right home and human family this domestic cat makes a perfectly charming pet.

Though it is a misnomer the term designer cat has been coined for nondomestic hybrid source breeds, such as the Chausie, Bengal, and Savannah.

The domestic Chausie Cat origins were from breeding a nondomestic species, the Jungle cat (Felis chaus) with a domestic house cat (Abyssinian cat). So, a hybrid was the beginning of the Chausie but the Chausie born from the hybrid offspring are no longer a hybrid but a true domestic cat.

The nondomestic ancestor, Jungle Cats, were in Egyptian homes over three thousand years ago and were thought to have been one of the beginnings of most domestic housecats we find today. One other cat found in the ancient Egyptian homes was the Felis lybica the African Wildcat. Evidence of remains of the African Wildcat determined they were found in Middle Eastern homes as long as 10,000 years ago. So, obviously all domestic cats had wild ancestors; we just didn’t have a domestic cat appear magically from the use of a whispered enchantment in an ancient language. Read the rest of the article on Chausie Cats

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Exotic Pets and Children

Too often I read or hear of a child getting injured or bitten by an exotic pet. Exotic pets and children do not belong together, ever, unsupervised; supervised means watching the pets and the children constantly. Any pet, I don’t care if it is an exotic pet, dog, cat, a ferret, or any animal, children need to be protected from pets, and pets need to be protected from children.

Frankly, more pets are injured by children than pets harming children. When a child squishes a pet it doesn’t make the news. What does make the news is the very rare occurrence of an animal injuring a child and frankly, whose fault is it anyway? The person that is responsible for the pet and the child. You are responsible for the pets' and childrens'safety. Exotic Pets and Children

Recently, a ferret had chewed off the fingers of an infant. Who left the ferret alone with an infant?

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Exotic Pets That Didn’t Come Home

Though I have had quite a few exotic pets over the many years there has been even more that never came home with me for a variety of reasons.

I have to ask myself, I even have to be quite honest with myself; can I properly take care of the exotic pet I am considering bringing home. Do I know enough about the animal to properly take care of it? Do I have the resources to be financially responsible for the pet? Sometime it is very difficult to make the brain decide over the heart.

I have longed for a Savannah cat. I have become totally smitten by Savannah cats. I was getting to the point where I could say that for a fact I was financially ready and more than able to properly care for the Savannah. These beautiful, perfect Savannah kittens were dangled in front of me. Brain over heart, my circumstances had drastically changed from one month to another. I had to decline, and this completely broke my heart.

Other reasons exotic pets did not come home with me. I do believe pets should come from captive breeding and not taken from the wild. Though a number of years ago, as long as it was an insect or spider and belonged environmentally to that particular area, I occasionally brought an animal home.

One day, as on many days we took our pet porters out on the rural country roads in Oklahoma. Over many years I had been in wildlife rehabilitation. I did dabble a bit in Oklahoma. We happened upon a long, large, big, centipede. I have never had a centipede as a pet. We were quite fascinated. My husband got out of the car and started toward the centipede. I’ll be darned if this centipede didn’t turn around and start chasing my husband. George lifted one foot, so it went after the other. He was afraid of injuring the animal; he headed back to the car, as did the centipede, chasing after George. Read the rest of the article!

Exotic Pets That Didn’t Come Home

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Exotic Pets and Your Significant Other

I am not quite sure that my future husband knew what he was getting himself into when he married me. It evidently worked out OK since we are approaching our 13th wedding anniversary. Having exotic pets was as normal to me as eating dinner once a day, or taking a shower.

I really didn’t think about poor George and my menagerie of pets when he came up to Northern Minnesota to move me to Southern Minnesota before our wedding.
The day I moved it was winter and quite chilly. I had the cages covered to keep them as warm as possible. Both vehicles were packed and warmed up before we began bringing the animals out. The truck was loaded and my boat was hitched to my car.

The first cage to be loaded was quite large and high. George asked, "What is in this cage?" I answered, ferrets. He then inquired how many ferrets. "Just seven ferrets," I answered.

George has always been very easy going. He didn’t bat an eye. We then went to grab a big pet carrier. "What is in here," he asked. "A skunk I answered, just one," I quickly added. His eyes started to look around the room at the number of pet porters and cages. "I told you I had pets, exotic pets and even unusual pets." He answered, "You said you had unusual animals but didn’t mention you had a zoo." Read more - continued


Exotic Pets and Your Significant Other

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Will Exotic Pets Help Save Mother Earth?

Only five percent of known plant species have been screened for their medicinal values though we are losing 100 species daily to extinction. Because of this five percent, there are many diseases that my children will never have to suffer, like my parents suffered and past generations before them. Have we already lost the cure for cancer or the common cold?


We continue to clear millions of acres for houses, buildings, parking lots, and agriculture. We continue to poison our lands and water supplies. We drain wet lands to have more land to farm or to build cities. For each single plant that we lose it triggers a domino effect, with this single plant triggering the loss of thirty more insects, plants, and animals. Our ecosystem is unraveling where will it end?


It is estimated that there is one and a half million species on earth today. There was twenty times that. There were thirty million species on our earth and that has dwindled down to only one and a half million. In the scheme of things our earth is very young and that is a significant loss. What have we done?


In our infinite wisdom and greed we are destroying the very life that gives us life!


The two primary reasons for extinction or endangerment are habitat loss and exploitation. Exploitation rears its ugly head in many forms but the main drive to exploit is money and greed.


I support the right of people to own animals, as long as they do so in a responsible way. These animals must never be bought from smugglers, or other illegal means. Only buy exotic pets that are captive bred or “homegrown” animals. If there is no demand for smuggled animals it will drop the profitability out of the illegal pet trade. Read the rest of the article here!


Will Exotic Pets Help Save Mother Earth?