Hey there Steemians, just wanna' share my cute pets with you :)

Hello guys!

While i'm working on a new painting, i want to share with you a bit about my personal life, so we can get to know each other a little more if you know what i'm saying. Like, i'm gonna tell you a little story about my animals that's all. Lol, oh you language!

Ever since i've been a kid, i was absolutely crazy about animals. I always dreamt about befriending all of them, and caring for a dog, cat, parrot, lizard, horses, snakes, turtles, fish, a crow, a ferret, ... well, basically anything except rodents, because my friend already had those.

Of course, my parents took my animal wishlist, and to avoid any false hopes, made sure that i wouldn't believe i'd have any chance of getting just one of them. Nice attempt to be honest, but deep down they knew i wasn't gonna' back down anytime soon!

For years i consistently begged without any dignity whatsoever, because i knew if i just wear them down over time, eventually they'd cave in. They just couldn't keep up with my desperate pleading! It was really pathetic but it was worth it: as i got into my teenage years, i managed to get 3 cats (not at once though), a dog, fish, and almost a horse! (soooo close)

This is Barney, my families dog :) This was taken shortly after i brought him home, and he was just smashed from all the crazy experiences!

Funnily enough, my parents ended up loving these animals just as much as me, and even though they complained about the effort of keeping them sometimes. I could see everyday they had a great time with them, just like me and my bro.

In fact, they all had some very positive effects on my family. Barney, our Australian Shepherd dog, was helping out my dad as he was trying to get rid of his lung cancer, by being the most loyal creature one could even think of.

My cats Mickey, Fiona and Naomi were (and the latter still is) great companions for my mom , even though she always got annoyed by them so easily lol.

The fish became my brothers thing as he built the ultimate aquarium with his engineering skills.

And i just enjoyed all of them, and helped out with the maintenance where it was needed, aka i got the best experiences without most of the trouble!
I have no shame.

I also got to see how it was like to take care of guineapigs and rabbits thanks to my friend back then. These guys just couldn't keep it in, ever. Dirt everywheeeeree. They were cute though! Especially her guineapigs, which looked the same in front as they did from behind. Maybe a survival strategy?

..i mean, you tell me where the front is!

I also loved to teach our dog a lot of tricks, and i always saw how he really enjoyed our walks together whenever i visited my father, because we had those moments where we (cringe inc) would just go nuts and run around, over the top hyped, loud as fuck, with random dancing and singing in between.
And we just didn't care. 'Cause we were in the middle of nowhere, and the few people that were there, were old enough to forget 5 mins after being shocked by our barbarian noises that we were even there in the first place!

That bastard of a dog also loved to tackle me whenever we would sprint together, because he never cared about honorable, fair athletic competitions. He did whatever he had to to win. And he always looked like he was laughing at me while he did it, too.

I'm so proud of him!!

He also got along well with my cat Fiona, although it took a long time because she always was a very withdrawn and shy cat, as her owner from before didn't treat her well. You can see her very skeptical look towards Barney here, even though he was just a little pupper:

Here she sneaked up on him to test out the waters, ahh good times!

This is what my first ever pet, a cat called Mickey, looked like:

*...she was an extremely wild cat, as she had been living exclusively outdoors for her whole life until i befriended her enough to sometimes come inside. It took a long time to gain her trust, but since i also always was outside as a kid i could spend an immense amount of time on gaining it. *

And this is Naomi, a rescued cat from an animal shelter i used to work in. It was amazing to see her transform from being undernourished, missing parts of her fur and easily scared, to this confident, extremely chill, friendly & beautiful feline:

I always had a very special relationship with her. From the moment i saw her in the shelter there was something inexplicable going on, and after many months together she's been growing so much on me that she's more dog than cat whenever i'm around :)
Funnily enough, with my mom she's much more like a cat again, hahaha. I guess it's because me and my cat just wanna' chill out, which i think she's an absolute master in. Until she goes on a hunt to catch an invisible rodent everytime it's midnight, that is. But what has to be done, has to be done.

Honorable mention also to the beautiful fish:

...especially to this guy right here, who managed to eat a couple of the fish before my brother noticed his nightly binges while no one was looking:

aaand this guy, who was my secret favorite because he loved to wiggle really fast, which he did so he could bury himself beneath the sand. So he was there, you just couldn't see him. Also, it helps that he's called "Fryingpan Fish".

Sometimes i was thinking of how nice it would be to have an aquarium just with those. No one would even think there's any fish in there...until suddenly one popped out!! Whew.

he's there! get the cameras!!
...aaand he's gone. Best fish EU imo

But on a more serious note, please, if you should ever decide to get a pet (a decision to be taken very caringly), strongly consider adopting one from a shelter. I've taken care of many dogs from these places, and they are well worth the effort.
You can even see as you spend time with them, that there's an underlying sense of intense gratitude and love for what you've done, as they become aware of receiving another chance at a life worth living.

Also, what i didn't know back then is that breeding isn't exactly the most ethical thing to do either, so i can strongly suggest to really look into who you're deciding to get an animal from, if you absolutely have to have one from a breeder.

Alright guys, thank you for checking out my post!! Hope you enjoyed reading it :)
Let me know what you think!

Until next time!!