1.) If you could change anything about your pet, what would it be?
This question pertains solely to our beagle Daisy, becase Radar is pretty much the perfect cat. (Except for when he upchucks his hastily eaten meal all over our kitchen floor, like he may or may not have done today....) This is Daisy:
She's pretty cute right? Beagles are generally pretty dang adorable (you should see beagle puppies!) but let me give you a little advice Do not get a beagle. Ever. Even if someone pays you to get a beagle. Not worth it, my friends, not worth it.
I would like to circumvent any blather about how "dogs are as good as you make them" now, by pointing out that I rescued Daisy (on the day of her execution no less!) from an animal shelter when she was 5 years old. So all of her bad habits were firmly ingrained by the time we became her family.
Daisy is an obsessive eater finder. THAT is what I would like to change about her. My dog has eaten pretty much everything imaginable, and lived to eat another day. I always joke that she's made a deal with the devil and she will never die. She's eaten a penny. She's chewed on a AA battery. She's eaten over half of a bag of Hershey Kisses. She's eaten a good portion of a box of tissues. She's eaten a sock. Yes, a sock. It came back out a few days later, whole. Not the same way that it went down. I swear to the good Lord Almighty that this is a true story. How could I even make anything like that up?
One of the annoying things about Daisy is that she is smart. If she dug out a tissue that fell behind my husband's nightstand, every single time she comes into our room for the rest of all eternity she will go root around that nightstand looking for another delectable tissue to consume. If the weeniest little corner of a bag of food is at the edge of the counter she will stand up and use the very corner of her paw to somehow whisk that bag of food onto the floor and into her jaws of doom. I really would not be surprised if someday she learned how to push a chair over to the counter. I would tell the world about my amazing trick dog that obviously sold her soul to Satan for her amazing powers, but I probably wouldn't even blink at the time.
So that's my dog. I would say that I'm probably much more of a cat person than a dog person these days. I love Daisy, but Radar is so much more low maintenance. We don't have to watch his every move and assume the worst when he takes off down the hallway. I do feel like it's only fair to point out that Daisy has done beautifully at adapting to Raegan. She lets Raegan pet/maul her every day, and rarely growls at her. She even suffers through good night kisses from Raegan most evenings. She's always excited to see me when I come home and I get a very joyful greeting. If I could just change that whole must-eat-anything-that-could-possibly-be-food problem, we would be set.
