Hello from WNC!

Hello everyone! My name is Cassandra. I have lots of pets. An almost 2 year old male boa constrictor named Cloud Strife, an almost 7 year old unsexed ball python Bud, an 8-10 year old spayed female mixed breed cat I found as a stray over 7 years ago named Lucky, a 6 year 2 month old neutered male mixed breed cat named Tiger (who is Lucky's son), an intact boar Guinea pig named Noah, a neutered boar Guinea pig named Quinn, an intact sow Guinea pig named Henrietta (who has had two litters with us), and 5 intact baby Guinea pigs. Three of them are males, and will be finding new homes, and two little girls who will be staying with us and yet to have names. We are hoping to expand their enclosure size so they can have more room, as it's crowded right now with the 8 Guinea pigs. We haven't been able to figure out a way to make a cat-proof cage big enough for them and still have room to walk around, so I suggested we find all of them homes and get more when we get a bigger place, but we've had ads up for weeks trying to find homes just for the little boys, and no one wants them, so we wouldn't have any luck with the others. I just feel really bad about it, but they're still very healthy, if cramped, because we make sure to clean the bedding every 3 days, or when it gets messy.

I also recently lost one of my cats: Lucky's daughter, Sweetie. My dad made me take her to my mother's since she was beating up on the other two. She hates other cats, but she grew up with Tiger, and Lucky was an outdoor cat at our old place out in the country. Since she didn't know Lucky, she wasn't happy about it, but after several months she began to be able to stand her, only beating up on her when she didn't get enough food for her liking (she was on a diet and it made her very very angry), or when we brought her back in during her nighttime excursions (always supervised, of course). We tried disciplining her, giving her treats when she was good, but nothing seemed to work. So, I had to take her to my mother's house for her to cool off, or get rid of her. Well, my mom's roommate being who he is, he opened the window despite being told not to, and she ran away. She's been gone for over a month now, and I doubt I'll ever see her again, after having her for a little over 6 years. I've put up ads at the shelter, on lost pet websites, on Craigslist, and asked around, but no one's seen her.

Sorry for the long introduction, but there's a lot to say. :)

Here is the last photo I took of her:
http://i1157.photobucket.com/albums/...psc732edf1.jpg

Awww, welcome to Pet Talk. Hopefully someone found he and thought she was a stray and took her in. Did she have a collar or a microchip?

Thanks for the welcome. :)

No, she didn't, because she was a strictly indoor cat. Once we started letting her come out, I was thinking about doing both. I opted out of it, because we took away her outdoor time since it was causing so much trouble. She was like a little fat demon when we brought her in, hissing as soon as she saw the door, and throwing a fit all through the night. Now, however, I think I'll get all of my future dogs/cats microchipped whether or not they stay indoors, just in case this happens again.

I hope somebody did, it would be better than being on the streets. But, unless her love of food overcame her fear of strangers, I don't think she did.

Awww, yeah, for the future, better safe than sorry! She's got such clean black and white coloring, she'd be highly visible, unlike a tabby who can blend into the shadows, so I hope she is loved out there somewhere.

By the way, I have two cousins (separate generations) named Cassandra, so extra welcome to you!

Welcome to Pettalk! I am sorry to hear about your cat, unfortunately many outdoor cats do face a similar end. I know of one that lasted till she was 15 but otherwise outdoor cats tend to go a whole lot earlier. :( I'd love to see more of your snakes! I work with snakes at my job but nothing like Boas, basically just milkies, corn snakes, king snakes, etc. But snakes are all cool nonetheless. :D

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, that is why we had her as an indoor cat. She should never have left my mother's apartment, but I should have expected such a thing to happen, with her roommate there.

I've posted some more pictures of Cloud in my albums, along with others. :)

My two snakes are a joy to have! Bud is the wild child, always getting into trouble. He's always destroying his decorations and flinging his bedding around. Cloud's enclosure stays neat and in order. lol Now that Bud is beginning to eat normally again (hopefully), he's limiting his destruction only to nighttime. It's amusing to hear the flunks coming from his enclosure every once in awhile, because he crawls up the wall, and slides back down to the ground. Hopefully we can put some branches in there for him, as he LOVES to climb. There will need to be plenty for him to grab onto, because he's not as well built for life in the trees as Cloud is. :) You can tell this especially when I put them on the floor. Bud will move his body together, and push out to move across the floor. Cloud just sits there, wiggling up and down along his body, so I normally just hold him while I'm inside. Whenever Bud get to come out, he goes shooting off in random directions to get into whatever is available to him as soon as he touches the ground. Cloud normally sits there for several minutes before he starts exploring. The cats aren't the only things the birds have to watch out for. :P Cloud likes to stalk them, so I must keep him from the bird feeder. Unlike Bud, he also goes through color changes. He has a dark and a light phase, as well as his normal coloration.