What is the first pet you remember having, and how did you feel about it. Have any of your pets since lived up to the first?

OUr first dog was Snuffy, I don't remember him. But our second dog was Magic, she was a very special dog and we all loved her as much as she loved us. She would wake us up for school in the morning with faces full of kisses, and she would greet us when we came home after school. She loved playing in the water, but her favorite was snow. We would throw snowballs at her and she'd catch them in her mouth, she would then try and lob them back at us by jerking her head and making it fly through the air. What she hated most was to hear me crying, if she ever caught me crying, she would lick my face untill I laughed, I guess in a way my brother and I were her surroget pups. She was so great and so brave, even when she was old and very sick she tried to keep up with us kids. Unfortunately in her eleventh year, her alergies got the best of her and she had to be put to sleep. None of our dogs since then could hold a candle to her and the ammount of unconditional love she gave.

Every year Mum would ask what I wanted for my birthday/Christmas and I would always ask for a dog. Year after year after year it never happened.

Until ....

I was 14 my brother's girlfriend gave him a tiny puppy that the owners were going to have the whole litter put down. So my parents were sort of railroaded into letting us have this dog - only three weeks old - in the house. It was during school holidays so we could look after him properly and even when we went back to school I would go home at lunch time to give him a feed. He was a minature foxy and full of character and despite being taken away from his mum far too early turned out fine. Very energetic little dog but also liked curling up behind your knees on the lounge.

He did have small dog syndrome though and ended his life by trying to take on an german sheperd.

My first pet was a parakeet but I think we covered that in another thread

My first pet that I remember was German Shepherd named Queenie. My mom gave her away because when I was a baby I was afraid of Queenie and would stiffen up at the sight of her.

The one pet that I'll never forget was a box turtle that my dad found where he worked at. It had a chip in its shell, so my dad called it Chippy. My mom and dad told me not to bring Chippy outside, but did I listen to them? No! I brought Chippy outside and let her wander around the street. A car whacked her, crushing her. I was so sad and felt so guilty...I didn't know a car could crush a turtle's shell. Hey...I was only about 5!

A Budgie called "Peter" also covered in previous posts! The first of hundreds(literally) of baby birds which went on to be other peoples first pets.

The first animal I took care of was a sparrow! I was about 10 at the time I found this sparrow fluttering around in circles on the ground in our backyard.It had been injured in some way and was easy for me to catch.I placed it in a box then climbed over the back fence onto the roof of a large corregated iron shed.There was a large mulberry tree that had branches overhanging the shed that provided a sheltered fairly safe place to put the bird-in-a-box.After about two weeks of living on a water and mulberry diet I deemed the sparrow fit to be let out into the wild again.I recall holding the small bird in my hands then throwing it upwards.The bird flew briefly,landed near me, then after a couple of minutes took flight,never to be seen again.Both my parents were watching through a back window and my mother came running out to hug me.Man that was embarassing for a "tough" ten year old.

My first pet was a goldfish. Due to circumstances of phobis to dogs, cats and most other animals, I am stuck with an almost inanimate pet fish that progressively became the apple of my eye. Well, what can I say, I was very happy when I had him.

However, I fed him to much or fed something....his stomach swelled to about twice the size and died. I has successively maintained a pet until we moved from the Philippines to Canada. I am still afriad of dogs and the said animals.

My first pet was a dog named Lady. We didn't have her for long though, due to her aggresiveness and stuff. We had to get rid of her. I wonder how she's doing today...

But soon after that, we got another dog called Mooch. We still have him and he's a wonderful dog. He's getting pretty old though, not sure how much longer he'll live, sadly. He's 13 now I think. I think Mooch has brought out the love of dogs in me.