It’s Furry Friends Friday, sponsored by Pets Add Life (PAL), whose mission is to spread the joy of multi-pet ownership. We love this mission and we’re here to help!
Each week, we feature a new multi-pet household and today we’re featuring Amy Bajalis, the talented blogger at Love Meow. She’s another friend who has a multiple pet – and multiple species – household!
Amy’s family includes: four rescue cats Jackie (orange/white, five yrs), Shadow (black, four yrs), Flip (black, four yrs), and Lucy (grey, two yrs) and one dog, a seven-month-old Labrador Retriever, Max, who they also adopted from a local shelter.
Amy says she never thought that they would end up with four cats and one dog but after they adopted their cat, Flip, they wanted more pets.
“We knew for sure that we would like to give Flip a companion, but then when we saw Jackie and Shadow, who are inseparable and had stayed in their shelter for too long, we knew we had to bring both home!”
“Since they are all boys, we thought it would be nice to add a girl to the furry gang, so we did with Lucy. Back then, the thought of adding a dog never crossed our mind because we assumed that the cats wouldn’t like it until one day we just succumbed to the rescue dogs in the shelter, and we decided to make it happen.”
Amy says the cats get along beautifully and Max is learning to be gentle with the cats. “But he is doing a fabulous job,” she says.
Amy makes sure to introduce new pets to the household slowly by keeping the new pet in a separate room for a while to get used to new scents and sounds. “With Max, we let the cats accustom to him when he was still a small puppy. Once Max got older, we trained him to be gentle with the cats and know the boundaries,” Amy says.
“Over time, we see how they connect and eventually bond as best friends. It’s absolutely rewarding!”
Amy loves having a multiple pet household because, she says, “They all have different personalities and bring something special into the family. Having a companion for them keeps them happy and playful. They run around and play with each other when we are busy with work. They snuggle and give each other baths. All those things add so much love and colors into the family. But mostly having multiple pets fills our lives with endless amount of love!”
We couldn’t agree more, Amy! Thanks for sharing your story with us! (Photos, courtesy of Amy Bajalis)
Friends, if you have a multiple pet household, won’t you please share your story? Email the staff at caroline@highpaw.com and she’ll send you some questions to answer!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Good thing Max was trained to be gentle with the cats. They are so adorable!
Our mom never had more than one pet at a time until us. She loves having the two of us. We keep her on her toes, but we keep her smiling.
WHY? It’s called DEED RESTRICTIONS or Bad Landlords for others. According to community guidelines I’m supposed to be SCR**ing around and having kids!