Post your Pet Picture

[Kyoto Returnee]

Kyoto Returnee: Jiji is very cute! I especially like the one of him? her? in the red bowl.

Thanks Anohito san:

Yes, we think she's cute

The photo as a kitten makes here eyes look terrible, but she really was gourgeous..

It's amazing how fast they grow.

 

[Haruspex]

My cat Mao! She's damn aggressive, you only need to poke her, or simply throw anything made of meat near her, she'll jump right on it.
Although, compared to my other two cats she's quite gentle when playing, doesn't claw that deep.

 

[Goldiegirl]

I just love all the pet pictures! Post more!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I have 3 125gallon tanks, two tropical and one coldwater, i also have 3 pet rats.

Some of my fish;
Goldfish;







Goldfish tank;




Some of my tropical fish;
Para pleco;


Danio's;


Albino cory;


Oto;


Feeding time!


Red Tail Black Shark;



Amano shrimp;


Common Plec;



Feeding frenzy! (you can see yoyo loaches, corys, guppys, platys and clown loaches etc in this feeding frenzy over some de-shelled cooked prawns);








I have about 170 fish in total so i won't post them all here , hope you like the pics though .

 

[Grandpa Frank]

My kind of dog !

This pic came in an E-mail and I had to laugh. I picture Mike Cash with this kind of dog, LOL.

Uncle Frank

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

And here are my three rats (all female);

(the black & white one is Maya, brown & white one is Sunny, and the grey & white one is called Tocca );

Sunny inspecting toy whale i won at a fair;


Maya being greedy and eating a tray of lettuce i put in their cage;




Tocca hiding behind the blind on the window sill;




In their cage;




Their cage;


Lol rats are not very good at making nests !



Hope i didn't post too many pics .

 

[Sarapva]

They are so cute, T.P. I've heard how smart rats are. You have your hands full with the rats and all those fish tanks! Really nice looking tanks and fish. It looks like you have sand on the bottom - does that work all right without getting in the filters? I still miss Crusty, my pleco that died a few months ago. I haven't got any more fish or pets yet. When I do get another pet, I want to adopt, not buy.

Good cat/kitten pictures also! Makes me feel a little envious being "petless" just now. I don't know if I'd want to meet Mike Cash's dog in a dark alley, though!

 

[Davey]

I guess I already have a photo somewhere, but just wanted to post it again
This is my dog back home:

 

[hanachan]

Hanako is Miniature Bull Terrier.
But I don't believe that she is miniature size any more.
She grew up too bigger. 20kg is not Mini-bull terrier.

 

[Davey]

Cute dog you've got there Hanachan. I wish I had a dog here in Japan, snif snif.

 

[Kyoto Returnee]

One more for GoldieGirl

Jiji

 

[Anohito]

This photo is not our pet, but I like the shot. This is Flash, who was Ethel's (Ron's ex's mother) cat. I never knew Flash, because she went to Rainbow Bridge several years before I met Ron. Now both Flash & Ethel have crossed Rainbow Bridge together. Ron has told me that Flash was a great cat. In the photo, the red bow is on Flash's head, not on the floor behind her.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

They are so cute, T.P. I've heard how smart rats are. You have your hands full with the rats and all those fish tanks! Really nice looking tanks and fish. It looks like you have sand on the bottom - does that work all right without getting in the filters? I still miss Crusty, my pleco that died a few months ago. I haven't got any more fish or pets yet. When I do get another pet, I want to adopt, not buy.
Good cat/kitten pictures also! Makes me feel a little envious being "petless" just now. I don't know if I'd want to meet Mike Cash's dog in a dark alley, though!

Yep the sand works fine, i used plain fine white silica/blasting sand for my tanks- if you do put any sand in your tank you should avoid using marine/coral sand ('cos it will drastically/quickly alter the ph of the tank) and building sand (lots of toxic setting agents/chemicals and stuff in it etc)- children's playsand is ok though, although whatever sand you get if you do get any you should wash it thoroughly before putting it in the tank (otherwise all the dust in it will make the tank look very cloudy for days on end) .

What did your pleco die of do you know? Sorry to hear it died, they're awesome fish.

 

[Goldiegirl]

Hey Kyoto Returnee, your black kitty reminds me of my beloved, Mimi. I miss her.

I love the bow on the head picture....hehehee, cats are very funny. I swear she looks like she is smiling at the camera.

 

[hanachan]

I swear she looks like she is smiling at the camera.

Dogs can smile, too.

 

[Chi65]

TP, I really LOVE your rat fotos!!
We once had a white one as a guest, and I will never forget, how very thankfull it was for being cuddled, a real sweetheart! My daughter was also delighted. It belonged to a Kindergarden, BTW.

 

[Goldiegirl]

True, true Hanachan! Your friend is smiling and looking oh so cute and sweet!

Rats are great pets. I worked at a vet clinic and we used to see a lot of rats. I felt bad because most of them came in with tumors; a result from being to over and in-bred. We did have many success stories as rats are remarkabley compliant patients!

 

[Sarapva]

What did your pleco die of do you know? Sorry to hear it died, they're awesome fish.

Thanks, TP - I think Crusty died of bloat - At least that's the only thing I know of to call it (some kind of infection or blockage). I've heard that happens commonly with plecos. I'm still sad about it (he was 8 years old). He was the most interesting fish - he loved music, liked to be petted. I've thought that if I did have any more plecos I'd put sand in the tank since that seems to be more natural for them and I've read it helps their digestion. But I only want to adopt fish or any other animal, not buy them.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

TP, I really LOVE your rat fotos!!
We once had a white one as a guest, and I will never forget, how very thankfull it was for being cuddled, a real sweetheart! My daughter was also delighted. It belonged to a Kindergarden, BTW.

Thanks Chi , my rats are real sweethearts as well, they're really nice friendly animals- at first when i first got Maya, i was really paranoid about getting bitten by her (i saw her teeth as she yawned and i thought to myself "those teeth would cause some real damage if she decided to bite me!"), but so far she has never bitten me nor attempted to and neither have either of the other two rats, so i really trust them around me and other people .

I kept Syrian hamsters before i had the rats, i do think that looks-wise hamsters are cuter than rats, but on the other hand i think that rats have better/nicer personalities and are more sociable and peaceful animals (while i got bitten a few times by the hamsters in the time i kept them in the past, the rats have never bitten me) and they don't smell as much .

Rats are great pets. I worked at a vet clinic and we used to see a lot of rats. I felt bad because most of them came in with tumors; a result from being to over and in-bred. We did have many success stories as rats are remarkabley compliant patients!

Yeah i have heard tumors are very common in rats too, Sunny actually got diagnosed with chronic pneumonia not too long ago, it turns out that she has a weak immune system, she deteriorated very quickly and by the time i got her to the vet i really thought she was only going to live a few more days.
But thankfully the vet was a real experts on rats, she sympathized a lot with me as apparently the vet herself had kept rats and had had to deal with numerous health problems in rats like this.
She put Sunny on a course of antibiotics (which she will be on for the rest of her life), since being on the antibiotics she has improved massively, she's still rather thin in comparison to the other two rats and her breathing still sounds noisy, but on the plus side she has put a lot of weight back on now and she's a lot more energetic and is eating properly now and stuff etc . She probably won't live as long as the other two rats either way because of her condition (which isn't really curable), but she's improved massively since being put on the antibiotics and i don't think she'll be dying anytime soon now- she has a whole new lease of life now .

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks, TP - I think Crusty died of bloat - At least that's the only thing I know of to call it (some kind of infection or blockage). I've heard that happens commonly with plecos. I'm still sad about it (he was 8 years old). He was the most interesting fish - he loved music, liked to be petted. I've thought that if I did have any more plecos I'd put sand in the tank since that seems to be more natural for them and I've read it helps their digestion. But I only want to adopt fish or any other animal, not buy them.

Ah the "bloat" sounds like Dropsy, dropsy is really a condition, a symptom, rather than a disease and generally stands for general kidney failure in the fish (the fishes osmotic processes go wrong and the fish starts to retain water inside its body, causing the bloated appearance).
The problem with dropsy is that it can be caused by numerous things, and even when you are sure of the cause of the dropsy it may not even be treatable either way- cancer, internal bacterial, viral or parasitic infections, water quality problems causing stress on the fishes body, constipation, contaminants/toxins or unwanted substances in the tank etc can all cause dropsy.

In the past people used to recommend adding salt to the water of freshwater tanks in the belief that it was good for the fish. Its true that pure/marine salt can cure certain infections or external parasites on fish, but long term usage of salt in freshwater tanks causes great stress to freshwater fish How tolerant the fish is of salt depends on the salt levels naturally present in its native wild habitat. For example, after thousands of years of floodwaters washing into the Amazon, the Amazon is almost 100% devoid of salt so a lot of amazonian fish cannot tolerate salt well since they have evolved in a pretty much salt-less habitat. A lot of varieties of Mollys (a livebearing fish) on the other hand though come from habitats that are coastal, where freshwater meets marine water, and mollys have actually evolved to be able to switch between freshwater, brackish and even marine habitats- most varieties of mollys, although commonly sold as freshwater fish, actually benefit from having a little bit of salt in their water.
Either way though, adding salt to a tank where a fish is suffering from dropsy usually makes the dropsy 10 times more lethal.



With the sand thing, it won't help the pleco's digestion, but it is still very beneficial for pleco's for other reasons. Gravel is notorious for trapping waste in it, and this decaying matter can harbor nasty diseases like columnaris or simply create ammonia problems in the tank (which may not be imediately picked up at first since ammonia is more concentrated at the bottom of tanks) which is bad because ammonia is toxic to all aquatic life etc.
Sand is much better though on the other hand in comparison to gravel because waste does not trap easily in it, rather it just sits on top of the sand where it can then get swept into the filter by the current. Since pleco's are high waste producing fish its good to have a sand substrate since sand substrates generally stay cleaner, which is obviously better for the pleco .

Sand is also good for a lot of other fish too though, mostly fish which feed with barbels/whiskers around their mouths, as most fish which have barbels to help them feed (like corys and numerous types of loaches) have evolved in habitats that have sand or fine mud as a natural substrate so find it a lot easier to feed off sand than gravel. Rough/sharp gravel can also damage the barbels/whiskers of certain types of fish, leading to painful bacterial infections in the fishes barbels which erode them away- fish with barbels are a lot less likely to get such bacterial infections though if they are kept in a tank with a sand substrate though .


If you ever think about getting back into fishkeeping, i would recommend checking out this fish forum below;

Tropical Fish Forums


I've been a member there for years now and it is a really friendly and informative forum to be on, i've learned so much about fishkeeping since joining there years ago, whenever i've encountered problems in fishkeeping i have always been able to find the right information and help i need to help my fish and to ensure they stay healthy and lead a good quality of life and more etc .

 

[Sarapva]

Thank you, Tokis, for all that information. I've saved the fishforums.net in case I'll need it later. I've heard that about Amazonian fish not tolerating salt well. Crusty's type of fish is from that region. I've seen a short clip from Jacque Cousteau's "Amazon" that showed a common pleco that looked just like Crusty going into a tunnel it had dug in a sand bank. The bottom looked sandy/muddy. I'll take your advice if I ever set up another fish tank and use sand. I was cleaning the gravel in Crusty's tank every day (I don't want to go into detail, but anyone who's had a pleco knows the piles of stuff that need filtering!).

You sound like a very devoted fish- and pet-keeper. Good luck with those cute rats and wonderful looking fish!

 

[Kyoto Returnee]

smiling at the camera

Hey Kyoto Returnee, your black kitty reminds me of my beloved, Mimi. I miss her.

I love the bow on the head picture....hehehee, cats are very funny. I swear she looks like she is smiling at the camera.

Thanks Goldie

She is so cute, competing for floor space with Kai!

She will be in Kyoto soon and says she would like to meet you:gohan:

I wonder what she will think coming from a tropical green place to concrete Kyoto..

I still have to reply.. My inbox is overloaded as a thousand and one things to do here planning..

Have you decided if and when?

 

[Indiana Gardener]

I love pets! Have had just about everything imaginable over the years, domestic mice, guinea pigs, parakeets, a cockatiel, turtles, fish of all kinds, doves, dogs, cats, a pot-belly pig, goats, even a pair of emu. Right now my long-tail fowl take most of my time as far as pets. Though there's still two dogs, about 8 barn cats, and 100+ guppies about.



I can't imagine life without any of them.

My dog:



And when I'm away from my animals, I enjoy visiting other animals too

 

[Tsukiko-chan]

Nice pets !!

My Bayda (the wite one) and Poeki (pronounced as Pookey, orange one)

 

[Indiana Gardener]

Oh, what sweet looking cats! I used to have a black and white one almost just like your Bayda. He was a wood shop cat Was good company out there.