Spook lived under my deck, and in my garage, and in my heart. She was the sweetest "stray" I've ever seen. I like to think that because of me, she was able to live her last years feeling loved and appreciated - and well fed. She was purring when she died.

Tiger may very well be the first cat we ever got. Actually we got him along with a black and white cat with the name Blackie. I don't think anyone is really sure what really happened to Tiger. He lived a long time and just eventually disappeared.

Rascal was my sister Dina's cat. She must have lived to be about 200 years old. The main thing everyone remembers about Rascal is that she would disappear for months at a time, then reappear and deposit a litter of kittens under our house. Heck, for all I know she's still out there doing her best to see that every family in Floyd County gets a cat.

Harvey was one of Rascal's many offspring, and one of the few that we kept that wasn't killed by one of our stupid dogs. He eventually got some kind of infection in his leg - we found his foot under the house but we never found his body.

This cat's name was Booper. My sister Neisha has been saying for 20 years that this cat's name was Fizzles, but what does she know - she was just a kid when we had this cat.

This was Pete. I raised him myself from the day he was born in my Grandma's yard and abandoned by his mother. I did the whole feeding him from a bottle thing and he grew up big and strong. Pete was my constant companion for several years until I joined the Air Force. Poor Pete, like so many of our other cats, was hit by a car and killed.

One of the few dogs I've ever known that wasn't useless. Sergeant was my dog, though he lived at my Grandmother's house. He lived to be 15 years old or so and was eventually hit by a car. Easily the best dog I've ever known.