As the new pet blogger at families.com, I thought I’d take a post to introduce myself. My name is Angela Shambeda, and I’ve been with families.com since November 2009. You can also find me over at the Disney blog.
I thought I’d tell a story from my childhood as part of my introduction. When I was in fourth grade I wrote my very first research paper on harp seals. While working on the paper I learned that conservationists would often spray stripes of bright paint over the coats of harp seals, particularly the babies.
They would do so to protect the seals from poachers, who were after the animals for their coats. A line of bright paint on the fur ruined it for commercial purposes, and the seals would often be left alone.
When I learned this, I took blue markers to my stuffed animals. For those with darker fur, where the marker color wouldn’t stand out, I cut off tufts of their fur. I thereby marred my stuffed toys’ perfect appearance and saved them from poachers. I still have some of those stuffed animals in my possession, and you can see the markings on their “coats.”
On that day, though I didn’t even know what the concept was, the animal activist in me was born. I don’t know exactly where she came from; it’s like I was born loving animals. For a school lesson soon before my fourth Christmas I remember putting down that I wanted a puppy from Santa that year, and I’d wanted one ever since.
To an extent I blame Disney for my love of animals, or at least for my desire to be surrounded by them. As I mention in my most recent Disney blog, seeing Disney Princesses like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty surrounded by a host of woodland creatures, playing with them as their best friends, awoke a fierce longing in me. I wanted myriad animals as my best friends.
But due to my father’s allergies we couldn’t really have any growing up. We had a cat for awhile, there to defend our home from the bugs and mice (and sometimes frogs and snakes, when the basement flooded) that sometimes plagued it. I loved my cat Boots ferociously, but sadly he succumbed to a genetic condition at only seven years of age.
I still have a collage my younger brother made for me for my birthday, only weeks following Boots’ death. He framed a variety of photos I’d taken of my cat, and gave them silly captions. It’s one of the sweetest presents anyone’s ever gotten me, and it’s currently hanging in my living room next to some of my wedding pictures.
Fortunately, I found a spouse who loves animals as much as I do. Well, he loves dogs, and doesn’t have strong opinions one way or the other about cats. So three months after we were married we adopted a shelter mixed-breed puppy named Chihiro (after the heroine from the Miyazaki film “Spirited Away). Two months after that we adopted a kitten from a shelter.
He came with the name “Cole,” and I kept the moniker, because he’s a tuxedo kitty with white whiskers who, even at three months old, looked like an old man (so he’s Old King Cole). Once my husband and I move to a home with more space, we’re planning on adopting more pets. At the moment, I’d say our one-bedroom apartment is full.
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But I’m not sure my heart will ever be too full of love for animals. So I can’t wait to begin sharing that with all you other animal lovers here at the pets blog.
Related Articles:
Dogs and Cats Living Together: Gate Jumpers
Quiet Companions (of the Feline Persuasion)
Introduction to Disney Addiction