All of our pets are precious and gifts from God

      We have a number of animals at our country home northwest of Montezuma and enjoy each one of them.
     There’s Rex, our dog, and Harmony, Gazer and Sophie, our three mini horses. We also have a host of kitties, including Oscar, our outdoor Tom, who keeps the mice at bay.
      And inside we have Smokey, our beloved long-time kitty that arrived as a stray in December 2007.
      Smokey was a gift from God.
     In June of 2007, Debbie had lost her beloved cat, Squirty, who passed while we were on vacation with my folks in Branson for their 50th wedding anniversary.
     God filled the void when Smokey showed up at our door.
    By day two, we were feeding him leftovers and by day three, he was inside the garage and the next day, inside the house. And he’s been here ever since.
     He’s such a precious kitty and loves to take afternoon naps on my lap while I take an afternoon snooze. He enjoys his toy bananas with nip and sleeping at the foot of our bed.
   Then there’s Gizmo, a Siamese kitty, also a stray, who we took in after she showed up at our door in December 2013. Gizmo loves being petted and given belly rubs.
     Smokey arrived fixed and we had Gizmo fixed. We decided to take the stitches out ourselves. I held Gizmo upside down on my lap while Debbie carefully cut and removed the stitches. That made for a few tense moments.
    And I can’t forget about Sooner, our wild child kitty who drives Debbie crazy when she goes behind our television and crawls around the top of the kitchen cabinets and gets into other mischief. She and Smokey sometimes chases Gizmo around the house. Gizmo typically doesn’t back down and that can mean some tense moments
     Sooner was abandoned by her momma and Debbie bottled fed her until she was able to eat on her own.
    We’ve had our three horses since August 2016. We learned about them from a friend who saw them for sale on Facebook. We bought them from a family near Van Horne who had 24 mini horses for sale. We picked out the three that we wanted.
    Gazer, the only male mini, was once a show horse. He has the prettiest mane. Harmony is the biggest of the three minis and could probably qualify as pony. Sophie is loveable as are the other two horses.
    When Debbie opens the gate to let the minis graze on our small pasture, it’s fun to watch them run and jump about. And she has them trained well. When they are in the pasture, all Debbie has to do is shake the food container and yell their names and they come running.
     We don’t show the horses, just enjoy them. Debbie checks them and makes sure they have hay and food to eat. We feed them square bales because our mini horses love to eat, so you can’t put a big bale out or they would eat so much they would get foundered.
     And Rex, our chocolate lab, has been a part of our lives since November 2010. We bought Rex through a silent auction from a local family at Montezuma Schools that year. Rex is a good boy and loves being petted and having water sprayed on him on hot summer days. We have a Rubbermaid tub filled with water for him to take a dip in on occasion.
     Debbie does 99 percent of the work when comes to taking care of our animals. She’s really good with the animals and loves and cares for each of them.
     I call our hay guy when the supply gets low and pick up feed or other supplies when needed. I need to be better about going out and petting Rex and checking out the horses and giving Oscar a rubdown. He loves a good rubdown.
     Everyone needs an animal of some kind and we are blessed with some loveable ones. They are all precious and gifts from God.
​     Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.