Morley's Ark....

So today I had to make a visit to the Bank in my lunch hour and whilst I was there in the queue there was a little girl with her mum, in a stroller. She said "Hello" to me and I say Hello back and then she said to me "I love you" and then we talked about how lovely her little green socks were.

Funny isn't it how something so simple can put a smile on your face :)

Now last night my friend Fran commented on The Morley Report Facebook Page that she would like to read more about Embee because she is sooo cute! Now Groover's this is true, Embee Louise is a cutie and I love her alot! I can't imagine my life without her and she is great company.

But it got me thinking, thinking about the other animals that came before her and I hope you don't mind and I don't want you to be too sad but I would like to share the stories of the animals that make up Morley's Ark....

Now bare with me and humour me tonight, it might be a long story with many pics, butttt these animals hold a special place in my heart :)

Now I've told you about our cat Fluffy No. 1, the poor little cat that I cut her whiskers off and put her in a letterbox with a brick on top!! Thank god there was a slit for the letters, so she could breath....

When we moved back to Brisbane, Fluffy No. 1 ran away when we let her out of the laundry. Mind you I don't blame her, poor little thing....

Then a few years later when I was 9 we got another cat, Fluffy No. 2! Of course what else would we name her.

Check these pics out, I'm pretty hip and happening with my fashion sense!

She was a lovely little cat but only a few years later we had to have her put down as she was very sick. After Fluffy No. 2 my Mum and Grandparents said we couldn't have another cat :( Down the track the only other kind of pet we had was a Budgie. Which to me wasn't a cat andddddddd we were never aloud to have a dog!

So fast forward to when I moved out of home and lived with my boyfriend at the time (who I ended up marrying and divorcing, as you do....).

We started out with a little puppy from the pound and we named her CJ. Then (and boy did I learn my lesson with this one!) we bought a puppy for the girl we were sharing a house with's mother, as she was missing her alot now that she had moved out of home. But the thing was that her dad wouldn't let her keep it, sooooo we adopted it and called it Maverick (as in Tom Cruise in Top Gun) and another girl we lived with had a dog, so in total we had three. Which of course you couldn't have living in one house in the suburbs!

Eventually the girls moved out buttttttt then there was Rocky, another puppy. He lived across the road and it's another long story but he adopted us, because when his owners would break up and the wife and kids would move out and Rocky would be neglected and he would come over and live on our back step. Eventually they gave up coming over to get him, esp after he broke his leg trying to escape to come over to our house. He was one of those dogs that ADOPTED US and there was no way talking him out of it.

Rocky after he had broken his leg!

So there was CJ, Maverick and Rocky. We also had a cat called Pooky (as in Garfield). Poor old Pooky didn't last very long, my ex husband always thought that the dogs got to him, but we weren't sure. Then there was Spider, another cat. He was so cute and would sit on my lap when I drove. He didn't last long either and after we moved one time we came home from work to find him dead. My ex husband buried him and covered the hole with dirt and put things across like tools so the dogs wouldn't dig him up.

One day I came home from work by myself, andddddddddd they had dug him up, except that he was missing a head! We never found the head and we used to joke in our Morley way.... that he was up in heaven running around without a head! I know bad joke.....

Now this will go on and on, it's a long and complicated story but in a nutshell we moved a couple of times due to the dogs. You see they had knocked over an old lady, they didn't hurt her, but I think they were just excited to see her and must of bold her over, so we decided to move house. Then at the next house the kid next door kept wanting to see if the dogs could come over to his place to play. But we said no he had to play with them at our place. Then one day when I came home there was a message on the answering machine (no mobiles then) to say that our dogs had hurt the little boy. The thing was that not once had we ever seen them vicious and it was very hard to believe that they hadn't been teased etc.

So we moved again and decided that if it happened again we would have to have them put down. We had them all desexed and had even started obedience training.

We did everything we could, butttttttt it happened again, at the new house. I won't go into all the details but it was a very sad time in my life and that night we took them all to the vet to have them put down. It took me a very long time to get over it and then and there I decided that if I ever did get a dog again, I would only get one. It was a heartbreaking time, but we had done everything that we could for them, poor little things.

So it was a few years later when we had moved to Townsville that we purchased Dannii, as in Dannii Minogue, even spelt the same way :) from the Townsville pound. She was a Rhodesian Ridgeback cross. She was such a lovely docile kid. Just the kind of dog we needed after what we had been through. And when we were deciding at the pound which dog to get, I loved her from the start and it was my pick and when the dog in the next cage did a wee wee through the wire all over her, there was only one choice :)

And I always laugh when I remember little kids asking me, because Dannii wasn't very photogenic, they would say to me "excuse me why does your dog look sad?" Poor Dannii hehehe.

Here is a pic when we made Dannii look like an old ethnic woman with a tea towel on her head!

And when Dannii was around one year old we had a cat (who we ended up calling Puss) wonder in pregnant. That night, my ex husband went to bed and Dannii and I stayed up and watched Puss give birth. She was soooo good letting Dannii watch, she was even purring. Now after three little grey and white kittens, who looked like Puss I thought she was done as she was such a tiny little thing and so Dannii and I went to bed.

The next morning there were two more kittens. Another grey and white one and a grey one with "white jocks" who we called Herman, as you do....

Here is Dannii being a "good mother" and checking on the kittens!

We ended up finding homes for all the other kittens and kept Puss & Herman, got them desexed so that little Puss didn't have to have anymore kittens.

It's funny sometimes how animals just find you. Puss lived with us for around 7 years and she was such a naughty little girl, always into things. I can remember one time a friend visited us and he didn't like cats. It's like Puss knew this and he had come over to show me his new 4wd. Puss went outside and sharpened her claws on his brand new tyres hehehe.

But being the naughty girl she was one night she was hit by a car right outside our house. I used to freak out all the time about her and Herman crossing the road.... it was very sad :(

Now Dannii was a very loyal and very loving dog and she lived a long life with Jake and I in later years, until she was 13 years old when we had to have her put down. Jake was very brave and when the time had come, he helped me take Dannii to the vet and we both stayed with her in the Vet's room whilst she was given the needle. It was heartbreaking but I guess you just know in your heart when that time has come and even though it's hard you know it's the right thing to do.

Here is a pic of Dannii with Herman. Herman just loved her to bits!

And then there was Herman. Or Crafty Herman as he was known to some people :) And one friend, who I will not name.... even said he looked "Evil", poor Herman :( He was an amazing little boy and we loved him alot. Do you know that he lived until he was 19! Yep that's right you read it correctly - 19!! Embee loved him lots and I think we got to have him an extra couple of years because of how much she loved him.

Poor old Herman, I can remember him trying to get out in the mornings to go to the toilet outside and Embee would keep head butting him into the wall cause she was sooo excited to see him up and awake!

When the time came to have Herman put down we actually called the Vet to the house and Jake, Embee and I were with him on my bed when the vet gave him the needle. We were all there, his family and we loved him alot! I even had to have the day off work because I was a mess.

Herman had been with me through so many things in my life. He was there when I was married, when I had Jake, when I was divorced. I can even remember him laying on my stomach when I was pregnant with Jake and I would rock back and forth in a rocking chair and Jake would be punching him from the inside but Herman couldn't feel anything yet :)

And that kids brings us to Miss Embee Louise Morley!

I waited 6 years after Dannii as I wasn't sure if I was ready to get another dog. But I was conscious of the fact that it felt like I was replacing good old Dannii. In hindsight I can see I prob waited way too long. And I can remember seeing a pic of Embee on the internet when we picked her out of the littler from the breeder. I called it the "Guinea Pig Shot" as she was soooo little and didn't look like a dog at all. I cried when I saw her little face and I felt guilty for replacing Dannii. But you know what? I realised that I wasn't replacing her, I was just adding to our family.

I guess it must be like if you were having another baby and you wonder can I love the new baby as much as I love the one I have now? Buttttt there is a lot of Morley Love to go around and I have never regretted once getting Embee Louise. Even when she humps those pillows that she loves soooo much hehehe.

I can remember picking her up with Jake from Brisbane Airport one Friday night as she came from the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. When we brought her home and opened the door to her carry case as she timidly climbed out she stretched her back legs and I said "ohhhhhhhh noooooo, she has something wrong with her back legs, we'll have to send her back". But it didn't take us long to work out that when she isn't sure of something and is checking it out, she stretches herself out from the back legs, so she can pull back quickly if she gets scared hehehe.

Sometimes I dream about certain animals and to me I believe it is them coming to visit me in my dreams to say Hi :)

And as I am typing this tonight, Embee is having her own little puppy dream and making a bit of noise LOL. I love her lots and even though it is sad when the time comes when they have to leave us, I wouldn't change one single thing.

I am an Animal Lover from way back and that is never going to change!

love

Karen and the Morley kids - past and present! xxx