About Us And Our Fur Babies
We absolutely LOVE our furry family members, our fur babies! Here we're going to share some information about us and our family pets so you can get to know us better...
About Brad & Laura
Hello! We're Brad & Laura. We've been together for over 27 years, have a blended family, and have an amazing relationship! We're each other's best friend.
Laura grew up on a farm in Indiana. She's been around animals her whole life. Her childhood dog was a working dog on the farm along with being a family pet.
Brad grew up in mid sized city in Idaho. When Brad was a teenager he did a lot of bird hunting. His dad had bird dogs which he found is best to leave home due to lack of training. We'll have to write an article about Brad's first experience taking Cindy out bird hunting when he was 16. Let's just say it was quite the experience!
In Brad's adult life he primarily had German Shepherds, but also Sheltie's. Laura as an adult had Australian Shepherds. Both trained their dogs and have been through numerous dog training programs.
We are raising two of our grandkids who are now 14 & 15.
Over the last 27 years we've been the home to a few animals who were on the last leg of life giving them a tremendous amount of love and comfort. There was:
- Joker a Brittany Spaniel who had arthritis and had to be carried outside to go potty. We gave Joker a lot of love in his last year of life.
- And there was Moon, a big pure white Rag Doll cat who didn't like men because the previous owners boyfriend threw shoes at him. But Moon quickly became Brad's cat who just loved him up big time.
We love our pets, and animals in general.
We have quite a few animals come through our backyard just 10 feet from the house... Deer, moose, a family of racoons like in our backyard, porcupines, squirrels and others. What's shocking is Bella basically leaves them alone. When Bella first sees them she'll bark to let us know they're there. Then she just watches them once she knows we're aware of them.
Marley - The Alpha Cat & Our Oldest Pet
Marley is primarily a Maine Coon, and something else. She was born in 2012 and is 12 years old. At one point we had 3 older cats but lost 2 of them in 2023... it was a tough year losing 2 of our loved cats within 12 mo's of each other! Tears were flowing!
Marley has always been the Alpha in the house. She rules them all, and she makes sure the other pets know she's the alpha.
With us humans, Marley is a lover. She loves to cuddle up with Brad when he's in his chair working on his laptop, like she's doing right now as this is being written. She loves sitting in our laps and being petted. You know she's loving it because she's got a pretty loud purr.
She also shows her affection by biting us, which we do not like at all!
She likes sleeping with any of us in the house (4 living here, Brad & Laura and two of their grandkids they're raising). The problem is, when she wants out of the room, she meow's very loud none stop. If that doesn't get someone up to open the door for her, she'll jump up on the bed and start biting us... that always works! She doesn't sleep with Brad & Laura hardly ever. She's usually sleeping with granddaughter Hailey.
She's an indoor and outdoor cat. We have a dog door for Bella which Marley uses all of the time. Not so much in the winter since she doesn't like being cold, but a lot in the summer. She'll sit out on the back porch on the swinging loveseat for hours on end. She always comes back in.
Bella - Laura's Shadow!
We got Bella back in 2018 when Brad opened an office and started going to the office daily. For most of Brad's life he worked out of the home so Laura and Brad were together literally 24/7. Bella was to be Laura's companion and protector.
Bella was 13 mo's old when we got her. Her previous owner worked so Bella spent most of the day in a kennel. The previous owner had a DNA test done on her and she's mostly German Shepherd (protective spirit and smarts), followed by Border Collie (smarts and our being her herd) and a hint of Greyhound (speed and timidness). The DNA helped us to more effectively work with her.
When we first met Bella she was very high strung, hated being on a leash and wouldn't listen. Brad told Laura no on getting Bella, but Laura saw something in her.
Bella loves playing fetch with a frisbee as her first choice followed by a tennis ball. This is how we broke bread with her when we got her home... playing a lot of fetch with a frisbee!
We also got her a kennel to sleep in since that's how she was raised, but that lasted a whole week. She's part of the family. Since then she's slept with Brad and Laura either on the floor or on the bed with them. She needs to be next to us just like we love having her right there with us.
Once we built that bond with her, she took a strong attraction to Laura. Still to this day, Bella goes where ever Laura goes. If Laura gets up to go anywhere, Bella follows, thus, "Laura's shadow".
In addition, Bella is extremely protective of her family, especially Laura. In the beginning she wouldn't let people get close to Laura and stood between them and Laura showing teeth. Very protective!
Now she just makes sure we approve, and then she backs off. BUT, if she senses Laura tense or scared, she goes into protection mode of her. Brad feels Laura is very safe with Bella with her.
Over the past 7 years we've worked closely with Bella. That dog is smart! She listens pretty well, and she knows many words and commands. Brad can tell her where Laura is (bedroom, downstairs, etc.) and she'll go to that room. We can tell her to go wake up one of the grandkids for school and she runs into that kids room and jumps up on their bed and paws them to get up. When we go outside, she immediately looks for her frisbee or a tennis ball. If she can't find one, we can tell her where one is and she'll go right to it. She knows what bedtime is. She knows sit, wait, lay, shake and other family driven commands.
At Christmas she gets presents. Bella loves opening her presents, rips the wrapping paper right off of them. She will not touch any of the other presents, only hers. I have videos I'll be sharing of Bella opening up her presents... she's a riot!
There are so many things we could share about Bella, which I'm sure we will in articles. She is an amazing member of the family.
We only wish dogs lived as long as us humans because we both can't imagine life without our Bella girl!
About Bella's pictures:
- The first picture was day 1 of Bella joining our family. She was so skinny. (08/2018).
- 2nd picture is Bella lying in Laura's chair with Garfield walking across the windowsill (08/2024)
- Bella and Marley lying on the back porch (09/2023)
- Bella and Laura (12/2023).
We have hundreds of pictures of Bella, and lots of videos.
Garfield- Purebred Maine Coon
In a 12 month period we lost our furry baby Mia (20 yrs old) and Molly, a rescue Maine Coon, (15 yrs old) we had for 10 years. It was heart breaking!
Molly had adopted our grandson Jace.
We agreed that after Mia and Molly took the rainbow bridge to Heaven we wouldn't get any more cats. That lasted a month, maybe. Laura really wanted a purebred Maine Coon and justified getting it for Jace since he lost his cat.
Ya, okay then. Hahaha. Brad knew what she was up to.
Laura spent weeks in the summer of 2024 looking for a Maine Coon kitten. Numerous so-called owners of kittens tried to screw us, which we'll share with you in an article so it doesn't happen to you... there are shockingly a lot of scammers out there!
We ended up finding Garfield locally. It was the last kitten in the litter which we snatched up quickly.
Garfield is all kitten... curious about everything! And he is growing big. The paws on this cat are huge! Maine Coons don't hit full size until about 3 yrs old... he's going to be a big boy!
He loves to cuddle and takes naps with Laura and Bella. Shockingly, Bella and Garfield have become buddies. Garfield will eat out of Bella's food bowl while Bella's eating (Bella doesn't care), they chase each other around the house and they take naps with Laura when she takes a nap. There's never any aggression, growling or hissing! Like I said, they are buddies.
Garfield has been a great addition to the family. We love him dearly. And we're really amazed at the relationship between him and Bella.
We hope this gives you a good idea of who we are, how important our pets are to us, and how much we love our furry family members!
You'll learn more about our pets and how they've intermingled into our family through our articles and videos.