I remember: Pets

Jasper: He was a black dog with little white tips of hair here and there on his coat. Medium size. I used to jump on the trampoline heaps and he'd be jumping around the edges there a photo of him somewhere at a party we had one night walking around in between peoples feet. He ran away.

Zucchini: She was our first kitten. A grey tabby. I didn't know much about kittens and I thought if you chopped stuff off it would grow back. So I chopped off her whiskers one day and she started walking all funny after that. She got run over by a car near the South Hedland video store. I saw her flat on the ground like a pancake.

Sheila: Sheila was a big fat blue healer. She used to chase cars and the postman if the gate was left open. Stephen used to kick her sometimes and it pissed me off but I was too small to do anything about it. One day me or James left the gate open and she never came back.

Shookra: Shookra was my dog. She was a meduim sized dog with the same sort of coat as a doverman but the body shape of a staffy. She was black with brown patches. So I looked after her alot of the time. When we first got her we put her in the laundry to sleep until we made her a bed. I heard whimpering in my sleep so I woke up and went into the laundry. Shookra had her paw jammed in the laundry door yelping. So I took her paw out and she was ok. She was a funny dog. One day she had diarrhea and she was in the living room with me and my brothers. She walked infront of us and pooed all over the carpet. The smell was so bad me and my brothers left the room we almost spewed it was that bad. So mum went in there and she wrapped a tea towel around her mouth and nose while cleaning it up. Shookra used to jump over the fence alot aswell but she would come back. One day she bought home a kangaroo carcass and another day a live rooster. But a lady came and picked up the rooster the same day. We had to give Shookra away because tics kept on infesting her body we literally had a jar full of tics.

Shadow: Shadow was a cross between a pitbull and a staffy. She belonged to James. I didn't really spend much time with this dog. She was a golden colour and we had to give her away after a while because we were moving house. I saw her one day in some man's ute.

Dero: We had a dog from Gero so mum named him Dero. He was a very good dog. I used to bring him to the beach in Geraldton and spend heaps of time playing with him because I didn't really fit in at all there. None of my family did really. He was a white pitbull with bits of black sprinkled across his fur. I used to swing him in circles around the back yard when he lock jawed some dog toys. But I stopped it after I while because he got pretty agressive sometimes. When we moved away from Geraldton mum had him up in South Hedland for a while but she gave him away because she had to go to work alot and he kept getting sunburnt. She gave him to the couple that had time to look after him. It was because we were still in Gero when mum had to go back to Hedland.

Pebbles: Pebbles was our dog for a while. He was a little yorkshire terrior black with brown patches. I used to walk him around Gorey when we lived there almost everynight. He belonged to my nanna. I didn't really like walking a small dog much but when nanna got him I was on holiday and I promised her I would look after him when I was there. So I did. He's living with my auntie Eileen now because my nanna passed away. He used to get out alot but he would always come home. But when nanna was alive she'd stand at the door until he came home no matter the time or weather.

Charlotte: Charlotte was my cat growing up she belonged to the whole family. Mum used to call her "Susie" because thats what her cats name was when she was little. She was a light grey tabby with green eyes and she never really filled out you would think she was in between a kitten and an adult cat. I used to pat her sometimes but she would bite you or scratch you after a while. She was a feral cat that we found so we didn't even know her real age because she always stayed the same size. When we first had her I wanted to play a trick on James so I put her in a drawer but then when I went to find him he had gone out. So I forgot she was in there. Me and james used to share a room and the next day I heard a scratching noise coming from the drawer. She jumped out and ran out of the room. I felt really bad for forgetting after that. Later on when we had her she started warming to another tabby that was identical to her. He used to hang around our house alot when we lived in pretty pool. Any other cats no matter how big they were Charlotte would scare them away. She did come back home some nights with the odd scratch on her. Anyway one day when Stpehen was reversing out of the driveway he accidently ran over Charlottes boyfriend mistaking him for her because she knew to move out of the way. I was coming home at the time and saw blood all over the side of our house. I walked to the front of the car to see Stephen and James standing over the dying cat. I leaned down to take a look at him he was covered in blood. The cats eyes kept staring into mine then it died. We put it in a plastic bag and threw it into the tip. We moved house a few years later and Charlotte was still alive. In our new house she got bitten by a snake. She lay in the shed for 3 days but then she recovered and was fine. But about a year later she disappeared. Mum said she probably went away to die because thats what cats do. We had her over 10 years.

Opal: My first cat was Opal a multicoloured cat but mostly white. When she was a kitten I tried feeding her ham, catfood and some other meats but she didn't eat any of them. So I gave her a peice of polony and she stood on her hind paws and grabbed the circle of polony with her other paws and started eating it. It looked like a human eating so it was pretty funny. James started calling her "Cat" in this really loud fast voice. So she started responding to that. When I went for a walk anywhere Opal would follow me. So one day when I had to go really far I tried to get her to go home but she wouldn't. So she end up getting tired and I tried picking her up but she just clawed me. She ran off somewhere. I didn't see her for months but then she just turned up at the house one day. She looked alright so we fed her but then she went away again.

Tyson: Was James's dog when he lived in Ireland. He was a big doverman with little white speckles on his fur. James's said it was because his last owner abused him. Tyson was a friendly dog and he was really dopey. He reminded me of Bambi when he first tries to walk but all the time. I took him for walks sometimes aswell. James's had to give him away to a friend because we had to leave Ireland.

We also owned a black rabbit, some goldfish and looked after a cockadoo but it died after a while and we buried it in the backyard.