Animal Hoarding

I have to take a break from my life story to get to the root of why I started this blog in the first place.

A few months ago, I saw an ad on the internet looking for people who had a lot of household pets. I wrote them an email and explained that (at the time) we had four dogs, seven cats, four parakeets, four frogs and two leopard Geckos. I wrote that I was the primary caregiver for the animals and that they were not a burden or a problem for me. What happened next was interesting.

I got a phone call from a young woman. She represented a production company that was interested in hearing my whole story. I've never been shy about telling people about myself, so I took the bait. I described our home, our living situation, our philosophies. I talked about my pets, my kids and my husband. She asked questions, I answered them. She then asked if it might be possible to talk with my husband. I gave her his cell number. I told him about our conversation and told him that he should be getting a call. He did.

The story he told the production assistant was a little more, well, blunt and kind of vulgar. He told her how when the cats threw up he wanted to cut their heads off. He told her that he wanted to roast the parakeets for an appetizer. He also told her that he would love to have a giant bonfire and just burn up all my stuff. She thought he was hilarious. Right.

After quite a few more phone calls and question and answer sessions, they sent us a Flip camera and a list of questions for us to ask each other. They wanted us to make an audition tape of sorts. We happily agreed to the task. There was one thing that stuck out for me in the course of Pete interviewing me. Something he said resonated with me and I had to ask him, "Wait a minute...do you regard my pets as some of my things?" I realized that I loved my animal companions immensely and regarded them as part of the family. He did not. The producers saw something in that tape that neither of us recognized. And so our TV story was born.

After a few more phone interviews with the director that was going to shoot our episode, we were all set for the TV crew. They flew in with all of their equipment and became a part of our lives for a week. We were going to be recording a show for Animal Planet! I had no idea what to expect. I also had no idea of where this adventure was heading.