This is Miss Chloe. She is a one year old Bichon Frise. She lives with her Mom and Dad in San Diego and likes to enjoy everything in life with them.

She has a large vocabulary: her mom and dad have to spell "park" and "walk" and "bye". She loves to go with Dad in the truck to the Cappucino Shack where she gets her morning cookie. She has a fancy bed but likes to sleep in the laundry basket. She loves to hunt in the yard and chase rats and lizards and bunnies. Her mom has a stroller for her and can tuck her into it and take her anywhere. She just curls up like a baby sleeping and Mom takes her shopping or to restaurants. She loves to play dressup and have her picture taken. Bichons are very intelligent and eager to please and be a part of the family.

When I was a little girl I dreamed of having a beautiful black horse someday. This horse would be black as coal and shiny and fast as the wind. Years and years passed and horses I loved came and went in my life but the perfect black horse never did. Then a black thouroughbred mare named Whilum, belonging to my daughters friend, came to visit for a while to rest up from some lameness. She recovered but she was too old to go on being used for cross country and my elderly mare Willow had become great friends with her. The younger horses all went on to the new dressage facility and the two ladies remained with me. I started to become very fond of Whilum and one day she somehow made it known to me that her name was not Whilum but that it was Countess Black, and so she became. She has become the Queen. She loves her life as a freewheeling brumby. She loves to cavort and buck and frolic like she was two instead of twenty. She loves to just be, she and Willow together, having their breakfast in the upper pasture in the sun and lunch in the lower pasture. She is the shiniest black and this time of year she is like rich silk velvet. Every day I hug her and tell her how glad I am that she is here. I cannot ride her, she is a wild thing now; we gallop together in our dreams still, but that is all. She is strong and elegant and aloof, but she lets me know everyday that there is joy. She is trying to make me savor each day that I have, as she has learned to do. Every day is all there is.

Jacquelyn is my baby, my 12 year old baby. The neighbor girl brought me two 6-day-old kittens that she had found thrown in the trash at a neighboring farm down the road. I tried my best but lost one. The one who lived is my Jacquelyn. I bottle fed her and kept her curled up in my neck day and night. She always thought I was her mother. It took forever for her to figure out how to wash her face; she still doesn't do the best job. She did have a wonderful helper cat , Clark's Dad, who taught her some of the important cat things. She is a little unique however, in some ways not cat like. She is still very kitteny and needy and playful. She is very devoted and loves to cuddle. She always has to try and do yoga with Skip, and of course making the bed as a kitty helper is a requisite. She loves to be brushed and runs in every morning to fight with Simon over who gets brushed first. She likes to be my pillow and purrs all night. Precious little cat, she is a special member of the family.