My life in dog and cat years Part 2

Mickey 1
We got Mickey when Kitty met an untimely death trying to squeeze through the chainlink fence. She was a tiny kitten...so small she sat in Babie's food dish. She was sooooo sweet. She used to sleep cuddled up on my chest. She could catch mice, but occasionally lost them. Once she caught a mouse and had it by the tail and I killed it instead of letting her. I flushed the mouse & she cried all night about it. I should have let her eat it.
Lesson learned: Eat the food when it's in front of you.

Misty Lou
Misty was a beautiful dog, but looks can be deceiving. We had only been married a few months when a friend found her wandering around our college campus. I brought her home and surprised my husband. She was so innocent & sweet. WRONG! She tore up everything in the house: blinds, beanbag, ate a basket of Easter candy with wrappers, chewed batteries & sos pads. I could write books on her antics. Misty could not be confined. She was about 40 pounds and blonde...looked like a cross between a golden retriever and a greyhound. She could jump any fence, get out of any harness, choker chain, or collar. She would hop in and out of the neighbor's yards & I would find her racing down the highway. I finally had to give her away after many tears...to a friend who lived in the country where she could run.
Lesson learned: Don't let anything keep you from being free.

Mickey 2
It was 10 years before my husband would agree to another animal after Misty & her demon ways. So 10 years & 2 kids later I tried another surprise: a cat! Mickey was grey striped tabby cat. A vet friend had him & I thought it was a sign he was supposed to be mine since he was already named Mickey. He was about 3 months when we got him. Sweet. Not again. He liked to bite & scratch. He did not catch mice, but would watch them & then walk to his food dish like, "I think that made me hungry but I do not know why." My husband loved him as he is a cat person. Mickey would sit on the back of my husband's recliner and lick the back of his head. My two-year-old would get into the worst trouble of her life with Mickey. It usually involved dunking Mickey in the toilet. He grew to about 20 pounds so no one would dunk him then. He would fight anything that had fur. We had to give him away when we moved and he met an untimely death at the mercy of a large truck outside his home.
Lesson Learned: I'm still trying to figure it out.

Tigger
A few months after we moved into a rent house that would not take pets we bought our own house. Mickey was offered back to us but my husband said Mickey was too mean. So we made the mistake of picking up a stray orange tabby female that we named Tigger. You cannot make an outside cat an indoor one. I knew that...duh....remember Kitty & her ripping screens? Chris (husband) was remodeling the bathroom & left a hole in the floor overnight. Tigger went out the hole. After that she came & went as she wished. She used us for food. Chris was not too disappointed when she did not come back one day...mostly because she had taken to using the dining room carpet as a litter box. We see her occasionally around the neighborhood & she puts up her nose & lets us know she can live on her own.
Lesson Learned: Don't try to make an outdoor cat an indoor cat