I grew up on a farm so my world was full of animals.
Not many were considered pets however ,even my dog Buster had a job to do . We had 1 dog, 13 cats , 20 cows , 1 bull, 2 horses , 50 chickens , 1 rooster, 20 sheep and 1 pig.
Busters was the same age as me and was sort of my brother. He was a white and orange border coley(Heinz 57) .His job was to bark like crazy if any wild animals came around . He saved my life once by attacking the bull so I could run away. I cried a lot when he died. He died of old age when we were 13 years old.
The cats job was to kill the mice and rats that were eating our grain and vegetables. We never fed them so they were always hungry. They might get a dish of milk when we milked the cows.
I had around 20 banty chickens that I looked after . You could eat the eggs but they where really just pets I guess.
With all these animals around I was never lonely and could always find something to do .
Trying to find where the kittens were hidden every spring was fun.
Looking after the calves has a big job but was fun too.
Watching the city people mooing at the cows was funny too.
You never made friends with the pig cause he only lived for one year.