My family have always had pets around the house. My earliest memories are of cats, and there was always at least one in the house. When I moved out and got married, we had a cat within a few months, then two dogs shortly after. My kids grew up with animals, just as I did.

One of the most difficult decisions we had to make when we moved to NZ was to leave my two beautiful 14 year old cats Mungo and Mary behind. We'd had them both since they were two years old. But Mary in particular was a very nervous cat (a trip to the vet five minutes down the road used to leave her a nervous wreck), and I wasn't prepared to put her through the ordeal of the kind of journey required to get to New Zealand. Fortunately a friend at work was looking at adopting an elderly rescue cat, and bless his cotton socks he agreed to take my two beauties on.

Since we've been in New Zealand, I've been pet free (I don't count the worm farm, or the praying mantis - see Family Pet). This will change, but at the moment hubby and I are travelling quite a bit, so it's not practical.