I have had some interesting pets and have even eaten some of them. Yes, I'm a meat eater.
Growing up, my family & I raised English Springer Spaniel's (I always had one, regardless if he was a new one to me, his name was always Flush [as in "Flush the birds out"]. With the exception of one female (I guess that I am not supposed to use the proper term here) that I had that was not very smart.
All were like the one you went into the woods with.
If I picked up a gun (even if it was just my .38 that had been my grandfather's when he was a policeman [with snake shot in it for the first and every other round]), just to go walking alone in the woods, my dog was ready to go (and swim in the salt water creek or fresh water river). If I took the Jon Boat out, without them, they would jump off the dock & start swimming after me. If I picked up a rifle or a shotgun, they would be looking for where & what I might be shooting by the time we made it to the door.
Here, I want to be clear, I always say a little prayer and Thank The Lord for the sacrifice of the animal that I am about to kill that will provide us with natural sustenance (or a fish that I catch).
I do not "trophy hunt" (now, if it happens that I get such an animal, yes, their will be a bust of that animal) but that A. Has never happened & B. is not why I hunt.
If I am hunting it, it's because it will be on my dinner table, next to the vegetables (and potatoes or rice). And shared with other families.
Otherwise, unless I am being attacked, I leave it alone.
I had some other dogs, too. Ones that I rescued (a Doberman that thought he was a lapdog, a 1/2 beagle/1/2 lab [looked like a tall beagle with a lab head Frankensteined onto him], a Pit Bull that was given to my father as a companion when he was going through Alzheimer's that was scared of just about everything {move a chair & he would circle it and bark at it to try & make it go back were it belonged {he actually became my elderly mother's, as he would actually protect the elderly in my family}).
The occasional baby wild animal would come under my care (not exactly a pet, but they would have something wrong with them and human intervention [possibly including a trip to a wild life vet]) might help them grow up into an adult animal.
As to y'all's farm animals, a friend bought three acres of agricultural property around Vero Beach, Florida and he, having just been in a very bad tractor trailer accident (he ended up sitting in his tractor's seat, in a ditch 30 feet away from the truck). But, the property was required to be being used for agriculture. So he bought a steer. To be clear to younger folks that being a pet is not the intent, he named the steer "T-Bone".
Sorry, no pictures because I am not where I can access them.
