The Black Vault

Thank you guys for the understanding. I must say in my few days here and really not much time spent looking around, I already love the homeyess here. I didn't realize until today that you are a father/son team. How cool is that?

Yes, I'm Dad, but the website and ownership is the complete creation of John's. I only proudly take credit as the creators creator.

The dogs responsible are hanging around my neighbors place next door. He had contemplated shooting them but his wife and daughter were having none of it. I just figured maybe I could find them a home with someone who hunts, as it's hunting season and that's what they do best. As John and Greeney pointed out, it's a bit of give and take. You take the good with the bad. If I constantly thought of how I'm going to some day have to bury them all, I'd never bother and therefore miss out on all of the love and great memories. It's still hard sometimes and it does pain me to lose them, especially when the circumstances are particularly tragic.

When I've had a really rotten day, full of interactions with rude and hateful people, they're always there to make me feel better. I really enjoy our walks together too, something Obi-Wan loved to take part in with us. I've never had a cat do that before, go for walks with me and the dogs but he did.

I too am an animal lover. I feed 7 cats twice a day. Only four are actually mine. The rest belong to the neighbors or are strays. I also feed 5 cats at our ranch.
I have had to rescue some animals that my parents decided to abandon. Years ago they decided to dump a large dog (had been a cute puppy) that they did not appreciate on a back road. I intervened and took care of the dog with my own time, money and effort until it died years later.
Just a year ago, they dumped 4 partially grown kittens at our uninhabited ranch. I felt so sorry for them, I quickly set out to build or buy an automatic feeder for them. Unfortunately the nicest one of them was lost after the second day. There was no reliable commercial feeder available, so I set to turn a deer feeder into a cat feeder. After, two years of maintaining and upgrading the design, the cats have had a decent feeding every day during those two years. My biggest problem is keeping the racoons from getting to the feeder and eating all the cat food or destroying it.