I grew up with a stupidly friendly Rottweiler, and plenty cats. While my family didn't get another dog after Anushka, we did rescue many stray cats, giving them the kind of life their domestic counterparts would have been jealous of. After years of living in rental properties, it was only upon buying our own house that we got the chance to get pets. We picked up sibling kittens, Billie and Weegie, from Glasgow soon after moving in. Then came Cooper, the single most handsome chocolate Labrador in the whole world, and Yakul, a Red Setter with no shortage of character. We raised and trained both dogs, with help from a local professional, to a respectable standard. Neither is going to win Crufts anytime soon, but they have decent recall. It's a bit of a bureaucratic inconvenience, but I tend to go by my middle name, Richard. Rest assured, the Konrad in my profile and the Richard in my testimonies/reviews are the same person, Konrad Richard Taeuber.