I will preface this blog entry with the following disclaimer: This post may not be popular among all of my loyal readers (or Mama Kat’s) because some people love their pets as much as their children.  I get that. Different strokes, different folks.

But I am not an animal person.

I believe this stems back to my time as a young adult when I took a child I was babysitting to a petting zoo.  We were walking around gently caressing the animals when all of the sudden I felt two strong taps on my shoulders.  I turned around expecting to find a zookeeper.  But to my dismay, I was being mounted by a billy goat.  I kid you not.  MOUNTED BY A BILLY GOAT.  It goes down as my scariest animal encounter to date.  Next to being chased on foot by a Pit Bull, narrowly escaping attack by jumping atop a Toyota Prius.  For reals.  But that’s another story.  Regardless, I’m scarred. There's more…