Free

That cute little mare in the photo came free with several other minis. All of them are nice animals and well cared for, but before it is over they will cost my friend a significant amount of cash as well as time and effort.

As a kid I’d have been thrilled if anyone offered me a free horse or pony. It never happened. Now I have people approach me on a regular basis wanting to do just that. Because of past experience I look that gift horse in the mouth every way I can. I’ve learned there is not only no such thing as free, but a free animal can cost you more than if you went and bought one outright.

Case-in-point Our last “free” animal cost us over five hundred dollars before we’d had her a week. We acquired her this way:

We went out for a nice Sunday drive in the Texas Hill Country. For those of you unfamiliar with Texas that is, roughly, an area west of I-35 that extends north from San Antonio to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and west to the Edwards Plateau and Staked Plains. We had a nice drive and stopped at a rest area to check out the view.

There was a young black and white kitten. I judged her to be about 16 weeks old and she wanted to approach us, but was terrified. We went back to the nearest town and got a big box (we were driving our new car and did not have a crate in it yet) as well as some cooked chicken.

Cooked chicken is something cats and dogs find irresistible. I carefully lured her close with the chicken and Larry grabbed her and stuffed her in the box. But not before she laid his hand open.

It was a good thing we’d been given a full “tour” of our new car and knew about the first aid kit because we needed it. Her back claws really did a number on his hand.

We eventually named the kitten Kewtie Pi (she’s an engineer's cat after all) and she is a very loving little girl now that she's recovered from her scare of being out in the big outdoors.

Lazy Trainer’s Tip

Check offers of free animals carefully. Sometimes, as with the kitten, you just have to take an animal. If you have a choice though be as choosey as if you were putting down big bucks for the animals. Because, one way or another, you will be.