Robbie we adopted Nearly 8 years ago from the NCDL (now Dogs Trust), he was around 5 years old at the time so is getting on a bit now but despite recently going deaf he still has that puppy glint in his eyes. 
 

In addition to the two dogs, we have a hamster, Gilbert, and the wife got herself 4 baby Giant African snails a couple of months ago.

For Christmas this year, our family expanded again, with the addition of a further two pets…

To our surprise our youngest, Caelan, expressed a strong desire to have a snake several months back. Despite being only four and normally jumping from one thing to the next in a blink of an eye, he kept constant with this one (much to mummy’s delight since she had been dying for an excuse to get one).

So as a nice Christmas surprise, a 3 month old Miami Corn Snake would be his "big" present this year. This was much to his delight since, since he seemed to have expecting a toy one, given they are not common pets. He instantly loved it, was very eager to hold it (even attempting to give it a kiss) and he named it "Boy-snake"!

The second pet to join our family this Christmas, yet to be named, was a Red Knee Tarantula. 

Kieren, the middle boy, had mentioned sometime ago that he would like a Tarantula. Not to discourage something that would make most kids squirm we told him that he couldn’t just declare that he wanted one… They need looking after, can live for a long time and he doesn’t know what is required or what they need.

To his credit he went off on his own and researched it with impressive vigour. Researching which types are best for pets and indeed which are best as a beginner pet. He researched what they eat, how long they live, how to look after one and showed great enthusiasm giving us lots of information about them. This gave the wife the green light to go off and get a baby spiderling for his Christmas.

Yesterday the Spider shed it’s first skin and ‘Boy-snake’ shed it’s first skin (with us) on boxing day.