When I was little, we had a rottweiller named Trip. He was really friendly - he rode on the back of the four-wheeler with us, tore up my dad's hunting hats and slobbered like nobody's business. My dad traded him for a BBQ grill when he finally ate one too many neon orange hats.

But before my dad's bartering caused Trip to go away, Trip managed to eat one of my kittens. Well, not injest, but he came close. We always had kittens around (what with our collection of unneutered outside cats) and I loved each kitten dearly. My sister loved dogs, I loved cats. That's how we kept from killing one another over pet ownership. So I took it kind of hard when I looked outside to see Trip tossing a limp kitten in the air, as if it were a rawhide bone. After I ran outside and secured the kitten from his powerful jaws, he seemed to regret his actions. I placed the dead kitten on the ground, and he nudged it and looked up at me as if to say, "fix it." But the time spent being tossed in the air and mashed in the jaws of our reluctant beast had ensured that my wonderful, white little kitten would never be Trip's plaything again. At least, not his living plaything.