I have not had a pet for a long time – till I was grown up. In fact, more than I was afraid that they would bite me, I was fearful that they would die one day. I did not know what I was missing out on!

Finally, when we were in Saint Louis, MO, I got to meet a few folks from the Humane Society who were rescuing abandoned puppies. And soon, in about a month’s time, we came home with 3 months old Atom (well, his legal name is really Cooper Mitra, but I call him Atom!)

Atom is a mutt – a combination of a Labrador & an Australian Sheep Dog. Like it happens in some cases, his eyes are of different colors – one blue & one brown.

We couldn’t stop there. About two months later, we got Tipsy at the PetSmart’s adoption. Tipsy (again her legal name is Sylvie Mitra) was a three month old Siberian husky. She is too much energy packaged into a small body.

We have posted some puppy training tips & videos of Atom & Tipsy on our website for pets. We created that site to share tips, photos & videos of how our pets are growing up, but mainly because we wanted others to share how to raise puppies without books!

That’s Atom, about 8 months, and lying on my feet while I am blogging from  a hotel room in New Jersey.

So that’s how we have our pets. And boy! How they changed our lives. There are good things & bad things of course. I used to spend a lot of time outdoors shooting pictures & attending seminars on weekends. Now I have to ration that somewhat. But I have started to enjoy spending time with these pesky little ones.

The greatest thing though is having them near me. It’s a feeling of joy & happiness. Spending 10 minutes of my time back from office energizes me now. I can easily forget the stress at work, the tensions at workplace & the ugly politics in a matter of minutes.

So go ahead & get yourself a pet. You can rescue one at your nearest Humane Society or like us, go over to the nearest adoption center. I know PetSmart organizes these adoptions every other week. You have to pay the adoption charges which is about 250 dollars & in turn you get one of the best friends a human can have.

If you are already raising pets without books, be sure to enroll on our website & write about it. With the amount of money we can save in these costly, not so great pet classes, we can get another dog! We did take Atom & to for the elementary class though & Atom graduated with honors!

Believe me, pets can improve your life so much. You will lose your stress easily, you can exercise with them & burn those calories & then, you will always have someone to play with – even if it’s the middle of the night.