Best 3 quotes in «animal care quotes» category

Medusa the hedgehog was wandering casually along the hallway. She paused as Christopher approached. A faint smile touched his lips. He bent to pick her up as Beatrix had showed him, inserting his hands beneath her. The hedgehog's quills flattened naturally as he turned her up to look at him. Relaxed and curious, she viewed him with her perpetual hedgehog smile. "Medusa," he said softly, "I wouldn't advise climbing out of your pen at night. One of the maids might find you, and then what? You might find yourself taken to the scullery and used to scrub a pot." Taking her to the private upstairs receiving room, he lowered her into her pen. Continuing on to Beatrix's room, he reflected that his wife viewed poor Bennett as yet another wounded creature. She had shown no hesitation in welcoming him into their home. One would expect no less of Beatrix. Entering the room quietly, he saw his wife at her dressing table, carefully filing the claws of Lucky's remaining paw. The cat regarded her with a bored expression, tail flicking lazily. "... you must stay away from the settee cushions," Beatrix was lecturing, "or Mrs. Clocker will have both our heads." Christopher's gaze traveled over the long, elegant lines of her figure, her silhouette revealed in the lamp glow that shone through her muslin nightgown.

Over her years of caring for unwanted animals, Lady Penelope Campion had learned a few things. Dogs barked; rabbits hopped. Hedgehogs curled up into pincushions. Cats plopped in the middle of the drawing room carpet and licked themselves in indelicate places. Confused parrots flew out open windows and settled on ledges just out of reach. And Penny leaned over window sashes in her nightdress to rescue them- even if it meant risking her own neck. She couldn't change her nature, any more than the lost, lonely, wounded, and abandoned creatures filling her house could change theirs.

As for Beatrix, there was doubt as to whether she would marry at all. She was only half-civilized, spending most of her time out-of-doors, riding or rambling through the woodlands, marsh, and meadows of Hampshire. Beatrix preferred the company of animals to people, collecting injured and orphaned creatures and rehabilitating them. The creatures that couldn't survive on their own in the wild were kept as pets, and Beatrix occupied herself with caring for them. Out-of-doors, she was happy and fulfilled. Indoors, life was not nearly so perfect.