My last dog was chasing my cousin's car down the road, stopped, and came into our front yard as my cousin continued on to her job. The dog stayed with us for eight years, including one move, before THAT trip to the vet. Memory and dog books make me think she was part Manchester terrier, part beagle and, as I say fondly in reminiscence, "100 percent junkyard." A finer, fiercer, more loving dog you'll never see.
Our last cat was the last survivor of a litter of five dropped by a stray shortly before we moved. Mama Cat and two kittens disappeared while we were moving; of the three remaining, two did ... not adapt well to country life. No. 5, the runt, was with us for 18 years, promoted from barn cat to house cat (it was her house, though she was agreeable to us being there as long as we kept the Tender Vittles coming, permitted her to unravel Mom's crocheting as it happened, and left room for her on the bed) though she was not averse to grocery-shopping for mice in the hayfield. She was a ... well, there's such a label as American Domestic Shorthair, but she was your basic cat. One thing I like about cats is they manage to remain cats despite human efforts to breed them into different shapes.