PUPPIES & KITTENS, DOGS & CATS

 

My Dad and his dog, “Frisky”

Me and my little dog, “Doggie”

My husband’s beautiful Irish Setter, “Sean”.  When she was a puppy she’d jump into his lap and she never quite got out of the habit.

Our son at 6 weeks old with his first dog, “Snoopy’”

That Christmas Santa brought him a “Snoopy” he could ride (plus a few other things. J

Our son at 4 months with Sean.  The two became inseparable.  Actually, from the get-go, Sean was the doggie mom.  I think she thought he’d been born just for her to protect and play with.  If he cried or was in any other discomfort or danger, she’d come find me and whimper as she looked over her shoulder in his direction.  The only difference between Sean and “Lassie” is Sean wasn’t a big TV star. J

And there was a big fun doggie to play with at Grandmother & Granddad’s house when we went visiting.

A few years later Sean went to play in the big doggie park in the sky and we adopted a puppy we named “Ace”.  Unfortunately Ace wasn’t with us all that long.  He kept running away.  He was kept on a chain linked to his doghouse at night, but he learned how to angle the part around his neck over the corner of his doghouse roof so he could slip out of it and off he’d go with the neighborhood dogs.  Luckily, someone with a nice big ranch wanted him, so hopefully he wound up having a good life where he could romp & play all over the place to his heart’s content.

One other thing with Ace – the timing of introducing him to our family wasn’t the greatest.  My husband didn’t quite think things through.  He picked up the puppy and brought him to his new home the morning of the afternoon he came to the hospital to bring me and our new baby daughter home.  That night we didn’t know who was crying - the puppy or the new baby!

Here’s that ‘new baby’ on her 2^nd birthday with a doggie of her own.  Looks like another “Snoopy”.

And then we became a cat family.  A few weeks before we were due to move, this kitty cat followed us one summer night when we were walking home after dinner at a local hamburger joint, and stayed.  I put ‘lost’ posters up and a ‘lost & found’ ad in the local paper, but no takers.  So we named her “Tigger”, had her evaluated at the local vet’s, and when we moved, brought her with us.

She was quite the entertainer and loved to be around the kids – even to getting in the way of things sometimes.  But she was a neat cat.  She certainly solved the gopher problem in our front yard.  The only part I didn’t like about that was the ‘presents’ she’d leave at the front door to let us know what a good helpful kitty she was.  Yuk.

After we lost “Tigger” (to a speeding car L) a friend gave our eldest daughter a sweet little kitty she named “Emily”.  We hadn’t had Emily all that long when we were kind of tricked into accepting another kitty into the family.  Some folks at the local mall were giving away kittens and had one left.  A little girl picked it up and while we (the little girl and my daughters and I) were exclaiming over how cute it was, the people trying to get rid of it quietly picked up their cardboard box and stole away!  The little girl’s mother told her they couldn’t keep the kitten and would have to take it to the humane society.  My daughters, knowing the chances of the kitten being adopted from the Humane Society were minimal, turned to me with great sad eyes and so “Molly” became another member of our family.  Unfortunately, Emily’s little life was cut short by some sort of illness or injury.  We never knew which.  So then we just had Molly who lived to be 20 years old which was rather amazing.

Here she’s hanging out with the girls.

Other times, before I had furniture in it, she liked to cuddle up in one of the bedrooms in my dollhouse.  She was a small kitty.

The kids had all grown up and left home, graduated college, and found jobs.  And then eldest daughter suffered a serious accident and came to live with us, bringing along her two cats “Oliver and Paxton”.

Oliver liked to wait patiently (most of the time) for my husband to finish his pudding after dinner so he could lick the bowl.

Paxton had a more independent nature and could sit up to the table and place his own order for whatever he desired.

Eventually all the kitties made their way to their heavenly scratching posts and now I have a budgie named “Shakespeare” who talks a blue streak (“You bet your sweet bippie.”) and wants lots of attention!

Just hangin’ out – waiting for Mom to notice me . . . 

:->

La Nightingail