to all the pets we've loved before
I remember all of our pets, their personalities and quirks, and how much they were loved. My husband grew up without pets, and as much as growing up with animals is an integral part of my life, it's utterly lacking in his. He doesn't understand it, but he respects it, and has been amazing to the boys who are truly devastated by the passing of Cat, no less devastated than when their Grampa died last year.
So, this is my tribute to all the pets we've loved before, and to those we will love in the future, for being the sunshine of our days and a reason to come home, for teaching us about responsibility and unconditional love, and for often being a warm body that expects nothing but a little exchange of TLC.
In (sort of) chronological order:
There was grey kitten, whose ear I caught in the teeter totter swing thingy that bled and bled and bled. There was the boxful of kittens that accidentally got burned with the garbage. There was Heidi, the dog my Daddy had to shoot when we moved from the acreage to the city. He never got another pet after that, and would well up with tears right to his dying day over her.
There were countless goldfish, salamanders, budgies, canaries, finches, cockatiels, gerbils, and parrots. My tiger belly salamander Freddie the Strongman lived for 12 years; he was dried and lacquered and hung from my rear view mirror for years before finally disintegrating. Mr. Slizzard the Fence Lizard lived only 2 years, and his petrefied remains are in a bowl of potpourri upstairs, always a nice surprise for those going to take a whiff.
There was Patches, the kitty who went to live with a family friend, Snowball the deaf white cat we had to get rid of because she was a danger to herself. There was Merlin the tame cockatiel who my sister and I put in doll's dresses and took for walks in the baby carriage, and Molly the evil cockatiel who never learned to say anything but, "Molly's a bitch," because, well, she was one... There was Gimpy the Cat, a pathetic feline an ex-boyfriend had rescued after it had that had been run over by a bike - he peed everywhere and eventually had to be put down.
Tigger was our orange tabby cat, who once while in the throes of ecstasy getting brushed, managed to fall off the back of the toilet tank and knock the tip off one of his canine incisors. He lived to 18, and my Mom was devastated when he died. We always (lamely) joked that he said, "Meowph."
I bought Toby with babysitting money. Toby slept in my room, under the covers with me, every night for years and years, would wake me up every morning to go to school and would wait by the door for me each day; he ate cantaloupe, and tomatoes from your pizza, but not in front of you, always politely away from you, and when he died of leukemia at the age of 4 I thought I would die, too.
There were Buzz & Louis, a pair of kittens my Mom and I bought on a whim one day while picking up something else at Westmount Shopping Centre. We snuck them home on the bus in our jackets. Buzz and Louis lived with me after I left home, and lived to be 17 and 16 years respectively.
Riley was a crazy orange tabby cat who had a serious case of weird: he liked to leap up on your back and drape himself around your neck or perch on your shoulder, and if you asked him if he wanted to go for a spin, he'd immediately flop over on his side, purring, and wait for you to whiz him around in circles on the hardwood. When he was 2, he was enjoying the first of warm spring nights chasing a moth across the street. He didn't beat the cars when the light turned green. To this day that grim scene replays itself in my mind from time to time, taking my breath away, and making me so angry at the driver who couldn't even be bothered to stop and offer me a ride to the emergency with him.
Riley was part of a litter of unwanted kittens; somehow my mother, who by that time had taken in my sisters turtles and a garage cat named Labyrinth (who ran away and was never found), ended up taking in two of Riley's siblings, Tenderheart and Zachary. Tenderheart took ill at about 7; Zachary is a grumpy thing who still haunts my mother's existence, along with my sister's cat Amy.
Lily was a cat my Mom took in when a neghbour could no longer take care of her. Lily was lovely, and could give kisses. My sister Danna had Amy, and Tom, a huge creampuff of a black and white cat with a seriously disgusting drooling problem. Tom developed diabetes, and after many months and thousands of dollars in vet bills to finally get him levelled off, she took him to one of her field research sites and he was eaten by a badger.
My best friend Tannis had two kittens - 'the girls' - who saw her through her years in university, the breakdown of her marriage, a move across the country... when Phaedra took ill with diabetes and died, Sasha became her everything.
When I left my ex-husband, teh boys wanted a dog, and so did I, so we got Little Dog Tate. When Bill & I got together, there was suspicion of allergies, and so Tate went to live with my friend Scott. By the time allergy testing was done and found to be inconclusive, I couldn't bear to take Tate away from Scott. We still have visiting rights, but it still breaks my heart every time I see him.
My Mom thought Tate was so cute, she bought his sister Sarah, nicknamed Porkchop by Scott becuase she's a bit pudgy. My Mom decided Sarah was lonely, so she went and rescued a big border collie cross from the SPCA, and a year later fell in love with a Shih Tzu Poodle cross (the "shit-poo" to her grandsons) named Oliver.
My sister got on the doggy bandwagon right around the time my Mom and I got Tate and Sarah, and so we've had to deal with her noisy little minpin Marti Bear Bait, who also got a rescued-from-the-pound playmate named Luke.
Serejane got Mouse last year for her birthday, and the boys fell in love with him instantly and begged for one of their own. That would be Cat, the piggy we put down tonight. And in the next few weeks, we'll surely fall in love with our new guinea pig, as yet not met, not named, not known to us, though we've got two names under consideration: Rat, and Owl.
So, this is my tribute to all the pets we've loved before, and to those we will love in the future, for being the sunshine of our days and a reason to come home, for teaching us about responsibility and unconditional love, and for often being a warm body that expects nothing but a little exchange of TLC.
In (sort of) chronological order:
There was grey kitten, whose ear I caught in the teeter totter swing thingy that bled and bled and bled. There was the boxful of kittens that accidentally got burned with the garbage. There was Heidi, the dog my Daddy had to shoot when we moved from the acreage to the city. He never got another pet after that, and would well up with tears right to his dying day over her.
There were countless goldfish, salamanders, budgies, canaries, finches, cockatiels, gerbils, and parrots. My tiger belly salamander Freddie the Strongman lived for 12 years; he was dried and lacquered and hung from my rear view mirror for years before finally disintegrating. Mr. Slizzard the Fence Lizard lived only 2 years, and his petrefied remains are in a bowl of potpourri upstairs, always a nice surprise for those going to take a whiff.
There was Patches, the kitty who went to live with a family friend, Snowball the deaf white cat we had to get rid of because she was a danger to herself. There was Merlin the tame cockatiel who my sister and I put in doll's dresses and took for walks in the baby carriage, and Molly the evil cockatiel who never learned to say anything but, "Molly's a bitch," because, well, she was one... There was Gimpy the Cat, a pathetic feline an ex-boyfriend had rescued after it had that had been run over by a bike - he peed everywhere and eventually had to be put down.
Tigger was our orange tabby cat, who once while in the throes of ecstasy getting brushed, managed to fall off the back of the toilet tank and knock the tip off one of his canine incisors. He lived to 18, and my Mom was devastated when he died. We always (lamely) joked that he said, "Meowph."
I bought Toby with babysitting money. Toby slept in my room, under the covers with me, every night for years and years, would wake me up every morning to go to school and would wait by the door for me each day; he ate cantaloupe, and tomatoes from your pizza, but not in front of you, always politely away from you, and when he died of leukemia at the age of 4 I thought I would die, too.
There were Buzz & Louis, a pair of kittens my Mom and I bought on a whim one day while picking up something else at Westmount Shopping Centre. We snuck them home on the bus in our jackets. Buzz and Louis lived with me after I left home, and lived to be 17 and 16 years respectively.
Riley was a crazy orange tabby cat who had a serious case of weird: he liked to leap up on your back and drape himself around your neck or perch on your shoulder, and if you asked him if he wanted to go for a spin, he'd immediately flop over on his side, purring, and wait for you to whiz him around in circles on the hardwood. When he was 2, he was enjoying the first of warm spring nights chasing a moth across the street. He didn't beat the cars when the light turned green. To this day that grim scene replays itself in my mind from time to time, taking my breath away, and making me so angry at the driver who couldn't even be bothered to stop and offer me a ride to the emergency with him.
Riley was part of a litter of unwanted kittens; somehow my mother, who by that time had taken in my sisters turtles and a garage cat named Labyrinth (who ran away and was never found), ended up taking in two of Riley's siblings, Tenderheart and Zachary. Tenderheart took ill at about 7; Zachary is a grumpy thing who still haunts my mother's existence, along with my sister's cat Amy.
Lily was a cat my Mom took in when a neghbour could no longer take care of her. Lily was lovely, and could give kisses. My sister Danna had Amy, and Tom, a huge creampuff of a black and white cat with a seriously disgusting drooling problem. Tom developed diabetes, and after many months and thousands of dollars in vet bills to finally get him levelled off, she took him to one of her field research sites and he was eaten by a badger.
My best friend Tannis had two kittens - 'the girls' - who saw her through her years in university, the breakdown of her marriage, a move across the country... when Phaedra took ill with diabetes and died, Sasha became her everything.
When I left my ex-husband, teh boys wanted a dog, and so did I, so we got Little Dog Tate. When Bill & I got together, there was suspicion of allergies, and so Tate went to live with my friend Scott. By the time allergy testing was done and found to be inconclusive, I couldn't bear to take Tate away from Scott. We still have visiting rights, but it still breaks my heart every time I see him.
My Mom thought Tate was so cute, she bought his sister Sarah, nicknamed Porkchop by Scott becuase she's a bit pudgy. My Mom decided Sarah was lonely, so she went and rescued a big border collie cross from the SPCA, and a year later fell in love with a Shih Tzu Poodle cross (the "shit-poo" to her grandsons) named Oliver.
My sister got on the doggy bandwagon right around the time my Mom and I got Tate and Sarah, and so we've had to deal with her noisy little minpin Marti Bear Bait, who also got a rescued-from-the-pound playmate named Luke.
Serejane got Mouse last year for her birthday, and the boys fell in love with him instantly and begged for one of their own. That would be Cat, the piggy we put down tonight. And in the next few weeks, we'll surely fall in love with our new guinea pig, as yet not met, not named, not known to us, though we've got two names under consideration: Rat, and Owl.
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