Pets Part 3 (of 3)

Part 3

OK, this should wrap it up. We ended part 2 (falsetto voices again) in the year 2000. (In the year 2000.) I need to ravel back a little. Let’s try 1998, I think.

While we lived in Florence we adopted a puppy. Sam was half Border Collie/Lab and half unknown. She had the tail, energy, and affection of a Lab and the brains of a Border Collie. We took her to obedience school. She did great. While we were in class and while she had on the training collar. The minute the collar came off all training was gone and it was pure energy. She was smart enough to know when to behave.

Sam’s favorite pastime was digging holes in the backyard. The holes were about 8-10 inches round and about 18 inches deep. I like to call them ankle breakers. She also ate holes into the wooden lattice under our deck. One day we saw a huge piece of clear plastic sheeting in the backyard. I went out and noticed a trail of several smaller pieces leading under the deck. I followed the trail. It led to the access panel to our crawl space. Sam pulled almost the entire vapor barrier from under our house and into the backyard. Then came the final straw.

That year for Mother’s Day Misty bought a tree to plant in memory of her mother. Our backyard was almost treeless. She decided that would be a good place for it. Sam sat loyally by her side as Misty dug a hole and planted the memorial tree. (You know what’s coming don’t you?) The next morning I looked out into the yard and noticed Sam running and jumping back and forth. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so playful. Then I noticed something long and skinny in her mouth. Next I noticed a hole where the tree stood the night before. The next day we ran an ad in the paper “Free to Good Home.”

Sam went to live on a farm with a pool. The family had an autistic child who loved dogs. Did I mention the man is a doctor? I don’t feel sorry for Sam. She is much happier now than she would’ve been with us.

Soon after we moved to Birmingham. Ro and Guil (from part 2) made the move with us, but they were the only pets we had during our time in Birmingham. I guess I can give a little insight into their demise.

Just after our move they decided they wanted to be outside cats. Especially Ro. Every time we opened the door she attempted to dart out before we could close it. For a while we tried to stop her. Eventually her will won over ours. She became an outside cat.

Our first summer there I went on not 1, not 2, but 3 youth trips. The final one was a weekend at the beach with the high school kids. We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch on the trip home. While we were there I got the dreaded 9-1-1 page (I didn’t have a cell phone, just a pager). The message was our home number, followed by 9-1-1. I got to a pay phone as fast as I could and called home.

Misty answered and was bordering on hysterical (keep in mind she was 4-5 months pregnant). Through the sobbing I finally pieced together the story. Misty put Jacob in the car to go to church. Started backing out and heard a horrible noise. Misty immediately knew what happened. As they left Ro ran out of the house and under the car.

Jacob had no idea what happened. He, as most 3 year-old boys would, wanted to know what made the awful noise. Misty took Jacob to the neighbor. She got Ro into the car and took her to an emergency vet clinic. Ro was still alive, but her injuries were too severe. We gave Guil away soon after that. For Misty, he reminded her of Ro a little too much.

A few months later, our second child was born. Not long after that we moved from Helena to Hoover. I was out of town a lot and we had, almost literally, no money. Another pet was really not an option. A couple of years later we moved to Paducah, KY and we knew we were ready for a family pet.

Given our past experiences, we knew we did not want a puppy. We wanted a full-grown dog. We visited the local animal shelter a few times and kept an eye on the pet ads in the classifieds, but never really found what we wanted. One Saturday afternoon we decided to try the shelter again. It was just as chaotic as every other trip: dogs barking, children yelling and/or crying.

We walked up and down the aisles checking out the dogs in each pen. Every pen was the same. Dogs barking or jumping; pushing each other out of the way. Chaos. Finally we spotted a small black and brown dog sitting quietly, but attentively at the back of one of the pens. The shelter attendants let us take him outside on a leash. He walked calmly in front of us as we went out to the lawn in front of the shelter.

Once we were outside our daughter, who was already in love with him, immediately wrapped both arms around his neck and wrestled him down to the ground. We both jumped to pry her from his neck before he mauled her. He barely made a move or a sound. He actually seemed to enjoy it. We knew we had our dog.

We decided earlier that we wanted to take any dog we liked to the vet to have them checked before we committed. Being Saturday, the vet was closed. The shelter workers told us we could take him home and then have him checked Monday. If the vet were to find anything wrong with him they would take him back. We are suckers.

Stitch, as our daughter named him, was great. All weekend he ran around our yard, herded the kids (he obviously had some shepherd blood of some sort), and in general won our hearts. Monday came and Stitch visited the vet. Misty called me at work with the news. He had heartworms. It is treatable, but it would cost $350. At this point there was no way we could take him back to the shelter. With heartworms, they would definitely put him down. So we coughed up the money. Stitch is still a wonderful dog. That $350 could not have been spent any better way.

Not long after that Misty ran into someone giving away kittens at the Vet’s office. Isabella was a beautiful little longhaired, calico kitten. She’s been a good cat over the years. There are not really any good stories about her. I think that’s the way she likes things. Well, she does poop in the kids’ tub from time to time. And I used to climb the stairs backward to keep her from attacking the backs of my legs. She is the epitome of the stuck up cat. On her it works.

A few years ago we went, quickly, from a one dog, one cat family to a 2 dogs, 2 cats family. First came dog #2: Harvey. I’ve told the story before. Look back around Christmas of 2006 to read it. Long story short, someone left a dog at my parents’ house and we ended up with him. Harvey is Harvey. That’s all I can say for him. At least Misty loves him.

Wiley (named after Bob Wiley, from What About Bob?) is our other cat. He is large, orange and purrs like a European sports car. He was a stray that wandered up to our house and won our hearts with his persistence (hence the name). I truly believe he is the happiest cat on Earth.

Well, that’s it; 3500 words worth of pets. I know I left some out. I didn’t mention hamsters or fish or turtles that have come and gone over the years. I’m not sure there’s enough bandwidth available for that information. Misty and I both expect to be those “crazy cat people” in about 40 years. Bank on it.