Pony Party: Animal Friends

I always wanted a dog when I was a kid. My mother was pretty reluctant being a cat person and told me if I got straight A’s, I could have one. It never quite happened.

To that end I adopted all my friend’s dogs. There was “Flip”, the sweet German Shepherd who had epilepsy who came along on all of my adventures around the neighborhood when Gail and I went exploring. There was poor “biscuit”, a happy mixed breed my buddy Susie had as a teenager. Biscuit sat around at several unauthorized parties shaking his doggy head at us. “Tiger” was a dachshund down the street. He hated people and bit my ass once when I was playing in a backyard. Another kid was teasing him and I was the closest. Thus, my lifelong avoidance of wiener dogs.

Now I have a mix of dogs and cats all from various backgrounds.

I used to house sit for one of my professor and walk his Husky, Satin. She also had diabetes and I had to give her shots. They lived in a not very good neighborhood because young academics don’t make much. One weekend the neighbor dude threatened his wife with a gun ( pretty rare at that time in Canada ) while Satin and I were walking by. I suggested to my prof and his wife they might want to think about moving elsewhere. They did and after that, the professor’s wife became my friend partially out of gratitude. She had been bugging him for months to put the house on the market and get out. They’re lucky they got a good price for the place. I hear it’s hard to move houses when there’s a diabetic pet in the family. They drink a lot more water than normal and can have bathroom issues ( that’ll decrease the property value if you catch my drift ). I’m not so worried for my dogs, but I don’t know what I’d do if any of my cats got diabetes, well, I could start looking for cat diapers, that’d be something I could do.

Back to the pets I adopted, Bosley, the bull terrier belonged to my friend Susie. She asked me to come and house sit one weekend, Bosley knew me well so it was a good match. I was eager to get out of town having just had a fight with my on again off again painter/photographer boyfriend.

Bosley and I were having a good old time with belly rubs and the hockey game when my boyfriend showed up apologizing. He drove an hour to visit so I let him in. He seemed genuine in his intent but Bosley thought otherwise. Although my boyfriend had never been physically abusive to me the dog would not let him near me. He barked, snarled, and I had to leash him to keep him away. Ultimately, the boyfriend had to hop in his car and drive an hour back home.

My grandmother had a friend with a poodle who could growl what sounded like, “Mama” and she learned to drink water out of a bottle.

When I got married I told my spouse animals were a requirement of the deal. He had an adored Rhodesian Ridge back who was stolen from his parents while he was tenting it in the desert during Bush I. Lucky, the Rhodesian Ridge, back liked to eat popcorn and counter surf when muffins were concocted.

I adopted a cat as a “pet” for a now deceased dog. Roxy was a gentle chow/shepherd who loved cats. My cats hated her, so I went out and got her a kitten, Sawyer. The problem is Sawyer is that he likes dogs and doesn’t see them as adversaries. He and Arno, my Dutch Shepherd like to goad one another on in chase matches. Arno learned how to jump through an open window to get back into the house after watching Sawyer. We don’t actually like Sawyer getting out, he is an escape artist. Sawyer suddenly developed a like of getting belly rubs after watching Arno get extra attention rolling on his back.

The house is always chaotic because one of the cats hates Arno, and the other dog hates him to. Our other dog was stolen from my brother in law because he neglected her. She likes killing things outside but never even looks at our cats.

Tell me about your animal friends past and present.

Please don’t rec pony party, hang out, chit chat, and then go read some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.