Favorite Pet Memories

[Hosakawa Tito]

Beirut's post on the passing of Clyde induced me to reminisce on some fond memories of my pets today.

The week before Christmas 1989, my maternal Grandmother suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. The funeral was out of town, a couple of hours away. We had just gotten a new rottweiler pup, Apollo, and had him for about a month. Instead of boarding him for a day, we decided to have a friend check on him, let him out to do his business and make sure he had food & water. We got home from the funeral early that evening, emotionally drained and exhausted. I entered the living room, calling for Apollo, and did a double take. The Christmas tree was down, ornaments smashed, many of the wrapped gifts chewed open. Sitting in the middle of the mess was Apollo with that soon to be trademark doofy dog grin, tongue lolling, stubby tail thumping the floor with pride and joy. I was, to say the least, a bit angry at him, but at myself most of all for expecting a puppy not to act like a puppy.
During the cleanup I pick up a well chewed VCR movie, one of my 7 year old daughter's gifts. Turning it over I read the title out loud, "All Dogs Go to Heaven." We still laugh about that one.


Got any memories you'd like to share?

[CountArach]

Awww, that is so cute.

[Whacker]

Big puppy!

I've got a few of some of my long passed on dogs. Lizzie, the golden that I grew up with, used to ... taste test candy canes that were hung too low on the christmas tree. We finally noticed one year that the trees would tend to be devoid of any candy canes towards the bottom, we finally figured it out when the height stopped right about where a dogs head would be, and someone had very fresh minty breath.

This other time, my mom left her outside one night (during the summer), and we found her sulking on the back porch in the morning. She was very pissed off at mom for a good while after that, needed lots of treats to make up for it.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[lars573]

When I was 10 we got a new cat. Black and white, 1/4 Siamese. Anyway he was amoung the most energetic of kittens. And when his antics got to be too much we would put him behind the curtain of plastic that separated the finished from none finished-parts of the old house. Thus imprisoned he would amuse himself by climbing the staris and jumping onto the plastic divide and sliding down on his claws, my mother dubbed it Tarzan-kitty. My father had to repalce that plastic often.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Once I was at a computer in my parent's house. In the kitchen, I hear a crash, and get up to see our youngest dog, a 2 year old Australian shepard, walk briskly out of the kitchen. I go in and see a ceramic rectangular bowl shattered in pieces on the ground. Yelling and scolding ensues.

A time after that, I had just brought home some leftovers from a fancy pizza place, and put them on the kitchen counter, far back from the edge. Of course, later I come back to find the empty cardboard on the ground. Much yelling ensues.

Another time before both of those, my mom was making chicken for dinner and putting it on the plates in the kitchen. After setting the chicken on my dad's plate, she turns back to the stove a while and when she turns back, the chicken is gone. Puzzled, she looks to see if my dad had done something with it, but then sees another one of our dogs, a several year old mutt aussie shepard black, blue-grey, and white merle, contentedly eating the chicken on the floor.

That dog isn't the brightest; I once got him to run in a circle so many times chasing a laser he couldn't stand straight when I stopped.

I love dogs.

Crazed Rabbit

[Beirut]

A story only a dog lover could love.

On the way into Montreal with a couple of buddy's and Beirut in a CJ-7. I'm in the back with the dog, and you know the back seat of a CJ-7 is not a lot of room for a 180lb guy and a 120lb dog. It's pretty close quarters so I've got the dog half on my lap.

Gurgle... urp... bleahhhhhhhh!

The dog ralphs all over me. Buckets of it. It was incredible. I had to spend another half hour in the back of that Jeep, with the dog still half in my lap, covered from my belt buckle to the tips of my shoes in dog barf.

He's looking at me thinking, "Sorry". I'm looking at him saying, "It's cool, baby."

[Hepcat]

One rather revolting yet fond memories I have of the samoyed before our current one is when one day my mother left several full nappies from my little brother in the lounge.

The next morning I get up and walk into the lounge and there are bits of nappy strewn across the floor and brown marks on the carpet and sitting in the middle of the room is one white (well less white than normal ) fluffy dog panting and looking very happy with himself. Not only did the carpet need cleaning but the dogs teeth as well.

[Whacker]

Ahh... the joys of dog barf. We have to give our fuzzy golden pig these pills before we do the 13 hour drive back home to Indiana, otherwise it tends to womit in the car. Not fun or pleasant.

[Orb]

His catliness, the cat, Mr. Tibs, Hewhorulestheuniversewhennotcomplainingaboutfoodshortagesorinsultingdogsorkillingsmallanimals was not very pleased with the dental cat food mum had gotten him. Not only did he refuse to eat it, but he also sat by the nice cat food until he got that.

EDIT: YES! Over 1,000 posts. Finally.

[econ21]

I have a lot of happy memories of my parent's first cat, a fiesty, vocal male Siamese. He was always getting into fights and I would foolishly try to separate him from his opponent. Getting imbetween two fighting cats is a bad idea, but I felt compelled to try because of the nasty wounds he could get. Usually I would end up with deep scratches from the cat (and he would later return unscathed).

The most memorable incident was when the cat came to me running and purring excitedly. I did not know what was up until I saw a snare around his neck. It had cut deep into the flesh of his neck, but somehow he had torn it loose and returned home. He was now greeting and purring because he knew I (or probably my dad) could cut the hideous thing off him. A very smart cat.

I tend to think Siamese are a different species of animal from other cats - they are so much more vocal and intelligent. Crazed Rabbit's laser chasing story reminds me of when I used my watch reflection to cast shadows on the wall. My parent's daft run of the mill cat kept vainly jumping after the shadow; their Siamese looked from the shadows to my wrist and back again. He figured out that my flicking my wrist was creating the shadows and seemed to realise the futility of chasing them, without even trying. He watched with lofty disdain, as if to say "Do you think I'm bovvered?"

[lars573]

I'd almost agree with you about Siamese, who's name was Whiskers. For example my 1/4 Siamese cat's reaction to the first mouse in the house in his life time. He FREAKED! Ran about the house raising an alarm. He stormed into the kitchen and demanded my mother follow him to the basement. Then was darting around the place trying find it. Mom, who had seen this sort of thing before, deduced he had seen a mouse. And left him to figure it out. It took him 3 days to find and cuff the thing to death. Then leave it as a present outside my parents bedroom. Later we took in a grey and white stray to be a playmate to Whiskers (Siamese have a high social need, when ever we'd go away he spent about 15 minutes walking around us complaining when we came back), named Scout. And when we moved to the current house Scout practically exterminated all rodents on our property. Leaving them as gifts for my grandfather. If anyone was around he'd play with the corpse. Tossing it into the air and catching it.

[Fragony]

Well only a catperson could laugh about this, my current cat Nero, a very unstable unit. You can see exactly what goes through that little head, very expressive cat indeed. He used to be of my brother, but he had to spend too much time abroad to take care of him. My brother warned me that Nero is very keen on hygiene, and that his toilet should be clean at all time. Yeah right LOL. Well, I was playing a bit on the computer, and I hear Nero meowing behind me. He looks me straight in the eyes, and craps on the floor and walks of. Just like Nero I want my surroundings clean, but I was laughing to hard to act.

[lars573]

Well when we first got Whiskers my mom decided that the best way to teach him to use the litter box was to let take a dump on the carpet, put the litter box there then move it to where we wanted it. So he ended up taking a dump under the table we take out meals at, right next to my dad chair. And everytime we ate our supper Whiskers would take a giant crap in his box. Which naturally smelled quite unpleasant. My dad had many things to say about that, none of them good. Eventually we moved it to the basement.

[Hosakawa Tito]

The family cat, a male black & white tuxedo, named Sly "followed" my daughter home as a stray one day. According to the vet he was only 6-7 months old. We got him his shots and took him home.
He was curious and rambunctious as any pet we ever had and sneaky too. One day soon after we got him I went into the bathroom to take a leak and didn't close the door all the way. As I'm standing there doing my business, up pops his fuzzy little head between my legs, front paws on the toilet bowl rim watching that stream of pee going into the bowl. Trying to shoo him out of the way, I say "Get out of there before I p**%$&*^& blargh", right then the little pisspot took a swipe at that stream of pee, and it flew everywhere, a few drops even went in my mouth. He then literally ricocheted off the walls and bounded away, I swear I could hear him giggling. From then on he was Sly to the rest of the family, but to me he will always be my little Pisspot.

[Whacker]

Ugh. Our current golden likes to come in and lay on my feet as I do number 2. It's ... pretty disgusting and disturbing to say the least. That and she gets annoyed when I try to shoo her over somewhere else.

[Hepcat]

Well I'll add a cat story to all this then. I was always told that I could never have a cat, my parents said I could have anything but a cat because we live by a busy road. But then one stormy day a little kitten with about 1/3rd of a tail (it looks as if it was cut off not naturally born like that) my mother found sheltering from the heavy rain under our van. So I was happy yet my parents told me that they were going to find the owners so not to get too attached to it.

After putting messages in the newspaper and on the radio and my parents asking around they finally gave up but told me that it would probably just get run over so don't be too devastated if it did. Well fortunately she turned out to be very good at crossing the road to hunt the pukekos at the park (much to my mother's horror since they are a protected native bird).

We called her Vanessa since we found her under the van and I am the only one she isn't hostile towards, I am also the one who feeds her, pets her and had to carry her in the car when she was sick and had to go to the vet. Also when she had kittens they had to stay in my room () which was great, apart from the crap under my bed.

So yeah, thats my miracle cat.