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."