I always had a pet when I was growing up. I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have a dog as I was growing up. There was dear little Max, a white lhassa-poo, who had such a kind nature that he’d let two little girls dress him up in Cabbage Patch doll clothes. Since he was white, and old (so he wouldn’t move around too much), he was also our defacto sheep when my sister and I staged our own Christmas Story plays. Then there was JJ, the little puppy that we bought on a whim, without Daddy’s permission, so we named him after Daddy’s favorite mountain man, Jeremiah Johnson. That little puppy grew up into a big doggie, since he was a laborador mix. We found out the hard way he also had Chow in him, which made him bite a neighbor. We lost him to Animal Control the next day. To fill that hole, we found Sunny. Ah, little Sunny. We found her in death row at the pound. Dozens of dogs were barking and pushing at the fences, but Sunny was just sitting there wagging her tail at us. My sister and I said immediately that she was the one. So we took her home that day and she was our neurotic little protector for many years to come. Sunny had a love-hate relationship with many of our friends. She chased my best friend up into a chair, and I’m told Sunny had just as much affection for my sister’s best friend. Sunny was a terrier mix, so she thought she was a big dog. We called her our 15 pound ball of furry fury. Watch out for those ankles!
Then I went away to college and missed my pets terribly. Living in the dorm, it’s easy to put that out of your mind, but once I graduated and moved into my own place, I began to ache for that companionship again. After 20 years of always having dogs, it never occurred to me that I was anything but a dog person. We were living in a 3rd story apartment, so we felt it would be unfair to a puppy to keep him locked up all day. So I asked, begged, and cajoled until my hubby gave in to adopting a cat. Labor Day weekend of 2001, we visited the Humane Society and adopted Mandy. We’ve been cat people ever since.
It’s funny how our furry little companions become so much a part of our lives–they truly are part of the family. And thinking about them apparently makes me very sentimental because I sat down to write about how funny it is to watch them supervise our Roomba vaccuum. But now I’ve totally lost that train of thought. They aren’t quite sure what to make of this disc that wanders around the room bumping into things. It even seems to chase them sometimes! Mandy runs from it, Toby ignores it, but Rosco sticks around so he can keep his eye on it at all times. Like he’s guarding an unwanted intruder. Whaddya know? I just realized–I have three neurotic little protectors now! Haha!
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