I Love Animals

Since in my profile I indicated I was a rabid animal lover, I thought I would write about some of my animal friends.  Never did I have a pet that let me down, or lied to me, or betrayed me.  Always, it was unconditional love.

I'll start back as far as I can remember.  The first dog I remember being fond of was Grandma Maud's old unkempt, shepherd dog, named Gooch.  He was old, but we were great friends.  I didn't get to know him long.  I don't know if he died of old age, or if they just put him "to sleep".  Snookie was the best dog.  If I could pick a pet to take to heaven with me, it would be Snookie.  She was an adult dog when she was given to us.  We had her nearly twenty years, so I literally grew up with her.  She was a rat terrier. She loved it when she and I would go check out wood piles and holes in the ground looking for something to catch.  She'd dig with her front feet with all her might and stick her head in the hole and sneeze and snort.  She was a good dog for kids.  She spent time in the house on the couch.  She loved to be loved.  Though you didn't want to mess with her when she was eating.  She didn't exactly say anything, but she'd curl her upper lip.  I knew this meant, "leave me alone".   She grew old and arthritis kept her from getting up on the couch (Grandma called them divans).  Then she became incontinent.  This was her checkered flag.  She had reached the end of the rat race.  One day I went to school and when I came home, Snookie was gone.  One of the folks shot her and took her body out in one of the fields, and hopefully buried her.  I had lost my best friend and the tears just kept coming.  We had other dogs, and I loved them all, except one.  His name was Shep, and he was kind of a reddish mixed breed dog that had a mental problem.  He like to skin cats alive.  We got rid of him in the normal way, lead poisoning.

Grandma and Grandpa Burton had a green parakeet named Chris.  When the grandparents were no longer able to care for their pets, they gave them away.  We got Chris.  Birds are so smart.  I had no idea they had personality and were very observant.  We let Chris out of her cage and she had run of the house.  She preferred my mom to the rest of us.  That's probably because Mama was home all day, in the kitchen where Chris's cage was.  Chris spent a lot of her time with Mama.  Chris's favorite thing was to get inside my mom's dress at the front and get down and roost on Mama's bra.  Mama had to be careful so as not to squash her, or do something Chris didn't like, because Chris could and did bite hard.  Every once in a while my mom would screech "OW".  I knew Chris had sunk her sharp beak into something.  I laugh when I think back of watching my mother iron, and there would always be this moving bump in her dress.  Chris layed at least one egg that I remember.  She died of old age.

Then there was Chester, the house chicken.  I forget who found the egg and how we knew there was a chick inside it.  But we incubated the egg and one day something inside started pecking away the shell to get out.  What emerged was Chester.  I don't know when we figured out Chester was a rooster.  I think we just took a chance on the gender of the chick.  You've heard of imprinting no doubt.  We were the first things Chester saw and from that day forward he thought either we were chickens, or else he was human.  He never had much to do with the barnyard chickens.  He used tin cans to satisfy his natural urges.  I put him on an old table we had on the front porch.  He HATED that.  Heights scared him to death.  We tried to teach him to crow.  He finally did crow some, but not much.  What he did like was to sit on my lap and have his back massaged.  He'd sit there with one eye open and one closed and would stay there as long as I kept massaging his back.  Chester eventually acquired a small harem of hens.  He didn't know what to do with them, but that didn't seem to bother the hens.  One day I came home from school to the horrible news that Chester and his hens were out in the road and Chester got hit and was killed.  My heart was broken. And no.  We did not eat him.

We always had a few head of cattle and occasionally we had pigs.  In every herd, I had at least one or two pets.  I don't know why some of the farm animals enjoyed interaction with me and others wanted nothing to do with me.  My all time favorite cows were Little Britches, a small guernsey cow, and Queen Mary, a large holstein cow.  They relished any attention they could get.  They loved to have their backs and behind the ears scratched, as well as down by their tail.  I was never kicked by either of these two cows.  I probably could have ridden them, but I didn't want to stretch my luck.  One day my dad was out in the corral with the cows.  Queen Mary came over to him as if seeking help.  Something was terribly terribly wrong.  Daddy said he could see fear in her eyes.  Before a vet could be called, Queen Mary keeled over dead.  There was nothing to do but call the "dead wagon".  It was determined that she had hard ware in her digestive system.  When you raise animals to make a little money, the day comes when you have to sell them.  Little Britches must have been sold, as she was getting some age on her.  I know she probably went to the rendering plant.  I hated sale day.

I only remember raising pigs once after we moved to Grandma's house.  I had the privilege of feeding them a few times.  Believe me, my life was in God's hands.  These were not baby piggies, they were huge and a person, especially someone much smaller than them, could easily get trampled.  But in spite of their bad manners, there were two pigs that decided they liked me.  They were very jealous of each other.  I sat down on the ground and one of the pigs came over and sat beside me and leaned on me.  So I scratched it's back, and played with it and tickled it's ears and rubbed it's face.  This did not play well with pig number 2.  I didn't have names for these guys.  Usually every pet gets a name, but these guys didn't get names.  Number 2 came over and sat by me on my other side and leaned on me and grunted.  The two pigs exchanged insults, and I was getting squeezed between them.  Surely they weighed a couple hundred pounds, or more, and I probably weighed 90 pounds.  So I scratched both pigs' back and sweet talked them until they were satisfied that each was the number 1 pig.

We didn't have a lot of horses after the folks quit farming with horses.  My dad even disliked horses.  Sometimes they'd spend half the day just trying to catch them so they could hitch them up and get to work.  I'm positive Daddy got us a black horse when I was quite young.  But I can't remember much of anything about him other than he was a very nice horse most of the time.  Aunt Mildred Cummings, who lived a few miles away from the farm in Otego, had "Red".  She kept him at our farm.  He was not a nice horse.  He would try to sneak up and bite me and he would kick at me if I got too close.  I was glad when he was gone.  When I was a little older, Daddy bought a beautiful bay horse for us kids to ride.  He was huge.  Horses are the sneakiest animal I've ever been around.  They can learn to open barn doors and get out for one thing.  But Tony was a wonderful horse. However, when I rode him, he was in control.  I often rode bareback since I couldn't saddle a horse.  Evidently I could bridle one.  One day I was riding Tony and we went over to our place one quarter of a mile east of Grandma Maud's place.  Everything went just fine until Tony decided to take off for home. He turned around to the west at what seemed like a dead run to me. My legs gripped his fat tummy and I hung on to his mane for dear life. I didn't fall off amazingly.   Tony went straight to the barn and stopped.   I think he was telling me I could get off now.  Then one of the horses, and it seems like it was that mysterious black horse would scrape my off by walking under a low branch every chance he got.  Then I would be riding in the pasture and the horse would stop all of a sudden, dip his head, and over the top of him I'd go.  I love horses, and I think they are among God's most beautiful creatures, but they are ornery.

We had all kinds of wild animals in our ICU (cardboard box- like that little lady from Arkansas had) at one time or another.  My mom even had a big old bull snake that inhabited her garden.  She knew he was there, and he knew she was there, but they left each other alone and got along fine.

One of the little animals that amazed me the most was avian.  One day when we lived in Smith Center, KS, the doorbell rang.  It was Scotty Clark from across the street.  He was carefully holding in his cupped hands a little fuzz ball that had a few pin feathers too.  "Would you take care of this bird for me?  My mom said I couldn't keep it, and wondered if you would take it."  Thinking the little piece of flesh stretched over fragile little bones and a few pin feathers sticking out around it, I though there was no way this little bird was going to live very long.  So I said "Sure Scotty,  I'll take care of it for you".  And to the ICU we went.  I vigilantly watched over the baby bird and fed it the best I knew how.  But instead of dying, it thrived.  It turned out to be a sparrow. My spouse named her (we just guessed her gender) Birdice (pronouned like Berniece).  However I just called her Birdie for short.  How original.  Birdie had quite the personality and many personal preferences.  At meal time we could expect Birdie to come sit on the edge of our plate and look over the food to see what we were eating.  If she saw something that appealed to her, she helped herself.  She loved peas and desserts, especially cake.  If we were drinking a soda pop in a glass, she loved to sit on the edge of the glass and let the fizz touch her face.  She loved to drink out of the faucet.  She would sit on the faucet and wait for someone to turn the cold water on and she would dip her head down and drink the running water.  She absolutely loved pancakes.  She could be in another room and hear me get out my pancake and waffle grill and she knew exactly what I was doing.  Her she'd come.  She'd land on my shoulder and run up and down my arm while I whipped up the pancakes.  Bath time was interesting.  She wouldn't bathe with me, but she always bathed with Bill.  She'd land on his chest or tummy and edge into the water and water would fly everywhere as she flapped her wings.  She'd be so wet she nearly could not fly out of the tub.  She would wait for Bill to put on his white tee shirt and she would dry herself on his shirt just by rubbing herself on it.  She had these natural instincts to nest.  So, anytime we tried to read a paper she would be right there and start ripping strips of paper and she'd take them and deposit them in our living room ceiling light fixture.  She was making a nest.  I hated to destroy her efforts, but I also hated to see my house burn down.  She would sit up on the edge of the light fixture.  When people came she would look them over.  Some people she did not like.  Other people she liked and would pester them.  One day I came out of my bedroom wearing a horizontally striped dress.  Birdy was horrified and scared to death of me.  So maybe she judged people by their clothes.  Birdie died at 18 months of age.  I don't know what caused her death.  But we both mourned her passing.

Then there was Spidey and Charlotte, two rather large spiders that built the most beautiful webs in the corner of our front porch.  They weren't there the same year.  Neither one was allowed in the house.  The morning dew and the shining sun outlined the delicately designed webs.  I would stand and admire the web's beauty and the ingenuity it took for the spiders to build such magnificent structures.  No one was allowed to tear down the webs.  The webs didn't last that long anyway.

I can barely watch those ads on TV that feature abused animals.  The saddness in their eyes bring big old tears to my eyes.  How people can be so cruel and merciless, I will never understand.  I am grateful to those animals who sacrifice their lives so we can have food to eat.  I shall never get any enjoyment from hunting down and killing animals just for the pleasure of it.

In November 2006, we adopted from the Hastings animal shelter a beautiful white, neutered and declawed cat named Jasper.  He's our fourth cat, and each one of our cats has been so different.  The shelter people thought Jasper was of the Ragdoll breed.  They guessed him to be 5 or 6 when we got him, so he is going on 9 or 10 years old. 

I'll never change.  Someday I'll be the old lady that lives with a house full of animals.