Dogs and Cats

Messy little creatures at the best of times, but I could not live without them. As a child I was deathly afraid of dogs because of an incident where I was riding my bike and a dog on a chain lunged at me. I screamed not knowing that he could not get at me. After that it was games over when it came to dogs. We had the odd stray cat come and live outside at our house on occasion and that was terrific. My dad always used to tell us that we couldn't have pets because when they died it would hurt us too much. Go figure!! My parents in the meantime have had three cats, one right after the other. Nothing said about what happens when they die. Oh well.
When I was about 17 I started dating a guy who would become my husband. He had a beagle. She was rather aggressive so I never really got to know her but hubby was always good around dogs and with his help I lost my fear of dogs.
In the early years of our marriage he worked the midnight shift at a grocery store so I was alone at home at night. We got our first dog- a Samoyed whom we named Snowball. She lived with us for almost ten years before we had to have her put down because she was deaf and had started to snap at our young children. We already had another dog by this time... a collie, the first of three to date. Lady Diana was a blue merle collie. She was a joy to have around and I will write in depth about her in a future blog. Next came a Lhasa Apso named Fawn. All of our dogs have been with us since they were pups with the exception of one. Fawn lived to be a ripe old 16 when she started having seizures and needed to visit the Rainbow Bridge. Lady had passed away and along came Kai from the same breeder. Kai was a tri coloured collie. As Kai got older, and Fawn passed, we aquired Savannah from a breeder in Mississauga. Savannah was supposed to go to our youngest daughter's house when she moved out but I just couldn't give her up. Our youngest daughter bought an Australian Shepherd for herself that was raised with Kai and Savannah.Kai died a year ago in December. At that point we decided to stick with just one dog. So for six months Savannah moped around the house but we didn't really catch on. As our oldest daughter found herself with two children and two dogs it became too much and we told her that we would take her collie, Zoe. So that's how an adult dog arrived in the family. She and Savannah were already good friends but we did not know just how lonely Savannah had been until Zoe arrived. They play, run, jump and bark in tandem. What a pair.
Throughout all this we have had cats. Early on in our marriage we had two black cats named Damian and Cricket. We found Cricket as a kitten hanging on the fence by the horse race track. It was cold and snowy. We took him home. Damian had been born under hubby's parents' porch and we took him from the litter. One day our oldest brought home an orange and brown calico whom we named Pumpkin. She was supposed to stay until our oldest's best friend could convince her mother to keep her. Needless to say that didn't happen and we kept Pumpkin and have her to this day, 14 years later.
I think pets choose you not the other way around. I could not see our lives without animals. Dogs will be in our future until I leave this earth and meet up with all of them at the Rainbow Bridge.