52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Week #17

Week 17. Pets. Did you have any pets as a child? If so, what types and what were their names. Do you have pets now? Describe them as well. If you did not have pets, you can discuss those of neighbors or other family members.

Tucked away in storage are my childhood photographs. Many, many of them are filled with snapshots of our family pets!

My Daddy was a dog man. We ALWAYS had a dog!!!

There was Freckles [a border collie], Flash, a German Shepherd mix, Sandy, a chihuahua, Angel, a purebred German Shepherd who was trained as a narcotics dog, Ughla, one of Angel's pups, Bimbo, an Alaskan husky.

Then there was Fido, a Shetland pony! [Grandpa Dreher helped me to name him!] Grandpa said if he had a pony, he'd name him Fido so that the pony would think he was dog and follow him around like one. And Fido did just that!!! He thought he was a dog. He'd even sit on command!

I had guinea pigs as well. [A male and female, and I named them Pint and Half-Pint.] Unfortunately, they were supposed to be two males, but when Mama came down one morning to find 22 squirming little guinea pig babies under Half-Pint, I was told the guinea pigs had to go!!! All 22 babies made it to "toddler" age, and we found homes for them, as well as Pint and Half-Pint.

Then there was Charlie. My pet turtle! Charlie eventually got some kind of fungus and died. But not before he outgrow two turtle terrariums! [He was about 11 when he died.]

And then there were the parakeets, Pete and Repeat. Repeat didn't speak. But Pete did! He had a vocabulary of about 50 words or so. He would whistle and say "What a babe!" [Mama didn't like that at all!] And he would say "Go-o-o-lly!" [Mimicking the old Gomer Pyle show!] And "Na-na-na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na-na-na Batman!" [Mimicking the starting song to the old Adam West "Batman" television show.]

Almost all of our pets were rescued from animal shelters. I suppose the only ones that weren't were Angel and her pup, Ughla.

I still have pets. A dog and a cat. They are also rescue animals.

Here is Fred. Fred isn't male. Fred is a female. Texican named the cat, thinking he was getting a male, only to be fooled when it turned out to be a male instead!

Fred is a whopper of a cat, weighing in at almost 20 pounds! But she is one of my babies!!!

And the other is...

...Chica, [she was named Chicquita when we got her in Dallas, and I shortened it to Chica]. She was rescued from a family who had abused her terribly. But don't let this shy, dainty facade fool you! She has a nasty little temper, and we can't allow her near small children [it was an 8 and a 10 year old boy who had abused her!]

Chica is a Mama's doggy. She has never bitten me, although that doesn't mean she hasn't fussed [growled] and "back talked" to me! I pretty much let her run the house as she see fits, since she had such a horrible start in life! I want her to know she is loved and will never be abused again.

You've seen those dogs on television who "talk"?

Chica is one such doggy.

I've taught her to say, "I Love You". [It's so cute!!!]

When we got Chica, I was traveling on the road with my husband as he drove a big rig cross-country. Chica was not house broken, and I house broke her on the road! [She was such an easy doggy to house train!] I simply purchased the liver treats used by dog trainers everywhere. If she did her thing when we stopped, she got a treat. If she didn't, no treat! It wasn't too long before she got the idea! And in 9-months on the road, she only ever had 2 accidents!!!

At Christmas I dress Chica and Fred up in costumes and take their pictures.

Here's Christmas 2010 snapshots.

[2009 I was able to get them in the same photo, but not 2010!]

Chica

Fred

As you can tell.... my pets are my pride and joy!

Kind of like my grandkids.

But that's for another post!