It was all so predictable...

[rayinpenn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ticker fearful of the same situation, I required my daughter to sign a contract prior to getting the dog.

Contract? Nice concept. still what fools We mortals be.

Even though my son occasionally will walk the dog I rarely ask him to. It's just easier to walk her myself.

[EastWest Gal]

This thread warms my heart, so I'm telling our pet story. It's a bit long.

We are cat people. DH had a cat growing up. Greta lived to be 17, so he never really knew a home without a cat. As a kid, I had two, both only living 6-7 years due to illness. We adopted the second one when I was 10 and he quickly became my companion and my responsibility. My dad grew up on a farm and cats were never indoors pets but instead were barn animals who controlled rodents. My parents would let him out at night. There was a small creek a block from our house and he would come back in the morning with muddy paws which I had to towel off before he came inside. On weekends and in the summer he and I would walk to the creek together. I could literally walk my cat. We could walk down the street, cross a small court and go down to the creek and walk beside it. It was our secret patch of wilderness. He would never let me out of his sight. He would start meowing if he couldn't see me. He got leukemia when I was 16. I graduated high school and that summer I took college English. My family went away for a week and left me behind with our sick cat. The vet had tried medication but there wasn't much we could do. I went to class but otherwise stayed home and studied and sat with him. I carried him everywhere-to the litter box, to his food, to bed. It broke my heart. My family just didn't seem to care. After they got back it was clear he was suffering too much and we made that final trip to the vet.

When my husband and I were married only two years, we adopted a tiny black female kitten named Isis. She howled like crazy every morning when I went to work. Given that I worked 80 hours a week and my husband worked in a lounge band 5 nights a week, mornings were rough on him. She was a master climber and jumper. We lived in a second floor apartment way off the street. We let her on the balcony in the mornings and we hung out with her outside on a grassy patch with small trees next to the building. When she was about 4 months old she decided to climb the wall next to the balcony. I looked up to see her clinging to the concrete wall then drop to the rocks below. I ran out to find her exploring as if nothing had happened.

She was a real jumper. She would jump for a string held five feet in the air. In another off street place we lived when she was 3, she would jump on the roof from the blacking, walk to the apartment next to ours, then jump to that balcony, then jump horizontally about 10 feet to a large tree and climb to the ground where she joined a neighbor cat playmate. We learned we could take her outside and she wouldn't stray at all. She would climb trees by taking a running start and leaping, grabbing the trunk 3 to 5 feet up. Twice she tried that with a metal lamp post. Watching her slide down with claws scraping the metal was hysterical. It looked like something out of a comic strip. The sheepish look she got when we busted out laughing was precious.

She became an indoor cat at age 8 when we bought our townhouse and had our son. She tolerated our move across the country and lived 20 years. She liked to sleep in dark corners and her favorite place was under the covers behind my knees. I won't have another pet until our traveling days wind down, maybe not then. My husband, who lived with cats his entire life, is allergic to them. DS had a severe allergic reaction to milk when he was little. He was tested and was found only to have allergy to milk and cats.

[Mdlerth]

I will always have dogs. If not for dogs, there would be no beer.

My forays into home brewing showed me that beer appeared about the same time as the earliest permanent human settlements.

Anthropologists have suggested that the domestication of dogs is what created civilization. Primeval man's transition from hunter-gatherer to the first agrarian society was sparked when he didn't have to chase after migratory animals; one or two shepherds with a few dogs could manage herds of livestock to produce food and skins more effectively than an entire nomadic tribe on the hunt. Once he could settle in one place long enough to plant and harvest crops, it wasn't long before man learned about architecture, writing, mathematics, and of course, fermentation. Voila! - beer.

Let us raise a malty toast to the noble canine, man's partner species!

[2017ish]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 We really enjoy being pet free. I love cats, but my prior cat, who lived to 21, did make spontaneous travel difficult, and we felt bad about leaving her in her old age when we started traveling more. So when she passed, we decided no more. ...

As much as I enjoy animals, especially dogs, this fits us to a "T." DW's last cat died about 4 years ago; boys were at college or beyond, and we were envisioning lengthy blocks of travel in our future. Thus, no cats or dogs for the foreseeable future. Wouldn't be fair to the animals and would be a major addition to our departure checklist/preparation...

Do enjoy the stories on this thread though.

[frayne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luck_Club great story.

+1

[imoldernu]

Animals is people.

[rayinpenn]

IMG_0183.JPG

I thought you might enjoy - I guess you can tell Dusty was born retired.

[euro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rayinpenn The cold seemed to be intensified by the snow squall; the large flakes filled the air, and were coming down sideways. When I pulled up to the curb there was my future father-in-law under dressed in what looked like a lettermen's jacket, walking their snauzer Brandy. No gloves - he never wore them. I don't think the guy owned a proper winter coat. It was as if a guy from Florida couldn't understand the need for them. He looked cold and I felt cold looking at him. The vision of him walking that dog in the windy, cold, snowy day stayed with me ever since. I told myself no dogs for me. It happened to me like it has happened to dads for ever; the kids wanted a dog and I wanted to move. A deal was struck if we moved there would be a pool and a dog. We moved and there was a pool but I was always was able to delay that dog. Then the inevitable showdown came "You promised" and I was done - it was I triple dog dare of fatherhood and I had no choice. Left to their own devices the Mrs and the kids would have went with one of the fru fru breeds. That wasn't going to happen so I stepped in and we compromised and settled on a labradoodle that we found online -supposedly low shedders. We drove to Lancaster to an Amish farm where the farmer slid open the barn door and put the light on his buggy on to illuminate some very large white puppies blocked in by hay bales. How to choose? I thought take the one that comes out the furthest. Which is exactly what we did 11 years ago. I won't belabor their promises to care for the mutt or my pointing out how dogs limit travel because you know how that went. I have to call when we are away for more then three or four hours have you walked the dog? Dusty is asleep on the couch next to me snoring (louder lately) 70lbs of white fur. We will be going for her evening walk after some time after 9. When we come back in I'll refill her water bowl because if I don't she'll wake me at 4AM. Some where in the past 10 years she learned to bang on an empty bowl. She'll stay down with the Mrs for a little while then I'll hear her come into our room and she'll find her bed and make a ruckus settling in. Some time after 5:30 AM I'll hear her collar ringing in the hall when she starts shaking her head. Time to get up old man. I'll go down and make my coffee and be lucky to get a few swallows before she comes down looking for her morning scratch and a walk. I guess kids always get their parents dogs...I think I knew that.

Familiar story - probably repeated many, many times every day, all over the country!

[Lawrencewendall]

Rescue. My DW is under the blanket.

[Souschef]

We have a dog park in our mobile home park. All the dogs know me, so it is almost like having grandchildren.
We will dog sit for a few neighbors, and it is a reminder as to the commitment you make when you have a dog.

[rayinpenn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lawrencewendall Rescue. My DW is under the blanket.

Love those ears....