Relationships with Pets (CTTWWS)

 

There was a dog.

She hung out near the middle school when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade.  My friend and I named her Butterscotch, because that was the color of her spots.  We assumed she was a stray, and we would bring her scraps from our lunches.  Eventually, my friend found better things to do, and it was just Butter and I. 

I’m sure I asked my mom multiple times if we could adopt this dog.  I’m sure she figured this dog had an actual home, or wouldn’t stick around, or some other sensible reason.  None of it made sense to me at the time.  Eventually Butter stopped coming.  I heard that she had been adopted by someone I didn’t like, but that’s probably not true.  Then Mom got me a puppy, a beautiful Labrador.  She was adorable and chewed on everything.  Unfortunately, she only lived a couple months before she got sick and died.

She was just an animal.  I got over it.

At one time we had as many as 30 cats.  I remember one of my classmates was horrified when I told her that we kept our cats outside and only fed them once a day.  Her father was a realtor.  Our cat population was eventually wiped out by disease.  I recently googled the symptoms; they resemble feline distemper.  I remember going to pick up a kitten I was fond of and finding it stiff as a board.  I still remember how it felt in my hand, how it felt when I dropped it.  I ran in the house, unsettled and upset.  I told Mom, “Fatso’s dead,” and one of my brothers turned and said, sneering, “You’re not crying, are you?”

It’s just an animal.  Get over it.

I vaguely remember, when I was about 7, finding a large black dog sitting on a blanket in the kitchen, and my dad sitting at the table.  I was upset because I wanted to keep the dog, but it had been hit by a car and Dad had brought it home so he could “put it out of its misery.”  I asked why we couldn’t take it to the vet, and Mom said something about animals being too miserable not being able to walk, it was better for them to die.  I think the dog had broken at least one of its hind legs, perhaps its spine.  Dad was probably preparing his pistol at the table.  That was not the last time I remember Dad using the lead painkiller on an animal.

Over a decade ago, one of my brothers brought his family to visit, and took his oldest daughter fishing.  He told us that they would be doing catch-and-release, since his daughter couldn’t stand the thought of killing fish.  I was astounded.  The same guy who told me to “toughen up” and “get over it” was allowing his daughter to have feelings.  I shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it, because I probably made him feel bad for the things he said when he was just a kid.

When I was 12, we got Zeke.  He was a mutt of a puppy.  One of my adult sisters was living with us at the time.  She, being very modern, insisted that he get all his shots and get fixed.  I think she paid for it, too.  He lived a long life: he was my buddy all through high school, welcomed me home after every term of college, even got to meet my first child.  When I was pregnant with my second child, he was so miserably old that we decided it was time for him to go to the big doggy park in the sky.  Once again, my sister spoke up, insisting that he be put down by a vet instead of by Dad.  I miss Zeke’s floppy little ears.