#BEDM: Pets

Today’s #BEDM is about pets, and eff it, I’m going to run down my entire pet history.  Wish I had pictures of all these fine creatures, but most of the pics (if they exist) are at my parents’ house.

1) Belle (Collie) - When I was born, my first home was a farm outside of Mitchell, ON.  My parents lived there until I was three, then they moved to Stratford (the “city”).  Our dog on the farm was a beautiful collie named Belle, and even though I don’t remember her, I remember looking longingly at pictures of little me and her when I was older and she was gone.  When we moved to the city, she ran away, probably wanting to go back home to the farm and we never found her.  We never got another dog, but my parents would buy lots of stuffed dogs so I had about thirty of those.



2) The dog that my Grandma's crazy friend dognapped for me - I actually remember this dog, so this happened awhile after Belle disappeared.  My Grandma had an eccentric friend (who volunteered for the Human Society) who brought a dog over to our house and said “I found your dog roaming around!  It must be yours.  The paws are all worn down!” and drove away leaving us with this poor dog-napped dog.  I was elated; it’s wasn’t my dog, it was a male for crying out loud, but a dog nonetheless and I missed my dog.  My mom was horrified; this was clearly someone’s pet who the lady stole.  She called the local radio station to broadcast that a missing dog was “found”.

A family came over the next day to retrieve their dog.  I was heartbroken since I was too young to really understand that a crazy friend of my grandmother dog-napped this dog from some other kids, so it was wrong for me to have the dog.  The family came over and thanked us for finding their dog and taking such good care of him.  It turned out that the dog had some sort of condition for which it needed daily medication, so it was a good thing that its family listened to the radio.  The poor thing probably would have gotten really sick in our care if they hadn’t heard my mom’s missing dog report.

Also, how small-town 1980s is this story?  Finding a missing dog via radio bulletin. Awesome.



3) Flopsy (rabbit) - I think I spend ages 3 through 9 begging my parents for a pet.  My dad was a complete hippie. When I was kid, instead of having a proper job, he just took care of farms for older couples who wanted to keep their farms but were too old for chores.  Anyway, he had a contact in the rabbit business (who doesn't?), and gave me a white rabbit for Easter one year (much to my mother’s chagrin).  I named her Flopsy, but then she turned out she was a dude but the name stuck.

My dad built Flopsy a cage that was kept on the backyard deck, and constructed a rabbit leash for Flospy so we could tie him to the backyard tree and he could enjoy some freedom.  Often we’d have to shoo Patches, a neighbourhood cat, away from Flopsy, but it was mainly good times with Flopsy.  He ran away a couple of times, but my neighbourhood BFF at the time (Karl) was a fast runner and could always catch him.



4) The Snapping Turtles - My dad found snapping turtle eggs near his work-farm.  He brought them home in a jar of sand and we watched them hatch.  After they hatched, we transferred the turtles to a bucket on our backyard deck.  This was at the same time we had Flopsy, so my backyard was *the* place to be for neighbourhood kids.  A rabbit and baby snapping turtles?  Instant kid hot spot.

Now the problem with baby snapping turtles (if that’s what they really were) is that they grow into grown-up snapping turtles.  One day they were gone, and I was told that my dad brought them to the river so they could grow up in their natural environment.

A few years later there was an issue with snapping turtles attacking some of the swans in the river.  My parents would always torture me by joking that those were my murderous turtles wreaking havoc.  I’ve never been quite sure if it was my turtles or not, but I’ve always felt guilty about the damage caused by my potential former pets.



5) Butterscotch: The best boy cat ever (so as not to offend Miss Rilo) - My mom would not allow Flopsy to become an indoor rabbit when the fall rolled around, so he moved to live in the pig barn that my dad was taking care of.  He had free reign of the place, and hopped around happily, understanding to steer clear of the pigs. 

Around the same time as Flopsy moved to the barn, my dad decided to get a good barn cat, and that’s where Butterscotch came into the picture.  He and Flopsy became fast friends, and Flopsy would spend hours chasing Butterscotch around the pig barn.  I loved when my dad would take me to the barn so I could visit the two of them.  (I didn’t want to visit the pigs though, just the rabbit and cat.  Pigs have always made me jumpy because my first memory is of being chased by a giant sow.)

A few months later, the couple who owned the farm decided to sell.  Flopsy moved back to the rabbit farm, and, much to my mother’s chagrin, Butterscotch came to live with us.  I was elated.  Finally!  After a runaway dog, a night with a dog-napped dog, a short-term rabbit, and a bucket of baby snapping turtles, a real pet to call my own.

And Butterscotch was a high quality cat.  He was very friendly.  In fact, he spent his day wandering around the neighbourhood visiting the neighbours, who quickly learned that his favourite treats were Tender Vittles and kept them on hand.  (He was a very economical cat to have.)  He liked to spend weekend afternoons watching Karl and his friends play road hockey.  Even though he was a neighbourhood cat, he was mine at the end of the day.  He’d always come home at about 2 pm and wait for me on the front porch to come home from school.  He was a great cat.

Unfortunately, his wandering ways were his demise.  He got hit by a car one afternoon on the way home.  Some neighbours witnessed it, and came and told my mom.  My mom didn’t want to deal with the body, but was worried that I would see it and be traumatized (I was in grade 9 at the time), so she asked them to cover him with the recycling bin, and my dad could deal with it when he came home.  My dad came home before me (thankfully) and saw Butterscotch’s tail sticking out from under the blue box.  “Silly cat,” he thought and picked up the box.  So my dad was the one who ended up traumatized.

6) Carter (the rebound cat) - When Butterscotch died, I begged my parents for new cat ASAP, and we found Carter in the newspaper.  It was 1993, so naturally I named him after Joe Carter, who had hit the homerun that won the Blue Jays their second world series.


Carter was a scaredy cat.  We didn’t have to worry about him meeting Butterscotch’s demise because he was too nervous to leave the property.  If another cat came by, he would start screeching and we’d have to chase the cat away.  He was pleasant to us though.  Unfortunately he was rather sickly, and we had him put down when I was in grade 12.



7) Cat (a borrowed cat) - During our last year living together in our apartment on Charles Street in university, Becca T and I got saddled with a cat courtesy of our roommate (and friend) Alison.  I still don’t understand the reason why Alison’s aunt asked us to take care of Cat, whose given name was Patches.  There were four or five different stories that I heard explaining why she had to stay with us.

Cat was old and grumpy.  She didn’t much care for Alison, who was supposed to be her caregiver.  When Alison would walk into the apartment, Cat would hiss at her.  Also, Alison got a boyfriend and was never around so Cat’s care became the job of Becca T and me.  That’s how her name changed.  We had recently watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and decided Cat was a better name for her.  Cat had the worst sounding meow, so whenever we were out of soft food, her meow would send one of us to the convenience store to shut her up.  She also threw up a lot.  But, she did enjoy a Timbit or some fries from McDonald’s every now and then, and it was entertaining to feed her junk food, so she wasn’t the worst.  Here's a photo of a photo of her looking grumpy when we bought her a dollar store Christmas costume.  (No wonder she was grumpy here.)

When university was over and we disbanded as roommates, Cat went to live out her last days at Alison’s grandparents’ farm.  Becca T and I would like to think she spent her twilight moments hissing at geese.  That would have made Cat happy.



8) Miss Rilo Kitty: The best girl cat ever - And that brings us to Miss Rilo, who you all know and love.  I’ve had Rilo for almost five years now, which means she’s probably about 9 years old, but she’s a very youthful 9.  I adopted her from the Human Society and she was just skin and bones.  Her tummy was shaved because she'd just been spayed.

Rilo is cuddly and has no sense of personal space.  For example, if a guest is eating dinner at my place, she sees that as a perfect opportunity to climb on their shoulders.  My parents love Rilo.  My dad is counting down ‘til late July when she’ll stay them while I'm in Kenya.  Even my mom, who is usually chagrined by my pets, loves Rilo.  She is a special cat and I’m lucky to have her as a buddy.

Here's my favourite picture of Rilo ever.  She's got the best green eyes.

Here's a picture of Rilo I snapped this morning before I left for work.  I do envy her life somedays.

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This has turned into one of my longest blog posts ever, but I have to say that I really enjoyed writing it.  Going through my pet history has reminded me of childhood memories that I haven’t thought of in years, like the dognapping, the turtles, Flopsy & Butterscotch’s unlikely friendship, my old pal Karl, poor sickly Carter, and grumpy old Cat.

Thanks #BEDM.