Tuesday 4 ~ Be Kind to Animals

 

Animal Friends


Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4.

Let's talk about animals today!


1. What pets do you have or have you had? Do you have any now or if not, why not?

We do not currently have any pets of our own.  Our "kids", Benton and Rose, have our sweet Grandpups, Sugar and Spice, and I've told you about them many times. We enjoy having them come visit, and like true grandkids, we are happy to have them come, and then happy to send them home with their "parents" so that we don't have the full responsibility for their care at this stage in our lives.  

However, in the past we have had pets...I will tell you about them...You've already seen these pictures here before of my doggie "Laddie", that our family had when we lived on the farm in Pennsylvania. Laddie is the first dog I can remember, and I loved him so much.  I told you more about his story HERE.

My family on the farm in PA., circa 1952 or 53.  

And another picture of Laddie here below:

When we moved from the farm in Pa. to Florida, we did have a couple of different dogs. The first one was "Brownie", but I don't remember too much about him. I don't think we had him for very long. And then a friend of the family gave us a Beagle named "Colonel", and he was my sweet doggy friend that I would talk to and play with. But our dogs were always outdoor dogs. My mother never wanted any pets in the house.  Sadly, Colonel disappeared one day while out for one of his daily runs in the neighborhood. (We lived in the country and there wasn't any traffic). We think he was probably stolen by hunters as it was hunting season and he was a Beagle...  I really grieved for him, but we never found him, nor did we ever get another pet.

After hubby and I were married we decided we wanted a puppy.  So a friend of ours' dog had a litter of puppies, and we selected this sweet little brown doggy with the black face. He had a white spot on his chin, and he looked like he'd been rolling in the dust, so we named him "Dusty".  We kept Dusty with us for several years, but when hubby decided to go to seminary to study for the ministry we were having to move a lot and had to live in apartments, and we weren't able to keep Dusty. So he went to live with my hubby's grandmother, "Nanny Martin".  We would visit him when we were home. He lived with Nanny until Nanny passed away, and by then Dusty was about 12 years old, and it wasn't long before he passed away as well.  

When we were pastoring a church in Ohio, our house (parsonage) sat in front of the church. One day a car pulled into the long driveway and dropped off this beautiful tri-color Collie, and then took off before we could stop him.  So, this "Laddy" became our new family pet. We named him Laddy, because, well, what else do you name a collie?   He was very friendly, as you can see here, as he loved to shake hands with everyone. Here he is being introduced to my parents when they came up to visit us.  That is my father, hubby John, our youngest son Scotty, and my mother.  We kept Laddy for a few years, but again, we were on the move, and we gave him to a family who moved into a house that we were leaving, and they gave him a good home.

Fast forward quite a few more years, and we decided we'd like to try again at having a dog.  I fell in love with this sweet little Brittany Spaniel (we got her when she was a pup).  I loved her "red hair", which was just like mine used to be, and she was a little "girl", which I had never had, so I think I was fulfilling an empty spot by having a puppy. We named her a very original name, "Brittany Boo's Pup" (because she was registered and her mother's name was "Brittany Boo", and called her "Brittany".  Here she is with her "Daddy". She became more of a "Daddy's girl" than a Mommy's girl it seems...  Anyway, again we had her for several years, and then we were on the move again, and we couldn't take her with us, so we gave her to a couple who just fell in love with her.  After that our hearts were too sad to ever think about having another doggy. Thankfully we never had to see one pass away, but still, giving them away was just as hard.   So, like I said in the beginning, now we just enjoy our "grandpuppies" and they give us lots of joy.

2. How did you find names for your animal friends? What are their names?

Actually I answered this in #1 above.  

3. Any special or funny story concerning pets you would like to share? It could be someone else's as well as your own.

Our dog Dusty loved to chase squirrels.  When he was young he would see a squirrel run up a tree and he would go and climb right up the tree after him. He could get about 6 feet up the tree before he'd jump back down.  After that all we'd have to say to him was "Dusty, go get the squirrel!", and even if there wasn't a squirrel he would go climb the nearest tree.  It was very entertaining.  Even when he was getting old and arthritic in his hindquarters, he'd still try to climb that tree and chase the squirrels.

As a matter of fact, I have this painting that was done by my hubby's Aunt Dorothy, which is a picture of Nanny Martin's house, and yes, that is Dusty climbing the huge magnolia tree in the front yard.   By the way, that magnolia tree was planted by my hubby's mother and grandmother not very long before my hubby was born, and it grew to be really tall and beautiful. Sadly, it was struck by lightning when it was about 40 years old and had to be taken down.  By then Dusty and Nanny Martin were both gone on to heaven, but the house was next door to my mother in law's house, so we were well aware of it.

4. What benefit do you find having animals in your family? What are the cons of having them?

Well, as you can tell by my sad stories of having to give our pets away over the years, the cons were not always being able to keep them where we were sent to live in our life of ministry.  And now, at this age, we just really can't afford the extra expense of vet bills, etc., and so we feel we are better off not to have any pets.  However, we do enjoy the sweet times we have with our little Sugar and Spice.

This is Sugar, who was pouting because she couldn't have my cookie...

And this is Spice, who is still hopeful that I'll give her some of it.

We try not to spoil them and only give them "approved treats".

Here's some pictures of the kind of "pets" we DO have, that we don't have to take care of at all and we can just enjoy watching them:

These pictures were taken on the tail end of the "eclipse" yesterday afternoon.  We really didn't have much of an eclipse here, but the sky did get rather strange looking and kind of a golden glow.  The peepers in the pond all started peeping like it was dusk, and it was very eerie for a few minutes. Then the Crane family showed up and one of the "colts" decided to take a bath in the pond...while the other one mostly just watched from the shore.   

So that's it for this Tuesday 4 meme!  Hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane with me and my "pets".   Thanks, Annie!