Another Day in the Country
The pet parade
© Another Day in the Country
A new puppy is joining my immediate family in California. She’s another cavalier King Charles spaniel, and the short version of her name is Pippa.
Of course, she’s a cute bundle of black and tan fur with big brown eyes.
I’ve received lots of photos and even videos of her bounding up and down the hallway, fetching balls while her bewildered new “brother,” Ollie, Jana’s first puppy / baby, now a little over a year old, tries to figure out where this imposter came from and what’s going on.
There are pictures of Pippa in Jana’s lap, Pippa sleeping in Richard’s arms, Pippa looking perky, and Pippa being playful.
“Where’s Ollie?” I said to my daughter, like a worrisome grandma trying to make sure no child is neglected.
“Mom,” Jana says, calling me on the phone, “you don’t have to worry about Ollie. He’s fine and he’s adjusting, hopefully, to a new friend. We think he’s going to like having a playmate since we are both at work all day.”
This business of having a dog that is more like a child than an animal is a new phenomenon for me to comprehend.
This puppy can’t go outside on the grass until she has all her shots. She uses a pee-pad.
They air-fry pork chops for the dogs. The dogs eat vegetables and fruit.
Ollie went to school.
It’s like raising a child. These dogs are quite an investment
Then again, I’ve paid for a puppy only once — because my husband fell in love with a Pomeranian that lived next door when we first were married. My dogs never slept with me. They ate dog food.
Friends in our church invited us to bring our little girl over to see some new puppies — registered Pomeranians.
Wouldn’t you know? We were smitten. They were probably the cutest pups we’d ever seen — tiny bouncing balls of fur that fit the palm of your hand.
We bought a female pup for $50 from them — an exorbitant amount, I thought, back in 1966.
We named her Misty, and she lived in the house with us. But she was definitely the dog — a pet. I already had a 2-year-old child. Misty was with us for 10 years through three moves, a couple litters of pups of her own, miscellaneous adopted cats, and a German shepherd.
The German shepherd came with the yard when we moved to California. The only house we could find to rent had an apartment in the basement where a single schoolteacher lived with a dog named Sam.
“My dog likes kids,” the dog’s owner assured us as he eyed our 4-year-old.
Turns out, he was right. Later, when the teacher moved and couldn’t take Sam, he gave him to us. Now we had one child, two dogs, and a Siamese cat named Hutton.
A year later, Jana was born, and we started building our own home in the hills above the Napa Valley. By this time, our menagerie included two dogs, one cat, and a quarter horse mare named Shawna.
The next summer we moved onto three acres of land and into our house, where Jana still lives.
Through the next 25 years of my life in that house, the people pretty much stayed the same — growing older and wiser.
The pet population shifted. Horses, cats and dogs were added: Sunny, Muffy, Spunky, Star, Rags, Cinder, Gemini, Smokey, Spook, Midnight, Blass, and others I can’t remember now, plus a jillion hamsters.
Eventually, they were all subtracted — one way or another. The last to go were my geldings, Sunny and Star, given away to a philanthropic organization working with kids.
And then I moved to Kansas.
You need a fenced yard to have dogs in Ramona, and I don’t have one, so, we just have cats.
We made the most of what walked up onto the porch, chose one, had them neutered, and they were “ours.”
Once or twice, we’ve befriended a stray only to discovere later that she was pregnant, so we’ve had our share of kittens for adoption.
One time, when our cousin’s kids came visiting from California, their kids were worried about all the stray cats in Ramona.
Cory, who was about 8 or 9 at the time, very seriously drew me aside to volunteer sending some of his allowance money to us here in Ramona so we could spay more stray cats and hopefully solve the problem.
I was mayor at that time, and he had ultimate faith in the power of government. He’s 30 now, and we’ve both become disillusioned.
In 2011, I came back from spending the summer in California, babysitting my grandson, and Jess said, “Be warned, that stray calico cat moved her kittens onto your back porch.”
That she had! One of those kittens still lives with me. In her old age, Skeeter has trouble digesting dry cat food. In my old age, I don’t have as much energy as I used to enjoy.
Around eight summers ago, after my sister had sworn, “No more cats,” she was jogging home past the cemetery.
There was a rustle in the ditch and a squeaky little “Meow.”
“No, no!” Jess said gruffly, as she walked on, not even daring to look back or down.
Half a mile later, she glanced over her shoulder, and there was this skinny tiger-striped kitten bouncing along behind her — no turning back.
Tig is still with us, on another day in the country.