Animal fun

 Groucho moves in

It was Thursday, February 18, 2021, when Connecticut treated us to yet another snowstorm...we had only “enjoyed” about a dozen others so far that month, and I was more than sick of that miserable, frozen white stuff. Apparently, Groucho was too.

Over the years, she developed the habit of eating meals on the porch, and I encouraged that, hoping she would come into the house. On that cold, snowy day, I could not bear the thought of putting her back out into the storm, and I opened the door to my dining room. She saw my youngest cat, Dixie, and immediately went inside. Dixie was thrilled to have her “porch friend” in the house with her, and I was glad I would not find myself picking up a frozen cat body.

As I type this, we are in day four of Groucho's new life as a house cat. She has adapted amazingly well; she sleeps all day, prowls all night and eats from the “crunchies bowl” at will. All the cats have accepted her, and she amazed me by learning to use the litter box right away!

The other thing she does now is sleep on the love seat. For the rest of the cats, clearly, that is not an amazing feat, but for a cat who lived her life either under the porch, or in an insulated igloo, it is, at the very least, amusing.

The days have gone by fast, and Groucho is well on her way to becoming a full-time house cat. She has now been in for 17 days, without incident. People keep asking me if I'll let her out again in the warm weather. The answer is, “No.” She is a good cat, and I see no reason to throw her out the door just because the weather will turn warm in just a couple more months; it will turn cold again quickly enough.

Other animals I have known and loved

The more stories I read on the Internet about other people's pets, the more I think, “I'm a good writer...I can do something like that.” Having said that, I'll start with the dogs, here goes:

The first pet I remember having was a small mixed breed dog that my parents got for themselves and my older sisters. The dog's name was Penny (we liked her so much that we named a cat after her many years later), and she was a delightful pet. She was wonderful with children, and she was also very gentle with my mother's pet bird, Skippy. The dog actually shared her food with Skippy at night. Ma would put the dish down, and both dog and bird would eat out of the same dish. It was cute; of course, at the time, I thought it was hysterical, but I was easily amused as a child—actually, to be truthful, I still am.

Penny lived to be 16 years old. When she passed away, I was 11 years old. My sister, Joanne, had just gotten married, and, in fact, was on her honeymoon at the time, and my sister, Maureen was 16 years old—the same age as Penny. I admit, I had some concerns about her being the same age as the dog, but my parents assured me that people live much longer lives than animals. Nothing against my sister, obviously, but it struck me that the dog deserved a lot more than 16 years; after all, she could fetch a stick, and I still cannot get Maureen to do that!

From there, we moved on to Trixie, who was a mixed breed dog also, but it was a blend of bigger dogs. Where Penny probably weighed 35 to 40 pounds, Trixie was at least 65 or 70 pounds. I remember that Ma was less than thrilled when she saw the enormous feet on that puppy, but when Daddy explained that, if he had not taken her from the Humane Society that day, she would not have seen the next sunrise, Ma understood completely. She would have done the same thing. Both of my parents were kindhearted people.

We had 11 good years with Trixie. She was crazy about both my parents, but especially my father. When he would get home from work at 4 o'clock every afternoon, Ma would let her out the backdoor, and she'd race to the driveway to meet Daddy.

The entire neighborhood knew when my father had gotten home from another long day at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Even after all these years, I cannot forget the joyous barking and yapping that came out of a dog who was quiet all day long. Daddy always said he was the highlight of her day, and joked that Ma should jump around like that when he got home, too. She would laugh, and say, “You'll be alright, Hank.”

Betsy was the German Shepherd we got after losing Trixie. She was a good dog, but, sadly, we only had her for four years; a severe hip problem forced my father to have her euthanized at that time, and my heart was absolutely broken. I think I cried from that Tuesday night until the following Saturday morning, when my mother could no longer bear to hear me crying.

Daddy took us all out to get a new puppy—the one called Wendy Jean—we knew “Shepherd” was the correct spelling, but never really thought of her as a dog...to us, she was slightly less than human, but much more than a dog. For that reason, I always thought of her as Wendy Jean Shepard, and called her a Beagle-Shepard mix. Call me crazy, if you chose, and I will accept the description willingly; Wendy was the best dog we ever had, and nothing can change that.

Tillie was the next dog on the “hit parade” of Hooper dogs. She was a yellow Lab—the American Bench Lab variety, as opposed to the English Standard Lab, as I am sure I have mentioned earlier. The English Standard has the shorter muzzle and barrel chest that most people consider the “Lab look”, but the American Bench Lab is a larger animal—long of muzzle, narrower of chest and as smart as a whip.

People often asked me what kind of dog she was, and would actually say, “No she's not,” when I would answer, “Yellow Lab.” I think the one time no one questioned me was at a Memorial Day Parade, when Tillie, a dog who had never been trained for use as a hunting dog, did something people actually pointed at.

Marching soldiers stopped for a 21-gun salute right at the end of Bragg Street. Believe me when I say that leashed dogs up and down the parade route were trying to get away from the sound of the guns, or, at the very least, were barking and howling in protest.

Only a Lab would drop, instinctively, into a perfect sit, stare up at the sky, and wait for the command to “fetch it.” I remember my father saying that he actually felt sorry that there was nothing for her to fetch. As soon as the parade was over, and we headed back up the street to our house, my father threw a stick for her to fetch. He said, “a sit that perfect deserved to be rewarded.”

Still more animals I have known and loved

While we have had our share of great dogs, we were never a family to slight cats. From my earliest childhood, we always had plenty of cats around—sometimes they did not start out as our cats, but once they decided we were good and faithful servants, they quickly adopted us as their own.

Puppet (a Calico) and her son, Pepper (a pure black cat) adopted me when I was about 4 years old. At night, they went back to the homes they actually lived in, but they spent their entire days playing with me in the backyard.

The first cat who actually joined us as an official family member was Mittens (a gray Tuxedo), who only lived 3 years; Burnside Avenue was a brutal place to be, if you were a cat. I loved him dearly, and remember him with fondness.

Missy was our next cat, and she lived to be 19 years old. She was an indoor/outdoor cat, and was a great mouser. She caught a rat the night before Thanksgiving one year, and I can still hear my mother saying to her at the backdoor, “I don't care how long it took you to catch that thing and bring it up the stairs, I'm not cooking it for Thanksgiving dinner..” Ma had a good sense of humor.

After that, we had Buffy (a gray tuxedo that we got just a week or so after getting Wendy Jean Shepard; we were gluttons for punishment, apparently). She lived to be about 12 or 14 years old, and it was just within the last year or so of her life that we got Sarah (whom I nicknamed “Punky” almost immediately) and Tommy (Daddy saved Tommy from the street, after he was tossed out of a passing car). We had officially become a multiple cat household.

Buffy was still living when Harvey joined us as an outdoor cat, but she had died by the time Hobo and Salem showed up, waiting for their chance to become indoor cats. Harvey was always content living under the front porch, and did that for an amazing 19 years, but Hobo and Salem chose to move in, and were quite happy with their choice. Sadly, Hobo died of cancer within just a few years of moving in, but Salem lived for another eight years.

Following “Punky's” sudden, unexpected death (a serious heart ailment), we acquired Harry, his litter mate, Hobee (named in honor of Hobo, whose nickname was Hobee), and Penny (named after Penny the dog, as I mentioned much earlier). We still had Salem and Tommy when Harry, Hobee and Penny joined the family, with Salem being only too willing to take on the duties of “Papa Cat”, but both had died by the time Mango, Specs, Cricket, Cammie and Dixie joined the family over the course of the next several years.

I have already mentioned Groucho several times; she is Specs' mother, and, as I write this, she has been a house cat for an entire month.

As I have often told our vet's office, this is not as overwhelming in reality as it seems in their paperwork. Only Harry, Penny, Mango and Dixie live on the first floor with me, while Cricket, Cammie, Specs and Groucho live on the second floor with my sister, Maureen. By the way, this is a good time to remember that, when I moved into the first floor apartment, I only had three cats; likewise, on the second floor, Maureen had three cats.

After those rascals decided to make some adjustments to what my sister and I saw as a good arrangement—three cats upstairs and three cats downstairs—I became the servant of five cats, while Maureen only served two cats. Maureen got Dixie (whom I have already referred to herein as “my youngest cat”, thus telling you all you need to know about where she chose to live) to even things up a little bit. It took Groucho's move indoors to even the score to four cats on each floor.

At least part of the time, though, the score is not entirely even. Do not forget my late aunt's cat, Noel. As far as Noel is concerned, she owns the entire house, and divides her time between floors these days. Basically, my sister and I each have four cats full-time, and one cat part-time; we never really know which floor she will be on at any given time.

I think that wraps up this edition of “Animal Tales”, at least for now.