A Tribute to Dead Pets OR Name That There Critter That Used to Sleep on Your Bed!*

Current pets are Chester the dog (German Wirehaird Pointer), Pepsi and Pebbles the cats, and a cockatiel called Sam. Sam had escaped from an aviary when very young, and was found in a puddle of oil at a garage (where I happened to have turned up to buy petrol). The mechanics didn't know what to do with the poor half-dead bird, so I took him home in a cardboard box, cleaned him up, fed him water and special protein shakes through an eye dropper until he was strong enough to eat seeds again. I didn't think he'd survive, but he's still here, three years later. He does impersonations of the doorbell and the fire alarm. Noisy bugger.

Of these, the one I truly admired was Cleo. She taught me the cat look: "I am doing what I please. Who the hell are you?"

SUB THREAD: Poems you have written about your pet:


CLEO

Queen Cleo forsakes the domicile
to lie white and burnished orange
in her court. She gives audience today:
one Maxwell the Boxer is scheduled
to woof and defer and bow low
to the Duchess of Paw and Puffed Tail.

Patra is patient with mincing maids,
bright ribbons and bells and silky fresh
whiskers. Entreaties of play are swiftly
dismissed by her aura, her taut coil
of tension. Alarum! The gate has been
breached by Max and his sniffers!

"Barbarians," mewls Cleo. The louts
chase her minions to hiding. She hisses
departure and leaps to the window.
Her grooming is subtle; then nobly
she signals command to the courtiers
to hasten Her Grand and Right Royal Entrance.

And that's it. All were at my parent's house, we aren't in a position to get a pet at the moment, though I keep pestering mr ailsa for a cat or a beagle.

anthony's pets have the best names. You could get in serious trouble round these parts for standing in the streets shouting for fanny, you know. David Baddiel has a cat called Chairman Miaow as well. My friend once had a cat called Moggywai.

maidra:
red leaping setter,
loyal lovely dumb as hell
taught me all I know

chat I:
the feline tom waits
been around a lot but still
stopped in, said hello

chat II:
hid under the bed,
clawed my dad's toes all to hell--
we all wanted to

muffin:
tiny matriarch,
with your dirty white girl self,
multicolored kids

jarrod:
tough new york street cat
spun you round, you got dizzy
loved me anyway

tillie:
bravest kitten star
you left here before your time
died there in my arms

Shadow, gray cat, left and never came back.
Indiana Jones, black longhair, Shadow's daughter, died of feline leukemia
Tab Hunter, longhair tabby, also Shadow's daughter perhaps (there were a few litters in the neighborhood and the momma cats stole each other's babies constantly), lived the longest (abt 14 yrs) despite being the runt of the litter and seeming to have some sort of chronic anxiety disorder. Also left and never came back.
Fog and Smog, Russian Blue sisters given to me by some well meaning old guy, parents were dismayed. Fog was slightly lighter and very lazy, Smog was all hard muscle and did the fighting for everyone. She would also lick your face and hands if you let her. I miss her the most. They were both run over shortly after my parents moved.
Bobo, my only boy, just kind of wandered in one day and never left. He was a shorthair, white with big black spots. Dumb as a rock. My dad accidentally parked on him in the driveway once with a '64 volvo and when he got out he saw poor bobo squealing underneath the tire and realized he had to put him out of his misery. He got a monkey wrench and tried to knock bobo out, but this only made bobo mad. He got back in the car, backed off of bobo, and bobo ran away and returned only slightly flatter three days later. We called him Bobo the Miracle Cat after that.

All cats

After a few months, Grace would try to jump on things and fall off. We just thought she was stupid. Then, she began refusing to eat, but she would lick the sauce off of the food. We'd holler at her.

A friend came over and suggested the cat was sick. We took it to the vet, where they promptly informed us that the cat was no less than 16 years old, maybe older. She was licking the sauce off the food because she couldn't even chew it. We were forced to have the damn cat put to sleep that same day, only 8 or 9 months after we'd gotten her.

We are still paying Gracie's death bills, and the shelter claims to have 'lost' the papewrwork on "Spice." My girl and I have moved since we got her and had no hope of finding our copy of the paper work. I'm sure we could get the ASPCA or Fox Five Problem Solvers to help us out, but it requires more energy than we have right now.

Now THAT'S a bummer.

Cat - orange tabby: my sister's cat, used to shit on the floor a lot, he moved out when she did

Rocky - doberman: he was a cool dog, but the neighbors were scared of him. The guy checking the meter accidentally let him out one day, and he got hit by a car

Spike - doberman: Rocky's replacement and the sweetest dog ever

Harry - german shep/St. Bernard x: he drank pina coladas and loved my mom to death

Alex the Galah: my stepdad got him when we moved to Australia, he hated everyone but me.

Louie the cockatoo: lso in Oz - he was great, and talked a blue strek, but always got his phrases mixed up

Zeke - border collie: he used to run mad circle around the house. My dad sectretly hated dogs, so we had to give him away

Blue, Watson & Muffin: my stepmom's cats. Blue was a black cat, very small, standoffish and died at nearly 20. Watson was a fat little tabby - very cool cat, but got killed by the dog next door. Muffin was a cute grey & white Watson replacement, he was put down last spring. Used to sleep on my bed, but only in the dead of winter.

Sydney & Molly - my cats: Syd hates dogs, so she went to live with my best friend, brain-damaged, I know it. Molly was a siamese mix - died a couple years ago, and my mom felt so bad that I was upset that she had her cremated and now I have can-of-cat. Effortless and cheap to feed.

Zero and Zoe - staff. terrier mixes (okay, pit bull mixes, whatever): the sweetest dogs ever. Both are completely goofy and wouldn't hurt a fly. Zero looks like 'what would have resulted if Petey from Our Gang fucked Spudes McKenzie'. He is also a bed hog. Zoe is such a lovebug and likes long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners (especially if she gets to eat the candles).

Hep - a himalayan cat: He's very suave, but sleeps on my head. Likes Miles Davis.

Norton, the black dog who was run over by a car about four feet away from me when I was five, and had to be put to sleep;

the cocker spaniel we got as a replacement, and the cocker spaniel who replaced her, and I don't know why I can't remember their names;

Max, the springer spaniel who died of old age when I was in high school, about two years after we probably should have put him to sleep; he couldn't stand up without great effort; he used to run to the edge of the dock at the lake, skid to a stop, and fall in anyway;

Biker, a stray cat I found when I was 8 -- I was on my bike, and Return of the Jedi had just come out, so in my head I was a stormtrooper on one of those zoomiebikes -- who was a mixed tabby, grey and black and angular, and eventually ran away;

Morpheus Cheesecake, a tabby kitten who followed me home for four blocks after I got him out of a tree -- an older similarly-marked cat, presumably his mother, was dead in the road; he was run over while I was at the lake with my friend Matt, my last year of high school (which pretty much severed my only real tie with New Hampshire); Sandman was still getting going, and I was in high school, so the name was more or less inevitable; "Morph" for short; got him just before moving into what became my own apartment during high school, which means as I learned to cook more and more things, Morph was the one who would try them out. He didn't like buffalo wings in the slightest, and would not stay in the kitchen when I ate them; stir fry was all right; he loved spaghetti, and would sit on the table at the other end of my plate and nibble at bits of pasta and ... er ... lick my meatball;

Cat, once called Kitty, her name an artifact of my brother's attention deficit disorder; it was his turn to name a cat, and he kept changing his mind, so rather than call her Rambo Gizmo Gremlin Ninja (bing, guess when we got this cat), we called her "Kitty" while waiting for him to make up his mind, and he followed our lead; eventually I pointed out, "you know, she's like ... eight ..."; and Cat she was; disappeared under mysterious circumstances, after I'd moved;

Banana, a lizard; lived on the outside of the office window when I lived in Norleans East; as yellow as a banana, with brown spots to match; likely taken off to Oz by Hurricane Georges, as he hasn't been seen since;

Fredo Potato, a lizard; lived on the stairs outside my apartment in Gentilly; the color of potato skin; still at large;

Quentin Spaceboy, a gecko; an actual pet-store-purchased reptile; had his own terrarium with heated plastic rock; was supposed to eat crickets, fresh or dried ("bbq-flavored"), but never wanted them, and the live ones ending up dying and just sitting there; never seemed happy; probably wasn't meant to live in the northeast, central heating or no; died when the power went out in December while I was away, and he froze to death.

Cassandra liked only one person in the house: Yours Truly. She'd hiss at anyone else but would (even at this young age) climb on top of my bed and go to sleep on top of my stomach when I was sleeping and purr like a motorboat. Bottom line: I had a cat.

Over the years, Cassandra was still cranky and didn't work well with others, but would happily follow me around the apartment complex or even into the car with me for the drive to work when I was working a graveyard shift, hang out while I was working, and then hop back in the car for the drive home. She was pretty good at catching mice and lizards, and wouldn't hesitate to chase dogs and other cats.

Cassandra tangled with a rattlesnake in 1992 and sadly didn't survive. I haven't been able to get another cat since because it would be like trying to replace a mom or something.

http://www.quartzcity.net/~chris/images/cassandra.jpg

Siamese fighting fish who died.
Hamsters that died.
Goldfish that died.
Replacing the dead fish would be like....oh nevermind...

Only Melissa and Myrrh made it to ripe old age (Melissa made to 13, which is ANCIENT for a Great Dane, and Myrrh left us at 23) -- my parents are euthanasia-happy.

David Sedaris has a great chapter in one of his books about family pets and 'youth-in-asia' and how his mother revivied all sorts of dead animals by placing them in the oven. Really priceless.

But euthanasia is never an easy decision. When I was doing wild animal rehab and release I had to make those decisions far too often. My supervisor was always reminding me that our role is to provide relief from suffering and sometimes putting down an animal is the only way to relieve their agony. I was never comfortable with the idea, though I know, ethically, that it's sometimes the right thing to do.

On the other hand, my (batty) grandmother insisted on putting her 19+ year old German Shepherd through multiple surgeries for cataracts and such, when he was so miserable with arthritis that he had to be diapered. She did him a disservice, I think.

My next hero was Churchill... A white boxer. He was my pride and joy... I got him for my 40th B.Day. I think he was six weeks old. He had no hair on him at all. I was happy to enjoy his company for fifteen years. I really miss them both.

Sally, lab/mongrel beastie, big and thin, scared of thunder and lightning, my first pet I knew

Goldie and Darth Vader (and several incarnations thereof), the fish, who had a tendency to die and be replaced by my parents without my knowledge. Oops.

Tory I -- my first hamster, short haired, multicolored, a total sweetheart, first pet death I had to deal with directly, broke my heart

Tory II -- tan, longhaired hamster, a sweet little fuzzball

Tory III -- last of the bunch, never really connected with it much, gave away when returning to California in 1985

Suzy -- the next family dog after Sally...and mine, really. I was the one who picked her, from the litter of purebred black labs -- all the puppies were dancing about trying to get our attention but I saw one that wandered off by her own and sniffed around at some tree roots. I rode with her in the back of the car to the house and sometimes stayed up nights with her in those early days when she was whimpering and crying in her new place. She was a playful, warm, ridiculously funny beast, she was. We fed her too much from the table and it ended up ruining her digestive system many years later, and she passed on far too young at ten years old. I wasn't there for that, and I'm glad. I don't want to think about it and what we, in our well-meaning ways, had ended up doing.

Also, during one summer, a couple of lizards and an ant farm. Cool buggers. Current family pet, golden lab Lexie. She's a good un.

And how we came home from Chicago this afternoon to see that she had died.

My best, Haikunym.

Pet talk in AIM chat got me to look for this thread. Still feel the same way about being not being able to get another cat.