Random Childhood Memories #10 (Pets)

--Happy. A Collie-German Shepard mix, she was my most faithful companion. She followed me everywhere I went: seeing me off to school every morning by chasing the bus to the corner; doing the same in reverse when I arrived in the afternoon; sleeping on the front porch of a neighbor's house when I had a sleepover; running after me on my bike--tongue hanging low--no matter how far I rode she never stopped. She took her last breathe in my arms.

--Ding-a-Ling. A pathetic looking poodle mix, Ding-a-Ling was around long before I was. Most of my memories of her only involve stories of her disabilities. Like the time she blindly walked into the swimming pool and couldn't get out, or sleeping straight through my brother's homemade hearing test (also known as an airhorn). Sadly, her demise was related to one of the most infamous family stories about my mother. As she was backing out of the driveway, she felt a bump and thought she had backed over my Big Wheel. So she put it in Drive and pulled forward to dislodge it from under the car. Long story short: It wasn't a Big Wheel.

--Toby. A feisty little mutt of unknown pedigree, my brother found Toby (and 4 others) in a cardboard box on the side of the road. Toby was the quintessential little big dog. Bossy, spunky and prone to wandering off for days, he was his own boss. He almost always came back, save the few times we had to circle the neighborhood in the car yelling for him out the window. I watched him die under the wheels of passing car. Somehow we knew that was how he'd go.

--Puppy Doodle. I had nothing to do with the name of this completely spastic-but-adorable black Cocker Spaniel. This was my Mom's dog, and I had very little to do with her except regularly getting her excited and making her pee on the floor. Longtime companion of Noah (below), she died of old age at my parent house in Marble Falls.

--Noah. My sister's Shitzhu. The smartest, most well-behaved dog we ever had. Noah's claim to fame was his adorable underbite and a cute little snort-snort-snort as he ran. After nearly eight wonderful years together, Noah died of a broken heart only two short months after his beloved partner, Puppy Doodle, passed away.

--Kitty. My girlfriend in high school, Jennifer, gave Kitty to me on my 16th birthday. She got out of the house once and disappeared for almost a week. One night during a rain storm she showed up on the back porch with her tail bent at a 90 degree angle. We hypothesized that she'd been up in a tree and jumped or fell when the rain started. Her tail was amputated by the vet the next day. She died of old age at my parents house. She was 14 years old.