When I was growing up, I was a ‘cat’ person. I never really thought about being a ‘dog’ person. To me, they were smelly, loud, rough creatures that I knew of but had little do to with. My family had a cat. We had ducks. We had mice. We had guinea pigs, and fish. But no dogs.
So the first time I bought a puppy, I was 23 years old. Hubby and I had been married for a couple of years, and we owned a gorgeous grey “Ragdoll” cat named Rascal, but we were just browsing in a big pet barn one day (I have no idea why we were there; we just were…) and we both saw him at the same time. And it was love at first sight.
He was a male German Shepherd puppy, 7 weeks old, all floppy ears and huge floppy paws. We named him “Smudge” and he was a great dog. Huge (eventually), dominant, but completely loyal. And he loved us, and he loved chasing Rascal. But mostly he loved Patch, the blue healer we bought about a year later. The two became inseparable, and so it was hard when we had to put Smudge down. But that same afternoon, a very emotional Hubby bought our second Shepherd, Storm. She was from a breeder, and had a ‘glamour’ coat, which is halfway between a long haired and a short haired coat. Again, she was a gorgeous dog. Very sweet nature. She coped tremendously with a grieving Patch, and when he eventually needed to be put down (cancer), was more than happy to accept a black labrador pup, who we named Max.
Just a few years ago, Storm passed on. She’d eaten something she shouldn’t and her death was sudden and very traumatic for Hubby, who had lost his sister just a few months prior. Max soldiered on, half blind, mostly deaf, and partially lame, and bravely dealt with the puppy attacks of Aksel, Hubby’s next German Shepherd pup (short haired, this time). Then late last year, when we knew that Max was getting the worse for wear – Aksel was just too boisterous for him – we bought Rocky. He was a 7 month old Blue Heeler, whose owner, being physically disabled and about to move into a home, was no longer able to keep him. Aksel and Rocky bonded pretty quickly, and although they both were confused by Max’s passing in early January this year, their close friendship meant that there wasn’t the ‘grieving’ that our other dogs seems to go through.
Phew! That was a longer story than I had expected it would be!
Anyway, I started this entry with cats, so that’s how I’ll finish it. You see, I miss having a cat. But I don’t know how one would fit into our lives right now…
