Because they loved me…

Isobel is holding a Pet Remembrance Day at her blog in memory of Cat, her beloved moggie that she lost three years ago. She has inspired me to tell you about some of my dearly missed and always loved pets.

The first pet I remember was a budgie. When he died I horrified my mother when she came home to find the kitchen smelling rather funny. I was eight at the time and I put his cold wee body in the oven. No…not a cremation, I was praying that if I warmed him up he would stop being cold and still.

The next pet was a puppy named Penny. She died way too young when she fell asleep under my brother’s car and he ran her over.

Penny and I

Then there was Tiny. I came home one day to find Tiny gone. After my mother died I was living with my brother, who took an intense dislike to her…I heard from family friends that he took her on a trip and dumped her.

Tiny

It wasn’t until I grew up that there was another dog. Her name was Tia. A staffordshire terrier I rescued from the pound. She had distemper, and it was a long battle to save her but we did. When I went overseas Tia went to live with another brother. A much kinder one.

Me with Tia on a road trip to Queensland. She loved ice cream.

While living in Holland my ex and I had Jab. He had a funny habit. No male could put his hand in Jab’s cage. He attacked every time. But females were always welcome.

Jab and I checking out the camera together.

It wasn’t until I was married and living back in Australia that I had another dog. While living in Queensland the ex and I went to a Jack Russell breeder and both fell in love with one puppy. We were sadly told he had already been picked by someone else. So we decided to wait. One day I spotted and ad in the Courier Mail for a male Jack Russell puppy that someone was selling because they were moving.

Sep and Tia

Turned out that puppy was the same little male we had seen at the breeder. The ex was in hospital at the time, so I arranged to have the breeder pick him up and put him on a plane to Bundaberg and me. The ex was a bit put out, but I had Sep, and that was just meant to be.

Sep was my Houdini puppy. When we moved to Napier, he escaped once and the lady we got him back from was full of stories about how he took on her rottweiler and refused to back down.

One day this trait he had of wandering would end his life. I found him after another escape laying on the road. When I picked him up he folded like a book in my arms. My only consolation was that it would have been quick. When I buried him under a rose bush our other dog took to sleeping on his grave.

Sep and Tia

Our other dog was Tia. A kelpie cross, she had had a hard few weeks of life when we got her. Raised in a cow barn, she was a tiny ball of fleas. Tia was with me for 17 years. She had such a wonderful temperament. When her time came it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Not long before Tia passed I also had to make a similar decision for Katie. Katie was a maltese terrier. But she was so inbred that her life was short. Just 18 months. She had Cushing’s Disease. My post ‘The Capacity of Katie’ is about all the things this wee darling taught me in those scant 18 months, and the legacy she left me with.

Katie and the daughter

So…to these beautiful souls, I say thank you. Thank you for being part of my life, Thank you for your love, your joy, your being. Each one of you have left your mark on my heart and in my soul. I will forever be grateful I knew you, that I loved you, but most importantly…that you loved me.