Pets, I've Known A Few ...

Childhood Pets

• I remember my childhood as being a life with animals in it for sure, but the animals were not cute and cuddly, dogs or cats I could sit on the sofa with. The animals were tall, and they didn't live in the house, or or even on our property, they were horses, and lived in stables elsewhere.
• My father was a harness racing trainer, and the horses, though I could certainly pat them, were not sooky creatures, they were athletes, trained to go as fast as possible, so they could compete and maybe win, against the other horses in a race.
• I liked these horses though, and had my favourites, over the years, including my own horse, with I eventually received from my dad, a chestnut mare too slow for racing, and not good enough to use for breeding. I called her Ginger, and enjoyed riding her, for a couple of years. Then I got a job, and Ginger disappeared from my life.
• The pet I really wanted as a child was a dog, and our household eventually did get that dog I'd craved for years. He was a Beagle named Schnoopy - he was an adult dog, and when he became ours, we just called him Snoopy, without the 'Sch' just 'Sn', and as he was a Beagle, he rarely came when called, unless there was food involved!
• My brothers and I used to go to the Torrens River, near our house, and would bring home creatures we found there, and often brought home frogs, which spawned in the river, and then tadpoles would come forth, growing legs to become the frogs we captured and brought home, with no way to keep them, really. It's probably stretching the term 'pet' a little to include these poor creatures as pets, but we cared enough to have brought them home ...
• One more 'pet-like' creature from the river we brought home, was a little kitten, a grey scrap of feral cuteness, that we named Sox, on account of his white socks on his four feet. Feral born, abandoned by his mother, Sox never became a sooky pet, he was a tom cat, whose main interest in life seems to have been girl cats ...
• Another creature we had as kids was a blue-tongue lizard, this was a pet for my older brother mostly, I was a little wary around the creature, because the rumour was that if one bit you, you wouldn't be able to make it let go, so I kept my distance. It was an attractive looking creature though, with its stripes all along its surdy body. I don't remember whether this pet lasted very long, but my adult knowledge tells me it wouldn't have stuck around in winter, but would have been hibernating instead.
• I have a vague memory of mice too, pet ones, or maybe just one, but am unable to recall any real details, so it may have been a pet belonging to a friend. I can't really imagine my mother welcoming mice into our home ... In fact, we didn't really have many pets inside our house as children. My father felt dogs and cats should stay outside, but Snoopy did become an inside pet eventually, before he died.

Grown Up Pets

• Then I grew up, and met the man who would become my husband, and fellow pet owner. He had the most beautiful dog, when I met him, and a beautiful cat too. The dog, a dog similar to a Golden Retriever in colour and coat, with the curious name of 'Man', was a well behaved dog, who was best friends with the cat, whose name was Emma. Black and slinky, Emma outlived Man by many years, and she lived with us for most of her life, until we got our first Schnauzer, which Emma hated, and refused to accept as a creature she was willing to be friends with.
• Before that Schnauzer arrived, my brother's girlfriend had a litter of puppies, Rottweiler Bullterrier crosses, and we took one, a lovely puppy we called Ming. Emma and Ming got on fine, Emma being much bigger than that puppy when it come into our lives, and the hierarchy was settled Cat being at higher position than dog. We still had Ming when we started showing the Schnauzer
• Emma found a more acceptble home with my sister-in-law, and lived until she was over twenty, a grand old age indeed. There was already another cat there, and an adult dog as well, and Emma was more than happy to live with these other pets, in a rowdy household with three children, my nephews and neice, who grew to love Emma as their own.
• That Schnauzer, Helga, became our first show dog, and we went to breed puppies with her, starting our dog breeder times, which lasted for over twenty years. We had to move away from the suburbs to breed those Schnauzers, and so moved to the country, in a regions where dog breeding was allowed, and so began our country life.
• It was Schnauzers, Schnauzers and more Schnauzers for many years, with an addition of a Bull Mastiff, Bultan, a big boofy boy, who we also showed, until he became ill then died, making us sad. The problem with pets like these of course is you bring them up, get to know them and becomes friends with them, and grieve so much when they leave us. Eventually we decided it was too demanding, grooming and presenting Schnauzer to show, and opted for another short coated breed, one a similar colour to Bultan, that Bullmastiff. But the build of this next breed was far different.
• Where the Bulmastiff breed is a big and beefy, strong dog, our new breed of coice was a light and elegant one, the Pharaoh Hound, a sight hound that loves to run. We bought Kharis, our first Pharaoh Hound, and decided to breed them instead of the Schnauzers, and so found and purchased a female Ananka, of suitable breeding to match Kharis. And so began our breeding of these lovely dogs, who loved to hunt, and hunt and hunt!
• We'd had two litters of these dogs, and kept a pup from each litter, a male dog, we named Lahdee, and a female we called Missy. The parents died eventually, and then Lahdee too, and now the only pet we have, is Missy. She was never a show dog, nor a breeding dog, Missy has always just been a pet, and now she is the only pet in our house. There are mice but they are pests, not pets!
• And even though the Pharaoh Hund is a hunting breed of dog, Missy is totally uninterested in ridding our home of the pesky mice that invade our country home at sowing season for the crops grown in farms all around where we live. So Missy spends her time lounging around, pretending the mice don't exist, while we're reduced to having to kill with traps, the ones that invade our home.
• I forgot to mention the Budgie, a blue Budgie, who lived in our home in a cage, but oh so briefly. Something went wrong, budgie died, so confirming for me that birds do best to live a life wild and free. I have a strong interest in the birds living around our place. I have been paying attention to the different kinds of these birds, and am glad to name our property home to over forty different bird species. I have no desire to capture any of these lovely creatures, happy to both hear and see them flying free instead.

Life From Now On ...

So these days, we have an ageing dog, birds flying free in the skies, and perching in trees around us, and we have mice who are certainly not pets. There are other unwanted creatures around the place, especially in Summer, they are snakes, poisonous snakes ... Missy found and almost killed such a snake once, and she still looks for them, even though that first snake almost killed her. We do our best to make our place as unfriendly for such creatures as we can, and we keep an eye on what Missy is doing, when we let her outside ...

But Missy is old now, and our son, who has left home, and has a hoiuse of his own now, has decided we should get ourselves a Greyhound, as he has done himself. He bought a retired racing Greyhound, a tall girl name Sharon, through an organisation that retrains these lovely dogs, teacing them how to live in a house, rather than in racing kennels ... Sharon has certainly taken to that life, and happily lounges around in comfortable spots around the home she shares with my son!

Missy and Sharon have met each other, and while Sharon is friendly enough, Missy doesn't like her much. The last time Sharon visited, Missy didn't growl at her at all, so that is a step forward. And if we were going to actually get a Greyhound while Missy is still alive, it will be a male one, and Missy should be more welcoming of a boy dog, into her home, is the way of thinking on such things.

These sight hounds, as both Greyhounds and Pharaoh Hounds are, may run around like mad things at times during the day, but most of their time is spent lazing around, snoozing! Oh for such a life, blissful! We all have the things we like doing, and will go on doing them, Missy, possible new Greyhound, and all of those beautiful birds!