I have many gaps in my memory but I work with or around them as needs be. I was a teenager when Hannibal became a part of the family. I thought of him as my dog but my brothers and sister might have other memories.
He was a good bit Irish Wolfhound and he had the most delightful eyelashes and eyebrow hair that curled down over his eyes. I dressed him in flannels and slept with him. I remember having a makeshift bedroom in the outer basement of the house when that side of the basement took on a lot of water. We were in my twin bed and he got wet ...so we both got wet. I thought of him as my friend. When I got kicked out of my home it was over. I don't think I ever saw him again.
We had different dogs when I was a teenager living in Gary, IN. Pepe died of "the mange" as my mother called it. She treated his raw spots with motor oil. I don't know if that dog ever got to see a vet. I doubt it but I know he died. We briefly had a Saint Bernard but he was bigger than my sister and appeared to terrorize her. I don't know if it's because she was scared of his bigness or something else but my mom decided he had to go. I don't know where he went anymore than the lassie dog we had when we still lived in West Virginia. I heard he went to a farm to live out his days after nearly dying from jumping over a six foot wooden fence that surrounded the back yard.
In West Virginia we moved a number of times. One place we lived for a summer was a farm that had already been planted. There were horses fenced in one direction, a bull in another and pigs, at least. Those animals weren't pets but there were many stray cats roaming the property. The number 27 comes to mind. I know that one or two were killed in some interaction with the car and my mom heavily stepped on a frog that year.
I got to ride one of the horses but I was already afraid because I had been on a runaway horse at Uncle Marvin's funeral. A lightning fast bareback ride with a cousin I barely knew left it's memory on me. The horse at the farm was a grumpy mare saddled up by my Uncle Frank and it ran straight toward an antennae that was installed right next to the house and stopped suddenly. The saddle went sideways and I fell off. I don't know how it didn't step on me. Later in the summer one of the horses did step on me.
I am afraid of horses.
Throughout childhood we always wanted a pet and my mom would say no and then we'd have a cat, or two or a dog. Bad things happened to them because they were allowed to roam free. Our family dog,Valentine, was killed by a car right in front of us.
As my parents divorced we moved in with my dad. There were some fabulous hamsters! And then one got lost and was found in the basement of the duplex. However, either that time or another, we put the male hamster back in the cage after having escaped and he ate her babies and he ate her. All these memories jumble together. Suffice to say there were hamsters, the male went psycho after a traumatic incident and death and mayhem occurred. I think of hamsters as cannibals now.
I am terrified of wiggly little animals now. And hamsters especially.
My stepmom had birds and cats so I learned a bit about the delicate nature of birds. I wouldn't want to be a caretaker of caged birds though.
Ever since I was 17 I had cats.
When I was living in my first home as a grown up at the age of 19 I took the care of a stray old mama cat very seriously. I put a box out for her to have her babies in and then the rains came and drowned all the little ones. I was heartbroken, devastated, and guilt-ridden. I don't think I had a pet after that until my kids' dad brought home what would become the family cats in about 1988.
More later. Now I'm verklempt.
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