A "PET"-ROSPECTIVE

Do you like the name of my post?  I'm so clever!  While going through all the photos I've been scanning, I started to get a bit nostalgic...

The photos showed I have had a lot of pets.  When I was growing up, we always had a dog.

Here I am at about age 5, with our puppy Dusty.

Here I am about age 16 and Dusty is 12...Dusty lived to be almost 18.  She died when I was away at college.

When hub #1 and I were first married, we lived in an apartment in Chicago and couldn't have a dog, so we got Quincy, a Manx cat...he was a wild one!  Look at those crazy eyes...he couldn't wait to get into trouble. 

 

He would stalk my parents' dog unmercifully...that poor dog was totally intimidated.

 

 Later, we moved to Washington State the same year Mount St. Helens erupted...so when we got another cat, a beautiful Siamese kitten, we named her Ashley.

A few years later, after several severe asthma attacks, I finally figured out I was really allergic to cats so Ashley went to live with my parents.  Because my parents' dog was so fearful of Quincy, he went to live with #1's parents.

Later, we bought a house and got a Scottish terrier puppy.  We named her Tibbie which is the Scottish nickname for Isabella, my great-great-grandma's name...we discovered the name from reading a Robbie Burns poem, O Tibbie, I Hae Seen the Day.  I loved that dog with all my heart.

Tibbie had the largest head...she was so sweet, but she loved to rip stuffed toys to pieces. You can tell she feels very guilty here. 

I love this photo of Tibbie and me. 

To make a long (still very painful) story short, #1 let her outside unsupervised one day while I was gone and she was killed when she got hit by a car...I was inconsolable and really never forgave him.  (Just one reason he is my ex).  Our other dog was Emma, a white Scottish terrier.  Not too long after Tibbie died, #1 and I separated.  I moved into an apartment and Emma stayed with him.

I was lonely so got a bird, Fletcher.   She went everywhere with me (except work) and was a source of a lot of happiness for me. 

 

But I really missed Emma.  I was living over an hour away, so didn't get to see her much.  But the last time I went to visit her, she was in terrible shape, sick, fleabitten and had a horrible rash on her back...it was obvious #1 was not caring for her properly (for a grown man, he was very irresponsible).  I told #1 he didn't deserve to have a dog and I was going to find somewhere to live where I could have Emma with me. 

At the time, #1 and I were finally divorced and I had just started dating Hub.  He loved dogs, so Emma and I moved in with him almost right away (*smile*).  You can always tell the character of a man by how he treats animals. He took excellent care of her, bathed her irritated skin every day and even cooked her special non-allergenic food.  He and Emma became inseparable, and she adored him.    

Emma loved to hike!

And get dirty!

And beg!  She would eat anything, and often did, even inedible things.  Things you couldn't imagine a dog would want to eat.  She was in the doggie hospital many times having her stomach pumped. 

By the time this photo was taken, she was getting older and was almost blind, so I don't think she had any idea what was going on...Santa Who?

When she died at age 18, she was completely blind and deaf.  My husband was so heartbroken he wrote a poem about her "I Lost My Best Friend Today."

A few years later, we decided it was time for another dog.  So Buster, a Norwich terrier, entered our lives.

Have you ever seen a more pissed off look on a dog's face?  He definitely was not amused by the reindeer antlers and having to sit with Santa.

But...he loves squeaky toys...

...turtles...

...chewies...

...going to the beach...especially with Mom...

And with his friends Kermit and Olive...

 My handsome boy...

 So there you have it...a "PET"-ROSPECTIVE...