Ah, I way need to steal the picture albums from my mom....
My favorite pet was Bear! He was amazing! If I could somehow clone him I would. He was half Collie and half German Shepherd/Chow mix. (If I could even find dogs of these breeds I would pay someone to breed them so I could get puppies!!!) He had the coloring of a collie, but was very broad like a chow, and had the intelligence of a German shepherd.
I don't remember how old I was, but I'm guessing around 12ish, because we were in the house. We were begging my mom and dad for a dog. And my mom thinking she would be very tricksy told us we could get one if we could find a collie or sheltie for $10. I spent weeks searching through the classifieds in the paper trying to find one. Of course this was an almost impossible task (like my mom wanted it to be). And then one Sunday I found an ad for mixed collie pups for $25. We begged and promised and begged some more, offering whatever money we had to make up the $15 difference. Finally they caved and said they would go and look at the puppies and see. Mom and Dad went and looked at the pups and their parents. I remember the owners telling Mom and Dad that they used to breed them on purpose because they made such good puppies. I believe Bear was the runt of the litter, he was also the shyest. Mom and Dad picked him and brought him home to 3 very excited kids. He was so scared on the way home that he hid in Mom's coat sleeve the whole way.
I loved him from the start. I loved to teach him tricks. I loved for him to sleep in my bed with me (which got stopped when I developed hives from him being in my bed). But still I let him live in my room (I guess it could be called forced him to live there as I would shut the door so he couldn't leave).
He loved McDonalds french fries and their orange soda. If you happened to leave it where he could get it...well you went without fries and a drink that night. He grew to love going through the drive through at McDonalds. The first time he growled and was about to go through the window and attack the poor McDonalds worker, but then they gave him a piece of bacon....and then the fries came....he learned very quickly that he could mooch and get treats at the drive throughs.
He loved bread. If you left bread within reach (which pretty much meant anywhere since he was so huge) it was gone. There were days we would come home to entire loaves of bread having been consumed. The only evidence was the empty shredded plastic bread sack.
He loved babies. This is what we called all of his stuffed squeaky chew toys. He loved to mutilate them. He got so he could rip all the stuffing out within 30 minutes of receiving a new baby. He also knew the difference between his babies and our stuffed animals.
He loved car rides. In fact he would escape the yard just so he could get a car ride. If we tried to chase him he would just keep running away and we'd never catch him, but if you honked the car horn he would come running. We'd give him a ride around the block and then he was perfectly happy and content to go back into the yard or house.
He loved us. And only us! He was VERY protective. He tried to protect us from the mailman many times, and would viciously attack the mail as it was shoved in through the slot in the house. There were many times Mom had to call the bank and have them send new bank cards, since the ones we'd just received had teeth holes in them. He was not fond of strangers at all, and if we had anyone new over we usually had to lock him in the bathroom because he would not let anyone enter the house if he didn't know them. It was ok once they were in, he'd just sit and stare and occasionally growl at them until he got used to them.
When I was in 10th grade he got let off of his chain in the backyard and was hit by a car. Once they got him out from under the tires he ran back to his yard. Only the Animal Control people tried to catch him and he ran away. We knew that he'd been hit and hurt pretty bad, our neighbor saw it happen. I believe he was gone for almost a week. I stayed home one day from school and left the doors open and he came in and limped down the stairs. I called Mom and she came home from work to take him to the vets. He had a crushed hip and one of his front paws had the skin and muscle tore down to the bone. When the vets did the x-ray they told my mom they would have to do a huge surgery to pin all the bones in his hip back together. Mom told them that there was no way she could afford the surgery so they just needed to put him down. The vets didn't want to have to put him down, so they talked to her and decided if we put him in a room where he could just lie down and not move we could see if it would heal well enough on it's own. It did!!! At least well enough that he was fine until he got really old and got arthritis in his hip.
He hated fireworks. The kids behind us had shot pop bottle rockets at him when he was little and so he was terrified of fireworks. We would have to get tranquilizers for him for the month of July, and even then they really didn't help. If he was locked up anywhere in the house when a firework went off, he would literally eat through the door to get out. He went through 2 doors that I can remember for sure. Also because of this he was scared of thunder....
We had to have him put down when Riley was a baby. He had gotten so old and grouchy and he was in pain from the arthritis. One day I was holding Riley and was petting him but talking to her about how we pet doggies soft when he turned and almost bit me. He thought that Riley had been petting him. He would also growl at her. We had long discussions as a family and decided that it was not if he was going to bite her but when. He was just in too much pain to put up with a toddler "playing" with him. And there was no way we could give him to someone else. He would refuse to eat when we left him and went on vacation. Plus his pain was just getting to be too much. It was a horrible day, and I still cry when I think about it.
A Year of Horrible
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I have debated writing/telling people about this because it's not
completely my story, but then again, it is, because I'm living through it
as the mom. So...
8 years ago
This one made me cry. Bear was the best. I never had to worry about the kids being any where outside when he was with them.
ReplyDeleteCortney forgot to tell about Bear skating. Bear was so big, that they'd make him pull them up our street so they could skate back down.
Once when Brock came to visit with Nan and Pop, Bear nearly ate him. Brock had been warned about our guard dog. But Brock was a tease and forgot. Brock jumped out from behind a door to scare Aric. Bear scared Brock. I was upstairs visiting, I heard Bear GROWLING and Brock screaming. I ran downstairs, afraid I'd find Brock in pieces. Bear had just backed Brock into a corner and was growling an inch from his face. I put Bear in the bathroom, and Nan comforted Brock. Later, I let Brock give Bear treats to make friends.
And a correction to the doors because of fireworks - Bear ate through all of the doors in the house at least twice. He kept eating his way out of the room we'd put him in. So one year, we shut all the doors and left him in the rest of the house, thinking he wouldn't be trying to let himself out of the room he was in. Oh, no, he ate through every door in the house, trying to find someone. He used to try to get under the couch to be safe - 125 lb. dog trying to get under a couch that was 3-4" off the floor.
And the McDonald's orange drink - I don't think I got any for years. Bear could take the lids off without spilling. And he was so sneaky!
One of his best tricks was to play dead. He'd flop over on his side, but his tail would still be wagging. So you'd have to tell him, "Tail, too." And then he'd be still.
The kids used him as a pillow to watch TV.
Such a sad thing to think about!! I've had many pets, all a sad demise. Happily, we rescued our Bentley from the county shelter in July'08. He is a jack russell terrorist. The question we have most frequently asked each other is "How could anyone have given him up?" He is such a sweet boy, is obssessed with tug-of-war and fetch. We are lucky to have him in our lives!!
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