Friday Five: Pets

Sophia gave us something to ponder:

My son's tiny beloved lizard, Elf, is looking and acting strange this week. His skin/scales are quite dark, and he is lethargic. We are adding vitamin drops to his lettuce and spinach and hoping and praying that he is just getting ready to shed his skin--but it's too soon to tell. Others in the ring have also been worried about beloved pets this week. And, in the saddest news of all, Songbird has had to bid farewell to her precious Molly, the amazing dog who is well known to readers of her blog as a constant sacrament of God's unconditional love.

So in memory of Molly, and in honor of all the beloved animal companions who bless our lives: tell us about the five most memorable pets you have known.

1. I am a cat person so my beasties have all been cats. My most intimate cat was Gizmo. She came to us because a colleague of J.’s couldn’t have the cat in his new apartment. She was with us 18 of her 19 years. She was a silver-grey somewhat long-haired runt. She was a tiny little thing with multi-toes on the front so she always looked like a retriever pup. She liked sleeping under the covers and would cuddle on my arm under the covers when it was cold. She didn’t want to sit in our laps, but along side of us. She was an excellent mouser.

2. There was Cat-Cat. He was a big yellow neutered Tom. We got him from the pound. He was with me when I went to my first call. He was not allowed on the furniture but my secretary loved him so much that he got to sit on her desk while I was out of the house. He was a great mouser. One Sunday morning I came home from one of my parishes to find he had lined up 6 river rats in the garage as gifts for me. They were all arranged in a semi-circle and he was parading around them as if to say, “See, Mom, I have been working while you were gone!” On a warm Sunday morning he would hear me preaching and he would come into the church and wander down the aisle much to the disgust of my head usher.

3. We now have 2 cats. Mitzie is our elder statescat. She came to J’s rectory in ’93 pregnant. We had 2 of her kittens for a long while. She was spaded after that. She is a big tortoise-shell domestic long-hair. She too is a poly-dactyl and has the biggest front feet of any cat I have seen. Her claws don’t retract well and she has a difficult time with her claws and hates to have her feet touched. She does NOT like to be picked up. She does not like to sit in one’s lap. But she does like to sit next to you. The only mousing that Mitzie does is when I am sitting on the couch with my laptop and using my mouse. She doesn’t like my hand moving around so she will put her paw on my mouse hand with just enough claw to let me know that the mouse is HERS!

4. Tyke we got from the cat rescue. He is a light-grey tabby short hair with the cutest face that has much expression. He is only about 5. We thought he was going to be a small cat like Gizmo, but he has grown into a standard cat-size. He is ALL BOY. He loves to try to lord it over Mitzie, but she holds her own pretty well even in her dotage. When he was a kitten, he would splash in the ponds in the yard. It was like looking at a 2 year old boy. He thinks the computer mouse is his toy. He attacks the cord when it is in use. His favorite place is on the back of the couch so he can look out the window. Because he was a feral cat, he let us know fairly early that he was an outdoor cat. After he made his own ‘cat door’ on the screen porch, we had a real cat door installed. But through the winter, he is a bit of a wuss. He too is a good mouser. He took a bat out of the air once. That was at some ungodly hour in my bedroom! He has brought in birds and chipmunks to ‘play’ with which I have to praise him for and then nurse back to health. At the moment he is lying in a patch of sunlight that is coming in. He gives me the impression that he would rather be in Florida.

5. The past couple of weeks I have been visiting my niece in TX. Her grown daughter was out of town and so T. was keeping her dogs. With T’s own 2, a boxer and a terrier mutt we had a Great Dane, a border collie, and two tea-cup Chihuahuas. The sound of nails upon hard wood floors was omni-present. It was just too much Dog for me, but they were all well-behaved and gentle. Add T’s horse and we were quite a menagerie.