I wondered why this was getting notes lol.
Some More animals from my mother’s childhood home:
Nickel and Dime, the bait fish that lived in a teapot
Susan 2 or “Twosan”, also a rat snake but may have also been the same rat snake but bigger.
The cats Smoke and Fire, so named because:
1. They were gray and orange, respectively
2. Fire was blind and navigated the house by following Smoke around, so literally, wherever there was Smoke, there’s Fire.
A Goldfinch that moved into the Canary’s cage after he passed away and it was put outside one day during housecleaning
After my Grandparents moved to a nursing home, Grandpa had a “pet deer” that was a wild whitetail buck who would come up to the window of their room for carrots and head skritches, despire everyone telling Grandpa NO!!
The Woodcock That Lived Under The Oak Tree. several attempts were made to name it but the next time it came up in conversation, everyone forgot what they had agreed to call it, so it became The Woodcock That Lives Under The Oak Tree.
Romaine, a frog they found in a head of lettuce
Apparently Strange The Dog had puppies at some point and they managed to find homes for Weird, Odd, and Bizarre, but they decided to keep Queer, which was a real funny animal to stand in the street calling in for dinner.
At least 17 Bullfrogs, all named “Dog”
Skittles the Pony who had a penchant for swimming in the local lake and biting pieces out anyone who wasn’t paying enough attention.
The first Dog my mom got was “Cops” a beautiful 120lb purebred German Shepherd who had flunked out of the police K9 academy.
Cops HAD been doing very well at Bite Training, except that being A Creature of Profound Intellect and Sound Philosophy, Cops had assumed that the purpose of biting was to get the guy who was shouting and behaving aggressively to stop.
So the first time he was told to Chase Down A Fleeing Suspect (the guy in the bite suit, sprinting away) Cops correctly decided that the man screaming at him to bite someone who was actively leaving the confrontation must be the aggressor, and promptly bit his handler in the dick.
Being that he was entirely too morally upstanding for police work, Cops was surrendered to the local animal shelter as my mother arrived to adopt a dog.
She expressed an interest, was told why he washed out and “He’s got a mean streak a mile wide- A little lady like you wouldn’t be able to control him.”
My mother, 4'11 and the former Ohio State Weight Lifting Champion, looked down at this gentle soul and promptly scooped him up into her arms on his back like an infant, where he was thrilled to remain, tail wagging, for the rest of the adoption process.
Cops was my mother’s loyal guardian, and largely aloof to politely hostile to nearly every man my mother brought home, which tended to end romantic relationships. Until one night when she brought a former ESL teacher turned computer programmer she’d been seeing home for a drink and when she came back from the kitchen with the bottle of wine, Cops had climbed into the man’s lap on the couch and rolled on his back while the man goo-goo’d over him like an infant.
“That’s when I knew it was serious.” She told me, much later. “I hadn’t made up my mind about marriage at that point, but I knew I wanted children, and that I wanted him to be your father.”
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