photo by me

What animals and pets are part of your childhood memories?

There are several animals that are a part of my childhood memories.

The first, and most important, was Smokey. She was our terrier and was a part of our lives for many years.

Smokey had a temper and would snap at people – but never at us, luckily. We kept her away from most people because she was so protective of us. She had puppies that I remember. One set of them was poisoned by someone with antifreeze. Smokey was killed when I was in the 8th grade. Someone shot her and it broke my heart. I cried all day at school.

Other animals were typically horses…other peoples’. I wanted a horse so badly but we were the poor family in the neighborhood and couldn’t afford one. In fact, one day I even brought a shetland pony home and begged my mom to buy it. It was $100. I learned an economic lesson then. I found out how much horses eat and how much more expensive that horse would be.

The one animal that I didn’t know but that would become a part of family folklore was the five-legged calf in the county fair in Missoula, Montana. It was the coolest thing we had ever seen and we couldn’t stop talking about it.

We even talked about it one night over dinner when we had guests and they were disgusted by it. We thought it was hilarious that other people didn’t talk about such cool things during dinner.