When I grew up we had pets, outside pets. They were not allowed in the house, well, except for the cat, which was to keep the mice at bay in the house.
We had dogs, I don’t remember how many, but usually only one at a time. We had a pet calf that we would raise for a certain time period and then it suddenly break free from it’s rope and disappear. We had a pet duck that would quack up a storm when a stranger came up the driveway. It too disappeared one day. We had pet bunnies which I remember holding and petting, but really don’t remember what happened to them. We had chickens, which started out as chicks, and I do remember what happened to them, it was just a part of growing up in the country as my mom and dad tried to keep food on our table for our family of eight.
We had a large garden. My mom canned many of the things we grew. I think we canned on the average about 240 quarts of pickles each year, and when the time was right to open a jar and start eating them, we fought who would get to eat the garlic at the bottom of the jar. We also picked on the average of 350 quarts of strawberries each week when they were in season. My mom sold many quarts, but also made many jars of freezer jam from those strawberries. To this day, strawberry jam is still my favorite. She made rubarb jam, strawberry rubarb jam, peach jam, rasberry jam, huckleberry jam and possibly more. She also worked full time in the summer for the local school system as a cook, and drove school bus during the school year. I never once saw her complain. But, I knew if she said we had to do something, we better get to it, or there might be consequences????
Anyway, back to our pet dogs and cats. I remember when my two boys were about 10 and 12, we decided to get a dog for them. Now, I never had a inside the house dog, and really did not think it would become a reality, but my wife was more persistent. She grew up with an ‘inside’ dog, so I relented and said ok. So along came ‘Blitz’. He was a chocolate lab, who became a part of our family as a pup, and what a joy it was to have him in our family.
He grew to be about 100 lbs, and would not let anyone into our house. Whenever the doorbell rang, he was right there barking and clawing his way up the sidelight window along our front door. No one, and I mean no one, would want to enter our house the way he carried on. This was his territory and you better not enter. I would have to grab his collar, open the door, let the company in, he would sniff them, and then more or less allow them to enter. We had him for 12 years and that scenario never changed.
He was such a joy to have. Every morning he waited for me or my wife to ask him if he wanted to go for a walk, which he would start jumping up and down and wait for us to get dressed and get out the door.
We also would put any leftovers into his dish from our plates. No matter where we were in the house, if we said: “Blitz, what’s in your dish?”, he would run right to his dish and gobble up whatever was in it. There are those who might say this was wrong, but that was life in our household. One night we came home from a school event and our son left about 10 candy bars for a school fundraiser in his backpack on the floor. Blitz ate all ten candy bars, paper, foil and chocolate. It never phased him, so I think God was watching over him!
Pets are such a blessing! They show us unconditional love and loyalty. They snuggle in our arms, kiss us with their sloppy tongues, and just purr the night away as we pet them. Enjoy your pets, God gave them to us, and He gave us to them.
