Pal O Mine
Pal O Mine
December 4, 1991
Frisk is most ardent admirer: the only living being on the face of the earth who would never desert me under any circumstances. He wouldn’t be left behind if I was going to jump off a cliff without a parachute.
This paragon of loyalty knows me better than my husband, has been here longer than some of my children, has spent more time with me than my oldest friends.
He’s deaf as a rock and as energetic as a two year old. He never complains no matter how cold his paws are or how tired his little legs.
He’s a real classy dog.
The other day my son brought up all important philosophical question of whether or not your pets would all be with you in heaven and if you’d be able to talk to them. “Will they be able to tell you what they thing?”
Frisky has seen me at my most frantic, most disgusting, most weird over the years. I don’t want to know what he thinks.
He’ll be 16 this Christmas time. According to the encyclopedia, the first two years of a dog’s life count for 24 human ones, and then you add four to five years for every year after that. That makes Frisk around 95.
I guess that just means body wear and tear. He certainly can’t have the wisdom of a 90-year-old human.
We used to have a cat named Spit. Spit was famous for being our $100 cat. He came from the pound. Frisky was a five dollar pet shop find. There are two schools of thought on whether or not you should get a pure bred animal. My school of thought says that when you have a pure bred dog hit by a car, your first thought is, “there goes my $500 instead of there goes our family friend, our loyal pet.”
We were assured by the pound that Spit—he was called Spit since this seemed to be his principle way of communicating—was a family cat since a family had given him to the pound. The reason the family had disposed of Spit this way was that he was a vicious, uncontrollable, just plain mean hunk of fur.
It cost us two dollars to release this vixen into our home. On the way home from the pound, he scratched the face of one of our kids from hairline to chin, and se we decided we’d better keep him in the basement for a couple of weeks to see if he had rabies.
The antibiotic for the face which swelled to alarming proportions—was $50. The doctor’s visit was $25.
At the end of the two weeks, he had an appointment to be neutered. On the way home from the operation, he sprayed the back seat of our new car with some horrible odor no doubt designed to mark his territory for life. It marked the car for two years.
The cost to get him spayed was $12.50 plus $5 gas to Salt Lake’s Humane Society. The cost of getting the car aired out was incalculable. We bought every thing; vinegar, soda water, cleaning fluid. We took the seat out and left it in the sun for days. For two years, rain or shine, we never rode in that car without the windows down.
Spit was the best cat anybody ever had.
Our pets go through our lives almost like different furniture we had over the years or different styles of clothes. My first dog was a Collie named Prince. He was elegant and beautiful, and he defined for me as a child a lot of what my life was supposed to be like.
Since then, we’ve had innumerable cats, birds, fish, guinea pigs, hamsters. We had a cat named Tiger Simone (there was a faction that wanted to name him Tiger, and a Simone faction so we settled on both and called him Tiger S. Tiger S. used to climb up on our bed at night and pass wind as the nice folk would say.
We had a pregnant guinea pig that we bought from a pet store. The kids decided that the babies would like to play catch. As balls. That pretty much took care of having to sell the offspring. If we have all of the pets we’ve had over the years with us in heaven, we will need a much bigger mansion that I currently expect to have prepared for me. I wonder if I’ll have to feed them, or will my kids, as angels with big wings, finally remember without being told. Will they be spiritually housebroken?
Sure hope so.
December 4, 1991
Frisk is most ardent admirer: the only living being on the face of the earth who would never desert me under any circumstances. He wouldn’t be left behind if I was going to jump off a cliff without a parachute.
This paragon of loyalty knows me better than my husband, has been here longer than some of my children, has spent more time with me than my oldest friends.
He’s deaf as a rock and as energetic as a two year old. He never complains no matter how cold his paws are or how tired his little legs.
He’s a real classy dog.
The other day my son brought up all important philosophical question of whether or not your pets would all be with you in heaven and if you’d be able to talk to them. “Will they be able to tell you what they thing?”
Frisky has seen me at my most frantic, most disgusting, most weird over the years. I don’t want to know what he thinks.
He’ll be 16 this Christmas time. According to the encyclopedia, the first two years of a dog’s life count for 24 human ones, and then you add four to five years for every year after that. That makes Frisk around 95.
I guess that just means body wear and tear. He certainly can’t have the wisdom of a 90-year-old human.
We used to have a cat named Spit. Spit was famous for being our $100 cat. He came from the pound. Frisky was a five dollar pet shop find. There are two schools of thought on whether or not you should get a pure bred animal. My school of thought says that when you have a pure bred dog hit by a car, your first thought is, “there goes my $500 instead of there goes our family friend, our loyal pet.”
We were assured by the pound that Spit—he was called Spit since this seemed to be his principle way of communicating—was a family cat since a family had given him to the pound. The reason the family had disposed of Spit this way was that he was a vicious, uncontrollable, just plain mean hunk of fur.
It cost us two dollars to release this vixen into our home. On the way home from the pound, he scratched the face of one of our kids from hairline to chin, and se we decided we’d better keep him in the basement for a couple of weeks to see if he had rabies.
The antibiotic for the face which swelled to alarming proportions—was $50. The doctor’s visit was $25.
At the end of the two weeks, he had an appointment to be neutered. On the way home from the operation, he sprayed the back seat of our new car with some horrible odor no doubt designed to mark his territory for life. It marked the car for two years.
The cost to get him spayed was $12.50 plus $5 gas to Salt Lake’s Humane Society. The cost of getting the car aired out was incalculable. We bought every thing; vinegar, soda water, cleaning fluid. We took the seat out and left it in the sun for days. For two years, rain or shine, we never rode in that car without the windows down.
Spit was the best cat anybody ever had.
Our pets go through our lives almost like different furniture we had over the years or different styles of clothes. My first dog was a Collie named Prince. He was elegant and beautiful, and he defined for me as a child a lot of what my life was supposed to be like.
Since then, we’ve had innumerable cats, birds, fish, guinea pigs, hamsters. We had a cat named Tiger Simone (there was a faction that wanted to name him Tiger, and a Simone faction so we settled on both and called him Tiger S. Tiger S. used to climb up on our bed at night and pass wind as the nice folk would say.
We had a pregnant guinea pig that we bought from a pet store. The kids decided that the babies would like to play catch. As balls. That pretty much took care of having to sell the offspring. If we have all of the pets we’ve had over the years with us in heaven, we will need a much bigger mansion that I currently expect to have prepared for me. I wonder if I’ll have to feed them, or will my kids, as angels with big wings, finally remember without being told. Will they be spiritually housebroken?
Sure hope so.
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