Mamie and Bumpa always had a pet. They kept cats to keep down the mice. They had dogs for protection and companionship. It wasn't until mom came along, though, that animals were elevated to family member status.
The first cat that mom can remember growing up was named Pee Wee because she was the runt of the litter. She was probably mom's sister's cat, but when mom was about 3 she recognized that Pee Wee was part of the family. All cats at that point were outside cats until mom realized what that meant and she put her foot down and all of her cats were inside after that. Pee Wee was a calico, bright colored orange, black and white. From Pee Wee sprang all of the other cats that mom had growing up. She was the mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc of all of the rest of the family cats. Pee Wee was a great hunter. She'd bring home rabbits that were bigger than she was. Before she ate any kill, she'd bring it over to the family to show off. That's how they knew about the rabbits. She'd feed her kittens and then later take the kittens out with her to teach them to hunt. By the time mom was six, Pee Wee was gone. Most of the cats had a way of just disappearing; either turning wild or getting killed. There were weasels who'd come in and break the necks of the kittens and then leave the bodies behind. Back then, having a cat spayed or neutered was not even thought of.
Spot, Pee Wee's daughter, was the next of Mom's cats. She loved to be picked up by the tail, swung around mom's head and thrown. Mom knew the cat loved it because the cat would pick herself up and run back to mom for another ride. In the winter, mom threw her into snowbanks. She had a harder time getting herself up , but she managed to come back for more. This went on for months until Mamie caught Mom giving Spot a toss one day.
Spot would sit on the porch with mom and share her sandwiches. She really seemed to love being around people. One week, Mom went with her parents and grandparents to Niagara Falls and when she returned, Spot was gone. Mom asked Mamie and Bumpa to help her search for her, but Bumpa sat mom down and told her that Spot loved mom so much that she had followed the family to Niagara Falls looking for Mom and had been adopted by a new family. Mom thought it was completely unfair that another family had her Spot. When Mom was about 5 or 6 and was reminiscing about Spot, it dawned on her that her parents couldn't have known about Spot going to Niagara Falls. It turned out that Bumpa had found Spot dead in the road when they returned home and didn't know how else to tell Mom about her death.
The next cat was Tiger. She was also a girl. When the old cats died, Mamie and Bumpa would allow mom to take a kitten from a new litter and tame it. Tiger was a very affectionate cat. She was allowed to come into the house. She'd come up the stairs at night, come into mom's room, meow at the threshold and then clunk around the room. She had seven toes, so she was not stealthy, Mom could hear her as she made her nightly rounds. Mom held up the covers on her bed, Tiger would jump up onto the bed and then stay there keeping mom warm the rest of the night. She was always outside by morning. One day, she just disappeared. Mamie and Bumpa always checked the road in case one of the animals got hit, but there was no trace of Tiger. About six months later, mom was out in the outer boundaries of her yard near a path to the next door neighbor's farm when she saw Tiger....the cat had become feral somehow and never came near the house again.
Tiger's daughter, Doc, was mom's last cat. Doc and Tiger were both black and gray tabbies. Mom thinks she named the cat Doc because she had just seen Snow White. It certainly didn't matter to her if a female had a boy's name or vice versa. Mom taught Doc to shake hands and sit. Doc would come out and perform for guests. Mom didn't want anyone to think she was making up the fact that Doc was so well trained. Doc was around when mom had her first dog. There was a wood shed attached to the house. One winter morning, mom went out to the shed and found the dog and cat curled up sleeping together. Before that, Mom had thought the cat and dog didn't like each other. It wasn't long, however, before Doc was hit by a car and killed. There were no more cats after Doc. It was just too hard on mom to have her cats die.
Mom got her first dog, Laddie, when she was nine. He was the first and last male dog mom ever owned. He was a purebred German Shepherd. He was a difficult child; smart enough to understand commands and smart enough not to obey them. He loved to see mom flailing around mad at him because to him, that meant play time. Laddie was outside most of the time, but was allowed into the cellar, too. Their house was heated by a coal boiler. The coal man would come every fall and deliver a huge load of coal into the cellar that looked like a veritable mountain. One night, Mamie, Bumpa and mom woke to a very strange noise in the cellar. When they went down stairs to investigate, they found Laddie sliding down the coal pile. He'd ride down on his belly, front legs out and back legs straight back and then climb back to the top and do it again and again. It was his own private amusement park. He'd get just filthy with coal dust, but he didn't care. He was a very friendly dog. One day, when he was about two, he saw a tramp walking down the other side of the road and bounded out to say hello. Mom saw the tramp, saw the dog start running across the street and saw the car that was barreling down the road. She screamed for Laddie to stop, to come back, but he didn't obey when it didn't suit him. It was heartbreaking for mom to witness her dog getting killed by a car. This was two months after Mom's sister, Marilyn had been killed in a car crash.
The next spring, mom and Bumpa saw an ad for German Shepherd puppies in the paper. Her parents and she had a long talk before they went to look at the puppies. Mom didn't want to have another dog killed, so they all agreed that mom could keep her next dog in the house. Cindy was the dog she picked out. Her mom was a white purebred shepherd and her dad was a traditional saddle back shepherd. When mom sat down to see the puppies, Cindy was the first one to climb in mom's lap and start chewing on her chin. Cindy was so fat, that as mom carried her up the stairs to her bedroom, she'd grunt with every stair. She had these little short legs and rolly polly body. After a few weeks, Mom figured that Cindy could climb the stairs herself, so she went up the stairs alone and called the dog after her. Cindy sat at the bottom of the stairs and cried. Then she tried one stair and fell back down. Then she tried again and made it. She struggled up each stair until she was about 2/3 of the way up. Then she ran the rest of the way to mom's room.
Mom used to talk to Cindy like she was a person. She'd try anything mom asked her to do. Mom asked her to eat grapefruit and she did, though her lips would curl as she struggled to get that sour stuff down. Her favorite food was an Alpo variety that had whale meat in it. It gave her awful gas, though. There isn't much worse than dog gas. Cindy loved to climb step ladders. She answered questions when asked her opinion. She was quite a ham and loved to perform whenever company came over.
When Cindy heard Alton (Bumpa's twin brother) pull into the driveway, she'd go crazy. She always had to greet him with something in her mouth. One day, she couldn't find her toy, so she ran up to Bumpa's room and got one of his socks. She dropped it as she greeted Alton and everyone forgot about the sock. The next morning, Bumpa was looking for his missing sock and asked Cindy where it was. She kept running out to the hallway and then back into his room. Finally, he got up and followed her. She went to the window that overlooked the yard and there she pointed her nose toward the sock that she had dropped the day before.
Cindy was very protective of mom. Cindy would hook her front paws over the mattress and bunch her back paws ready to pounce whenever she heard Bumpa come down the hallway toward mom's room. When he got to the doorway, she spring, standing up as tall as Bumpa with his wrist in her mouth. She'd look him right in the eye and wag her tail, but when he said, “Ow!” she'd bite down just a little bit harder. Bumpa would turn to mom and say, “Aw come on, tell her to let me go!” Mom would say, “it's okay, Cindy.” and she'd immediately let him go and walk over to mom.
Cindy died of cancer when she was 8 years old. Mamie, Bumpa and mom told stories of Cindy all through my childhood. She was one of those rare dogs, full of love, devotion and intelligence, that leaves a mark on a family long after they are gone.
you can mince any kind of meat.
