Cindy was a digger. A small cocker spaniel mix with a cute white spot on her chest, Cindy was the first family animal I remember. She weighed about 12-15 pounds and was very gentle with young children. We gradually had responsibilities to feed her and entertain her with petting and walking. She lived to about fourteen and must have been acquired when I was about four, as I remember crying when she died. Cindy was my sister Carol’s dog really. 
She responded so well to Carol when she called. Carol always had a gentle way with animals and people. We had a leash law in Berkeley, but where we lived it was not enforced particularly well, so Cindy had the run inside and out. Cindy spend her days roaming the neighborhood, which the neighbors didn’t really seem to mind much, or if they did, they didn’t complain to us. She especially enjoyed the big oak tree on the Conant’s property. She’d run across their lawn to the roots of the oak tree and sit looking into a hole dug by the squirrels. She’d sniff and paw at the hole for hours on end. Never did Cindy catch anything there, but it was a terrific diversion for her. She seemed content just to look down the hole, sniff and paw, sniff & paw, sniff & paw all day long.
Cindy would go on trips to various family outings, especially camping and to Lake Tahoe which was almost a six hour drive. On these long trips, we used the Plymouth station wagon. It had two bench seats seating three each and no seat belts. The choice seat for the children was in the front but with six of us we had to take turns as mother and dad always got the front. If we complained about who got to sit in the front, that delayed the opportunity for the next turn. One particular trip, I was sitting in the middle of the back seat and the car was fully loaded. After stopping in Sacramento for gas we all piled into the car, driving about half an hour before someone noticed, “Where’s Cindy?” We had left her at the gas station. To our delight, when we returned she was just sitting there. She was happy to see us, wagging her tail and jumping into the car. She landed on my lap which was special. However, her little claws were not quite trimmed and they dug into my tender young legs.
Cindy was a great way for us to learn life lessons growing up. We taught her some simple tricks. We learned to bathe her and feed her. She was understanding when we were feeling down. She’d enjoy just laying there while we stroked her soft fur. We learned about discipline and how to accomplish that effectively in others. We learned the important lesson of unconditional love…and what it feels like to receive that.
Cindy was almost my dad’s undoing one time. We decided to take her on a rugged hike into Desolation Valley above Lake Tahoe. I think Cindy weighed all of twelve pounds, but she was a big part of our family. So it was natural that she’d like to go on a strenuous outing in spite of her tiny legs. Like most dogs, she’d run ahead to scout the trail, then run back to see how we were doing. Then she’d run ahead again, repeating the process endlessly. She clearly traveled twice the distance of the trail. On this particular hike, we left at 5 a.m., packed lunches and headed for the top of Pyramid Peak. Cindy’s traveling companions were dad, my brother, my new brother-in-law and myself. Arriving at the summit about 1 p.m. gave us a beautiful view of Desolation Valley and the surrounding mountains. Lake Tahoe could be seen in the distance. It was a clear Sierra summer day and we felt exhilerated by having made the summit and lunching at the top. Now Pyramid Peak is a jumble of large granite boulders seemingly dumped in a pile helter skelter. Going up the mountain was pretty easy for this tiny pet. Going down, however, was more of a challenge. Those little paws sometimes had a problem navigating the jumps on the slippery stones. At one point still near the top of the mountain, dad picked her up to help her down and he slipped, sliding down a steep granite face and only stopping as he wedged his foot at the bottom of a granite slide. We didn’t know it at the time, but he had torn a ligament in his ankle. Our arrival back at home late that night caused much consternation among those who didn’t go on the hike. This was fifty years ago. Long before cell phones. Dad did recover after several months of rehabilitation.
Cindy had various companions in our household including Tinkerbell the cat and at one point a parakeet. A “famous” family recollection is the black and white photograph taken of Tinkerbell on top of the bird cage with wide eyes which said, “Oh, you caught me. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.” Of course the bird was frantic and as I was recently reminded by my sister, the bird died shortly after the picture was taken. I tried to locate the picture, but was not able to find it. If I subsequently find it, I’ll post it with this story, as it is one of those priceless shots.
One encounter with an animal, not a pet, was a rattlesnake. We were hiking in the Sierra Nevada along the edge of a lake. As we always did, we wore sturdy hiking boots. I was leading my parents, when there in the soft mud in front of me I was surprised by a rattlesnake. The bootprint I made in the was about four inches deep as I sprung back. In those days, we perceived rattlesnakes as dangerous vermin. So the standard operating procedure was to kill. We found a forked stick long enough to pin it down and dispatched it with a pocket knife. I had longed to taste rattlesnake meat, so we packed it out and after carefully skinning it, cooked up the meat. As you might imagine, it was like picking out the meat from a chicken neck. A bit hard to get at, but mildly tasty. I salted the skin to preserve it, then strung it out on a board. I kept it for about five years as a souvenir, then found it no longer gave me any satisfaction, so I tossed it. This “pet” had about seven rattles. The current thinking is that if you see a rattlesnake, you simply ignore it an go on your way.
My next pet was Sophie. She was a St. Bernard which was brought into our fraternity at Cal by one of my fraternity brothers. I had always enjoyed my experience with Cindy, so I took to caring for Sophie more than most of the other fraternity guys. Of course, she reciprocated. That included taking walks together and going on outings with the Rally Committee. One such trip was to the beach. The coastal beaches in Northern California are often not very warm. Sophie had a big coat. So I just happened to snuggle up to Sophie and a particularly lovely young lady from the Women’s Rally Committee. She later became my wife…as of this writing now thirty seven years.
A fraternity house does not always have the best discipline in the world. So as nature would have it, Sophie came into heat and escaped one day to mate with an Irish Wolf Hound. We experienced the whole business of animal birth with Sophie. The offspring was an amazing pet we called Kappa. Kappa had a lovey disposition. Very mild mannered, but huge. She had the height of the Irish Wolf Hound and the girth of a St. Bernard. We dubbed our new breed an Irish St. Wolfnard. Just about that time, I left the fraternity, so Kappa came to live at my parents home. However, I was finishing college and about to be married, so Kappa became my parent’s dog. She was friendly to everyone, but manners were an important thing to learn, as her nose came to about thirty inches…about the height of a dining table. They kept Kappa for as long as they could, but she became too much to manage for them, so finally they found another home for her.
When my wife and I married, we decided that the first pet we could manage would be a bird. We knew nothing about birds, but of course we were willing to learn. So we bought a yellow canary. We liked yellow since we liked then as we do now anything blue and gold because of our beloved California Golden Bears. Since we were living in Illinois at the time, we nostalgically dubbed the bird “California”. For our Christmas break we decided to take a road trip, leaving the canary behind. We were told to cover the cage and leave the heat on, which we did. California got lonely and when we returned from our trip the bird had died. Poor California did not find us to be very good parents.
We still wanted to own a pet. So when we heard in the paper that a farmer was offering St Bernard puppies we went to investigate. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a St Bernard puppy. They are the cutest LITTLE creatures you can imagine. They play gently and almost fit in the palm of your hand. So when the puppies were six weeks, we made a return trip, made the purchase of this American Kennel Club registered dog and took her home. She was so sweet that we dubbed her “Lady Galadriel” from the Tolkien novels. Her nickname was Gilda. Having had Sophie, I thought I had a pretty good idea what to expect in a St. Bernard. We had an apartment at the outskirts of town, but pets were verboten. So we had to move to a duplex several miles out of town. Gilda had a large back yard to play in, but it was not fenced, so we had to arrange a running leash system for her. She got big very quickly. Her ultimate weight was about 135 pounds. We enjoyed taking her for walks, training her and generally taking care of her.
Now we’re getting to the part about grand-animals. Already, my parents took care of Kappa, who became their “grand-dog”. When we left for Europe for a year, Gilda needed a home. So R’s parents were asked and accepted the assignment to take her for the year. They fenced their yard for a run and took full responsibility for her for the entire year. Looking back on that, they were wonderful to accept that challenge. When we returned to the States and bought our home Gilda came back to us. We really enjoyed the wonderful comments she would generate from passers by when we’d take her for walks. We had a stout leather leash with a big buckle, since she was very strong when she wanted to investigate another dog or special smell. Once we started our family, Gilda became a bit testy in her older years to the young children, and when her hips started to fail her—an ailment common to large dogs—I had to take her to the pound to euthanize her. After I left her and went to my car, I burst into tears. She was, like so many pets, a member of the family and I missed her. I didn’t miss the mounds of St Bernard hair which she shedded profusely.
As our children grew we had various gerbils, hamsters and the like. Those animals are sort of a blur in my recollection. Then one day, I was asked by my wife and daughter if we could have a dog again. Teddy was found in a box in front of a grocery store. He was probably our best pet overall. A mix between a shelty and a Samoyan with a bit of something else, he had an outgoing personality which was infectious. Life was a huge adventure for Teddy. We have memories of him chasing the kids around the rooms in our house with hardwood floors, trying to get traction as they’d change direction. Teddy was also our best trained pet. We didn’t want him going upstairs into our bedroom area, so we rigged a trip wire at the top of the stairs with an alarm attached. When I woke up one night to the alarm I exploded out of the bedroom, flashed on the light, shouted loudly at him, “NO” and ran him down the stairs. He learned quickly and never tested the stair limit again. That had the wonderful effect of keeping the upstairs free of dog hair. Teddy was a great companion for our children and taught them some of the same lessons I learned with Cindy. Teddy stayed with us for almost fourteen years. He died peacefully in our dining room. We buried him at a special place in Marin County.
Finally, I get to the special place in our pet history called “grandcat”. You see, we now have the happy task of repeating our parents’ legacy of taking care of a pet for our children as they travel. Currently, Milo is staying with us. He’s one of the worlds most travelled cats. He was acquired in Texas, travelled to Florida, California, Alaska, California, Korea, California and soon to be England. I’m sure he visited Iowa and maybe Minnesota on one of those journeys too. Milo acts as much like a dog as a cat can. He does tricks like roll over and come. His favorite game is to chase a beaded cord from a shade pull. Milo is a domestic short hair, which is good, as he doesn’t shed too much. He loves high places and can jump four or five times his height. One amazing experience Milo had was to go on one of his international flights. He cannot go through the security machine but he also cannot be in a carrier to pass through the checkpoint. Which means you must carry the cat while his carrier goes in the machine. Milo is not one to like being confined. Combine that with the fact that our son, his wife and two small children all were going through that process too, made for an interesting scene. It will be fun to see how we do when we take him through security on his way to England! Milo is microchipped, vaccinated and ready to go, but England has a six month waiting period to verify that rabies is not brought into their island.
Our daughter also has cats. She’d prefer a dog, but they are not allowed in her building. Sampson & Delilah are black black black!. I have a hard time telling them apart. One time when our daughter asked if I would take care of her cats (my grandcats) when she took a week long trip with her younger brother. Of course I said yes. As I was taking her to the airport I asked, “Do I have the keys to your place?” She told me where they were in our home. When I got home they weren’t there. And our kids were in the air. It turns out that the keys in question were at our son’s home (who was on the same trip). We finally got it worked out after many phone calls, emails and contacts with security in her building, neighbors, our son’s roomate, her boyfriend, who had the wrong outdoor key, and finally a neighbor who let us into the building. Sampson and Delilah were a bit hungry, but survived well in spite of our difficulties.
She responded so well to Carol when she called. Carol always had a gentle way with animals and people. We had a leash law in Berkeley, but where we lived it was not enforced particularly well, so Cindy had the run inside and out. Cindy spend her days roaming the neighborhood, which the neighbors didn’t really seem to mind much, or if they did, they didn’t complain to us. She especially enjoyed the big oak tree on the Conant’s property. She’d run across their lawn to the roots of the oak tree and sit looking into a hole dug by the squirrels. She’d sniff and paw at the hole for hours on end. Never did Cindy catch anything there, but it was a terrific diversion for her. She seemed content just to look down the hole, sniff and paw, sniff & paw, sniff & paw all day long.Cindy would go on trips to various family outings, especially camping and to Lake Tahoe which was almost a six hour drive. On these long trips, we used the Plymouth station wagon. It had two bench seats seating three each and no seat belts. The choice seat for the children was in the front but with six of us we had to take turns as mother and dad always got the front. If we complained about who got to sit in the front, that delayed the opportunity for the next turn. One particular trip, I was sitting in the middle of the back seat and the car was fully loaded. After stopping in Sacramento for gas we all piled into the car, driving about half an hour before someone noticed, “Where’s Cindy?” We had left her at the gas station. To our delight, when we returned she was just sitting there. She was happy to see us, wagging her tail and jumping into the car. She landed on my lap which was special. However, her little claws were not quite trimmed and they dug into my tender young legs.
Cindy was a great way for us to learn life lessons growing up. We taught her some simple tricks. We learned to bathe her and feed her. She was understanding when we were feeling down. She’d enjoy just laying there while we stroked her soft fur. We learned about discipline and how to accomplish that effectively in others. We learned the important lesson of unconditional love…and what it feels like to receive that.
Cindy was almost my dad’s undoing one time. We decided to take her on a rugged hike into Desolation Valley above Lake Tahoe. I think Cindy weighed all of twelve pounds, but she was a big part of our family. So it was natural that she’d like to go on a strenuous outing in spite of her tiny legs. Like most dogs, she’d run ahead to scout the trail, then run back to see how we were doing. Then she’d run ahead again, repeating the process endlessly. She clearly traveled twice the distance of the trail. On this particular hike, we left at 5 a.m., packed lunches and headed for the top of Pyramid Peak. Cindy’s traveling companions were dad, my brother, my new brother-in-law and myself. Arriving at the summit about 1 p.m. gave us a beautiful view of Desolation Valley and the surrounding mountains. Lake Tahoe could be seen in the distance. It was a clear Sierra summer day and we felt exhilerated by having made the summit and lunching at the top. Now Pyramid Peak is a jumble of large granite boulders seemingly dumped in a pile helter skelter. Going up the mountain was pretty easy for this tiny pet. Going down, however, was more of a challenge. Those little paws sometimes had a problem navigating the jumps on the slippery stones. At one point still near the top of the mountain, dad picked her up to help her down and he slipped, sliding down a steep granite face and only stopping as he wedged his foot at the bottom of a granite slide. We didn’t know it at the time, but he had torn a ligament in his ankle. Our arrival back at home late that night caused much consternation among those who didn’t go on the hike. This was fifty years ago. Long before cell phones. Dad did recover after several months of rehabilitation.
Cindy had various companions in our household including Tinkerbell the cat and at one point a parakeet. A “famous” family recollection is the black and white photograph taken of Tinkerbell on top of the bird cage with wide eyes which said, “Oh, you caught me. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.” Of course the bird was frantic and as I was recently reminded by my sister, the bird died shortly after the picture was taken. I tried to locate the picture, but was not able to find it. If I subsequently find it, I’ll post it with this story, as it is one of those priceless shots.
One encounter with an animal, not a pet, was a rattlesnake. We were hiking in the Sierra Nevada along the edge of a lake. As we always did, we wore sturdy hiking boots. I was leading my parents, when there in the soft mud in front of me I was surprised by a rattlesnake. The bootprint I made in the was about four inches deep as I sprung back. In those days, we perceived rattlesnakes as dangerous vermin. So the standard operating procedure was to kill. We found a forked stick long enough to pin it down and dispatched it with a pocket knife. I had longed to taste rattlesnake meat, so we packed it out and after carefully skinning it, cooked up the meat. As you might imagine, it was like picking out the meat from a chicken neck. A bit hard to get at, but mildly tasty. I salted the skin to preserve it, then strung it out on a board. I kept it for about five years as a souvenir, then found it no longer gave me any satisfaction, so I tossed it. This “pet” had about seven rattles. The current thinking is that if you see a rattlesnake, you simply ignore it an go on your way.
My next pet was Sophie. She was a St. Bernard which was brought into our fraternity at Cal by one of my fraternity brothers. I had always enjoyed my experience with Cindy, so I took to caring for Sophie more than most of the other fraternity guys. Of course, she reciprocated. That included taking walks together and going on outings with the Rally Committee. One such trip was to the beach. The coastal beaches in Northern California are often not very warm. Sophie had a big coat. So I just happened to snuggle up to Sophie and a particularly lovely young lady from the Women’s Rally Committee. She later became my wife…as of this writing now thirty seven years.
A fraternity house does not always have the best discipline in the world. So as nature would have it, Sophie came into heat and escaped one day to mate with an Irish Wolf Hound. We experienced the whole business of animal birth with Sophie. The offspring was an amazing pet we called Kappa. Kappa had a lovey disposition. Very mild mannered, but huge. She had the height of the Irish Wolf Hound and the girth of a St. Bernard. We dubbed our new breed an Irish St. Wolfnard. Just about that time, I left the fraternity, so Kappa came to live at my parents home. However, I was finishing college and about to be married, so Kappa became my parent’s dog. She was friendly to everyone, but manners were an important thing to learn, as her nose came to about thirty inches…about the height of a dining table. They kept Kappa for as long as they could, but she became too much to manage for them, so finally they found another home for her.
When my wife and I married, we decided that the first pet we could manage would be a bird. We knew nothing about birds, but of course we were willing to learn. So we bought a yellow canary. We liked yellow since we liked then as we do now anything blue and gold because of our beloved California Golden Bears. Since we were living in Illinois at the time, we nostalgically dubbed the bird “California”. For our Christmas break we decided to take a road trip, leaving the canary behind. We were told to cover the cage and leave the heat on, which we did. California got lonely and when we returned from our trip the bird had died. Poor California did not find us to be very good parents.
We still wanted to own a pet. So when we heard in the paper that a farmer was offering St Bernard puppies we went to investigate. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a St Bernard puppy. They are the cutest LITTLE creatures you can imagine. They play gently and almost fit in the palm of your hand. So when the puppies were six weeks, we made a return trip, made the purchase of this American Kennel Club registered dog and took her home. She was so sweet that we dubbed her “Lady Galadriel” from the Tolkien novels. Her nickname was Gilda. Having had Sophie, I thought I had a pretty good idea what to expect in a St. Bernard. We had an apartment at the outskirts of town, but pets were verboten. So we had to move to a duplex several miles out of town. Gilda had a large back yard to play in, but it was not fenced, so we had to arrange a running leash system for her. She got big very quickly. Her ultimate weight was about 135 pounds. We enjoyed taking her for walks, training her and generally taking care of her.
Now we’re getting to the part about grand-animals. Already, my parents took care of Kappa, who became their “grand-dog”. When we left for Europe for a year, Gilda needed a home. So R’s parents were asked and accepted the assignment to take her for the year. They fenced their yard for a run and took full responsibility for her for the entire year. Looking back on that, they were wonderful to accept that challenge. When we returned to the States and bought our home Gilda came back to us. We really enjoyed the wonderful comments she would generate from passers by when we’d take her for walks. We had a stout leather leash with a big buckle, since she was very strong when she wanted to investigate another dog or special smell. Once we started our family, Gilda became a bit testy in her older years to the young children, and when her hips started to fail her—an ailment common to large dogs—I had to take her to the pound to euthanize her. After I left her and went to my car, I burst into tears. She was, like so many pets, a member of the family and I missed her. I didn’t miss the mounds of St Bernard hair which she shedded profusely.
As our children grew we had various gerbils, hamsters and the like. Those animals are sort of a blur in my recollection. Then one day, I was asked by my wife and daughter if we could have a dog again. Teddy was found in a box in front of a grocery store. He was probably our best pet overall. A mix between a shelty and a Samoyan with a bit of something else, he had an outgoing personality which was infectious. Life was a huge adventure for Teddy. We have memories of him chasing the kids around the rooms in our house with hardwood floors, trying to get traction as they’d change direction. Teddy was also our best trained pet. We didn’t want him going upstairs into our bedroom area, so we rigged a trip wire at the top of the stairs with an alarm attached. When I woke up one night to the alarm I exploded out of the bedroom, flashed on the light, shouted loudly at him, “NO” and ran him down the stairs. He learned quickly and never tested the stair limit again. That had the wonderful effect of keeping the upstairs free of dog hair. Teddy was a great companion for our children and taught them some of the same lessons I learned with Cindy. Teddy stayed with us for almost fourteen years. He died peacefully in our dining room. We buried him at a special place in Marin County.
Finally, I get to the special place in our pet history called “grandcat”. You see, we now have the happy task of repeating our parents’ legacy of taking care of a pet for our children as they travel. Currently, Milo is staying with us. He’s one of the worlds most travelled cats. He was acquired in Texas, travelled to Florida, California, Alaska, California, Korea, California and soon to be England. I’m sure he visited Iowa and maybe Minnesota on one of those journeys too. Milo acts as much like a dog as a cat can. He does tricks like roll over and come. His favorite game is to chase a beaded cord from a shade pull. Milo is a domestic short hair, which is good, as he doesn’t shed too much. He loves high places and can jump four or five times his height. One amazing experience Milo had was to go on one of his international flights. He cannot go through the security machine but he also cannot be in a carrier to pass through the checkpoint. Which means you must carry the cat while his carrier goes in the machine. Milo is not one to like being confined. Combine that with the fact that our son, his wife and two small children all were going through that process too, made for an interesting scene. It will be fun to see how we do when we take him through security on his way to England! Milo is microchipped, vaccinated and ready to go, but England has a six month waiting period to verify that rabies is not brought into their island.
Our daughter also has cats. She’d prefer a dog, but they are not allowed in her building. Sampson & Delilah are black black black!. I have a hard time telling them apart. One time when our daughter asked if I would take care of her cats (my grandcats) when she took a week long trip with her younger brother. Of course I said yes. As I was taking her to the airport I asked, “Do I have the keys to your place?” She told me where they were in our home. When I got home they weren’t there. And our kids were in the air. It turns out that the keys in question were at our son’s home (who was on the same trip). We finally got it worked out after many phone calls, emails and contacts with security in her building, neighbors, our son’s roomate, her boyfriend, who had the wrong outdoor key, and finally a neighbor who let us into the building. Sampson and Delilah were a bit hungry, but survived well in spite of our difficulties.
So that’s my story from dogs to grandcats. Animal companions add spice to our lives and generate memorable experiences. They help develop a sense of responsibility and caring since domesticated animals are dependent on us to provide for their well being.
Dogs, cats,
Snakes and frats,
Pups, hounds,
Barking sounds.
Whelp, yelp,
Kids need help,
Hold and pat,
That nice grandcat!
It’s a huge honor to take care of these precious creatures.
©Frank Bliss 2008 All rights reserved
July, 2008
Dogs, cats,
Snakes and frats,
Pups, hounds,
Barking sounds.
Whelp, yelp,
Kids need help,
Hold and pat,
That nice grandcat!
It’s a huge honor to take care of these precious creatures.
©Frank Bliss 2008 All rights reserved
July, 2008
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