There’s an important part of my family that seems to rarely make its way into my blog posts.  These family members are always present, though rarely the subject of my recollections, stories, and comments on life.  They sometimes cause a bit of tension in my house, but when they look at you, your heart melts away with the tension.  Family sticks with you in life, and these members exemplify that.

I just wish they could let themselves out when they need to relieve themselves.

I have a long history of pets in my life.  Most of that history brings a smile to my face.  Some of it does not.  But their influence on my life is almost as prevalent as my parents, brother, children, or wife.

The earliest pet I can remember was a grandparent’s dog, I believe my mother’s parents’ pet.  It was black.  The only thing I really remember was the night it died, when my father and someone else had to go out and bury it.

The next per I know of was Precious, a somewhat shaggy and curly grey-haired mixed breed.  She had been in the family for all of my earliest years.  Admittedly, I didn’t pay much attention to the dog at times, but it was still a part of my every day world.  She passed away from old age not long after we moved from New York to North Carolina.  I came home one day to find her dead on the kitchen floor.  I was devastated.

Another pet we’d had when I was very young, also in New York, was Fizzgig.  He was an orange tabby cat.  I remember one Christmas when we’d wrapped a cat toy for Christmas and put it under the tree.  There was catnip on it, and he zeroed right in on the gift, opening it quickly.  He used to be rambunctious and playful.  He got hit by a car while trying to cross US Route 9, which our neighborhood was off of.  His impact was enough for me to use his name once more on a future pet, as well as a common password in the mid-90s.

The last pet from New York was Bon-Bon.  She was a black and white cat, which we’d gotten not long after Fizzgig died.  I remember picking her over another cat at a shelter, her being my choice because the other was lacking a tail.  I thought something was wrong with the other cat.  Now, I know it might have been a manx cat.  Or it could have been in an accident.  I’ll never know, because Bon-Bon became a familiar sight in my home, and lived for a very, very long time.

In North Carolina, we’d acquired a cat while visiting cousins in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  My brother had decided his name was Boots or something, because his body was dark grey with white feet.  I’d called him Cat, or KiKi.  I used to lay him down in my lap and play with him for long periods of time.  As he grew, he’d often play roughly with me, though he rarely went to far.  Others in the family, on the other hand, got torn to shreds by him, namely my mom.  In his time, I seemed to become immune to the oils in his claws, which usually cause the skin to bump up.  But at the same time, he knew how much I could take before bleeding.  He had the oddest meow, which was more of a two-syllable call, and occasionally made a sound that sounded like my name when he was looking for me.  In the end, though, he was a bit of  a loner, and after I moved out he didn’t seem to recognize me all too much.  When he died, he acted like a lonely and somewhat bitter old man who wanted nothing to do with me.

Sometime in my teenage years, my brother and I both got a couple hamsters.  My two were males, and I named them Fizzgig and Einstein.  Fizzgig was aggressive, and Einstein was reclusive.  Fizzgig used to test the joints and doors on my habbitrail.  Einstein used to pack food in the exercise wheel and then decide to run in it.  While they cohabitated, I learned about the tendency of animals enclosed in the same space for a long period of time to have homosexual encounters, which explained part of the noises going on during the night.  The rest of the night, they’d clank on doors, scrape at floors, and spin wheels.  I’d hit the top of the habbitrail to get them to stop, which only pissed off Fizzgig and made him more aggressive.

One summer, we went on vacation for a week.  I’d put the cage in a room on the third floor, which we didn’t use much.  I put a book on top of the lid, which was the only way I kept them from eventually opening the door at the top.  In the worst case, I rationalized, they’d be stuck in the room and I could track them down if they got out.  Somehow, while I was gone, they managed to knock the book down, open the door, and climb out.  During the week, Einstein got wedged between the baseboard and the back of a bed, and couldn’t get out.  Fizzgig apparently figured Einstein would make a better meal than a roommate, and acted on that impulse.  After finding them, I buried Einstein next to Precious the dog, and captured Fizzgig.  He was never the same, and would never let me get close again.  That psycho hamster lived for almost another two years before dying of old age.

My parents once adopted a cocker spaniel named Sassy.  She loved ice cream and refused to step on grass, usually walking way out of her way to take care of her business out by the street.  She died after a couple years, apparently after finding anti-freeze sitting out in the garage.

A raggedy, stray orange tabby adopted us once.  At first, we tried to scare it away.  In time, it was apparent that the cat had no where to go.  We let it live outside for a while, and eventually it found itself inside.  T.C. became the poster example of lap cat, and decided my dad made the best lap.  The cat was so fond of laps that it would often hang onto your stomach or chest well after you’d gotten up.  He wasn’t always welcomed by the other animals, but in time he was tolerated.  In time, he also left us.

Just before moving out of my parent’s house, my ex-wife and I purchased a Siberian husky, which we named Sam.  Sam was a handful, and then some.  A few years later, at his full-size, he’d hear grubs under the grass and turn my yard into a mine field looking to snack on them.  He often caught rabbits and birds in the yard.  He was very hard to keep contained, being able to climb chainlink fences.  When he occasionally got loose from the heavy rope we had to tie him down with, it would take hours to get him back.  Eventually, he started trying to kill cats and other animals in the neighborhood, and scared many of the kids in the area.  One night, just before moving to Utah, he escaped and attacked a neighbor’s dog.  I ended up having to file with my homeowner’s insurance to pay for the medical bills.  We eventually realized his best chanced were with a place for huskies, and had the pound remove him.  It was a hard decision to make, but probably the right one.

Around the same time, I’d inherited a dog from my cousin Colleen and her husband (my close friend), Richard.  The dog was a girl named Buttons.  She was hyperactive, but very loving.  She enjoyed being around Sam, but wasn’t enough to keep his interested from jumping the fence.  We had to leave her with our next-door neighbor when we moved to Utah, as we’d have no place to keep her.  The last time I saw her, she was still happy with her new owner.

In North Carolina, we’d also adopted two cats, Abby and Grace.  Abby came first, part of a litter from Colleen and Richard.  Later, I couldn’t resist the runt of a litter outside of Walmart, which was Grace.  I’d attached to Abby the most, much more than I’d attached to an animal in years.  Grace was, and still is, a very scared cat who rarely interacts with her own owners.  Abby was hit by a car in late 2006.  It was a hard thing for me, partially because it was after my first marriage fell apart, but also because she was my favorite of the cats in Utah.  It was also very difficult leaving her body behind when we moved from that house.  Grace is still with us.

We discovered a black kitten outside my daughter’s preschool, during the summer of 2005.  Naturally, we took him home, naming him Boo.  Boo has the tendency of finding homes that will think he’s a stray, even causing a former neighbor to adopt him for a short time.  After keeping him, I discovered he was a Bombay breed, which is not your average tabby.  Someone must have lost him, which doesn’t surprise me, seeing as how he’s followed us on mile-long walks before.  Boo is still with us.

In early 2005, my ex-wife decided to get a dog from the pound.  The dog was a Lhasa Apso, a Tibettan breed.  I suggested the name Harvey, which stuck.  He’s been with me through it all, even though he and I didn’t get along well.  In 2007, he adopted Jill as his new owner, which worked out well a year later when she moved in and we got married.  He and I have had our ins and outs, but he’s been loyal to the family for some time.  He’s now a regular in my bed, which I don’t always enjoy, but he loves the family and he’s about as much a part of it as I am.

Today, I was thinking about all the pets in my life.  Some of the best and worst times of my life can be traced to my pets.  Even more so, some of my best and worst personality traits can be traced back to events involving my pets.

The death of Precious effected me so much that I never really attached to a dog again.  Even Harvey, who is the closest dog I’ve been to in all my life, would find himself at arm’s length because of the death of my childhood dog.

The eventual deaths of some of my cats have led me to distance myself from the cats that follow them.

And worst of all, I’ve even questioned my own ability to love a human being based on my inability to love an animal, even though I know the love an animal can bring into your life quite well.  I think I know the pain of the loss of a loved animal all too well, too, which leads me to doubt love entirely, even when love lays next to me in the bed or sleeps across the hall.

It amazes me how much of my life has been wrapped up in a pet.  It amazed me more how much I have detested - on occasion - that power within my life.  And it amazes me the most that I could doubt my own ability to love, pet, spouse, child, or otherwise, simply because I don’t connect with a particular creature.

I can only begin to see the fibers of my life and how they influence everything else, all the way to my present-day personality.

Pets are my past, my present, and my future.  Maybe it’s time to get past the loss over the years and allow myself to love them today.

.