# Share your childhood pets



## Nyahsmommy (Jul 23, 2011)

I had been thinking about my childhood dog a lot lately and thought it would be neat if we could share a picture and the story of our childhood pet.

At the age of 10 my parents got a 3 (we think) year old Springer Spaniel named pugsly. There was a guy my mom babysat for who was getting a divorce and had to give her up so my mom agreed to take her. We already felt bad for her because the b**** ex wife didn't allow her in the house and made her live in the cold garage all winter in -20 degree weather.  Plus we would always find her wandering around the neighbourhood all alone. 

She was the most well behave quiet dog I have every met. Although she was very laid back and didn't play, just slept most of the time but loved going on walks and chasing squirrels. A few months after we got her, she developed cataracts in both eyes and eventually went completely blind. I'm pretty sure she was from a puppy mill as I remember the guy saying he got her from a pet store. After she went blind she started having bad skin problems where she would have tons of itchy sores all over and would bite/scratch until she bled. My mom eventually had to make her white rice and potatos for her meals with special medicine mixed in.

A few years later she eventually got worse to the point my dad was spending over a grand every few months at the vets and nothing was working. Her skin got worse and she was biting off her skin, the poor thing. My parents decided to end her suffering at the age of 6. That was the saddest day of my life.  I miss her a lot even though its years later and I always think/dreak about her. I love you pugsly!



What's your childhood pet's story?


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## LifeOfRiley (Nov 2, 2007)

Pugsly looks like she was the most precious little thing. It's easy to see why you still miss her so much.

My favorite childhood pet has to be Brute, a GSD. We adopted him when I was eight years old. (Sadly, all the pictures we had of him were lost in a move.) 
He was _the_ coolest dog. My parents were divorced, so it was just mom and I. One day, this friend of the family stopped over. My mom was on the phone at the time, so he asked me if I wanted a "puppy." I was beside myself with excitement, of course, but he told me that it had to be our secret and I couldn't tell my mom until he came back with the pup. (Why, I don't know - she wouldn't have said no.) Anyway, I somehow managed to keep quiet. Don't know how, but I did!
About an hour went by before Mike pulled in the driveway and I got to see my "puppy" -- a six year old, 130lb longhaired German Shepherd! Some puppy...! I fell in love immediately though, and so did my mom.

He was just awesome. A little snarky at times, but I'd been around my grandparents' GSDs since the day I was born, so I was pretty dog savvy for a kid and it wasn't a problem.
I remember there were commercials on tv at the time, for Brute aftershave. Every time one of those would come on, it drove him nuts. He'd look around the room like, "Who called me?" and when he realized it was coming from the tv, he'd stand in front of it, tipping his head from side to side. It was the cutest thing.

He was fiercely protective, which is why Mike gave him to us. He always worried about mom and I living on our own and thought we needed a watchdog. I was allowed to stay home alone after school because of Brute. Mom knew that nobody would try getting into that house with Brute around! He was a great sitter. 
I was crushed when we lost him. I still miss him and would love to have another just like him. A bit too much for me nowadays, though.


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

Lassie ( this was the late '50s afterall) was the first ( and perhaps most special) of rough collies I had growing up. We were inseparable!

And what my mother had to do to get me in that dress I for the life of me can't remember. Levis and cowboy boots were my usual... I even negotiated that I'd wear a dress to church if I could wear my boots with them. lol My poor parents.


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## Deber (Aug 23, 2011)

*Lassie the collie mix*

Back in the 50's and while we lived on a large farm in Okla, we had a mixed collie girl named Lassie (weren't all the dogs named this??). It was a very hard working farm and Lassie was bred from many generations of a certain mix of dogs to make her a fantastic Dairy Cattle and Sheep herding dog. She would be fed and work until dark, fed again and fall asleep under the stars. On weekends, she only had to move dairy cows and would do hiking with me over the many miles and never left my side. I was a loner and my dog and I made a terrific team. Remember many nights sleeping in a bedroll at our old creek with Lassie's head laying across my shoulders...never a worry in the world. She worked for over 10 yrs and produced some mighty outstanding pups to carry her burden and help us with all the work. I have had many dogs over the years (I'm now old!), but Lassie knew me like no other ever will,,,she knew my heart! I wish there was a picture I could show you, cause she was a beautiful girl, but the years and many generations of my family at the farm, have lost the ones that might have had her in them. I have never named another dog after her cause she was one in a million. Perhaps she was "me" in a dog form. Still miss that girl so much. Whats so funny is she ate raw food with a little kibble and many vegtables from the garden. Never a suppliment, never had more than a shot each year that a man gave from the feedstore and a 2 X yearly worming (again from the feedstore). Here I am 50 yrs later feeding the best food I can find, suppliment with all sorts of stuff and my Vet knows my dogs by their names! Boy times have changed...(I am laughing at myself). But miss my girl!


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Buttons the cat was my childhood pet.  At the time my mom had 3 kids younger than 8 and a fourth (me!!!!) on the way and didn't want to be taking care of a dog too, so she agreed to a cat. When he was a kitten he had little black dots all over him like buttons. 

That cat was the perfect cat. <- Somewhere at home I have a picture of him being primped in our bathroom at home. You could see the indignant rage in his green eyes, but he put up with being bathed all the time in and brushed and dressed up in doll clothes and taken for kitty walks.  Other than spraying our barbie dolls (probably revenge for the doll dresses and baby bonnets) and fighting with invading cats if he was accidentally left out at night (he had part of an ear missing most of his life because of one fight), he did nothing wrong. 

I was 10 when we got Charmy. Lemme see... the worst that he did (other than his grumpy 'tude) was mining in Buttons' litter box. I remember this vividly because my parents told us that we wanted an inside dog so we had to clean up his messes. And that was brushing out his mouth because he would get kitty poop stuck between his teeth. *vomitting a little in my mouth just thinking about it* He too got dressed up on occasion. He got to wear my baby sister's bonnets and he got to have pink bows tied to his ears. And he loved the attention. In his grumpy way.


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## Deber (Aug 23, 2011)

These stories bring back such wonderful memories. Thank everyone for sharing (was a wonderful idea) and love reading each one!


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## C's Mom (Dec 7, 2009)

I am loving this thread and hope others will contribute.

We weren't allowed a dog (not that I didn't pester my mom enough, trust me). If it were up to me I would have brought home every dog and cat I saw (owned or strays) but we weren't allowed any pets. I thought my mom was the meanest person alive!  
She finally relented and let us keep a kitten from a litter we found in a lane crying out for their mom who unfortunately got run over by a bus. My neighbour took them in, feed them and I guess the adults found homes for them. Our cat Peter was a tom cat - I'm aging myself but this was back in the day before the big push to keep your cats indoors. He used to cry out "Noooooo" the entire time we bathed him, would sleep on the piles of newly ironed laundry (a BIG no no for my mom) and would come home with all kinds of scratches from fights with other cats. 
One day he didn't come home. My sister and I cried our eyes out ever day for him and got more and more depressed the longer he stayed away - it felt like months. I suppose my mom had enough of our sad faces and announced that she would listen to the entire mass the following Sunday on her knees in hopes that God would intercede on our behalf and bring our missing cat home and she did exactly that. A short while later who comes walking in the door but our cat Peter! He was super thin and missing part of his ear but home he came. I remember thinking my mom wasn't so mean after all and that she had a big in with the big guy upstairs.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

We had a border collie mix dog, I remember my older brother would play tug with him with a rope and end up swinging him off the ground in a circle he would hold on so tight. He could climb a 6 foot wood fence like a monkey, had puppies with the neighbor's dog every year. Went over the fence one day when he was about 6 and never came home. His name was Pepper.

I got the last puppy from a litter of Norwegian Elkhounds from the neighbor behind us who had bred them, and couldn't sell the last one. I named him Smokey and he was the first dog I took obedience class with. Smokey was bomb proof. Great dog, and the only one my mom would let in the house, she loved him. I miss him still.

My dad had several Pointers. One was a orange marked male, very tall, the best bird dog my dad or granddad ever had, was also fantastic with us kids. 

The dogs were always outside. There were various cats when I was a little girl, all outside and all disappeared. It was a different pet owning era for sure. My heart hurts sometimes when I think about how the pets were kept back then. We loved them, provided food, shelter, attention every day, but they deserved so much more.


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## C's Mom (Dec 7, 2009)

Bumping up for more.


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## Nyahsmommy (Jul 23, 2011)

Love these stories! Keep them coming


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## BriGuy (Aug 31, 2010)

We begged for a dog, but the most my parents would allow were rabbits. So, one day we went to the farm and picked out 2 rabbits, Flopsy and Mopsy. 

After a few months of watching Flopsy and Mopsy "wrestle", Flopsy began to get kind of fat. It turned out that Mopsy was a he :doh:. Soon after we had a dozen little squirming bunnies. The woman at the farm agreed to take Mopsy back, and we kept the cutest girl from the litter (I think my dad double checked this!) and named her Ginger. She was brown, with the biggest brown eyes.


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## HoldentheGolden (Aug 21, 2011)

When I was in third grade my class had a Christmas fundraiser for the animal shelter and I found out that some animals were killed when they couldn't find them a home. Needless to say, the ten year old me was very upset and it kept me up at night crying about it. So a couple days after New Years my sister and I came home to find out step dad outside with a black and white "puppy". He was still technically a puppy he just wasn't a little bitty one  He was a lab mix who the shelter had named Seven because of a mark on his back. We liked the name so we kept it. Seven was the best dog in the world. He was super protective of us kids, something my grandpa found out when he decided to wrestle with one of our cousins on the floor. Seven didn't know him so that made it more upsetting for him. 

Seven was a thief. He stole things from all over the neighborhood. Vegetables out of gardens, lawn ornaments, shoes, and most embarrassing a half thawed turkey someone had clearly set out around Thanksgiving. 

Here's two pictures, Seven when he was older and one the day we got him. Seven is in the chair with my step dad and then there's my step sister, Paige, me (in the purple) my sister, Cady and my step brother Cory.


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## Neeko13 (Jul 10, 2010)

When I was a child, we had all kinds of hamsters, and gerbils, and lots of babies....when I turned 10, my mom let me get a rabbit, pretty brown rabbit, I named her Angie...she lived outside all year, in a dog house put up on horses, or stilts, lots of hay, with a huge area to run around in as well...it was about 4 feet off the ground...she only poo d outside the dog house, and it would fall on the ground through the chicken wire, and my boy Max would eat or roll in it...I loved her... we also had an Alsation (shepherd) Max..who would play great with her... Angie finally had to go, I wasnt taking care of her, so when she was 8, my cousin took her in...she eventually got pregnant, and since she'd never had babies til late, she had a very hard time having the babies...my cousin decided to save the babies, and opened her up..she had 4 healthy babies, but she didnt make it :no:....
Now Max he was the terror of the neighborhood....he was all bark, and barked at everybody who walked by.....all the kids in the neighborhood would say, "There go Max"...and run  He got hit by a bus, and was lucky to only receive minor injuries...we lived on a very very busy street, and with 5 kids, two adults, the front gate got opened alot, and out he ran....One day an older woman came by the house with her grandson, saying my dog bit him on the buttocks :yuck:..so my mom asked to see it...the poor thing had to pull his pants down in my house, he was so embarrassed....no bite marks whatsoever... :doh:...Max lived to be 15, and my sister and I had to take him to the vet to put him down when my dad was on vacation...dad was in denial, Max couldnt stand, and was wetting everywhere....Every sunday for 3 years, I would bring Max home a parish bulletin from church, give to him and he'd eat that entire thing...(I was quite young and ignorant :doh....he was a cool dog for sure...He never bit anyone!!!
Once my husband found a puppy in the neighborhood, (we were dating, I was 17)...black fuzz ball, and he put it in my yard, and we pretended we found him there : We kept him for about 3 weeks, we called him Puppy Puddles, and finally my mom made me take him to the SPCA...I cried the whole way there, and home....but my mom said we couldnt keep two dogs  Ahhh...childhood memories..the best....mom just found out a couple years ago, that My hubby put the dog in the yard!!!


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## Deber (Aug 23, 2011)

*Sparkey the Pup*

Got another one to tell you about. When I was a pre-teen we lived in Houston and a stray part Beagle pup showed up at the house. We kids had a fit wanting him, but parents said no. So we made signs and posted them all over the neighborhood. We had him about a month before a new family was found, but my little sister who was a very tiny 4 yrs old was to sing a song for the youth choir and practiced every day. When the special Sunday school happened Becky marched up to the front and told everyone she wrote a song about Sparkey the Pup, she wanted to sing instead. It went (now I will have it in my head for weeks & we still tease her, but she loved her song!)

Sparkey the Pup
Sparkey the Pup
Yipping and a Yapping and a waking everyone up
He can make a puddle as fast as you can clean it up...
But we love our Sparkey, our little Sparkey pup!

Isn't that just the most funny thing and I am sure not very appropriate for Sunday School.. Beagles are the darn'dest things!


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## C's Mom (Dec 7, 2009)

Nash666 said:


> Every sunday for 3 years, I would bring Max home a parish bulletin from church, give to him and he'd eat that entire thing...(I was quite young and ignorant :doh....he was a cool dog for sure...He never bit anyone!!!


:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:Thanks for the good laugh.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

My mom's childhood best friend bred show beagles, so we got a beagle from her named, Johjean Empress Verona. Unfortunately, she was a garbage hound and that's eventually what killed her. When she was about 1 1/2 years we got a beagle/dachshund mix already named Snoopy. Snoopy was donated to the medical school where my dad was chairman of pathology (the person who donated her was an administrator there). She was donated for experimentation because she dug holes in the yard.... So she was on her way to the 7th floor in the elevator the same time as my dad, dog lover extraordinaire. He reached down to pat her, she licked his hand, and the rest is history. When my dad got to his floor, he took the dog. The attendant said,"You can't do that!" And my dad said, "I'm the chairman of pathology, I can do whatever I want." She lived to be 16 1/2 years.... and still dug holes until she died.


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## spruce (Mar 13, 2008)

just thinking today how my family would have never paid as much for a dog as I do for a grooming! I'm sure they never would have paid for a dog, but I got lucky...

Church hobby show, church member/breeder brought litter of West Highland Terrier pups, little girl (me) stayed with them all nite. One pup had a bad leg that prevented him from being shown/bred. Dog failed at several homes (tore drapes, barked),breeder remembered little girl/found out who she was/contacted parents. I could not believe we were getting a DOG!! his limp was only noticeable when he was very physically tired, my mother was a SAHM so he stuck by her & had no destructive behaviors. 
He lived a *very long* life; got him early grade school, died when I was early 20's. I thought dogs lived long lives if there wasn't "an accident", so was devastated when my lst lab died at 18 months from cancer.
I was glad I had a dog to walk, keep me company - but what if a retriever breeder had been there that nite?

love the Sparky song!


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## Rainheart (Nov 28, 2010)

This is the only picture I have on my computer of my sweet girl, Ginger. We got her in December of 2000 when I was 10 years old. She was the best dog and a best friend to me. She definitely developed my interest in goldens and is why I now have Beamer for my first dog. She was definltely very laid back and very good with me and my two sisters. I think we did one puppy class, but never needed any other obedience classes. She was off leash for our walks and always stayed by our side. I remember one time we all went blackberry picking together with her. Another thing I remember is that she did steal a few McDonalds hamburgers from the table (but we forgave her, of course!) 
Unfortunately her time with us was short and she developed lymphoma and lyme disease. We had to put her down in 2006 when I was 15 years old (she was only 5). It was very hard on me especially and I really wasn't ready for a new dog (let alone two) when the two labs came into our lives. I still think of her and I will never forget what I learned from her.


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## goldensrbest (Dec 20, 2007)

We had two, when i was real young, don't remember them, but in the third grade i wanted a dog, came home one day from school ,this was early 60's. there was a boxer, my parents went and bought, cindy was her name, she was my dog, slept at the foot of my bed, i was in england when she died, about1972, i cried for weeks, she was a good friend.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

Penny & Maggie's Mom said:


> View attachment 103374
> 
> 
> Lassie ( this was the late '50s afterall) was the first ( and perhaps most special) of rough collies I had growing up. We were inseparable!
> ...


Betty, I see the facial resemblance between your child and adult faces! What a great dog! 

My Mom has never been animal friendly....she was the type of person who didn't believe in spay/neuter or in letting pets inside. She ran over our first cat "Kitty Baby". Then my Dad took me to see my Grandparents and I brought a pretty gray male cat home. We stopped off at an oil rig on the way home (Dad was in the oil and gas industry). Noisy oil rigs and cats--don't mix! Mom was not happy when she saw the cat. I named HIM Candy (I was 5). Every time my parents left the kids at home (Big Sister was in charge) we would bring Candy inside. One time we had Candy inside and another twin cat came to our property. It took us a while to figure out which one was our cat. Our cat always climbed the back door screen to look in a window and meow at us when he was hungry--and that was our test! Candy was a great cat, allowed me to put him in a baby carriage and walk him, with my best friend and next door neighbor and her small dog in a baby carriage. Candy needed to be neutered, but my parents wouldn't pay for that...so who knows how many little Candys were running around as a result. 

I made up a poem for him:

Candy is a cat
Who is round, chubby and fat,
Who sits on a mat
And eats like a rat. 

RIP dear sweet Candy! I didn't own another pet until decades later--and that was a golden retriever. The rest is history.


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

Dallas Gold said:


> Betty, I see the facial resemblance between your child and adult faces! What a great dog!
> 
> My Mom has never been animal friendly....she was the type of person who didn't believe in spay/neuter or in letting pets inside. She ran over our first cat "Kitty Baby". Then my Dad took me to see my Grandparents and I brought a pretty gray male cat home. We stopped off at an oil rig on the way home (Dad was in the oil and gas industry). Noisy oil rigs and cats--don't mix! Mom was not happy when she saw the cat. I named HIM Candy (I was 5). Every time my parents left the kids at home (Big Sister was in charge) we would bring Candy inside. One time we had Candy inside and another twin cat came to our property. It took us a while to figure out which one was our cat. Our cat always climbed the back door screen to look in a window and meow at us when he was hungry--and that was our test! Candy was a great cat, allowed me to put him in a baby carriage and walk him, with my best friend and next door neighbor and her small dog in a baby carriage. Candy needed to be neutered, but my parents wouldn't pay for that...so who knows how many little Candys were running around as a result.
> 
> ...


 

I can just picture little Anne pushing Candy in a carriage. Too cute!


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## C's Mom (Dec 7, 2009)

Sally's Mom said:


> My mom's childhood best friend bred show beagles, so we got a beagle from her named, Johjean Empress Verona. Unfortunately, she was a garbage hound and that's eventually what killed her. When she was about 1 1/2 years we got a beagle/dachshund mix already named Snoopy. Snoopy was donated to the medical school where my dad was chairman of pathology (the person who donated her was an administrator there). She was donated for experimentation because she dug holes in the yard.... So she was on her way to the 7th floor in the elevator the same time as my dad, dog lover extraordinaire. He reached down to pat her, she licked his hand, and the rest is history. When my dad got to his floor, he took the dog. The attendant said,"You can't do that!" And my dad said, "I'm the chairman of pathology, I can do whatever I want." She lived to be 16 1/2 years.... and still dug holes until she died.


This warms my heart.


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## GoldenGirlsMom (Oct 31, 2010)

Back in 1972 when I was a freshman in high school, my mom married my wonderful stepdad. They puchased a 40 acre farm that also had a boarding kennel business on it. My stepdad raised AKC field trial beagles and would average having 70 beagles in the kennel. Yes that is a lot of poop scooping and mouths to feed. He would also have about 5 litters of pups every year hoping for the next field trial champion. My sister and I would always go with him to the trials and run the dogs with him. It was fun and great when we would win. We always had dogs and puppies to play with. He passed 3 years ago and still had 17 beagles in the kennels that my sister and I took care of until we could find good homes for. 2 years ago we sold the farm because it was to much for mom. My sister and I were going through the kennel cleaning it up for the sale and we came across the box that held the cards that were filled out for each boarder. We had fond memories of Major the irish setter, Heidi the rottweiler who we tied our sled to in the winter and she pulled us on it, Pepsi and Coke the 2 little white poodles who walked on thier front legs because they were paralyed in thier back end and the little gray poodle who had kidney failure late one night when we found her a pool of blood and rushed to the vet. She survived. There was also Tootie the white cat who would hiss when you walked past her pen, the military trained german shepard that would try to bite through the chain link fence and the dachsund who got into a fight with her boarding neighbor through the fence and managed to take a chunk of ear from him. We also had good memories of the beagles, Charlie our house dog who slept in bed with me every night, Black Jack and Tom my dad field trial champions, Little Bee who was really tiny and One Eye Jack who was missing an eye and wouldnt run a rabbit unless you carried him and babied him up first. He never did finish a champion but he was still a great rabbit dog.


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