Parakeets and Dogs and Snakes, Oh My!
by Eve Gaddy
I was thinking today about the many pets I’ve had–or my children have had. Part of the reason I was thinking about pets was because my ninety-pound Golden Retriever, Maverick, was trying to climb into my lap during a thunderstorm. Much as he’d like to be, he is in no way a lap dog.
Poor Maverick is scared of many things. Pillows, newspaper (the noise, not a rolled up paper), baby gates, and above all, thunderstorms. Or wind, or rain,
or . . . well, you get the picture. During storms, we lock him up in the back when we’re gone and pray he doesn’t destroy much. He locks himself in the smallest place he can find. He has shredded numerous doors and his paws in the process. Once, he knocked over a speaker and broke the glass shelf just below the shelf that held the TV. How he missed that I don’t know, but we had shattered glass from one end of the house to the other. At least the TV–and Maverick–were okay.
Anyway, nothing works to cure his storm phobia. We’ve tried Thundershirts, drugs, both prescription and natural remedies. Every. Single. One. One medicine we gave him had no effect during the storm, then afterward when it wore off he was insatiably hungry and thirsty. That was fun. We crated him until he grew too big to make him go in there. Sometimes it helps if you put him on a leash and make him lie down beside you. Maverick’s a sweet dog but crazy as a loon.
We had a Springer Spaniel, Ginny, who loved to roll in stuff. Mud and smelly stuff in particular. My in-laws kept her one time and she immediately went and rolled in fresh cow patties. They were not happy with us for some reason.
My daughter’s Cocker Spaniel, Ellie, recently created havoc when her husband’s parents kept her. They thought Ellie had slipped out of the house and run off. After a long sleepless night (part of which they spent driving all over looking for her) she trotted out of the closet early the next morning. The dog barks at anything. Leaves, people, dogs, just for the heck of it. But she couldn’t bark when closed in a closet all night. Oh, no. Silent as a tomb. Their other dog, Lucy, couldn’t find her either. Or maybe she liked being an only dog.
Besides dogs, when my kids were young we had a parakeet. Bluebonnet was very pretty and pretty mean. He didn’t like anyone. Pecked the heck out of anyone who dared to get him out. We had a number of guinea pigs, and a hermit crab named Herman. (Herman made it into my book Midnight Remedy.) I also put my dog, Dusty, (renamed Jumbo) in the same book. Dusty got up on the counter and ate my beautiful lasagna one day.
The most memorable non-canine pet to me was my son’s snake, Spots. I am not a reptile person. I never touched him. Didn’t mind seeing him but didn’t want to touch him. Spots escaped one day. We looked everywhere and couldn’t find him. A few days later, when I was alone in the house I called a friend who had reptiles. She told of one snake who escaped and they found two months later. In the far recesses of her closet. So, I looked in my son’s closet and who should be there but Spots? Of course he was. Moral dilemma. What do I do? Close the door and hope he didn’t disappear again? No, I couldn’t do it. I bravely picked him up, screaming at the top of my lungs the whole time, and put him back in his cage. I don’t know who was more traumatized, me or Spots.
The best moment was when my son came into the den one day and said, “You probably don’t want to sit on the couch.” 
Of course, I’d been sitting there the last half hour. “Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Well, I was playing with Spots and uh, well, I kinda forgot and went to do something else.”
Yes, Spots was in the couch. Right beside where I’d been sitting. This happened before I’d had to put him back in the cage. I might have reacted better after that. Spots has since gone to snake heaven. No, he didn’t die. When my son went to college I found a man who did our pest control who kept snakes and loved them. He took Spots off to live in a large snake haven with lots of friends. Don’t tell my son but I actually missed him. A little.:)
But I have Maverick to keep me company. And sit in my lap when it storms.
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