Brand New Day And Past Animal Stories

The day after the Preakness is kind of a let down. The party like atmosphere with me drinking a little champagne and anticipating a winner is gone. The party seems to be over. The coffee is mostly consumed this morning and the sprinkler system is watering the yard. What things I have to look forward to are the two little doggies coming at the end of this coming week. They will be staying with mom and me for two weeks. The space shuttle launch will be taking off the last day of the month at 5:02 in the morning. I think we will be having a chuck roast for dinner tonight. Mom also got some strawberries from Publix which taste real good. This is a picture of Holly. Berry, the black dog, is laying behind Holly. Berry's face is not visible in this picture. Many years ago, I had a small black poodle named Sheba. She was a very obedient dog that could stand on her hind legs and ride in a basket on a bicycle. She was my dad's bicycle companion. He would peddle the bike and she would let the wind blow through her curly black ears. Sheba stood up to a couple of young German Shepherd dogs, but later was chased by these two same dogs into submission. The Shepherd dogs learned they were bigger and could easy bully a small poodle. do When we had to put Sheba to sleep, it was hard on my dad. He never cried on the outside, but I was pretty sure he cried on the inside. I had two pet roosters named Happy and Easter named by my mom. They were both white in color and I could pick them both up and place my hands over their eyes and they would go to sleep. They were friendly towards me, but everyone else they attacked. They attacked my next door neighbor's kids and they would hardly ever come into my backyard with the chickens. They attacked my Great Uncle Forrest Geyer while he was hanging clothes on the clothes line. Forrest would go after one with a broom and the other one would come up from behind and spur him. They were like a chicken wrestling tag team. However, my sister grabbed them and took them off to the woods. She turned them loose and we never found them again. No more Happy and Easter. I also had a pet duck that my mom named Lucky because she liked the name Lucky Duck. It was a male Mallard duck I raised from an egg. This duck knew of no other ducks while growing up. He was raised by humans which were mainly women. The older he got, the more annoying he was to my mom and me. He would follow us out to the clothes line in the back yard with the top of his head feathers standing up and panting like a out of breath heart patient or train engine with engine trouble. He wouldn't even swim in our above ground pool. It made him nervous. He got our pool a bit messy so he was banned. Mom finally took him to a park over in New Smyrna Beach thinking he would take to the other ducks. The animals of his own kind weren't worthy of his attention. As a result, he was chased out by the pack of other ducks. He didn't blend in at all. He made a beeline for the South Bridge. We lost him. Lucky Duck's luck had run out. I figured he was probably hit by a car because he preferred to live as a human. The duck life didn't suit his personality. He did everything a Mallard duck would do, but not like other ducks. He liked people and loved women. I did have a good time with my German Shepherd dogs. The first one was named Ginger. She liked people, but hated cats. She would bust out of the backyard to run across the road to chase the cats and kill them. She would grab the cats in the back of their necks and shake them until they were they were dead. She got it into her head this was her goal in life. She also hated clapping noises. She didn't like lightning and when we took her to the ocean she tried to bite the waves. She was violated by a white Shepherd that climbed our fence to get to Ginger. Ginger was pregnant and she had eight of the fattest, cutest puppies you ever did see. When they were picked up, they would grunt. We would take a plate of milk out in the backyard and they would follow waddling out to the plate to consume the milk. It was hard to give them away. They all developed personalities. There was Bo who was the oldest. Chubby who we kept, The thinker who we thought about keeping and a few others. We took Ginger and Chubby to our next home which was in the City of Oakland, Florida. Ginger was put to sleep, because she developed hip disease and heart worms. Chubby left the same way. It wasn't an easy chore to bury them and snuff out what little life they had left. It still was better than the suffering they had to endure from the ailments. The animal raising was passed on to my sister Glendon when we left Oakland for the Coast. It gave us the freedom to move around and travel. We didn't have the responsibility of constant care for a pet. We are taking care of the doggies for two weeks, this for Howard, Holly and Berry, Being single does have advantages.