There are pet people and non-pet people in this world, and there are those who have pets who shouldn’t.
I have a neighbour with a lovely dog that seems to spend a lot of time on the back porch – rain or blazing sun, just looking through the sliding door at their ‘family’ inside. I have to admit I don’t know the back story but the dog definitely looks lonely.
Now I have had a slew of different pets – dogs, cats, birds, tanks of fish, you name it – but even Isaac the Wonder Cat who used to sit for hours watching me work at my bench can’t dissuade me from the realization that at heart I am a dog person.
Sure, dogs tend to be more needy than cats, but nothing makes a bad day better than coming through the front door to see your pooch waiting for you with their tail going a million miles an hour! Or those cold Winter days in my office when my dog decides to curl up and snooze on my feet. It’s the simple things in life that dogs do that make living just a whole lot more enjoyable for their ‘family’.
I have had a number of dogs in my life – Rusty, Potlicker, Cheyenne, Lucy, Baxter and now Miss Frieda. Each had their own distinct personality and brought their own unique style of love. Rusty and Potlicker were my ‘buddies’, always ready for my childhood adventures. Cheyenne was an overgrown love muffin with a passion for Lea & Perrins Sauce. Lucy the Akita cross loved nothing better than to pull us on our cross-country skiis (she would have made on helluva sled dog!). And Baxter, well he was in his own world, our longest living dog, who couldn’t bear to be more than a few feet from my wife. And when he passed over the rainbow bridge just shy of his 13th birthday it was watching my wife, with a smile on his face.
Miss Frieda came to live with us shortly after Baxter passed, almost a rebound after losing Bax. Your classic redheaded spitfire (a Walker Hound – Aussie Shepherd cross no less!) she is the absolute opposite of Baxter – all go go go then flop, smart as a whip and sneaky as hell. Feisty as all get out, she has a soft side, stopping mid-gallop to lean against me for a pet or ear scrunchies or flopping beside my office chair to have a snooze on the cool hardwood floor. In many ways she is a female Rusty, in appearance and personality, right down to the ‘zoomies’! My son is none too sure of her at times, her energy a little disconcerting but I know he likes when she comes over and plops her head in his lap while he is watching TV.
Cynophilist (noun): A person who is fond of dogs. Yup, that’s me (looking down at Miss Frieda snoozing with her nose a foot from my desk).