Pet Saga

Diesel and Shadow

I believe I wrote this in 2009.  Since that time more animals have come and gone, but this is the story of our animal collection over a few years' time.

The story of the pets would have to begin about 12 years ago when we were living in Orem. Kirby came home one day and said that a co-worker of his had puppies to give away, wouldn’t we like a puppy? I clearly remember telling him that since we were living in a rental and I had allergies, that surely puppies wouldn’t be the best thing. Kirby however went to see these cute little puppies and promptly decided that they were perfect for the kids. All kids love puppies—especially grown ones. So we ended up the proud owners of 2 dogs. Shadow, who is a black lab and something, maybe Dalmatian, and Speckles, his sister, who had spots. Speckles, sadly, died in the first year, but Shadow came with us to Vegas and lived in the backyard.

One day in Vegas Kirby came home from work with a mini pincher. One of his coworkers had this dog, Candy, and she couldn’t keep it in her apartment. Candy was a good companion for Shadow, though a little temperamental, and they both lived happily in the back yard where they ate hoses and dug holes. My children, however, weren’t quite satisfied with 2 pets because they had to live outside. They wanted something that they could have in their rooms.

Thus the pet influx began. Michael inherited a fish tank from our neighbor, Bryce, who was upgrading to a larger tank. Michael started to have fish. He still has fish, they live at his house now. Michelle went to her Sunday School teacher’s house one day to help her clean, and came home the proud owner, (with mom’s permission of course, did I mention I am a softy) of a cockatiel. Included in the deal were the cage and a bag of food. Seems like an okay thing, again, it can live in her room. Did you know that cockatiels can live for 40 years? Yeah, neither did I. I know now though. Michelle of course moved on to those blissful college days, but the bird, another Speckles, lives on upstairs. “Speckles is a pretty bird.”

Now Kyle and Caryn had hampsters, but they only live about 2 years, not a problem, and I never gave in to Kyle’s pleas to have a snake, as we had had, at one time, a bad experience with a lizard, which put me off of the idea of reptiles for pets entirely. You do know that they need live food. . .

Well, not so many months ago the dearly beloved Kirby came home with an iguana cage complete with heat lamp. One of his students had left it after the course was completed and so of course Kirby, thinking of how much Kyle had always wanted a snake, brought it home. Guess who got a snake for Christmas from his girlfriend, (she’s just a friend mom),--you’ve got it, Kyle. Monty, the python, next takes up residence in the basement. Every Friday the guys and their girlfriends come over to watch Monty eat mice. Kyle’s friend Brandon, on his 18^th birthday decides that he too should own a snake, so he bought one, but he failed to notify his mother of this decision, thus his snake took up residence in Kyle’s bedroom as well. Brandon did try taking his snake home one day, but found that this snake was not a welcome member of the family, so it ended up back here. Brandon was coming over once a week to feed it, but that eventually stopped happening, so Kyle used Brandon’s snake to trade for a larger snake-- in comes the red tailed boa, approximately 6 feet long and growing. This snake eats rats—oh brother. . .

Since Christmas we have started breeding mice in the guest bedroom downstairs, to make feeding the snakes more cost effective.

Last winter Candy died. Making Shadow lonely and pathetic in the backyard. Kirby and the girls decided to get another dog to be a friend for Shadow, but they picked Holly Molly the hyper manic Border Collie. After picking her up from the pound about 4 times for digging out under the fence, I finally gave up and surrendered her back to the pound. Her escapes from the backyard seemed to inspire Shadow however, who also began getting out under the gate. A few weeks ago Shadow disappeared and we didn’t hear from the pound. I thought that our dog was lost and gone forever, so determined to start over, this time with cats, to keep the mice out of the backyard, and also because cats don’t have to be licensed. .. Kyle, dear boy brought us home 3 kittens, Diesel, Turbo, and Duramax, who now live in the garage. They are very cute, but amazingly enough—Shadow was eventually recovered, from the pound of course. And thus concludes our slightly condensed version of the Crowley pet saga.