So, I have talked about pond fish and tropical tank fish that we have had previously and now I thought I’d talk about the cats and dogs we’ve had through our lives.
I have already talked about our first proper family dog in a previous post called Bubba and talked some on our 2nd family dog called Bear, but there have been others as well, although there are reasons why I say that Bubba and Bear were our first proper family dogs.
Before I was born my mum had cats and I also remember for a time when I was very young that we also had two cats, one was a black cat called Ramsey and the other was a ginger cat called Homer. Unfortunately, Ramsey was run over and killed by a car but Homer went on in our lives for a bit longer until my nan eventually took him and then after that he at some point went to a family friend where he spent the rest of his life as far as I know.
Before I was born and also when I was a baby too young to remember anything my mum also had a family dog which was a German Shepard called Max and my nan also had a dog, who was a mongrel (I believe he was some kind of German Shepard-mix and was a ginger or hazel colour).
Max was older than my nan’s dog called Barney and Max died before I grew up to be able to remember him but since Barney was a young dog, I easily remember him as he was a big part of my childhood when we used to visit my nan at her cozy home or when my nan would come over to ours or especially during Christmas time when he’d stay over with us since my nan would stay over for Christmas. He was quite a funny dog as well as during his older days he got quite a bit of flatulence and would do some quite loud and stinky farts, another funny thing about him is he would start going crazy and would whine and bark when we were whispering “cats!, cats!”.
And finally there was also a weird trick he’d do that we called the Kanga, the trick was originally meant to be that barney would walk for a moment on his rear legs as a trick, but due to him being large he was unable to do it properly and so instead he would hop about on his back legs instead similar to a Kangaroo, it was very funny while he was younger but my nan would be unhappy with us doing it in his older age as she was afraid it would hurt his legs. Sadly, my nan died of cancer that kept on reoccurring and Barney became very home sick after that due to missing her to the point where we had to put him down and he was cremated along with my nan so in a sense they would always be together. At first our mum told us that Barney went off to live on a farm far away be we eventually learned the truth when we were older.
For a long time, we didn’t have any pets in our own home after the cats apart from a dog we had for a while called bailey, a small fluffy white dog I am unsure of the breed, but we had to give him away after he bit my younger brother. Then a while after that we looked after a Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Charlie and that’s when the post here comes in about our first proper family dog called Bubba (note that for a time that we had Bubba, Barney and my nan were still alive and Bubba and Barney got along well). Barney would warn Bubba at times when he was getting annoying though, such as by doing long whines at first and then eventually doing a loud whine that would make Bubba back away – my cousins mum is actually really good at recreating the sound Barney would make in these instances.
Anyway, we had Bubba for a long time but unfortunately despite originally being friendly with other dogs he would become quite stand-offish on dog walks and would make lots of barking and wailing sounds at other dogs for some reason where it made him embarrassing to take out.
Bubba loved playing tug-o-war with raggies when he was strong enough to do so, he isn’t so much anymore but he does still like to do it but we obviously make sure to only do it very lightly with him now as to not hurt him since he is old and fragile, he still enjoys it though. Another dog that was in our life a bit was Boe, a brindle Staffordshire bull terrier (which is a colour that my mum really wanted in that breed), we went to visit him as a puppy but we could not have him as the current landlord didn’t allow us to have more than one dog. This did not stop one of my mum’s former partners getting the dog though as an attempt to try and get my mum to be with him again (he wasn’t a very nice man at all).
Another dog we had for a while was one called Honey as she was a Staffordshire bull terrier with that colour, we had her for many years and she got on well with Bubba but then eventually my mum gave her away to my cousin’s mum where she still lives to this day. Honey eventually went on to have puppies with a neighbor brindle dog and she had four puppies, all of them brindle and they were quite perfectly two boys and two girls. Three of them, Studley, Lullabell and Cocoa still live with my cousin and her mum while we took in Bear (originally named Chunk as a puppy), so my mum finally got the brindle Staffordshire bull terrier she always wanted.
During this time, we also got another dog in our life called Rosie, a small and slender Staffordshire bull terrier who alongside Bear really loved fetching tennis balls. Rosie was the dog of one of my mum’s friends and former partner (not the bad one) and we would look after Rosie while he was working and we would walk her, she got along with Bubba and Bear.
My sister also got a dog of her own as well, a mongrel called Bronson, he is a Pomeranian-mix who looks kind of like a miniature German shepherd. We would see him many times when we visited and now currently, he lives with us as our sister lives here now after my mum’s accident. She also had another dog, a big chunky Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Major but he died of cancer about 2-years back, his ashes are in an urn that my sister has.
So then pretty much we had Bubba and Bear all the way up until my mum had the aneurysm and my cousin then looked after Bubba and Bear. Bear sadly died of cancer last year, but all the rest are still alive, although I do not think Honey and Bubba will be with us for too much longer as they are old and frail now.
So that’s basically the history up until now of dogs and cats in or associated with our family. I may focus on Bear more closely on a future post and also do a posy a bit more on Bubba rather than just his history like I did last time.
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