2603. A dog’s life

Geraldine, over a period of six decades, had been the proud mistress of five dogs. She had only one at a time. Each had their own personality. Each was a distinct breed with their own needs. Of course, Rusco was the only one that wasn’t a purebred. Geraldine didn’t have much of a clue what breed of dog had been crossed with what breed of dog to get Rusco. Everyone was her favourite. She had adored them all.

Of course Geraldine hadn’t lived a perfect life. When she was shopping she often had “sticky fingers”- as the saying goes. There were quite a few other improprieties but they’re not necessary to mention. The reader can use his or her imagination.

Eventually Geraldine died. Imagine her surprise – and joy – when she was met at the gates of eternal life by her five dogs. Suddenly an Angel appeared just as Geraldine was about to enter through the gates.

“Stop!” said the Angel. “Only one dog is permitted to enter with you. You must choose.”

“Choose between my five dogs?” declared Geraldine in amazement. “I’d rather be in Hell.”

“You are,” said the Angel.

2507. Good Heavens!

After considerable pressure from animal lovers God relented and began to allow pets in heaven – provided of course that people cleaned up any mess.

“Let this be a lesson to all,” declared God, “that I am open to hearing prayerful petitions from good people.”

What excitement ensued! Lillian McPherson got her eleven dogs in a flash, to say nothing of Christopher Flannery’s seven cats, and Josephine Williamson’s seventeen rabbits.

The pets increased the delight of heaven even more than previously. Many an angel bent to pat a cat, and many a cherub gave dog-owners a break by taking the dog for a walk. All was wonderful for several years; all faithfully cleaned up after their pets.

Then suddenly Eleanor Whiddleworthy died and entered heaven through the pearly gates. While on Earth Eleanor Whiddleworthy had been a note-worthy person. She had spear-headed the fight to rid the world of plastic, she had spearheaded the fight to save planet Earth’s forest. Upon entering heaven she gathered like-minded people about her.

God was petitioned: rid heaven of plastic and stop the cutting down of forests. After considerable pressure God relented and banned plastic bags and the felling of trees to make paper bags and other wood-based commodities.

Poor pet owners! Oh the smell with no bags to gather poo!

2493. Cat food

Stan was reduced to eating Clara’s cat food. Clara the cat had been almost twenty when she died. Given the price of things these days it seemed a waste of money to get rid of perfectly good cat food. Out of a tin!

Stan had always eaten well. Few things come out of a tin that are worthwhile, not even fish such as sardines or salmon are almost impossible to get fresh. He ate only fresh things so fish was off Stan’s diet. Besides it was rather expensive. Cat food out of a tin seemed repugnant. But food is food, and when one is out of pocket then necessity is the mother of invention. Clara’s tinned cat food. Yuk! Stan almost vomited, but he was hungry. Waste not; want not – especially these days.

After two days of eating the late Clara’s tinned cat food, Stan was beginning to develop a liking for it. It certainly was cheaper than the regular food that Stan usually had. The health benefits weren’t certain, but given the circumstances…

So Mervyn the cat lover decided to permanently feed his cat Stan the same stuff out of a tin that he had given Clara.

2480. Strutting cockerels

(WARNING: The discerning reader might find out why.)

I want to thank you for posting your wonderful article online. It is not a pleasant topic and people shun talking about it, but your article imparted how to develop skills that people in my situation need. So a big thank you.

These last few years I have kept chickens. I view them as pets really, although for a good deal of the year they provide eggs. One of the great delights of keeping poultry is having them hatch out babies. They are so lovely, so cute, so soft and fluffy and darling. I can’t help myself when a hen goes broody. I just have to put half a dozen eggs under her for these miracles to hatch three weeks later.

A disadvantage of this “weakness” of mine (I call it a weakness because I suppose I shouldn’t do it so often) is that a good half of the baby chickens are boys. And really, in a flock of fowls (unlike humans) only one male is necessary. So I have a plethora of cockerels strutting around and I don’t know what to do with them.

This is where your wonderful online posting comes in; for once someone has the knowledge to say how to kill a rooster humanely. I was able to exterminate eight without any suffering. As I say, I view them as pets so it’s important to me that they are put down in a caring way.

At first I thought it looked complicated, so I practised on my son’s canaries. Of course I botched that up. There were blood and feathers everywhere. So I practised on my daughter’s rabbits and got so much better at it. Thank you once again for your caring article.

2346. Miranda’s first day

It came as a terrible shock to Miranda to discover, upon her death, that her husband of forty-seven years had been a bigamist and he was sitting in the heavenly choir slap bang next to Henrietta, the recently departed mother of his seven children. And to think that Miranda’s obituary read, loved wife of the late Elbridge for forty-seven years. There was no changing it now.

At least Miranda would have her pets. She had spent her life adopting cats and dogs from the local pound. What sadness each pet-passing had caused in her life. What an irreparable gap they had left. Rather quickly she discovered that all the dogs and cats she had cared for were now back in the heavenly keeping of their original owners. The pets had been lost and now were found. What a delight it was for the original pet-keepers. What sadness for Miranda.

Well, she would seek out her favourite aunt. At least Aunt Nina would be a familiar shoulder to cry on. Nina had always understood Miranda; the two were in emotional sync. But no one in heaven had seen Nina; in fact no one in heaven had ever heard of her. Could she in fact have gone to the other place?

There was only one last thing to give her comfort: her pet canary, Aria. Aria was a yellow canary that had been Miranda’s companion in the kitchen for almost a decade. These beatific days Aria wouldn’t need a cage. There she is now! Oh! She’s in a cage. She has taken the fancy of the head angel in the Contralto Section of the heavenly choir. The head angel is in no mood to share. Just listen to that canary sing!

That about ends this account of Miranda’s first day after death. “Just wait until dinner!” declared a rather plump personage that Miranda had never met in her life. “Dinner is out of this world!”

Miranda said she wasn’t hungry.

2141. Keeping crocodiles

Lucy had no idea why she married him. His hobby was keeping pet crocodiles.

She was his fourth wife.

2015. The trials of having a pet

Charleen rented. The rental agency inspected the house every seven weeks. The inspector pretended the visit was in case anything was needed, or if anything needed fixing. In reality, the inspection was for the sake of the landlord. Make sure those horrible renters are not destroying my property.

Charleen loathed these inspection but was grateful she got seven days warning. It gave her time to “tidy up”. It also gave her time to hide her pet dragon. The rental agreement had stated “NO PETS” and in particular “NO DRAGONS”. Charleen had kept her dragon for well-nigh twenty years. It was impossible to find a landlord who would allow a pet dragon. The only way to find accommodation was to lie about the dragon – and hide it every seven weeks.

Charleen’s dragon was called Constibelle. It was a very pretty name for a dragon. The thing that Charleen detested the most about dragons was that they stained the carpet like you wouldn’t believe. It was possible to house-train them, but it wasn’t an easy task. Fortunately Constibelle’s was house-trained, but there were a few accidents on the way, and Charleen had to tastefully arrange mats and furniture to hide the stains. She dreaded the day when she might have to move house, and the final inspection would reveal the dragon stains in hideous detail.

Then disaster struck. Constibelle died. Quite suddenly. The neighbours wondered why Charleen was digging such a huge hole in her back yard, but Charleen explain that she was hoping to plant a well-grown apple tree.

Those of you who have never had a pet dragon will be unaware of the two possible things that can happen upon the death of a dragon. Either nothing happens at all, or dragon stains made during the course of a lifetime miraculously disappear. In this case, nothing happened.

Charleen was devastated. She grew to despise her departed dragon. Why had Clara’s pet dragon performed a miracle upon its death and why not Charleen’s? Selfish selfish dead dragon.

To hell with the corpse. The hole digging was abandoned. Charleen threw the dead dragon into a dumpster. She swore she would never get another dragon. She would never make that mistake again. Her next pet would be a pterodactyl.

1936. A lovely award, and a story “Chop! Chop the head off!”

Herb of Prudentia Sit has given me the loveliest of awards! It is the Herb Thinks I’m Special Award. The award simply means that Herb “would like to have a cup of coffee with this blogger sometime”.

It does not require any questions to be answered or anything special to be done. It is simply an honor bestowed! Thank you, Herb. It is greatly greatly appreciated. Make sure you visit Herb’s blog. As a blogger he’s long in the tooth! I don’t mean he’s old – I simply mean he’s practised his blogging skills for many a year!

By way of thanks, I dedicate today’s story to Herb. Thanks Herb!

Battleaxe handed her stepson, Douglas, a machete and said “It’s all yours”.

“I’ve put up for long enough with your three pet turkeys,” said Battleaxe. “They make a terrible gobbling noise all the time, they poo everywhere, they eat too much, and worst of all you spend too much time with them when you should be doing extra school work – especially studying the History of Systemic Racism which you’re bad at. Chop off the turkeys’ heads.”

Douglas loved his turkeys. He had found the baby turkeys wandering around in the long grass on their own after their mother had been killed by a farmer’s dog. He took them home and cared for them. He called each one Gobble, Gobble, and Gobble because he couldn’t tell the difference one from the other.

How does a wicked stepmother expect an eight year old boy to chop off the heads of his three pet turkeys when they were his only friends? His father had died suddenly not long after he had rescued the baby turkeys and now he was looked after by his stepmother who was nasty and cruel and had featured in many a story by the Brothers Grimm.

“When you’ve chopped off their heads,” said spitefully foul stepmother Battleaxe, “you can cut up the firewood and sweep the yard. Then come back for more things to do on my list.”

Douglas went out and called the three turkeys. They recognized his voice. They came running. His stepmother appeared on the scene to make sure he did the job properly and didn’t cave in with scruples. Douglas raised the machete.

“One! Two! Three! Chop! Chop the head off!” screamed the wicked stepmother.

So he did.

1924. Only one miracle allowed

Nina-Marie had recently died and was thoroughly enjoying looking down from above at her loved ones. There was her husband Clive, her cat Maisie, and her dog Wolfgang. They certainly missed her.

During life it had always been Nina-Marie who looked after the pets. It’s not that Clive wasn’t interested or didn’t like them; it was just that the task had fallen to Nina-Marie almost accidentally years ago. Nina-Marie fed the cat and dog; Clive brought in and stacked the firewood. They were the two marriage-allotted chores that occurred most days in early evening.

In her last hours Nina-Marie had said to Clive that if she was permitted, if it was at all possible, she would give some sign that she was doing well in eternity. It would be some little thing; some surprise perhaps; something that Clive would recognize.

Upon arrival in Heaven Nina-Marie was informed that she would be granted one request regarding life on Earth; one prayer to answer. Wistfully she gazed upon her earthly family. She didn’t want to waste the single wish she could grant.

I know exactly what it will be, thought Nina-Marie. The little apple tree, the one we planted several years ago, has never borne fruit. This year it shall have fruit. Not too many apples, that would be wasteful, but just enough for Clive to say “Aha! That’s Nina-Marie’s doing!”

Nina-Marie was about to make arrangements for her “miracle”, when she noticed something; something serious. The cat and dog’s water bowls had dried up. Clive hadn’t given them water since the funeral. It was an oversight. This was an emergency. I wish he’d give them water! Give them water!

Goodness, thought Clive almost instantaneously, they’ve run out of water. And that was Nina-Marie’s one miracle all used up.

1873. A sympathetic response

Hi Doozy Suzie. I really love your blog. What I especially like was the photo you put in your header of your dog. I have a dog and it is very special. Every day we go for a walk and he greets everyone he meets. He would be useless as a guard dog because he wouldn’t bark but run up to the thief for a pat!!!

He is a Xoloitzcuintle, also known as a Mexican Hairless Dog, and his name is Buffy. He got that name because when he was born he didn’t have any fur and my grandmother said “He’s in the buff” so after that he was called Buffy.

I don’t know how you think of things to put on your blog every day. Your posting today was really interesting – all about your mother dying yesterday. The blow by blow account of her last hours I couldn’t stop reading. I don’t know, as I say, how you manage to think of something different every day to blog about.

Your posting last week of how your baby sister died of the flu was quite exciting, although I don’t really understand what that has got to do with your header of a dog. Was your baby sister and the dog good friends? Or was it something else?

I showed the picture of your dog to my grandmother – not the one who named Buffy but the other one – and she read what you wrote and said from what you say your mother would have been “a mean old hag”. (These were her words, not mine). My grandmother said the world is better off when people like that are not stealing the air we breathe.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like the picture of your dog. You never said what its name was. If we get a cat my grandmother said we should call it Fluffy – to go with Buffy. I suppose your grandmother hasn’t suggested you get a cat because she’s dead.