Family Pets

Families that have a dog, cat, or both assume that most families have a family pet. I guess most of them do. Certainly, those that live on farms do and it makes a lot of sense because of what a dog or cat can provide in that setting. A barn cat will keep the rats under control and a dog will keep wild animals away from the house. A pet can provide companionship to children, the elderly, and to the whole family.

When I was probably 4 or 5 years old, I know it was before I had started school in the 1^st grade, something happened to me that may have prevented my family from having a pet. The old house we lived in in the Heights had a porch at the front door and of course a wooden screen door. The house did not have any hallways just one room next to another but door openings lined up so that going from the living room to the back bedroom, you walked through the other bedroom. As a kid at that age, I would sometimes run from the back room through the front door and then jump off the porch. I got a spanking more than once for that.

One day I did it again, but as soon as I pushed the screen door open, there was a large dog on the porch and he bit me on my leg. His teeth tore my skin and my leg was bleeding. I was screaming as loud as I could and shaking all over. My Mom came running out and saw the dog running away. She tried to calm me down so she could treat my leg, but I was probably in shock. The bite was bad and she thought a doctor should treat the wound. Heights Hospital was just a couple blocks from our house and the doctors’ offices were there, so we walked there. The nurse treated my leg and had the doctor look at it.

There were several cases of rabies in the Houston area back then, so a lot of people were trying to locate the dog that bit me. They needed to determine within a few days if the dog had rabies. The doctor had told my Mom that if they could not find the dog, then I would need to get the shots for rabies because once the symptoms showed up in humans it could be too late. The dog could not be found and my parents decided to go forward with the shots. The shots were given to me in my stomach and I think there were about 12 or 14 shots given over two weeks. That was a lot for me to deal with along with many illnesses that today would be diagnosed as asthma. The only antibiotic back then was penicillin and I was on it often.

My family never had a family pet after that and I don’t know if that was the only reason or not but I was always a little uncomfortable around large strange dogs. After Tammy and Jennifer were born, Eva brought home a dog that her Dad had got for the girls. It was a cute puppy, but we did not have a fence at that time and neither of us wanted a dog in the house. My sister, Joyce, and her husband Ted took one look at the puppy and said they would take it. They had that dog for many years. Eva called several fence companies and we had a fence installed around both of our lots giving the kids a large yard to play in safely.

Eva’s Dad brought home another puppy that was a “Border Collie” and he said it would not get too big, so I agreed that we could keep it. Well, I think it was a border horse because it got huge in just a few months. The kids were afraid of it because when it ran up to them it would knock them down. That was the end of that relationship. A short time later, Eva brought home a little puppy and the girls were already in love with it before I got home. Whitey became our family pet, solid white and as cute as they get. He was an outdoors dog and loved his freedom in the big yard and he could watch what was happening on both streets. He was our tiny watchdog.

When we moved to Jersey Village, again we did not have a fence so we asked Eva’s Mom if we could leave Whitey there for a few days until we got a fence installed. The next day Eva’s Dad told her that Whitey had run off and he could not find him. I think Eva and her Mom believed that her Dad had taken Whitey off somewhere because he was barking too much, being in a strange place. We looked everywhere and even back at our old house that we still owned, but we could not find him anywhere. The girls were busy adjusting to the new school, neighborhood, and church so they began to get less upset with not having Whitey to play with. We never had another family pet after that.