Dog-cat

My parents got a dog when they were first married - an Irish setter named Red. Although I have no conscious memory of Red, my parents had him until I was about three and there are several pictures of the 2 of us together. I think that my early experiences with Red made me the dog lover that I am.

As my parents used to tell it, Red was a devoted dog but he had terrible separation anxiety. If they left him outside when they left the house, he howled incessantly. If they left him inside, he tore the house apart. At one point, my parents were going away for a few days so they left him at a kennel on the mainland. Red scaled the 8-foot fence at the kennel. My parents received a call that he had run away so they came home. After a week Red showed up at the kennel. My mother was sure that he had been trying to get back to them in the meantime but, as he couldn't swim to the island, he returned to the kennel when he was unsuccessful.

At any rate, I have no conscious memory of Red but I was obsessed with dogs from day one. Every story I wrote in kindergarten and first grade was a tale of "My puppy" or "The day I got a dog." Often the story involved some kind of subterfuge. For example, I would purchase a puppy for myself with the $5 my grandmother had given me for my birthday and sneak it under the Christmas tree. My parents would think that Santa had brought it, and, since no one argues with Santa, their opposition to having a dog would be overcome. Most of the books I read in those years were about kids and their dogs: "Missy & Me," and "A Dog named Schnitzel" were a couple of favorites. My mother told me that I would wake up in the night crying. When she asked me what was wrong I would reply "I need my dog." She was certain that I would hate her as an adult because she never got me a dog.

But this isn't a post about my dog obsession, it's a post about Pepper, the cat that I got instead of a dog. My mother reasoned that cats were less work ("I already have six kids," she would say when I requested a dog, "I don't need any more.") Pepper was a Maine coon mix -long-haired, black with a white spot on his chest. We got him when the neighbors cat had kittens. I raised Pepper to be a dog, taking him on my paper route with a leash and collar, teaching him to fetch, etc. Pepper died many years ago.

This morning when I was taking my dogs out for their first walk, a long-haired black cat with a white patch on his chest was sitting on my front porch. My dogs bristled and started barking immediately. The cat turned serenely and stared them down. "Oh my god," I thought, "It's Pepper, come back to check on me." I like the idea.