Queen of all she surveyed, she was my friend and confidante throughout
my adolescence. Originally called "Mossy" - in later years I said
it was because she looked like moss on a rock, but it was really because
of the drummer from Culture Club! - but she flatly refused to answer to
it. She had a very distinctive miaow, and one day in desperation
I used it back at her, and she finally came to me! The spelling
was inspired by Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series
- she would have made the perfect dragonrider!
Unlike other memorials I've seen on the web for lost pets, I won't dwell
on how she died. I'll just say that I miss her fat khaki body hogging
the covers of the bed, I miss her little ginger "fighting stripe" at the
top of her head, I miss her industrial strength purr (I have become slightly
deaf from it!), and... I just miss her. She was my Little One.
Sleep well, Kitka.
R'Mau's "Clayton's Baby" (the baby you have when you don't have a baby!).
A big, ungainly pile of muscle, but with one of the gentlest natures I
have ever known, particularly from a rottweiler cross (though in the shop
they insisted he was a German Shepherd. Yeah? WHERE?).
In many ways he reminded me of my father...
He'd knock you over in excitement - or if he just wanted to get through,
and he was muscular enough for my young nieces and nephews to try to ride
him like a horse. He'd let them, too, as long as one of "his people"
were there as well. Then, like most rottie-crosses, he developed
a slow degeneration of his back legs, until finally we had to make the
decision to have the poor old fellow put to sleep. It was a hard
choice, but he simply couldn't hold himself up anymore. At least
R'Mau and my father were there waiting for him.
The most recent of my animal friends to cross the bridge - Bonnie was a
big, dumb, lovable mutt (well, she was a pure Geman Shepherd, but she acted
like a big dumb mutt!) right up until the end. We don't really know
where she came from - one of my brothers came home with her one night and
left her with us when she was about four/five months old.
Plagued by Jai,
packmate of King, she was the one who had the agility
to leap the side gate, but had no idea what to do about it once she got
to the other side! If the two dogs got out, King'd lead her all over
the countryside, but if it was just her, she'd sit by the gate and patiently
wait for someone to come and let her back in with this stupid "Duh,
how'd I get out here?" look on her face!
She was lost without King, and spent the last year of her life fretting
for him. She was still happy enough in her way, but there was something
missing in her step, and she quietly lost her way until the day I came
home and found her by the water bucket.
I write this page in the hope I won't have to add anything to it for a very long time. Have fun, my friends, and know that I miss you all.