Pets have been a part of my life since I can remember. We got our first dog when I was a third grader.
Even before that, when I lived part of the time with my grandparents on my mother’s side, they had a dog.
As I was remembering the other day how many pets I and we’ve had, I was reminded of how special each one seemed to be.
That first dog, Mitzi, a little female mix, lived to be 17 years old. I was in college when she passed away.
When I was 12 years old, we got our first Brittany. Her name was Banjo. She lived until she was 17. Until seven years ago, we had at least one bird dog around.
Except for three pointers, they’ve all been Brittanys.
My wife, Pat, and I have been married 45 years. We dated a year before that. Since she’s been in my life, a bird dog had always been in hers, too, until we put down our last one, Sassy, when she was 11 ½ years old I’ve been extremely fortunate in my life to have three excellent Brittanys.
Lady and Katy were exceptional because of their desire to hunt. Maggie was good too.
Lady lived to be 11 years old, Katy was 13 when she passed away and Maggie was 15 when she died.
Katy had a pup we kept, half-Brittany, quarter lab and quarter Chow, and we named him Charlie. He was a little over 11 when he died.
He didn’t hunt, but was a great companion around the house.
All four had cancer. It’s amazing how each of those and the other dogs we’ve had, became so attached to Pat. She took care of them as much if not more than I did around home.
All four of them were gentle. That’s a Brittany trait. Each was just one of the family and the three which hunted were really good in the field.
We had our veterinarian tell us, “It’s okay to love on these dogs all you want.
“It won’t impact how they hunt.”
He was so right! My wife, daughter Meghan and I gave them plenty of attention.
Meg grew up with all three. Pat, Meg and I together picked out Katy and Meg and I picked out Maggie while Pat was on a business trip. I already had Lady when Pat and I met.
We got a little poodle when Meg was four years old so she’d have him to grow up too. Casey was a dandy, so protective of her and Pat. We had him put to sleep at 15 ½ and I buried him on Election Day in 2000.
We rescued Sadie one September night in 2004 and she was quite a little character.
She would actually herd the other bigger dogs from inside the house to outside.
She was with us 10 years before we had to put her to sleep.
And then there was Bailey, a really special little companion. She was so much a part of our family. We rescued the little Shih Tzu after the groomers we used for years called us and told us a customer brought her in and said she was going to have to take it to the animal shelter if they couldn’t find someone to take her. We had her for 11 years.
Her ashes are with us today in our house after we put her down and had her cremated.