Quadruped and Biped Companion Animals

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SagiShadowPercyBlakeOther People's Pets

About pets

I can understand people who like cats, or at least certain cats. I can understand someone having a cat because they cannot have a dog. I don't understand people who prefer cats to dogs. I am a dog-person, and the only cats I like are doglike. And my favorite dogs are Labrador Retrievers. Black Labrador Retrievers. Yellows are okay, Chocolates maybe if their Lab temperament hasn't been bred out of them in preference of color. No white at all. I also think that anyone who grew up without any pet at all is probably deranged.

Sagi

 "The very best dog in the whole world." This is how I described Sagi (short for Sagittarius, the only demonstrable proof I have of my parents' responding to what decade it was) when I was six or seven. I was with my mother in the Town Clerk's Office to get Sagi's annual license and Jesse Smith asked for a description of the dog. I said, "She's the very best dog in the whole world," and that is exactly what Mrs. Smith wrote down.

She is the first dog I remember in our family, a leggy black Lab with a gentle heart and a black mark in the middle of her tongue, which when she was hot she would carry out the side of her mouth. My best friend HPV's dog Gretel also had a black spot, so I thought that all dogs had one. It was years before I could look at unspotted dogs and see them right off as normal. I used to crawl behind her with my roped-up dolls' blanket tucked into the seat of my pants as a tail, so I could be her puppy.

She died--we euthanized her because--of kidney failure in October of my fourth-grade year, a few months shy of her seventh birthday.

Shadow

The dog I remember best, Jessiman Pachaug Shadow, was loyal, manipulative, and permanently hungry. I don't recall if anyone ever referred to her by her whole name. Jessiman combined her parents' names, Jessica and Benjamin; Pachaug is the river by which she was born; and Shadow is what we actually called her. Or what my father called her, which is one of the reasons he was the only one she obeyed immediately. In addition to Shadow, my mother called her Pooch, CLH called her Whisker-Lips (in addition to many other appellations), and I called her Puppy. (Any of these names is superior to the handle my mother wanted to burden her with, Sasha. Did she look like a Russian Wolfhound? My mother's ideas of taste are largely unfathomable.)

 After my father had picked out the puppy, my mother brought CLH, me, and two friends one morning after Sunday School to meet them. I have always loved this picture, at first because of Shadow's fat pink belly and later because I revel in being able now to pick out my own clothes.

The story behind the belly is that the breeder had to let Shadow's brothers and sister to nurse first and only afterward allow Shadow anywhere near, because she otherwise would drain her mother.

Shadow loved to go for walks and would always perk up when anyone suggested one, except toward the end of her life when she was really too tired, thank you very much for asking. The usual walk was just down to the brook and back, which shouldn't've presented many difficulties but sometimes did. The worst time was when she was four and I was 13 or so. I spent a lot of time at the brook and one day sat reading on a tree that had fallen over and heaved up waterlogged roots encased in mud. After Shadow had finished investigating everything that needed her attention, she came to see me, up the muddy mound of roots, over the top, and along the horizontal length of the tree. Until she fell. And caught a back paw in a crack of tree. And there dangled from her tender Lab hip, screaming. I was a fairly strong child, but I too was panicked, tortured by empathy pains in my own hip and by the grievous noise she made. By the time I got my arms around her considerable girth and was able to lift her weight away from her paw to free it (several minutes of struggle ensued), she had bitten my hand. I carry the scars to this day. And on the way home, she licked my hand in contrite apology.

She suffered many less serious mishaps. The first time she picked up a toad was her last. Her expression, the jowls pulled back, the squinty eyes, after the toad peed (or whatever they do) in her mouth was quite funny. Then there was the time I filled up her water dish from the hose and got her bowl full of bubbles, which tickled her snout. Annoyed, she lifted one paw and stomped on those bubbles. I refilled the water bowl more slowly.

When she was much older, my mother came home from work and was surprised the dog didn't come to the door to greet her. My mother searched the house (not a long process) looking for her and came upon her in the living room, where Shadow had buried her head under a chair (a tight squeeze). My mother couldn't figure out why, until finally in the quiet of the house she (who refuses to admit she's losing her hearing) noticed the intermittent peep of the smoke detector warning the household of its dying batteries. The high-pitched bleep had driven Shadow to muffle her poor ears however she could.

Shadow slept wherever she pleased. On the living room furniture when no one was home to stop her, on my bed when my mother wasn't around to stop me, on CLH's and my beanbags, which she commandeered, and the foot of my sleeping bag when I slept in front of the fire. When both CLH and I were home, she would sleep equidistant between our bedrooms, at the top of the stairs on the cool wooden hallway floor. Or in my bedroom if I were the only child home. A couple of times when my mother spent the night at my father's, she took Shadow with her. I didn't care where my mother slept, but it gave me the shivers to sleep in my house without my dog. I have not often slept in a house without a pet. I hope I never do.

Shadow made it through college, but not by very much. I had just graduated and moved back to Old Lyme to a dog who didn't want to go for walks, catch a tossed piece of popcorn, or climb the stairs to sleep with me. One eventful week in January witnessed, among other things, the U.S. beginning its war against Iraq, and our decision to euthanize Shadow. My mother and I brought her to the vet early in the morning of Saturday 19 January 1991. The vet lifted her onto the table, and I said goodbye and fondled her ears and squeezed her paw and kissed her snout. Then I left. My mother stayed. The doctor administered the shot, and I heard my mother cry out, "Oh Shadow!" At that instant my father woke up out of a sound sleep in Florida. Later that day I called CLH.

Percy

When RDC and I moved in together, one of the biggest advantages to having our own place was to able to have a pet. I thought it would be a cat, because that's the closest thing to a dog our complex allowed. Then RDC said he had always wanted to have a bird. A bird, I scoffed, much as I had scoffed at NCS's attachment to his cockatiel, Jasper. Fine, I told RDC. You get your bird. I'll get a mammal--not a cat, but certainly something more evolved than a stupid bird. As it happened, we found Percy before we found me my rat. And after Percy, I didn't want any stupid rodent. I had my Little Guy.

Percy was a cinnamon cockatiel. We adopted him on a Tuesday in February 1992 (mere days before my ex-boyfriend SSP's girlfriend AFK said (not knowing about Percy) that she could understand any pet except for parrots. One of the surest indicators of my recovery is that I didn't attack that statement.) Percy was a peach. We had wanted to name him after someone in Shakespeare, but the only girl-Shakespeare name we liked was Miranda, and when we went to the pet store, RDC liked Percy better than his sister. And of course then Percy was still supposed to be primarily his pet. Ha.

We got him home and debated a name. I made the connection that our Australian friends were from Perth, and thus Percy came to mind. Also there's the foppish Blackadder character named Percy, and RDC was doing a paper on Percy Bysshe Shelley, and it sounded like a foppish name, and our Percy certainly was a fop. His vet and staff all commented on what a particular sweetie he was (very much a flirt) and what a lovely tail he had, particularly since caged cockatiels often don't have nice tails.

Percy looked underneath things, plucked facial hair for you (and that of my bear Morse), was scared of crows, air mattresses, and balloons, and put his head to the side to press the crown of his head against whatever he was currently singing to, and had a great friend in a little figurine of Marvin the Martian. He sang to things quite a bit, and said "Pretty bird," and came with us to do the laundry, to rent a movie (the video store people liked him), and occasionally to campus. He liked music, dancing to pitch rather than rhythm. He would try to hatch the trackball; he was in love with DEDBG, tangling himself in her dark blond hair whenever he could; he loved RRP, too, whom he saw almost every day for the year before we moved. He also liked to talk on the phone when he recognized the voices on the other end.

We arrived in Denver on Friday, 11 August 1995, and brought Percy to the vet in Boulder whom our Connecticut vet had recommended. Percy made friends with his vet by pooping on the plastic cover of his chart. We liked this vet immediately (he volunteers on the Iditarod). I brought him back to Boulder 15 September and he died there, and it was months before I went back to that town. Percy was a wonderful little boy, but sickly all his life; and at least in death, RDC suggested, he could fly, and hatch all the trackballs he wanted.

The Cowboy Junkies' song "Eep is How I Feel" was Percy's theme. (You might know it as "Cheap Is How I Feel.")

A note to explain cuffs on birds. A closed metal band can be fitted over a bird's foot only when it is fresh out of the egg and pliable. Therefore the cuff is meant to assure a conscientious companion human that a bird was bred and hatched in captivity (although descended from stolen-from-the-wild stock). This is not quite so critical for cockatiels, whose wild species and native environment are not so threatened, as it is for rainforest species (like South American macaws and Amazons, and particularly Pacific island species) and African Greys.

Cockatiels have been in captivity long enough for humans to develop color strains: several decades. No parrot species has been yet domesticated, however, as have livestock and pets. They are captive, they are companions, but genetically they're the wild mccoy.

Blake

After Percy, we knew we needed a pet, another Little One, but I wondered if it would be fair to a new bird, if I would resent it for not being Percy. This turned out to be a groundless fear. We found a breeder (featured in Mattie Sue Athan's Guide to a Well-Behaved Parrot, an indispensable book for the companion human) and visited her and her birds. We could tell this was a lifework and much more than a hobby for her, a good sign. She had lovebirds, which we didn't consider, and cockatiels. We had considered another kind of parrot that wouldn't remind us of Percy, but another species would have meant unknown territory. With a 'tiel, at least we'd know the basics. It just couldn't be a cinnamon. Our breeder didn't mollycoddle me about why she thought Percy had died; she thought he suffered from malnutrition. He certainly didn't like vegetables. So adopting Blake came after she had interviewed us also, and given us plenty of instruction. Plus she had already socialized her birds and taught them to eat a variety of healthy foods, so already Blake had advantages pet-store Percy could never had had. Plus he hatched 11 August 1995 (the day we arrived in Denver), so it's clear he belongs with us.

We named him Blake mostly for William and partly for his mother, whose name was Blaze. Blaze had an un-hen-like streak of bright yellow over her cere, which Blake had too when he had his babby hen coloring. We took him to another vet, also widely recommended, for a well-bird check-up, and Blake was pronounced in fine health. And so we took him home, 9 October 1995. He was young enough that he still begged, as any baby bird in the nest does, to be fed, and to be cuddled (which a nest bird wouldn't beg for); SEM visited two weeks after we adopted Blake and asked if he would ever stop making that awful noise. And he did.

Now he says "Pretty bird," "Good boy," "Blake is a pretty bird," "Blake is a good boy," "Blake is a pretty pretty," "Blake is a pretty good boy" (very true), "You're a good boy, buddy," and "You're a good boy, Blake." He did make a good start at learning to whistle "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," but that's mostly dropped off. He whistles to things and making a squealing blaring noise at them, unfortunately not in the polite worshipful tones of his older brother. He is not scared of ravens, much, but is of cats, who never bothered Percy, and of dental floss and certain wrapping paper (I don't understand it, I just report it: he does not respond to Christmas or Curious George wrapping paper, but he's afraid of friendly-fishy happy paper). He likes human feet and hands in all-too-familiar a way (Percy, at least, would woo and seduce before making his move); he adores caves (under the desk and under the futon); I have seen a lion eat a gazelle with more surgical precision than he eats a wedge of orange; he enjoys looking behind (not under) things and dropping things on the floor.

He is much healthier and more active than Percy, for which I am grateful; I hope to have him for longer than two and a half years, for more like the twenty years cockatiels commonly live in captivity. He also doesn't keep the tail Percy did, for which we often tease him. He does like to shower more, though he doesn't like to be wet afterward. He bops his head to the shaking of an orange juice carton, the brushing of teeth, and musical rhythms that appeal to him. He needs to be with whoever is sitting at the desk, and he needs to be under the desk, either on a leg or between the person's legs on the chair seat. He protects us from the marauding cursor and can type, though his best key is the restart button. We call him the Beast with Two Back Toes.

Coming from a breeder, as should all pets, he is much more trusting, better socialized, and healthier than any bird from a pet store could be. That's a rant. Anything you care about should come from someplace that cares: books from independent stores and pets from breeders, neither from chains. Also both books and pets can come used. Generally if they're used you can tell whether they've been loved or abused.

Blake's particularly endearing qualities:

• He gets all yawny, and yawns huge beak-stretching, tongue-sticking-out, head-shaking yawns. Of course I catch yawns, even cross-species yawns, and so he'll stop to watch me. Sometime we have contests of who can open their mouth wider.
• When he's tired he gets grumpy and petulant, he opens his beak as if to bite, but in the middle of his leonine roar he'll realize his mouth is open and he'd much rather yawn. So he has an attack-yawn. Think of a lion poised to pounce and suffocate the breath out of its prey, maw open and fangs bared, then giving up and yawning mid-roar. A cockatiel attack-yawn looks about the same, except smaller.
• Blake wanting something, some one, or someplace else is Blake flat, like a cyclist spinning downhill, wings out, tail (or remnants of) spread, head down. I want Daddy! I want to go on the windowsill! I want to be at the computer! He's very easy to read.
• As he's preening, when he feels very safe and secure, he'll suddenly look up from whatever odd place on his body he's had his beak, just to say, "Good boy," happily, and resume his task. He also says "Good boy" when he gets any food he particularly favors. Also if you stay in bed too long, therefore making him stay in bed too long, he'll chirrup, "You're a good boy buddy" to encourage the household to proper wakefulness and action.
• Blake has bitten us. Usually he only beaks--either whacks you with his beak or tests your finger for steadfastness before he puts a foot on it. But during his semi-annual hormone surge, he can get extremely pissy with frustration and territorialism. This seasonal thing also coincides with molting and growing in dozens of itchy new feathers all at once. He needs and wants to be pet, to massage all the new feathers, but the hormones make hands seem alternately threatening and enticing. March and September get to be long months.
• After he's been punished with some time out (after a temper tantrum or screaming fit), and he hears you approach to uncover him, again he'll say, "You're a good boy buddy," kind of questioningly.
• He knows he's not allowed to chew on shoelaces (which he can't resist because their plastic tips resemble the fingernail-type casing new feathers are covered in, from which feathers and shoelaces must be freed), so he'll seize a lace and run with it, never learning that the weight of the shoe will eventually jerk him back like a dog at the end of its run.
• In the course of a very thorough head petting, Blake will gently clasp a spare finger in his beak, just to feel more secure. Or the petter might hold his beak. Either way, it's a crucial element of head-petting well and thoroughly performed.
• And of course when he sees you and squeaks a surprised and pleased "Wheet wheet!" which, Italian or Hawai'ian like, serves as hello and goodbye both.
• Except that he's just begun (8 July 1997) to say to us when we leave what we tell him: "You're a good boy, buddy, be good." When he continues, as we do, "I love you, good-bye," then I'll know he's really learned a phrase in context.
• If you leave without taking your leave of him (which sometimes happens when the other human stays home and you therefore haven't shut him in his cage with the appropriate rituals), he'll yell, at which point you must put your head back in and say, "You're a good boy, buddy, I love you, good-bye," and he acquiesces.
• The butcher block full of knives is his, damn it. Leave 'em alone or he'll give you what-for!
• When he hears the Macintosh start-up bong, he gets all excited. He insists on accompanying the user of the desktop. This is his function: to hold down a person in a chair at the desk for hours at a time.
• Sometimes he falls in love with the ceiling. In the jpeg above, that's the ceiling plaster just behind him. He's peering down at the photographer from the top of a cupboard door.
• Blake sings to feet. Ours, if they're available, and preferably ensocked in sexy ragg hiking socks; otherwise one of his own, which he holds out straight in front of him and bows down to. RDC says that Blake does this while he, RDC, is on the phone so that Blake is imitating the posture of holding the device to the ear; but I have seen Blake auto-pedo-serenade plenty when no one is on the phone and never when someone is.
• He imitates our stretching groans with his own little growl.

Cuddling Blake, having him snuggle under my chin or behind my ear, watching how much he enjoys being pet (except for his private parts: wings and tail), admiring him as he preens or plays or chews something up, seeing him get sad when we put on shoes and pick up keys before leaving the house, hearing him shriek with joy when he sees us return, all give me a kind of joy and contentment that might be something akin to what a parent feels for its child. Some people theorize that this indicates what a good human parent I would be, but I know I don't give Blake everything he should have to be the happiest possible captive companion bird: constant liberty, continuous shoulder time, a toy everywhere he turns, incessant head-petting. Except that much gratification might be spoiling. Having a pet only makes me realize how much more effort a human child requires. I recommend a pet for anyone who considers human breeding.

I go on about him at length at the drop of a hat.

Other people's pets

Mollie, (Shandy,) (Kato,) (Stowe,) Wally, and Rafter

LEB's animals. Two dogs, two cats (now three), and two students, but the students vary much more often and are not useful as pets. Plus I was one. Mollie is medium-sized, black, and shaggy, and given to crying with joy when she sees you after a long absence. When LEB adopted Shandy, she looked for a puppy who talked. Shandy does. He is half German Shepherd, half black Lab; the Shepherd gives him erect ears but the Lab makes their tips bounce when he walks. Kato is a Red Siamese, also quite a talker, and the most dog-like, maternal cat I have ever known. He suffers Shandy to gnaw on his skull because he seems to understand that's what Shandy needs to do; plus he bathes everyone. Mr. Stowe was a fat tabby, not too social with the dogs particularly Shandy, but did love to have his jowls pet. I have not yet met Wally, named for his destroying the bathroom wall when only recently adopted, or Rafter, named for an Australian tennis star.

Timo and Coco

Charenton's dogs. Timo has found his way home when halfway starving and missing for a fortnight, in time for a good birthday present for JUDB. When Coco was adopted, she had been abused. She carried her tail between her legs, cowered a lot, was petrified of anyone touching her sides, and wouldn't enter a car. All that has been reversed: she now romps with brother Timo and trusts people, demonstrating the healing power of the Charenton family.

(Dylan)

3SK's dog, a pale gold Golden Retriever, one of best dogs I have ever known. She died just around her tenth birthday, in spring of 1997, but after Shadow was my longest dog acquaintance. Why don't I have a dog?

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Last modified 7 January 2000

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