AND THEN THERE WAS FLOPPY

After Snoopy died, we decided that Puddy needed a companion, so we headed back to the Shelter to find another dog. Brenda picked this one out --- a short haired black puppy that was mostly belly. When we brought him home and put him on a pillow in the den, he would just flop off; his belly pulled him back onto the floor. Thus the name “Floppy.” It was a very appropriate one because his ears were long and bouncy, and he was just so uncoordinated when he walked or ran.

Floppy fit right into the pen life, but he soon outgrew Puddy and eventually became a medium sized large dog, if that makes sense. He was about as big as a black lab. Because of his size, he was worrisome to Puddy, so we often brought her in just to give her a break from his awkward ways. He had a funny way of running --- looking at him from the back, you could see his back legs off to one side and his front legs were straight. We called it the “side winder run.”

And Floppy was not very bright; in fact, he seemed downright retarded at times. But could he eat!! Anything edible put in front of him was soon sucked up like a live vacuum cleaner. I don’t remember his turning his nose up at any food; he even ate broccoli! And he cleaned up any crumbs spilled on the kitchen floor. The only problem with bringing him inside was that he was like the proverbial bull in a china shop. He wasn’t used to being inside and nothing was safe from his waggy tail or floppy body.

Floppy lived to be pretty old, and one day he just ran off and didn’t come back. I looked around the neighborhood for him, but to no avail. It was kind of a strange feeling for us to lose a dog this way with no closure. But we decided that we would get no more dogs. By that time the kids were gone, and we didn’t feel the need or desire to have another.

A post script to this blog on pets is at least a mention of the cats we had. There were several; probably the longest lasting one was a white female who had at least two litters before we had her fixed. The kids liked the cats, but the genius did not, so they mostly stayed in the garage or ran under the house, if they needed to stay safe. There was another big white one from one of the litters, a male with blue eyes, who was deaf. We kept him, and he was a very loving cat. They all had names like “snowball” or “fluffy” but we called all of them “Kitty” when we wanted them to come to us.

So that was the extent of the pets we had while the kids were growing up. Of course, none of them was as pampered as Rufus is now, (I wouldn’t have dreamed of letting one of the dogs, even Puddy, sleep with us). But we enjoyed having them as a part of lives, and we gave them a good home.

As our preacher said not long ago, “I don’t know about your pets, but my dogs are going to heaven.” I agree wholeheartedly!!!