When I was a little girl, when most other little girls were playing "house", I was pretending I had some sort of animal best friend. For most of my childhood it was my beloved cockerspaniel toy called "Lady" after the other famous cockerspaniel of the same name.
While other little girls were planning their wedding days, I was dreaming of owning a dog who was just as devoted to me as I was to it.
Now, after watching countless "Lassie" episodes, my heart was set on a Shetland Sheepdog, I was in awe of her [Lassie was, infact always played by a male] loyality but as I got older, I realised the length of the coat wasn't something I was keen to keep on top of.
Then, after watching Flipper and Free Willy, I wanted either or, again, because of their devotion to their child friends, even to this day I don't know how I thought I could pull off having a whale in my bath! I was downright obsessed with finding that perfect animal companion. You can see in most of these pictures that my adoration for all things great and small was immense.
I have vague recollections of owning countless rabbits in my early years. I think the first ever pet I had was a huge French Lop earred Rabbit not unlike the picture below, his name escapes me but I remember being heartbroken when my dad found him dead in the valley below our house.
When I was four, we adopted a beautiful ginger tom cat, imaginatively named Amber. He was around four years old too and oh my lord, did I enjoy having a cat the same age as me. At the time I was hooked on The Rescuers and, as he resembled Rufus, I tried and failed to carry him like Penny did in the film:
He used to sleep in my bed but he would end up hogging it and I remember there being more than one time where I was up for hours figuring out how to move him off my bed without him scratching me.
I must say he was the most gentle cat but, one day I chauved him to no end and he scratched me so hard I had a fear of him until I was ten, when a few years earlier, my mother was backing out her car and RAN HIM OVER resulting in him having a dead back leg. Fast forward back to 1995 and he was having a lot of problems with his leg which ended with an amputation.
During his recovery he had to sleep in my room with me as my parents did not want him in their room and my sisters was too small. His recovery helped my fear of him scratching me again, but it wasn't until my teens that I appreciated him as a gentle creature. He died ten days before my twentieth birthday, I will always be grateful that my first "real" [and by real I meant lived in the house instead of a hutch in the garage] pet was with me throughout my childhood and my teenhood. It was a heartfelt rite of passage that he died on the cusp of my adult life as if to say:
"you're on your own kiddo, you don't need me anymore".
In 1993, although my parents swore it was 1996 [I read her papers and I remember her DOB as September 10th 1992] I thought my prayers had been answered. We were getting a dog! I was sooo excited. I remember begging for a Dobermann which to this day is a breed I would still like to own.
My parents were under the assumption that big dogs equated to mauled children so they played it safe and got a West Highland White Terrier pup, a bitch no less as females were supposed to be more maternal.
My dreams had come true, I would finally have a loyal companion. Oh how I was wrong. Poppy was a law unto herself. My parents had no real knowledge of training dogs and therefore she was not well trained at all. She had her occassional loving moments, but it was on her terms. She came back when SHE wanted to, and she ran rings around us. In 2000 she ran away not returning until 6am the next day. My mother, being the heartless cow she is, drove her straight to the pound and I never saw her again.
I still begged my parents for a Doberman but they downright refused "when you move out you can have whatever pet you want. So I did. First, I got the black kitten I had been craving for a while, then a few months later I got a beautiful tortoise shell who loves the bones off me and I her. But cats, they are very solitary and they sleep for 21 hours a day and, while I had two loving moggies, I still wanted that loyalty from a dog.
On the 4th November 2008, Shadow came into our lives aged 10 weeks old. We didn't hit it off too well at first for I stood on his tail while we were at the breeders. We sat up all night watching the US elections and I was mesmerised by him, I knew we would go on to have a very special bond, the kind I hoped for. And we did.
Although it was not for long, in Shadow, was my protector, friend and fellow conspirator against my husband, all in gest I may add, we were like Turner and Hooch but without the initial hatred, or the crime fighting. High fiving when our latest trick at annoying Phil pulled off.
I have always wanted five members in my family, if I were to have kids, I want two boys and a girl. I had three pets, two males and a female and the Burton household was complete
...And then we become four, and my whole world fell apart.
