A memory about pets (Published Sept 13, 2021)

 The first pet I was aware of was my parents dog Taffy, a Chihuahua. Taffy died when I was around six and my mom almost immediately went to the pound and got a dog named Jinxy, I'm not sure why the name and if we named her or if she came with that name. Jinxy was a white, with some brown, Fox Terrier mix. She was a great dog but had two problems. The first is that she always urinated when anyone pet her. And when the door bell rang and she ran to the door excited, there was always an accident including urinating on several guests shoes. Because of this, Jinxy was confined to the service porch with our washer and dryer or the backyard. This leads to the second issue - She loved breaking out of the yard and run (sort of like Almas). Not to long after we got Jinxy, my parents did get another Chihuahua, which they named Chico. Jinxy was "my dog" while Chico was my parents. The dogs got along well and I've got cute pictures of them laying together. However, Chico always had the whole house while Jinxy was only in the areas without carpet or the yard. We had a special dog run at the back of our yard where Jinxy lived most of the time. My dad did not like it when Jinxy urinated on the dichondra lawn as it always left a brown spot. When I turned eleven my parents decides to move from our house to an apartment and announced we would have to find another home for Jinxy. As fate would happen, she did one of her escapes from the yard about a week before she was going to a new home that my mom had found, and got hit by a car and killed. Sadly, maybe that's why she had the name Jinxy. Chico lived forever and ever, or so it seemed. All the way through my mom's death so was at least 17, not uncommon for little dogs. In fact, I think Chico was alive when Aviva was born and did not die until he was perhaps over twenty. Chico was replaced by "Freeway" as that Chihuahua was found on the side of Interstate 5 on their drive to LA. Aviva will remember Freeway. My other primary pet growing up were rats, the most fond of which was Trixie. At one point I had quite a few, but except for Trixie, I do not remember their names. Trixie died in the back seat of the car from overheating and is buried under what is now the slow lane of Interstate 10 by the Ontario Airport. Other rats got given away, sold to pet stores, and in at least one case was probably put out of misery by my dad. That one had a brain tumor or something. The rat craze ended by the time I was a teenager but at one point I must of have as many as 20 rats. I had some goldfish. Think everyone's heard the story of running home and taking all of the Mercury Head dimes out of my coin collection book to get the ping pong balls to throw and win the goldfish at a school carnival. Several fish only lived a few days and at most, the longest one lived maybe a month. I also caged a gopher I caught by drowning it out of a hole. It lived several days. And I had several horny toad (actually a lizard) that lived varying lengths of time. And I almost forget the parakeet or two. My grandmother always had parakeets and gave me one or two. Mine didn't fair all that well as I recall. But my grandmother had one that lived a very long time called Skippy. I spent lots of time at my grandma home playing games. One game we played was Bingo. We must have played it really a lot as one time Skippy repeated "B-4" after my grandma called it out. And when Skippy got a cold my grandma was able to nurse it back to life with mentholatum on it's beak and keeping the cage covered. I've had one cat, Smoky, which was around when Aviva was born, as I recall. I do not remember how Smoky came to be or what happened to the cat, only that he liked to urinate in the hall heating vent. When the heat came on, it sure smelled. As everyone knows, I'm not really a cat lover but cats love me. I did enjoy playing with Galaxy. He was a cute cat. All of my adult pets involve the family. There was Sasquatch and Almas, our loving two dogs. And rabbits, guinea pigs, and two birds (one pecked the other to death) - all short lived. And there were two turtles that Aunt Carol got for Aviva by saving them from Chinatown where they were intended for Turtle Soup. And Lizzey, who was found in the back room of the house, and kept over winter by a women from Wildlife Care that specialized in reptiles. Lizzey was released the following Spring and seen for the next two or three years around the yard. Other than our dogs, the pet I will remember most is Mr Goldie. Mr Goldie was a feeder fish that Aviva and I got from a pet store in Country Club Plaza when Aviva was around four. And Mr Goldie lived all the way until Aviva was a teenager being saved several times from disease. Mr Goldie moved from house to house with us and had an entire 10 gallon tank to himself. Other fish did not have a chance like the two glass fish I got as a birthday present. they lasted a day. Mr Goldie is buried with many other pets at the side of our 5th Avenue house.