Stories you tell yourself about your pets

[iris lilies]

Many of our pets have had a myth about them in our family lore. It’s something we make up and then it becomes part of their pet story. Our current story is that our little Petsian cat who came from Germany is here illegally. Everyone else in our household was born in the United States, but she was born in Germany. She did not have a visa. She may have to self deport

the second bulldog we ever had for some reason was known to have a bank account and money. We always talked about “Bert’s money” and what she was going to do with it. None of our other dogs have had money. I don’t know why this particular Dog was thought to have money. We are weird I guess but we like our pet stories

[pinkytoe]

I like to think that the Siamese cats I have owned - one after another for over 65 years now - are really the same little spirit sent to accompany me on the journey.

[rosarugosa]

Louie was adopted from a city shelter in Providence, and his intake exam indicates that he was living rough and covered in dirt and scratches and fleas. It is hard to believe, because he is such an impeccable gentleman now! Anyhow, he gets very nervous when the trucks come around on trash pickup day, so I have this narrative about how he used to have to eat from the trash, but then the trash guys would come along and scare him away.

[iris lilies]

I like to think that the Siamese cats I have owned - one after another for over 65 years now - are really the same little spirit sent to accompany me on the journey.

Aw that is nice

[early morning]

We had a small black cat who was very smart, very manipulative, and quite tyrannical. She also had a penchant for shiny objects, shoes, smashing eggs, and - oddly- bags of bagels. We always figured she was a reincarnation of Napoleon, via Imelda Marcos. I don't know how to account for the bagels.

[ToomuchStuff]

So the cats I had were adopted by me because I was close. The other person, well they would have ended up at what sounds like her "animal farm." So no to Miss Clarkson.

I contacted their former owner, through the caretaker, sibling, employee of the above, and they would be happy to have them back home.
I handed them off to her and her son today and they just stayed relaxed and there was no meowing like there has been when I have had to transport them between homes. I thanked them for the opportunity to watch those cute little furry faces (Miki the trans cat that was neutered and everyone thought was a girl at first, and Kit, the runt of the liter sibling/dominant one) and will miss them.
If I survive this, I did ask and get a visitation right.
If I beat this, I will probably adopt an older cat again, as both prior pets were elderly (dog and cat). My mom, now is thinking about a kitten. I will miss those two, but there was no meowing when they went into their arms. I think I made the right move.

[bae]

I wrote this up about my dear buddy Elvis the other day:

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When Elvis dies—and I know that day is coming, though I’d give anything to delay it—I’ll lose more than a dog. I’ll be losing the last living thread of something that has shaped my soul.

Elvis isn’t just a pet. He’s the final torchbearer in a long line of scent-hounds—stubborn, noble, hilarious, maddening, devoted—who have moved through my life like quiet, drooling philosophers. He carries with him not just his own weight in the world, but the memory and manners of those who came before him.

There was Basil the Basset, the original stoic, who taught me patience and the art of letting a dog be. Then Blake and Lilly, that dignified old pair who could communicate entire moral systems with a single sigh. And Cromwell—dear Cromwell—who wasn’t just a dog, but a gentleman of the old school. Wise, gentle-eyed, a teacher. He carried the cultural knowledge of the hound lineage like an old scholar guarding the last library. He trained Elvis not with force, but by example—passing down rituals and expectations like a monk passing on liturgy.

Elvis learned from Cromwell how to wait by the door with purpose. How to listen, not just hear. How to lean in, full-body and without shame, when someone needed grounding. And in that way, Elvis became both student and steward of this living inheritance.

When Elvis goes, it will be the closing of that long chapter. The last bark in a long, slow litany of sound and silence and scent. A book written not in words, but in muddy footprints and warm sighs and the way a hound chooses the exact right spot on the rug, every time.

People will ask me if I’ll get another dog.

And the honest truth is: I don’t know.

How do you begin again after the last of the old knowledge is gone? Elvis is not a standalone creature. He’s the final stanza of a poem that’s been unfolding for decades. When he goes, the house won’t just be quieter. It’ll feel unmoored. Like the hearth is still there, but the fire’s out.

Maybe, one day, I’ll feel that tug again—the need to share the world with another long-eared, soulful-eyed beast. But it won’t be to carry on the line. That line will have ended, and deserved its rest. If I ever do open my heart again, it will be something different. A new story.

But not yet.

First, I’ll sit with the silence. And I’ll remember the wisdom of Cromwell, the stubbornness of Basil, the grace of Blake and Lilly, and the gravity of Elvis—who held it all in his great hound’s heart.

(Elvis is still alive, and doing vaguely-well, but I worry, he's several years older than his breed's "use by" date...)

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[happystuff]

Beautiful tribute to them all, bae. Hugs

[iris lilies]

Lovely, lovely loving words for beloved line of hounds, bae.

[catherine]

Wow, that is beautiful. I feel your anticipatory grief.

I have lost two dogs, each occupying roughly a decade or so of my life, and I've always said that a dog's life brackets specific eras in the human's life. When I think of Laddie I think of my kids' school years--my daughter was 7 when we got him and she was leaving the home for college when he was leaving us. You mentioned the word "fabric"--so true. The routine of the dog's life is so intertwined with that of the owner's that when they go, it's like a thread is pulled right out of the fabric of ur lives, leaving us literally torn.

Thanks so much for sharing that.