Do you remember your first pet? Was it a dog, cat, bird, turtle, fish?

[wnylib]

111. The first pets in the house were not mine exclusively.

They were two turtles and 10 gold fish that my mother bought when I was 4.

The following year, my mother got a green parakeet that she named Dickie. We taught him to speak and my brothers taught him to do a wolf whistle. One day when my mother's brother and his wife were visiting, Dickie whistled when my aunt entered the room. She thought my father did it and snapped at him that it was out of line and crude. My uncle was angry. They did not believe that it was the bird until Dickie whistled again when my father was talking and could not have whistled.

When I was 6 I got a gray tabby that I named Smokey. He was an indoor-outdoor cat. Smokey learned that if he rolled a ball back toward me, I would keep rolling it to him. He astonished people who didn't think cats could learn to do that.

One morning when I got up early, before anyone else, I caught Smokey with a paw in the gold fish bowl. I chased him away, but he had already got 2 of them. He got put out at night after that.

Dickie could open his cage door and liked to tease Smokey. He'd land on the floor, just a few feet away from the cat. When Smokey leaped up to grab Dickie, the bird would fly up to a curtain rod and say, "Dickie's a pretty boy." One day he lost a tail feather because he didn't move fast enough. After that, we locked his cage door with a safety pin and didn't let him out when the cat was indoors.

A few days later, Smokey took a flying leap at Dickie's cage and knocked it over. Seeds, water, and feathers went flying while Dickie screached and squawked.

Smokey and I played hide and seek outdoors, especially in winter when he liked to hide behind snow banks and ambush me.

Unfortunately, his shots were not updated and he caught distemper and had to be put down. My mother did not tell me ahead of time. She had my older brother take me to a playground. I found out when I got home and was devastated. Would not forgive my mother for not letting me tell Smokey good-bye.