Tell us the names of all the pets you have had, in chronological order. Gerry, Angus, Samantha

[OriginalGeek]

38. Starting with my first goldfishes

Aunt Helen and Ruby - named for my beloved Aunt Helen and her partner Ruby. This was in the mid 60s and I was maybe 4 or 5. Of course I didn't understand or even care about "adult relationships". All I knew is that I loved Aunt Helen and Ruby and thought it was perfectly fine, an honor even, to name my fish after them.

Then at some point not long after that we got Hildegard. Hildy for short - a red, short-haired, miniature dachshund who lived with us until after I graduated high school and left home. Dachsunds are still my favorite dog.

We also had a series of cats but the only one whose name I remember was Dallas as she was born in a box on the floor of the car as we crossed the city limits on our move to Dallas. Dallas was the only one of the litter we kept. I was maybe in 3rd grade by then.

Long about Jr High, Sam came to hang out with us. He was another dachshund and I'm not sure why he became ours - he was just there one day. But I wasn't complaining. Hildy loved the company and two dachshunds are better than one.

After graduation and leaving home to strike out on my own, my roommate and I had a cat named Whoopie Cat. Named so because of a misheard song lyric from Led Zeppelin's Misty Mountain Hop. Also Whoopie cat liked to get high. We didn't hold her down or anything abusive like that. We would often exhale our smoke out the window though and, since WC was an outdoor cat mostly, she would hop op on the window sill and stick her face in the outgoing stream. We never tried to find out if that had anything to do with her litters of 6 toed kittens.

Fast forward through years of having no pets to our now 16 year old cat Kiki (named by my daughter for a cat in a cartoon she liked) and our papillon Seras, also named by my daughter after an anime character.

She also has a 3 year old bearded dragon named Spitfyre who is about a foot and half long now.


I'm trying to talk my wife into letting me get a pair of Siamese kittens so they will sing that song. Unsuccessfully, so far...maybe after Kiki leaves us...