Pets from the Past

I had a friend on Facebook ask me if I had my old yearbooks from Marina del Rey Junior High School.  She wanted copies badly and even contacted the school but they said they were gone for good.  I told her I thought I had them but I would have to conduct a search in the dreaded entryway cubby where we store all our old photos and albums.  To make a long story short, I found them, sent her copies that I printed and then spent about the next 3 days totally organizing everything that was in the cubby.  I was so excited to find photos of pets from the past that I didn't think I had any photos of at all.

This first photo goes all the way back to the 1970's.  I was a student at UCLA and living at home and this stray mother cat had 3 little kittens in our backyard.  A few days after their birth, she took them all away and I was sad about that.  A week later she came back with all 3 and left them for good.  I kept this boy kitty that I called Gypsy (because of his past) and found homes for the other 2.

     ~ Gypsy ~

I loved this cat soooo much.... he was so affectionate and wanted to be with me constantly.  I even took him out with me on weekends.  He used to climb the backyard fences and one day he came home really sick.  Much later we found out that a man who had bunnies left out poison for cats. He died a miserable death and I was so traumatized that my mom had to take him to the vets early in the morning.  I was so upset I gave her the wrong address to the vet... and that's how I ended up eventually meeting Jeff because he worked at the wrong vets.  Those of you who've known me for a long time know the story of how we met and began dating.

After Gypsy, Jeff and I got another cat- Hobie- and when he was a year or so old he went missing.  It was then I learned about the man with the bunnies... he trapped Hobie and took him to a wildlife place (for ducks, etc... ) in the Marina.  (I guess he stopped poisoning and went to trapping.)  Hobie found his way to a backyard where a man had put out some salmon for his cat and he called us- Hobie still had his nametag on- this was 6 weeks later!  We never thought we'd see him again.  We were so happy to have him home...it was like a miracle.  After that, we printed up a letter to all the neighbors exposing this man - we gave his name and address- and passed it out to all the houses in the neighborhood.  When we moved to Agoura Hills, Hobie and Jeff's two cats- Mark and Mickey- came with us.  Here's a photo of Hobie Cat!

 ~ Hobie Cat ~

Finally, I found a photo of Clancy!  I'll bet you thought we've only ever had big dogs like goldens and labs.  Well, here is the pound puppy I brought home one day.  This photo was taken at the park- neutral teritory- when we first got Dylan as a puppy and wanted to introduce him to Clancy.  Clancy was so taken aback by the boisterous little Dylan that he climbed up Jeff's back for protection.

~ Clancy ~