Pets
Scott Mclean
Today’s rambling is about various other non rattlesnake pets Steve and I had.
I don’t know how many of you remember Layman’s Market in Union Gap. They had special events like Hawaiian days and there were usually animals involved.
For instance, at Hawaiian days they might have goldfish for the kids. On Easter events they had bunnies to sell. Of course my brother, cousins, and I all got pet rabbits.
Dad muttered about buying screen for and building the cage. Then there were things like a nest box because rabbits tend to eat their young. The newness soon wore off on the rabbits when we realized they would scratch the crap out of you and basically they just ate, pooped, and made more rabbits. They were just one more chore and we eventually were over them completely.
Of course we had the various lizards and other critters we could catch but no more rattlesnakes!
There used to be a pet store in what they called the breezeway at Ward plaza. We had money so I bought a golden mantle squirrel which was basically the bigger chipmunk we had in the hills and Steve bought two of the smaller chipmunks. Mine immediately escaped twice and bit me when I caught him.
He escaped one too many times and got out the front door. The old barn cat we had made short work of him. I can’t say I was all that heartbroken to see the mean little bastard go.
Steve’s two, on the other hand, escaped and were never caught. As near as we can figure, they had a nest somewhere in the basement and came up the pipes under the sink at night to burglarize the house. They would get into the bread, oatmeal, or whatever they could find. If you heard them chewing through something and turned on the lights, all you saw were two streaks heading for the sink. They outsmarted mouse traps and everything else we tried. They terrorized the house for a full year then disappeared. Luckily they did not reproduce!
Mom said no more squirrels as well!
About that time a heavy set Doberman wandered in. No one ever claimed him and we called him Scooby. He must have been around bird dogs because he would point pheasants and quail. Very handy but I’m pretty sure we were the only ones up there using a Doberman for a bird dog.
My two young nephews were living with us at the time and I think the dog loved kids. My nephew was at the crawling more than walking stage and crawled all over that poor dog and I think the dog loved it.
One day the nephew got a handful of the dogs “tender parts” and squeezed. The dog did not snap or growl but just let out a pitiful moan.
When my nephews went back home, Scooby left us and moved to a neighbor’s house that had younger kids. We tried bringing him back to our place but he always went back to the house with younger kids so we gave up.
We had more pets and animal incidents in general that I will tell later.
Bye now.