During This Time We Had A Few Horses Too!

Babe was the horse that started my dreams for a horse. He was a big old work horse that belonged to my Aunt, who we called Sister. She was my Dad's sister. I loved that horse so much that Sister said he was mine. When we would go there to visit, I would insist that I had to ride him and only him. I had teenage cousins and Sister would make them carry me out in the fields to catch him and let me ride him as long as I wanted. I don't think they really liked that too much because if they got Maud, the other work horse...I wouldn't ride her...only Babe. Sometimes they tried to make me ride the cow...when they didn't want to walk so far to get the horses...of course I wouldn't and would say I wanted to talk to Sister and they would go on and get Babe. I kind of remember that my Mother was afraid of Babe. She said the horse would roll his eyes at her, but I just loved him. As I said beforeI had wanted a Horse all my life. I think I spent quite a few birthdays crying because I didn't get a horse. In fact I used to grow corn for the horse I wanted to get. A single plant or two. Finally after I got my first teaching job, I started horse hunting. I wanted a Palomino....sorry, Palominos cost a lot of money. So I got a horse that was bred to be a Palomino but turned out to be a sorrel...kind of red coat with honey golden mane and tail. His name was Rex and he was a big horse and kind of flightly. I just loved him. The bad thing was that soon after I got him, I got pregnant and couldn't ride him. I had just read in the Dr.'s office magazine that if you were used to riding before you got pregnant...you could keep on riding. I mentioned it to my Dr. and he said, "No, that's wrong...you can't ride until after the baby is born!" So eveyone got to ride my horse but me. I got to feed and groom him. He was beautifully groomed though.
We got other horses and ponies. We had one bay named Chip. We had a quarter horse named Misty. We had Misty bred to the TV Long Ranger's white stallion named Silver (Silver was 24 years old when he bred our mare....he was stabled in Bad Axe, MI at a sheriff's barns up there. (Brace (or Race)) Beamer the TV's Long Ranger) was already dead, but his wife was still alive and had the horse stabled there.) and got the cutest white filly with dark eyes. We called her Silver Bell. We purchased a bred white mare and she had a colt we named Apollo.....he was born during the space shots with the Apollo rockets. We eventually got some horses that were not taken care of very well and kind of nursed them back to good health and sold them....a huge gray we named Sorry....he went to a young girl who just loved him...a palomino gelding that was never watered properly....he turned into a nice horse for a young boy....a little bay mare that was a handful; she had amind of her own....she went to a riding school...and we boarded two other horses...a beautiful two year old Palomino filly and a very high strung race horse. Our kids had ponies....Lucky (our first pony bought at an auction for $20.) a fairly large brown, Stormy, a black gelding who won the Lenawee County Fair Trophey for Ponies two years in a row, Tootsie who had a colt named Cutie Pie (Kelly wanted to call her baby sister Cutie Pie so we talked her into naming the new colt her favorite name.....Jewel you are lucky your name isn't Cutie Pie.) We boarded a larger white pony who jumped.....I think his name was something like Snowball or Snowman...I'll check this out...and we had a small kind of palomino one named Yankee Doodle Dandy, but he was a biter so we sold him.
My most recent experience with horses has been western riding lessons in 2000. I told my granddaughter Bethany that I would pay for riding lesson...as I was watching her...I couldn't stand it. I talked to the trainer and he said we could both take lessons at the same time. I really loved that....I'll talk about it later.

A Few Dogs Here and There!

When we were first married we lived in Indiana. There were a few dogs that tried to join our family but none seems to work out very well. We felt sorry for two beagle puppies who were at the pound, so we took them home. A friend of ours was so mad he missed them and wanted to train them for rabbit hunting so we gave them to him for a German Shepherd puppy. He was a cute puppy we named Shadow...he was quite a chewer.....Chewed the rocker right off our chair! He got very territorial and didn't want anyone around us....since there were lots of children around the neighborhood and he didn't seem to like any of them we decided he wasn't the puppy for us....so we gave him back to the owner.
One day the fire department came to our street...actually the house across the street....but it wasn't on fire! There was an angry mother dog with her puppies under the neighbor's house. They used the water hose to get the poor puppies out. I felt so sorry for them...so did all the neighbors! The little puppies came rolling out like balls. We all picked one up and I couldn't let mine go. Most of the other neighbors couldn't either. I named this puppy Wags and he was perfect. He looked like a baby Collie or Sheltie...kind of reminded me of Cocoa, only he was more the true Collie color. He was a good dog but he did have an awful accident...he chewed through a fan cord and got a terrible electrical burn. He was at the vet's for about a week...my mom had to pay for it...we didn't have any money. By the time he was 5 months old he had recovered and was doing well. I had him outside and somehow he got outside our yard and was following the school kids. He darted out in the road and a car hit and killed him. One little boy came and told me and wanted his collar....at first this upset me....then I said, "Yes you can have it." I was very pregnant and the boy said his father would bury Wags for me. Before too long we were really wanting to try a dog again. So this time we started looking in the paper. There were some Collie puppies advertised and we decided to go just see them. Of course you know what that means....we came home with a puppy! He was a beautiful blond colored Collie. Then we got a job opportuntiny in Michigan and moved there. It seemed perfect we rented a place on a small farm right out of town and everyone was happy until we got our first fuel bill...it was $500 and we did not have near enough money to live there. So we rented an apartment in town and of course we were not allowed to have dogs. We tried to get family members to take Colonel who was just a wonderful Collie dog but it didn't work out. Finally our mailman told us he would like to buy him and he did and Colonel spent the rest of his days in a very nice home up at the lakes. The mailman told us that he loved it there and he swam all summer long and chased chipmonks and was a wonderful dog. Anyway we lived in the apartment for about a year and then we bought a house in town. We had cats for a while and I went back and finished College. For graduation I wanted an Irish Setter....I had seen them at a dog show and loved them. I got one and named her Heidi. I took her to to Obedience Classes and she hated it. In fact she didn't like living in town at all...she was really a hunter....a true bird dog and she kept running away and going to this certain field and chasing and stalking birds. Finally the man who owned the field told us he would buy me another Irish Setter and he would keep Heidi and use her for hunting. So that is how I got Trapper. At the same time we had an opportuntiny to buy an older Irish Setter that was basically an older show dog. His owners were getting a divorce and didn't want each other to have him. His name was Rhett and he was a wonderful dog too. We all lived happliy for many years....I even tried showing the dogs and they both did well. But showing was hard....you had to travel to shows every weekend and that was too hard with kids. We bought another Irish Setter female named Nelaphant and started having puppies. Once we had 13 puppies. They were always beautiful puppies. People came all the way from Detroit and Canada to buy our puppies. About that time our daughter Kelly came home from school one day and asked if she could have a puppy....a little cockapoo. I said ask your Dad...thought for sure he would say no....but he didn't. That's how we got Andy. She was little, black and white, and turned out to be the boss of all the dogs.....even the big Irish Setter males. No one ate until Andy was done eating. They would all cuddle up together and sleep. Andy was usually in the house and the Irish Setters were in the kennel or yard. All these dogs lived long lives. After they were gone we didn't have any pets for a long time.

Cocoa, Finally A Family Dog!

We finally moved from that small apartment and bought a house in Rock Lake Village! Steve and I wanted a dog. My Dad brought home a Blue Tick Hound (Someone from Carbide gave him to Dad) and he only lasted a few days...Dad gave him to someone else.
One day when we were driving up the hill to our house, I saw a sign that said "Free Puppies" As soon as we got home, I rode my bike back down the hill and asked to see the pupples. One was so cute...long haired, kind of blond or light brown with a white collar of hair around his neck. Now I know he had some herding dog in him; maybe he was part Border Collie or Sheltie. It was a male and I loved him right away. I told the lady I wanted him and went home to convince my parents. Finally I got Mom to go look at him and she said "yes!" We had to wait a week or so until he was six weeks old. He was a good dog. He loved us kids and stayed right with us. I can remember when my brother would try to ski on those big skis down our tiny backyard hill, Cocoa would grab at his snowpants and pull him down the hill on his bottom. We all thought that he was afraid Steve would get hurt. He used to do the darnest thing....he would go through the woods and over the hill to another section of Rock Lake Village to the home of a lady who had Poodles that were show dogs. He could climb their 5 foot fence and once even bred their female. When he got in the fenced in area it was hard for him to get out. So finally they got our phone number and called us and told us to come get him. Of course I got to go get him and they were not very happy with him or us. We tried to keep him home but he loved that Poodle. I had to go get him a lot! When we bought a new house in St. Albans, my Dad pulled the same kind of trick that he did with our other dogs...he said he had a friend who was a farmer who had just lost his farm dog and really needed a good farm dog. So Cocoa moved to the farm and not with us. We did get to go see him once and he did seem happy.
In St. Albans the family did not get a dog until I went to college. Then it was a four week old rat terrior type dog who was named Tiki and lived with our parents until she was about 20 years old. I really didn't know her very well but she seemed like a good dog and she was well loved. In fact, my brother has a long haired Chihuahua now that he calls Tiki.