FAMILY P ART of the

By Michele Laughing-Reeves

One of the most difficult parenting decisions to make is when your child asks for a puppy. As adults, we know that pet ownership is a huge responsibility; it requires attention, care, and money. However, I grew up on a farm, and I had the privilege of having all sorts of family pets. We had the usual farm pets, like ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, dogs, cats, and I once had a horse named Snowy for a brief time. Yes, it was a huge responsibility to feed them all, to care for them, and to pay the veterinarian bill if one were to get sick or injured. As a kid who spent most of my childhood playing with our “pets,” I never had to ask for a pet. Sometimes we got a pet without asking.

My earliest memory of a pet is of our childhood guard dog, Bo Jo. I don’t know how Bo Jo came to be our pet; perhaps, he was a wandering Rez dog that found us and decided to stay. This dog was the last one to see us off whenever we left home and was the first to greet us upon our return. He would walk, or run, with us to the bus stop and meet us on our afternoon walk home. It seemed that Bo Jo would live forever, until he left for the playground in the sky.

Around the same time, we had a bull calf named 777. 777 was ironically named after the unrideable bull on the rodeo circuit in the mid-70s. Our 777 was one of those tiny calves born in the harshest conditions of Winter and only survived because we took him into the house. Yes, we built a temporary pen in our living room, right next to the stove. As with any other baby animal needing special care, we raised him in our house, and just like a baby, 777 would moo in the middle of the night to let us know he was hungry, which meant one of us had to wake up to make him a bottle, more like a jug, of milk. When Spring came, and it was finally warm enough for Triple 7 to spend his days outside, he didn’t venture far from home or from us. It was in that way he grew up alongside us. It felt like he was one of us, so mischievous and playful. There were times when we wore chewed-through clothes to school because 777 had gotten to the clothesline--again. When he was old enough to be outside the corral, Triple 7 would also wait for us to come home from school, so we could play together.

The unspoken rule on the farm stated that once we named a pet, we weren’t allowed to eat it. I’m sure that is a standard rule in every house, but back then we took that rule very seriously. When the ewes and goats were delivering babies in the Springtime, we did our best to get ahead of the rule by handing out names left and right. However, as young kids, we couldn’t do much to enforce that rule, so it led to some tearful heartbreaks—which was definitely the case with Triple 7. We often took livestock to the market, and one day we came home to an empty pen. We knew this was part of the farming business, but it hurt, nevertheless. There have been many tearful good-byes over

the years.

Now, my son and daughter have experienced the same rites of passage. Cinnamon was my son’s first pet kid. She was the joy of Michael’s childhood, and soon Cinnamon was having babies. Her babies had babies and so forth. When Cinnamon had gotten too old, she too went to the market, but her great, great granddaughter “Yams” became my daughter’s favorite pet. Yams is the most, what seems to be intentionally, stubborn pet we have on the farm. She loves to aggravate everyone--it is almost like she is human.

Regardless of how cute and cuddly our pets are now; parents still need to debate with their child about pet ownership. The debate is soon forgotten once you hold the puppy for the first time, and that is how we got our Charles. Charles was our chocolate Labrador who instantly became part of the family. Charlie, as he became known, was there for every birthday, for every family get-together, for every holiday, for every road trip, and for those quick spins around the block. No one flinched when Charlie needed (a pricey) surgery to repair a broken hind leg, and we all pitched in to nurse him back to health. We knew Charlie entered old age when his vitality decreased, and he spent more time lying on the sofa— yes, the sofa. We were fortunate that Charles outlived the typical life span of his breed, but we inevitably were forced to make the tough decision to have him put down. As my parents made sure we were away at school when our “pets” were hauled off, we made sure Michael and Kiyaannii were away at school when Charles was taken to the veterinarian.

At the end of it all, the decision to get an adorable chocolate Lab and the decision to have him put down were the toughest decisions to make, but they were also the right ones.