R.I.P. Glory

I will place this in "Just For Fun" because there isn't a more-appropriate category, although this one certainly isn't either.

I am noting the 7th anniversary of the death of my dog, Glory. She was a rescue sheltie, liberated from a puppy mill where apparently she was kept in deplorable conditions and kept pregnant. She was a sweet-tempered bitch, although since we acquired her in her middle age she never quite warmed to us as a puppy does.

Mrs. NoCo is quite fond of shelties, we've had four of them including Glory. They are sweet-tempered, don't shed, get by on a minimum of brushing and are a manageable size. Two of her shelties died of old age at the ripe old ages of 16 and 17 -- old for a sheltie. The fourth is still with us, at 13, and going strong.

Glory, unfortunately, was with us only six months.

We discovered, shortly after acquiring her from the rescue organization (where she'd been a prize-winning breeder dog) that she was severely near-sighted. She would not recognize anybody until you spoke, or came right up and petted her. If you put food down for her you had to lead her to it. She enjoyed the company of our other sheltie at the time, but always seemed startled when she appeared out of nowhere.

In fact Glory was very startle-able. She cowered as if she'd been beaten, although I suspect it was just the unfamiliar environment and her eyesight. When you held her or put her on the couch or bed she was more-than-happy to accept loving attention.

Unfortunately her nervous nature exhibited itself as aggression. She would fly into these barking fits where she charged forward, barking furiously and pawing. She destroyed two very expensive wooden blinds on our front windows. She raced into walls and windows, and it was hard to calm her down. It might have been some maternal instinct, or a result of the conditions in the puppy mill.

It ended up being her undoing.

I went out shopping one day seven years ago, and when I came home I was greeted by the other sheltie but not Glory. This was unusual because they usually traveled together, and always greeted me. After putting away the groceries I got worried and began looking for her. She wasn't in the bedroom or basement. She wasn't behind any furniture in the living room. Finally I found her, laying in the back yard. As I came up to her I called her name, and she tried to stand to greet me but her back half was paralyzed. I noticed she was underneath the edge of the deck.

I speculate that she got spooked by a neighbor dog while up on the deck, charged forward barking, and managed to slip between the ballisters (we have since doubled their number to the new code of 4" gaps). She fell 12 feet off the deck and landed upside down, snapping her spine (confirmed by the vet). There is no treatment for such an injury so I had no choice but to have her put down. It was very hard.

She was the first and so far only dog we have ever lost to anything other than the accumulated infirmities of old age.

My first wife had a sheltie. I thought it was a really nice little dog. Very quiet. Had my first wife been as quiet...well, who knows.

In the spirit of noting anniversaries of pets going to the big farm upstate, this is Cat.



It's been 28 years this month that she moved on. I'd had her for about seventeen years. That last trip to the vet was a very painful one. If you can't tell from the picture (it's scanned from an old black and white print), Cat was a seal point Siamese.

Did you have help naming her?

Yes, I guess I did have some help, but we have to get in the Wayback Machine for this one.

It was late in the year  of 1969. I had just returned home from a year-long road trip that spanned from Hollywood to New Mexico to upstate New York to Birmingham, Alabama, and many spots in between. As the Grateful Dead put it, it was a long strange trip.

I was at a gas station in Pismo Beach and noticed in the car next to me a very small Siamese cat standing on the back of the driver's seat. I mentioned to the driver that is was a beautiful cat (I was feeling the loss of my Russian Blue, Sasha, whom I had left in Hollywood; still getting into the stash on the coffee table, no doubt). The guy asked me if I wanted the cat, and I said yes.

I was driving an Austin Healey Sprite with the top down, so I stuck the little cat down the front of my old flight jacket. and zipped it up most of the way. The cat stuck her head out just below my chin, and all was fine until I started driving and the cold air hit her. At which point she jerked her head down into the jacket and peed on me. That should have told me something.

I took her to the vet a few days later for exam and shots. When the vet asked me her name, I said, "I don't know. She hasn't told me." (Remember, this was 1969.) The vet asked, "Well, what do you call her?" In a tone of incredulity at being asked a question with such an obvious answer, I said, "Cat." So that's what he wrote on the form. And that's what she was called for the next seventeen years.

When he brought her out after the exam and handed her to me with one horribly scratched and bloody hand, he said, "Good luck."

As Peter Ustinov said in Logan's Run, "All cats have three names; a regular name, a fancy name, and a name only the cat itself knows."  T.S. Elliot went into more detail in The Naming of Cats.

Ah. Makes perfect (purrfect) sense.  Our cat "Dot" (for the perfectly round black spot over her shoulders) is "Dorothy Anne" when she's in trouble, and as for the name known only to herself, she ain't tellin'.

T.S. Elliot wrote:

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Just this morning I was laying in bed when I turned to the Mrs and said, "Dear, I think I must be having a heart attack.  I feel this weight on my chest, with occasional sharp pains, and a low rumbling sound."  Mrs. NoCo rolled over and said, "It's YOUR turn to feed her."

The first night I had Cat, I was awakened by pressure on my chest. Opened my eyes, and there she was, sitting on my chest with a mouse in her mouth. She laid the mouse on my chest and just sat there - I guess waiting for thanks or applause or something.

Cats do that to teach you.  It's apparent your mousing skills are a little rusty.

I used to have that T-shirt.

Apparently your style sense is rusty too.

Did you notice I said "I used to have that T-shirt."?
In any case, it was in the late '70s (what were you wearing then?) and it was a gift.
My sense of style and mouse-catching abilities are no more rusty than the general operating condition of what remains of my brain.

Yes that's why your style sense is rusty. You apparently no longer have the shirt, or it no longer fits or something.

There were two ways to take your remark, so naturally I went the wrong way.
I do still have this shirt which I ran across in the bottom of a drawer recently. Does that help any?

_Howard wrote:

Does that help any?

Some. The only thing better than Kliban cats is a Calvin & Hobbes shirt.

Or Cheech Wizard, bonus points.

Oh, come on. Cavlin and Hobbes are (is?) for kids. Hell, I was in my forties when it came out.

I must confess I don't remember Cheech Wizard, but I do wish I still had my old R. Crumb and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers T-shirts. I could wear them while listening to my vinyl recordings of Big Brother and the Holding Company. Or Stone Pony.

Yes your timeframe is correct but C&H are anything but childish.


Cheech OTOH has not withstood the test of time as well... I used to grok it back in the day but on revisiting a few years ago... kinda adolescent.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I used to grok it ...

Holy crap! Thanks, NoCo. I cannot remember the last time I heard or used that word. I can only imagine the looks I would get from all these banker assholes I'm forced to hang out with now if I used that. Ah, the good old days....