Pets on Parade

By Darcy Pennoyer Smith

If I had a dollar for every pet my mother brought home without consulting my father, I’d probably have about thirty bucks. We are a very inclusive family, and our non-human residents were canines, felines, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, fish – a menagerie which spanned twenty-two years at 4 Parade Hill Road. It was common to open our refrigerator and, next to the cold cuts, see a clear plastic bag containing live crickets to feed somebody’s Green Anole (lizard). All of these pets instilled in me a love for all creatures great and small -- except snakes. 

The names of these pets make me smile to this day. Cotton Ball, Peaches, Tiddlewinks, and Apricot rounded out the roster of teddy bear hamsters; Dumpy the baby bird; lizards who must have been proud of their names: Jethro, Nefertiti, Adina, and Patsy; the feline contingent consisted of many including Claude, Bat, Spot, Miss Mottley, Critter, Mimi. Every fish won at The May Fair had a name, and the list is too long to count. I don’t even include the fish in the thirty bucks count. 

First there was Licky, a black lab and basset hound combo (see photo of Licky and me circa 1973). Imagine a black basset hound close to the ground with a very long tail, who was our dog when I was a toddler. Being a similar height meant Licky might enjoy a gentle nibble of my bologna sandwich on white bread. I believe Licky was the first and last pet that my parents agreed on having. Licky adored his family to the point of biting the mailman as a means of protection. Of course, we children were told that Licky had to go to a farm upstate where he could run without getting in trouble with any postal workers. 

Although Mimi the tabby cat lived next door with ancient Mrs. Apy, she – Mimi – would frequent our porch; she never dared enter the house. After all, it was an active household with five children in it. I don’t blame Mimi, who in her own right was a good mouser, and I do count her among the menagerie because she was part of our daily lives. 

“Oh, it’s not a raccoon; it’s just Mimi running under the porch,” we’d say. 

Speaking of what must have been raccoons… Cotton Ball, Peaches, Tiddlewinks, and Apricot met their fate one summer night when my mother thought they might enjoy an evening of warm, fresh June air on the porch which stretched around the front and side of our farmhouse. She forgot to bring them inside that night, and unfortunately something helped itself into their cage. Only the agile, stealthy, and leathery hands of a raccoon could have achieved that move. Imagine our surprise when going out to the bus that morning to see the cage, blank and blank nowhere in sight, yet a bit of something fleshy and foreign to our young eyes in the cage – entrails. 

We welcomed Spot into our home as a kitten, and he, despite bearing a dull name, was anything but. On the third day we had him, my then seven-year-old sister Maggie gently held his paw and waved it at our mother through the tiny area between the bathroom door hinges and the door jamb. Our mother didn’t see the adorable gesture or the tiny paw until she closed the bathroom door at which point Spot meyowled louder than any cat I’d ever witnessed firsthand. The poor thing had to bump around in a cast for a few weeks. Any time after that, when my mom was seated nearly every night as she needlepointed, smoked Marlboro Lights, and watched Mary Tyler Moore, Spot would sneak up as some cats do, seize her ankle with his front paws, gnaw just a bit on her foot, and then run away. He never broke her skin, but it was an intentional jumpscare with teeth. We kids thought it was hilarious. Spot’s revenge lasted for years. We could never catch him to bring him to the vet, yet he slept on the foot of my bed. He was one of the smartest cats I’ve ever had, and he lived long and well. 

Owen, the red-eyed tree frog, belonged to my sister Carrie, who was meticulous about his feeding and misting schedule and turning his heat lamp on and off as required. I no longer lived at home at this point, but I stopped by frequently. I loved watching Owen through the glass as he maneuvered around his habitat only to camouflage himself behind branches, leaves and whatever else Carrie had placed in the terrarium. He had to be gently misted with water from a spray bottle to help maintain the illusion of being in a rainforest when really, he was a New Englander. Owen had a pretty great life between his meals of mealworms and his regular misting until Carrie went away for the weekend, and our dad was supposed to mist Owen. Let’s just say the skin of a frog needs what it needs, Owen didn’t get it, and when Carrie returned from her trip, Owen had succumbed to dehydration. 

Miss Mottley, a gray tabby, was in a pretty pickle when we somehow adopted her, or she adopted us, during my sophomore year of high school. My mother had brought her home, and Miss Mottley joined the clan in stride. When it became clear that Miss Mottley was pregnant, there was no way of tracking down the father to keep him accountable, and suddenly we had to prep for childbirth. My father rolled his eyes as he had never agreed to Miss Mottley’s arrival in the first place, and when we learned of her pregnancy, his response was akin to “Greaaaaaaat. More cats.” 

The big day for Miss Mottley arrived, and her timing could not have been more perfect. A date was dropping me off in our driveway in an awkward goodbye scenario, and Carrie ran out the front door screaming in excitement. 

“DARCE! Miss Mottley is having the kittens RIGHT NOW IN YOUR CLOSET! Hurry UP, you’re going to MISS IT!” 

Carrie’s urgent announcement made my exit even more awkward yet quick as I ran into the house to find squirming newborn kittens indeed in my closet with Miss Mottley and all that comes with a birth right next to my shoes. 

It had been a while since we had a dog, and the memory of how wonderful Licky was combined with my departure for college (according to my mother) prompted her to buy a bulldog from a breeder whose ethics we question to this day. Because our mom had “grown up with bulldogs” and she missed them, we ended up with first Lily of the Valley, then Murphy, then Assrot (not the name our mother had settled on, and who got returned for obvious reasons). 

As a puppy, Lily was sweet, had velvet fur, and fascinated all of us except our father. She did all the things a bulldog puppy should, and while her slobber took some getting used to, everything she did was either cute or adorable, even when she pooped on the sidewalk on Elm Street in front of Isabel Eland, the ladies’ lingerie store. Carrie was holding the leash for that one, and that was before poop bags were a thing. We ducked and ran. 

Lily got into everything even after growing out of puppyhood. She ate a green feather duster apparently thinking it was a toy, and with that, the regular trips to the vet commenced. One summer, there was the roll of paper towels. That one looked like it hurt. Before we figured out what it was, Lily seemed uncomfortable, and something was protruding from her posterior. For some reason, we turned to our father. 

“Daddy, there’s something sticking out of Lily’s butt!” 

As dads do, he reached for “it” with his bare hands, Lily yelped, “it” didn’t budge, and when he muttered, “Jesus Christ, it’s paper towels,” we cringed. Her rear-end resembled a paper towel dispenser, and we couldn’t unsee it. Lily ended up fine after a couple of days at the vet (cha-ching), yet her antics were not helping our father’s resistance to pets. 

As it turned out, Lily had several allergies which resulted in our mother spending more time cooking fresh lamb and rice for the dog that our house smelled like a kebob truck. 

Each time I came home from college, Lily was a source of endearing entertainment and play. There was no such thing as a dog crate in our house, so Lily roamed as she pleased and received pets and pats, belly rubs, caresses behind the ears. One Christmas she decided to truffle around the gifts under the tree to discover one I had wrapped for my grandmother: a gingerbread baking mix and pans. She ate the gingerbread mix, left the pans, and in her efforts, spread gingerbread baking mix over all of the other gifts. Luckily our house smelled more of a Yankee Candle Gingerbread than ground lamb that week. 

Murphy, a brindle puppy with white face and jowls for days, was the last pet we had on Parade Hill Road, and he was the most well-intentioned bulldog for his entire life. Friendly, not needy, always a great companion. Nicknamed the brown torpedo and built like a barrel, Murphy’s size and shape would qualify him for the fat man’s relay on any track & field team. He was surprisingly fast, and although he did get short walks every day, something in him clicked when that door opened. Tongue usually hanging out and looking rather unintelligent, he somehow sidled by the unsuspecting and slower human when that door opened, and instantly morphed into an unleashed force of nature. Had we been able to harness and predict that speed, he would have been a contender. At something, anyway. Whenever Murphy pulled that stunt, someone, usually my brother, would have to go retrieve him. Because we were neighbors with our grandparents and two separate homes of aunts and uncles, the retrieval wasn’t usually a big deal. It became a big deal, however, if Murphy made it all the way to Heritage Hill Road where there was more traffic. Luckily, he lived a great canine life, and he succumbed to natural causes. 

While pets of my youth have come and gone, the few photos I have serve as fond reminders of their wonderful qualities and quirks. As now an adult and a parent, I can envision the conversations my parents must have had behind closed doors each time an un-agreed-upon pet appeared in the house. My father certainly likes and is kind to animals to this day; he just didn’t want or need more than 7 human mouths to feed while we were growing up. In fact, at one time there was a squirrel who would eat from his hand. It should be noted that the squirrel lived outside; we didn't live in a barn although it felt like a zoo at times.

Although I believe that families should agree on all pets before they enter a home, there is something to be said for those days as a child when I would come home from school to be greeted unexpectedly by a new furry someone with my mom smiling and saying, “What should we name her?”