The Good Memories thread

[ledboots]

I'll tell my dad's memory. He loved dogs, and was the type of person that dogs love back. As a young man, he had an energetic beagle, Tory, and once Tory was running around in the woods and got his front paw caught in a beaver trap-- the kind in cartoons with the teeth clanging together. This was 60+ years ago when people still used them. He managed to free the trap from its attachment to the tree, and walked 3/4 mile to the veterinarian's office.

Home was a bit farther away, but my dad and the vet maintain that Tory knew who would fix him. [emoji57] The vet heard banging on the clinic door and there stood the beagle with a trap on his paw. [emoji33] He called my dad, who came down, and the vet had already taken care of things. He said no charge, unless Tory had any cash, since he brought himself in.

 

[Tom L.]

Another memory of Crystal, the cat I adopted in 2001...

A few years after I'd had her, I adopted 5 goldfish from a friend's pond (they kept koi, but never found out where the goldfish came from). The first time I fed the fish, the fishy odor of their food got Crystal's attention: she started sniffing and snorting in the direction of the aquarium. She never tried to bother the fishes, but often when I came home in late afternoon, I'd find the fish food container on the floor- Crystal had been trying (unsuccessfully) to open it.

 

[Tom L.]

November 26th, 1994, was the day I adopted Riley from some acquaintances of mine.

I adopted Phil, a young male cat, from the shelter a month after I adopted Riley, taking him to my vet on the way home for a checkup; he was my first shelter adoptee. Riley could be kind of curmudgeonly, and although he wasn't really violent to Phil, I kept Phil by himself, with food, water, and litterbox, in the kitchen when I wasn't home. (I also wanted to make sure Phil had nothing that could infect Riley- although maybe my arrangement wasn't secure enough for this...) The kitchen doorway has no door, so I took a closet door off its hinges and propped it (securely- or so I thought) against the kitchen doorway, bracing it with a chair.

Maybe it was a week, or maybe two... but one evening I came home from work and opened the inner vestibule door to find two feline faces looking up at me. The temporary kitchen door was down, leaning on the chair. They had managed to unblock the doorway (HOW??!!), gotten acquainted while I was out (fortunately without getting injured by the door), and mutually decided they were BFF.

Happy 20th Anniversary, guys.

 

[Tom L.]

I have another two anniversaries coming up...

In January 1993, a friend of mine told me about a cat whom her neighbors were feeding, but she was basically living outside in a garage. I took Ripkin in, and for the first few hours the first day, she just hid under a bed upstairs. I checked in on her about once an hour but mostly let her be. Finally she came downstairs and rubbed against me a LOT. The vet thought she was about 8 years old but this cat liked to play and snuggle. I often saw her in the window, watching me walk off to work. She had a very expressive, sometimes emphatic "meow". One time, I started meowing to her, she started meowing back excitedly, and I had the strangest feeling we were actually having a conversation.

In January 1997 I adopted a 1-year-old rabbit named Sony from the local shelter... I opened her cage and she nudged me with her nose. I almost re-named her "Xena" because of her fearlessness. She generally ignored my cats, but Phil didn't like her, so one day she decided she'd had enough and grabbed him from behind, hopping along as he tried to run away. I immediately split them up and checked them both for injuries- no harm done, fortunately.

When the weather got warmer I got her used to a leash (which my parents had thought about using for their cat, but decided it wasn't a good idea). After two trips outside, Sony decided she liked it: digging a vacation home, lounging in a patch of tall grass with just her ears showing, eating dandelion flower stalks like spaghetti (flower disappearing into her mouth last)... She was good about not running away- not that I left her outside unsupervised- until it was time to go back inside. That was when she practiced rabbit evasive maneuvers, and the leash came in handy for reeling her in. But one summer, she got two cuterebra grubs under her skin which the vet extracted. She was fine, but after that, I had second thoughts about taking even a tame rabbit outside with me.

Happy Anniversary, Ripkin and Sony.

 

[KLS52]

Yesterday was the three year mark of losing Thor. I made a feeble attempt at a video in the weeks following his passing. I still love watching it. I threw in a few pics of the grandkids to fill space, lol. But just a few. And I love the song.

Thor...I'll never find another you. [emoji173]️

 

[shyvas]

Yesterday was the three year mark of losing Thor. I made a feeble attempt at a video in the weeks following his passing. I still love watching it. I threw in a few pics of the grandkids to fill space, lol. But just a few. And I love the song.

Thor...I'll never find another you. [emoji173]️

 

[Tom L.]

Not a feeble attempt at all- I love it! I didn't have headphones though... is it the "Wonderful World" song that Louis Armstrong sings?

I posted about that memorial/goodwill ceremony that people do with candles every Monday in another thread. It mostly focuses on companions who have passed on, but they also try to send good vibes to people whose animal companions are ill. There's also one done the second Sunday of every month, and instead of using candles, I was outside an hour ago... and used the Sun.

I'm sorry I didn't think of Thor because I hadn't seen this post, but I did think of Bratt's leg problems and wished him a good recovery.

 

[KLS52]

Not a feeble attempt at all- I love it! I didn't have headphones though... is it the "Wonderful World" song that Louis Armstrong sings?

I posted about that memorial/goodwill ceremony that people do with candles every Monday in another thread. It mostly focuses on companions who have passed on, but they also try to send good vibes to people whose animal companions are ill. There's also one done the second Sunday of every month, and instead of using candles, I was outside an hour ago... and used the Sun.

I'm sorry I didn't think of Thor because I hadn't seen this post, but I did think of Bratt's leg problems and wished him a good recovery.

Yes, Louis Armstrong.

Thank you so much for thinking of Bratt...you are simply awesome!

 

[Tom L.]

I'd like to do a similar tribute to my family's cat Peasant (1963-1972), but the two songs I'm thinking of would be either (1) kind of strange in this context or (2) quite sad, even though the music and lyrics would fit quite well.

The first is "Hey Girl", which was (partly) written by Carole King and was a great recording by Freddy Scott (among others). Okay- it was released about the same time I found Peasant, it's a beautiful song (not too sad), and really expresses how much you'll miss someone if they leave, but it's a song about a girlfriend, not a companion animal!...

The second song I had in mind is "This Used To Be My Playground" from the movie "A League Of Their Own". Which would actually be very appropriate: there are several lines where the singer resolves never to forget those long-ago good times, and mentions how they can still see someone they're remembering (I think it's "you're more than just a memory" or something like that). We had Peasant when I was growing up.

Gotta come up with other ideas....

Anyway- what software does one use for this sort of thing?

 

[KLS52]

I have no problem using boyfriend/girlfriend songs for animals I love. My other Thor song is "Face of Love" by Jewel. I also did the same video using that song but there was a copyright issue so I could never copy the link...or maybe it was just an issue with iPhones...I can't remember exactly.

Bogart' song is from the Twilight series, "A Thousand Years"...talk about a love song, lol.
Most of the words just fit for me. The fact that he was 6+ years old and I found him in a shelter...love at first sight...only having him for a year before he died. I felt like I loved him my whole life. Funny how that can happen.
"All along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more."

I'm pretty sure I used Windows movie maker but I have a new computer with Windows 7 now. I had XP before. I don't even know what I have, if anything now, for making videos.

 

[Tom L.]

I'll have to give those other songs you mention a listen. Also, I just learned that one of Paul McCartney's songs from the Beatles' "White Album", "Martha My Dear", is about his sheepdog! I'd heard it a few times but hadn't grasped the lyrics; many people tend to think it's about a girlfriend.

 

[Tom L.]

I thought of a few more songs that I think would make great music for companion animal videos:

"So Far Away" by Carole King, from her album "Tapestry"

So far away... Doesn't anybody stay in one place any more?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn't help to know
You're so... far away...

"I Will Find You" by Clannad (from the movie "Last Of The Mohicans")... quite dark and intense, but sometimes I'm just REALLY feeling it:

If you go away I will find you
If it takes a long long time

That song, "Trail Of Broken Hearts" by kd lang that I posted in the "songs that don't suck" thread would actually sort of work:

The godspeed of trust will settle the dust that we've been passing through
Broken trail so long, a long and tired past
Emptiness is gone, I've found this place at last
And here will remain
With only the aim of staying sure and fast

When someone takes in an animal who was formerly homeless, those lines from the song might exrpress what the animal feels when they settle in to their home and begin to bond with the human who took them in.

 

[KLS52]

I just you tubed I Will Find You...forgot how much I loved that movie.
Never heard the KD Lang song before...nice.

 

[Tom L.]

I got killed by a lion once...

A few years after I bought my house, my neighbors two doors away took in two cats. One of them, Gino, was a playful male with long, thick, brownish fur and beautiful eyes. He liked to lounge by my front fence and would suddenly bolt when I walked in the front gate. Eventually we got used to each other and he'd hang around when I was in the yard.

One day I was doing yard work by my front door. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned around to see Gino bounding away around a bush, tail in the air like a flagpole. He had been hiding in the shrubbery and ambushed me after a few minutes of my not knowing he was there.

 

[KLS52]

I was cleaning out a closet and came across some kitten pictures. These were Mandi's kittens, born in 1995...how I ended up with six cats back then. Everyone wanted a kitten until they were old enough to be adopted out. Then everyone changed their minds. I wasn't about to give them to a shelter/strangers so I kept them all. I had Mikey at the time, too...he made six.

 

[KLS52]

Tommy and my Thor

 

[KLS52]

This is Chelsea being mangled by my son...she was only nine when she got kidney cancer in 1994.

 

[Moll Flanders]

Aww, adorable.

 

[shyvas]

Tommy and my Thor
View attachment 7171

Too gorgeous to be true.

 

[Tom L.]

Happy Anniversary, Peasant.

I looked back over this thread and I didn't mention Fluffy, a big gray longhaired tomcat whom I was taking care of before I got a place of my own. I think he showed up in late summer or early autumn. I saw him and for some reason put some food and water near where he was hiding; he came out, kept a wary eye on me from quite some distance away, but started eating. A few minutes later, he came over near the back stoop where I was sitting. We couldn't take him inside, but I fed him and took him to the vet once to get rid of his fleas and give him a distemper combo immunization; I also made him a shelter (which, as far as I know, he didn't use, although he did go into it and check it out. Maybe he did use it sometimes).

A very easygoing guy... someone told me that they had seen him calmly watching a squirrel eating a bit of his food from his dish.

I wish I had done still more for him.