When I started high school, I made a new crop of friends. One of these friends was Miles, a computer savvy guy from town whose suburban life experience was completely different than mine. Shy about my humble farming roots, I did not disclose where I was raised and how I spent all my non-school time working a farm. On a rare social event, I let it slip to Miles where I lived and worked. He was incredulous. “Like with ducks and chickens and stuff?” I told him that we just had dairy cows and he looked a bit crestfallen learning that the farm was not packed with an assortment of adorable animals to have as pets. I changed the subject. I had never really had a pet, in the traditional sense, and had never been attached to animals in that way.

Being raised on a farm meant my life was closely linked to the black and white four-legged animals that lived their entire life a few hundred feet away. Those cows were our livelihood and everything we did involved them. All that dependence did not breed any warm feelings. Cows meant work, outrageous amounts of waste materials, and getting up at 2am on weekends. They were also not terribly bright and their penchant for stampeding meant danger and lots of mess. There was one standout from the huge monochromatic herd, however, and her name was Pat. For a while when I was a pre-teen, I had a pet cow. Pat looked like all the rest, except she’d follow me around. I would feed her potatoes and try to save some yard trimmings for her after each mowing. As an aside; cows will eat just about any plant, but they have a particular affinity for potatoes. Potatoes and having their heads scratched right between the eyes. It could very well be that Pat cared more for the potatoes and the scratchings than the joys of my companionship, but it did not really matter to me.

There were more traditional pets, as well. We had cats and dogs on the farm as and they were only one missed meal from being feral. We started feeding our cats the same reconstituted, vitamin-rich formula that we fed developing calves. Apparently all that nutrition and the associated free time meant there was nothing else on the menu but sex because we had literally dozens of barn cats running around. Every afternoon and morning, David, my little sister, or I would make up a gallon of formula for them and head towards their dish. We’d sing-song a “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, milky,” and they would come a-running like a furry flood, swirling about our legs. Cats would come out of windows, from under fences, and off of tractors. You’d hear the pitter-patter of scores of fuzzy feet across the aluminum barn roof–God help us if we had allergies. The cats were hardly tame and once the food was gone, so were they. Our dogs were slightly more loyal, though they were always scavenging, and in that way they were tantamount to wolves. They usually came when called, but they were not to be trusted around the other animals. More than once, they returned with dark on their muzzles that left you wondering what they had been up to. An old adage says that every dog is just two missed meals away from a wolf, if so, ours were merely one away from their wild cousins.

Our farm pets lived most of their lives free from our influence and, as with the cows, we all understood that their lives were largely more transitional than our own. Dairy cows often live an intense, short, stressful existence and once they were not productive or profitable, we sent them away to be butchered. Its hard to feel closeness under those intense circumstances. We did not train our dogs and the ran free and thus we lost most to being hit by cars. These things were the sad norm of the demands of life on the industrial farm. I carried this viewpoint into adulthood and resisted getting pets because I felt so little connection with them. I did not allow myself to invest emotionally beyond the cursory care. Three Piece was my first boyfriend who had a pet. More than a pet actually. He, like his mother, trained service dogs and he poured his attention and love into making sure his pup was well behaved and prepared for a life of service. I had never experienced such personality and affection from a pet before and my attitudes started to change. His dog was always near and stayed in the house and thus was wholly dependent on us for his care. It was a new experience for me. Unfortunately, Three Piece developed allergies after a serious bout of illness and had to give up his dog training, and that was end of me having care and access to a pet. Ready to invest more, but unsure if I was pet-ready, I moved on to tending a bonsai tree instead, thinking that perhaps that would satisfy. Three dead plants later and I realized that I am not much of a gardener. So ended the pursuit of pets for a while.

Last year, pet life has come back into my life. Animal care is very important to the BF and his work, so after much talk, we decided to get a dog. He wanted as big of a dog as possible, whereas I just wanted a dog that would live as long as possible. We set aside a time and one chilly December we went from shelter to shelter to find our pup. The first weekend was a bust. We dug through the interwebs to find more and lists were made of suitable animals and the shelters that housed them. Saturday, we head out again. Noodle was the first dog we met at our first shelter and we were smitten. He was about a year old, kind of naughty and a had beautiful red-brown coat. If he was a girl we would have named her after Marvel’s Black Widow (Natasha Romanov) and called him Roma, but no such luck. He was a pit-bull mix and while a little small, the shelter said he would get bigger. He never really did and that is just fine with me as the has all the energy and personality we could ever handle. It was my first experience possessing a treasured pet and with that, the challenges of getting my flip flops chewed up and the fun of dressing him up in bandanas. I can not wait for Christmas/Hanukkah so I can put him in outfits. I have become that guy. His behavior has vastly improved with training and he’d leave such a space behind in my life if he left. After a long series of odd pets like cows and trees, I have finally found one I love.

P.

Thanks to JG for the graphic! Lots of great animals where we found Noodle! (Click here)