For the Love of Animals

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the God who created our environment and all the unique animals and people within it. That’s how Mico’s memoir began and how it will continue to live on.

Thank you to all of my friends and family who helped contribute to Mico’s memoir, especially my niece, Carrie, who was my editor of the original draft before it went to the publisher.

Thank you to God, my friends and coworkers, my family including Rob, Ty, and McKenzie (who’s going to make a wonderful counselor in the near future), and my professional counselor, Michele, all of whom supported me, and in essence, saved me from my grief, depression, and eating disorder.

Finally, thank you to my publisher, Excel Book Writing, for bringing Mico’s memoir to life so that it could be shared with others, especially if it helps even just one person know they are not alone in grieving the loss of an animal that was a beloved family member. A special thank you to Alister, who was so patient and understanding throughout the several months it took for me to create Mico’s memoir. From the beginning, Alister had no idea the pain I was experiencing. Every correspondence of his began with ...hope you’re well, and just those few words would resonate with me in a positive way. Sometimes, in order to beat the shit out of a vice, you must grab onto the positive things, no matter how small they may seem. 🙂

PROLOGUE

I swore I was never going to get another dog. It was December of 2009, and my 13.5-year-old Chocolate Labrador Retriever, Chase, had passed away after a short diagnosis of rectal cancer. I was beyond despair. Grief has so many facets to it, and I felt there was no way I would go through this again. Chase had been my dog since September 1996 when my then-husband, Doug, got him for me. Chase was just six weeks old at the time.

CHAPTER 1: DOGS, COUNTY FAIRS, WILDLIFE, RABBITS, AND A CAT NAMED POKEY

I was born in 1965, and both my husband Doug and I had grown up in rural Upper Michigan; I was from the small town of Vulcan, and he was from the neighboring small city of Norway. We both grew up in families that spent a lot of time outdoors. My dad grew up on a farm in the early 1900s and was a WWII veteran. He had a quiet personality, and, initially, I wasn’t close to him growing up because he’d worked the afternoon shift at a foundry for many years, so I didn’t see him often. My mom grew up on a farm, too. My parents enjoyed the outdoors, fished, and hunted often; they also enjoyed gardening, canning, and cooking. My two sisters, Debbie and Dolly, were many years older than me, and they moved out soon after finishing high school, so I didn’t get a chance to spend much time with them.

Deer were popular subjects in Upper Michigan, and one of my family’s favorite pastimes was taking rides before dark to look for deer. This was always an exciting experience for me; it was like a low-scale safari. The excitement continued at night because it was common to shine for deer, which meant looking for deer by shining spotlights into dark, open fields. Even at a young age, I realized I was drawn to the quiet innocence of animals and the sense of peace that came with them.

I recall my whole family attending the county fair faithfully every year, and it was there that I was introduced to many kinds of domestic animals. The fair was a great environment to interact with domestic animals. I would spend as much time as possible in all the animal barns, especially the horse barns. When it came to horses, I read any horse-related book I could get my hands on, and my room was wallpapered with horse posters and pictures. I was always trying to ask my dad for a horse, but the answer was always the same; No.

I started a collection of Breyer model horses, and I continued adding to it whenever I saved enough money to purchase a new breed. I also collected horse cards, which depicted breeds of horses. The cards were the equivalent of baseball cards, and they were enclosed in boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Pops cereal. I hated the cereal, but I continued to eat entire boxes on a regular basis just to collect more horse cards. I never considered playing with dolls. My favorite toys were my rocking Wonder Horse, my set of a horse on wheels with a covered wagon, and my Fort Apache set that included cowboys and Indians.

One evening during the summer, my mom packed a few beers in a cooler for her and my sisters and took me along with them on a ride to look for deer. As we drove by a large, fenced-in field we passed many times on our low scale safaris, I saw the Shetland pony that was often grazing in the field on many occasions prior. Excited as usual, I begged my mom to stop the car so I could get out and have a better look at the pony. Not only did she stop the car and let me out, she took me by the hand and, along with my sisters, led us under the fence and directly up to the pony. The pony had a thick, long mane and tail, and although it wasn’t well-groomed, it was beautiful to me. My mom reached out to the pony, took it by the halter, and had one of my sisters boost me up onto the pony’s back. Two things happened simultaneously: one, I landed on its back, and two, I was promptly bucked off. My mom tried to hold onto the pony but couldn’t, and it took off, bucking like a streak of lightning halfway across the large field. Thus, my first time on the back of a horse, other than the saddled ponies on the pony-go-round at the county fair, was also the first time I got bucked off. Surprisingly, I wasn’t physically hurt, but my young ego was. Once I got myself up off the ground, we swiftly made our way back to the car to avoid becoming a slam-dunk case for trespassing. I often wondered if my mom told my dad this story. I sure didn’t; my ego was bruised enough.

Beaver Pete’s was a small restaurant and petting zoo that was located along the drive to our 120 acres of hunting land. I know my dad and mom appreciated the fact that I loved animals, and they liked animals too, so we would often stop at Beaver Pete’s to spend time with the animals there and have supper at the restaurant. 

Dogs were always part of our family. Most of them were hunting-type dogs, some of which my dad used for hunting; others were simply our pets. I remember growing up around three dogs: Rusty, a cocker spaniel; Coco, a retriever-mix; and Sugar, a beagle. They were kept outside, but occasionally, my dad would let them in. I loved dogs, and because I loved reading, I spent time learning about all the different breeds of dogs. If I came across stray neighbors’ dogs, I was more than happy to round them up and return them to their respective homes. One of our dogs was an indoor dog, a Chihuahua named Friskie. We were the same age, so I grew up with him and was very close to him. I would hang out with him in the yard or walk him, and he slept in the same bed as me.

When I was ten, my mom died as a result of a stroke. When that happened, I lost nearly all the memories of my time with my mom. As close as I was to Friskie, he now became the focal point of my days.

One of the turning points in my life, just after the funeral, occurred early in the morning as I was still in bed. I woke up to a faint sound beyond my bedroom door, so I got up and quietly followed the sound and found my dad hunched over a part of the kitchen counter, his body heaving with the motion of heavy sobbing. I stopped abruptly, unsure what to think, stared only momentarily, then turned around quietly and returned to my room unnoticed. I recall feeling that even though I was only ten, I’d aged twenty years at that moment, and I got an immediate thought: I was going to try my best to do what I could for my dad and never try to be a source of frustration for him. As a youngster, seeing a parent cry, especially a dad, was probably a rare thing to have happened, and for me, it had a tremendous impact.

Not long after the funeral, my sister Debbie, a single mom, and her two small children, Carrie and Kurt, moved in with us. She introduced me to the Catholic faith and began taking me to Church on Sundays. I really didn’t understand any of it, but like a sheep needing a shepherd, I did as I was asked, and like the commitment I’d made to my dad, I wanted to try to avoid being a source of frustration to my sister, too. I tried to learn what I could from the hymnals and other materials the Church provided us. I found along the way that, even though I didn’t understand the mass initially, I enjoyed learning new things and trying new things, so I made the best of my time while I was there.

Several months later, my sister and her children moved out, and my dad and I were on our own. I took on the additional duties of cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and helping with outdoor chores. During this time, I would try to recall memories of my mom, but they were lost, and I think the trauma of losing her had a lot to do with that. Years later, I would wonder if that was a defense mechanism for coping.

As distant and lost as I felt, Friskie became somewhat distant, too, and he began to wander away from home. Then, not long after, there was a knock on our door, and it was one of my close friends from up the street. She told me she found Friskie dead on the road; he’d been hit by a car. I remember letting out a wail that brought my dad running to the door. He tried briefly to console me, then promptly left to retrieve Friskie. It felt like life was a blur for some time after that. I cried often, and I remember going to the door to try to let Friskie in more than once, but he was never there. I remember feeling very lost and alone, and somehow, I felt that losing my mom and Friskie had changed something in me forever. Somehow, I felt different from then onwards, more shy and introverted, and I withdrew from my friends and family. As young as I was, I began to realize the stark contrast between living a happy life with Friskie versus the struggle of coping with his death. However, my dad more than once verbalized there would never be another dog in the house after he watched what happened to me after Friskie died.

Animals had always fascinated me; after Friskie died, I became even more drawn to them. They became a comfort to me. Later on, I wondered if growing up alone, with my quiet dad and my quiet animals, became the foundation for my introverted personality. Little did I know how much animals would impact me throughout my life.

Because I loved the outdoors, there were always opportunities to see wild animals in their environment, too. We always had a birdfeeder, and I was so excited to get my first book on birds so I could watch them and match them up to the type of birds in the book. If I found wild animals that were injured, I would bring them home to try to nurse them back to health, but if I couldn’t, I ensured they were properly buried. One winter day, I heard the sound of an animal in distress behind our house, so I followed the sound and came upon a white-colored weasel with a rabbit in its mouth. I realized the weasel probably wanted to eat, but I couldn’t bear to hear the rabbit’s distressed squeal, so I approached the weasel and yelled at it. It stopped its attack on the rabbit and stared at me for a few moments; then, it ran off. The rabbit was injured quite severely, and although I tried to nurse it back to health, it didn’t survive.

One of my most enjoyable caretaking adventures arose when my dad was on a fishing trip. Several baby squirrels started following him around with no mother squirrel in sight, so he brought them home with him, and I took care of them until they were ready to leave.

My dad and I spent part of our time in the woods looking for signs of deer, especially bucks, prior to the November hunting season. I was always excited to embark on these treasure hunts, looking for grassy areas with imprints of deer where they frequently bedded down, packed down trails that deer frequently walked through, antler scrapings on trees, antler sheds, and last but not least, even deer pellets (poop). We’d also spend weekends at our camp using our large, shining flashlight at night, aiming it into our bait pile of apples into the gulley directly behind the camp. My dad had devised a simple tool to alert us when deer arrived at the bait pile at night: a long fishing line with Christmas bells at the end of it, and when deer tripped the line around the bait pile, the bells on the other end of the line inside the camp would jingle across the floor just enough to wake me. I was the sentry and slept on the pull-out couch in the living area, so it was my job to sneak quietly down the hall and wake my dad up as he slept at the opposite end of the camp whenever the bells went off. Then, using the flashlight, he’d aim the beam at the bait pile to see if any of the deer coming in had antlers and, if so, how many points they had. Even to this day, as I think about the bells going off, I think about the excitement of it all, wondering what tripped the wire out in the dark of night. When I recall a lot of our times at camp, I realized that with all the time I spent outdoors, I never developed a fear of the dark. For me, the outdoors was always a place I enjoyed, whether it was during the day or the night.

After Friskie died, I began spending more time with my dad’s hunting dog, Sugar. Like Friskie, Sugar was therapy for me too, but inside, I was aching for something more, something I could call my own, so one day, I asked my dad if I could have a rabbit. To my delight, my dad said, Yes. My dad got me a pair of black rabbits, and I thought they were the most beautiful rabbits I’d ever seen. I took my rabbit responsibility very seriously and became immersed in taking care of their basic needs, brushing them, and letting them out to play in the yard. I helped my dad add onto an area of our existing garden so that I could grow fresh snacks for my rabbits. That was another responsibility, but I loved it, and I loved watching the plants grow. Between the gardening and the rabbits, I kept myself quite busy. I spent a lot of time researching rabbits and how to breed them. Watching a doe rabbit create a nest for her litter from her fur was always exciting. Baby rabbits are adorable, and it was very satisfying to watch them grow. Aside from the technical names for breeds of rabbits, I raised black rabbits, white rabbits with pink eyes, gray rabbits, and giant, floppy-eared rabbits. I showed them at the annual fair and sold them as pets. The rabbits were a therapeutic adventure for me, and I felt myself begin to come out of the shell I’d wrapped myself in.

One summer day, I was caring for my rabbits and taking turns setting them out in playpens to enjoy some extra space and some fresh grass, which I did rather often. My sister Debbie arrived later in the day with her children and offered to take me to the beach. In the UP, there aren’t many days suitable for beach weather, so I jumped at the chance to enjoy some fun in the water. I had one of my favorite male rabbits, a white one with pink eyes, alone in a playpen. In my haste to run inside and change into beachwear, I neglected to put him back in his hutch before we left. When we returned, he had died in the playpen. I was overwhelmed with grief and uncontrollable guilt, no matter how much my sister attempted to comfort me. Later, as she explained to our dad what had happened, he too tried his best, not so much to comfort me, but in his own John Wayne, straightforward manner, briefly explained that although the rabbit’s death was a tragic accident, I had to learn from it and accept it because dying will always be a part of living. His way of explaining things was always short and to the point, and I quickly learned to respect and admire that because, growing up alone