What kind of animals make the best pet? All I can do is go by memories of pets I have had. We lived in a small home with Grandma, a brother and I. Naturally Mom and Dad were there. It was only a two-bedroom house. My folks slept in one bedroom and Grandma in the other. When I was young, I slept with Grandma until I became older. I would say maybe until fifth or sixth grade. They had a roll away bed that was put in the living room at night and my brother would sleep on the roll away. They did make another bedroom out of the attached garage sometime in my young life. That made sleeping arrangements much better.

When I was young, my parents allowed us to have cats, no dogs though, there was just no room. The yard did not have a fence and that was the main reason they gave us the reason for no dogs. The cat was sent outside to sleep at night. I remember the cat’s names. There was Jughead, Sandy, Boots, Tiger and Lucy. My parents said male cats only, female cats have kittens. The only way we got a female cat was one day Lucy was at our backdoor as a kitten. She stayed around for a couple of days, and I became attached to that loving cat. Finally, they relented and said OK we can keep her. This was in my later teenage years and yes, she did finally get pregnant. At this time, I was then drafted into the army. I was in basic training when the kittens were born. My mother played midwife and by the look on her face when the subject came up. I think she really enjoyed helping to raise her midlife family. They didn’t have much difficulty finding new homes for the kittens.

I also had other pets in my younger days. One summer I won a baby duck at a bazaar. I was able to keep it until the fall. I built a cage for her and in the evening, I would lay down papers on the garage floor and take the cage into the garage and the duck would follow right along and stand on the newspapers and let me put the cage over her. She knew the routine. She became Thanksgiving dinner to a needy family we knew from church.

I loved my duck. Never gave it a name though, it was just duck.

I also had other living creatures also. I had a goldfish. It just swam around in the fishbowl and came to the top of the water for food. I also had a turtle. It was just as boring as a fish. We used to keep it on top of the hot water heater. Well, it was forgotten about for a couple of days and the water all evaporated and so much for a turtle. In junior high they had hamsters and guinea pigs. We used to let the hamsters crawl in our sleeves and shirts. They were fun. My son had a ferret. Those animals had a weird smell. I had a rental property for a while and the renter had a boa constrictor about six feet long. No thanks!

In my marriage I finally was able to have a dog. Ginger was some kind of mix. Had her for a long time. I also remember other dogs. There was Gypsy, Cuddles and Missy. Missy was a peekapoo, she weighed less than five pounds. Had her for over thirteen years.

The love and loyalty from a dog cannot be beat!