A dog my daddy called “a mixed-up terrier.” He followed me everywhere, so everyone knew where to find me when we played hide-and-seek. He wasn’t allowed to sleep on my bed except when I was sick, which made me kind of look forward to that. —Ann W.
We inherited a young, cross-eyed Siamese cat that was beating up the neighbor’s dog. That boy grew up and happily let three little girls dress him in doll clothes and push him around in a baby buggy. He lived to be nineteen and set the bar for cat sainthood. —Melinda P.
Her name was Dixie. She was a pretty little liver and white English pointer. When my dad brought her home as an anniversary gift for my mom she said, “You got me a hunting dog?” Mom didn’t hunt. In the house, she was timid and tolerant of a rambunctious child, but in the field she was more confident and graceful. She wasn’t just my first pet, but my first bird dog. I joke that I might be an only child, but my sibling was a pointer, so I was always competing for attention. —Alexandra D.
My daddy brought me home two baby ducklings when I was very young. To this day, ducks are one of my favorite critters and I’d much rather see them happily swimming in a pond than in my gumbo. —Kathleen M.
My parents wanted my older brother Chip and me to have a pet, but a female so we could experience the added wonder of birth. We chose a cute kitten from a neighborhood litter that, after numerous inspections, we were assured was female, and named her Mable after a childhood book by that title. She turned out to be the biggest, toughest, roughest tom cat in the neighborhood but the name stuck. No kittens there! —Tom C.
I won the prize for the best decorated bicycle in the Fourth of July parade. I was ten years old and the prize was a mixed-breed puppy. —Martha P.
