Week 18 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is Pets.
My mother’s family had tons of pets growing up because my grandparents didn’t care what they brought home. They always had cats and kittens. They used to hold my Uncle Gary down -- one sibling per limb -- pour milk in his belly button, and put kittens on his belly. I imagine it was the worst kind of tickle torture. Sometimes they had lizards, or turtles, or frogs. My uncles even “collected” snakes for a time in a big barrel in the basement (yuck!). I’m not sure my grandparents knew about that one until they came across the barrel, and made my uncles get rid of the snakes. At any rate, there was always at least one critter in their home, but the only named pets I ever heard stories about were Penny and Mosquito, who were part of the family in the 1960s and early 1970s before I was born. Penny was a gorgeous, confident money cat. Mosquito was a nervous brown
and white chihuahua. Each of these furry family members left their mark on the people who cared for them.
As I said, Penny was beautiful – the most beautiful cat they ever owned, according to my mom and aunt. I wish I had a picture of Penny to share, but no one in the family seems to have one, though I remember seeing at least one picture of her in my grandfather’s albums when I was growing up. If any family member reading this has a picture of Penny, please send it and I'll add it. My aunt remembers a specific photo of her lying in a wooden Haitian bowl on the table. As a rule, Penny wasn’t allowed on the table, but she didn’t care and would sleep in the bowl anyway.
Penny was everything a great cat should be. She was both bold and affectionate. Penny used to stand guard on the front stoop, surveying the neighborhood and protecting her home. Whenever the neighbor’s dog, Rebel, walked by the house, Penny slowly sauntered up along next to him, and let out a hiss that sent the dog running home. He was a big dog too – larger than a German shepherd – but terrified of that little cat!
Penny loved being with her people, and like a typical cat, she was a nuisance about it. Whenever someone was doing homework, she jumped up on that table she wasn’t supposed to be on, and chewed their pencil, which made it difficult to work.
When I asked my mom to tell me about Penny, she said, “Penny was a whore!” and laughed. Like clockwork, Penny had three litters of kittens every year. This was well before Bob Barker. No one spayed or neutered their pets. Back then an “indoor cat” meant your cat was allowed inside the house sometimes, not that it was indoors-only. If you had a female cat, at some point she was going to have kittens. Penny always had kittens or was pregnant with them. Her kittens were beautiful -- so much so that despite her back-to-back pregnancies, the family never had trouble finding them homes. Friends and neighbors often asked when Penny was expecting. She was a devoted mother, but when it came time to give birth, she felt insecure and needed one of her humans with her. The family set up a birthing space for her in my Aunt Judy’s closet, but she didn’t always have her kittens there. If someone was around to sit by her side and stroke her fur, the kittens were born where they were supposed to be. Otherwise, she had them wherever her people were. Nana Connie went out one birthing day (to be fair, she didn’t realize it was going to be a birthing day) and headed straight for the bathroom to change when she returned home. The moment Penny realized someone was back, she raced to the bathroom crying, a kitten hanging halfway out of her! She felt such a strong need for reassurance that she refused to wait until the kitten was fully born before tracking my grandmother down. Another time, my Aunt Judy woke up in the middle of the night because she felt a weird scritchy-scratchy sensation on her belly, only to discover that Penny had given birth to her kittens right in her bed while she slept!
There was only room for one queen in the home, so when Mosquito came to live with the family, Penny made the poor dog’s life miserable. She made it clear that she was the boss! Not only did Penny beat Mosquito up whenever the dog crossed her path, but she somehow knew exactly where to hit her to make her pass out. You read that right. I don't know if she hit a pressure point, or shocked the dog so much that she fainted, but Mosquito regularly passed out when Penny hit her. In fact, Penny tortured her so much that Grampy Phil built a special cage to keep Mosquito safe. He tied pink tulle all over it to irritate the cat and keep her away. Penny grew especially hostile when Mosquito came near her babies. Once the kittens started toddling around the house, Mosquito drew them to her belly with her paw and tried to nurse them. The humans in the house all thought it was adorable, but Penny viewed the dog as a kitten-stealing loser. If she was going to hire a wet-nurse for her babies, Mosquito wouldn't make the cut.
Mosquito was high-strung, probably due to a rough start in life. The LaViolet house was her third and final home. She belonged to my great-grandmother Laura in Canada, and lived in an abusive home before Laura took her in. No one in the family remembers why Nanny Laura could no longer care for the little dog. Maybe she had too many young grandchildren running in and out of her house, and the dog snapped at them a few too many times. Maybe it coincided with her move into a retirement community. Whatever the reason, my grandparents agreed to adopt the neurotic little dog. They loved and cared for Mosquito, despite her many flaws. She was food-aggressive, so no one could approach her while she ate. She longed to be near people yet snapped at them. At night, she often slept in my Aunt Judy’s bed down by her feet, but when she moved at all, Mosquito growled and bit her toes. If she was being held and another family member came up and touched whoever was holding her, she growled and snapped. She certainly wasn’t an easy dog to love.
Despite this, she quickly became Grampy Phil’s buddy, which is odd because out of the two, Nana Connie was the real animal lover. At night when he watched TV, Grampy stuck the dog down the front of his V-neck sweater to keep her warm. He was so worried Mosquito would get cold in the rain and snow that he splurged on a set of rubber boots that he forced on Mosquito’s feet in inclement weather. This is a man who never spent money if he could avoid it, so for him to buy the dog boots….it was love. The dog hated those little, red boots though, and probably tried to bite Grampy’s face off whenever he put them on her.
Mosquito was spared the chaos of young children. No one got in her face, pulled her ears, or (boots aside) tried to dress her up in costumes, however, the teens and young adults of the LaViolet household had their own fun at the dog’s expense. My uncles used to feed Mosquito a couple of potato chips soaked in beer and laugh when she tried to stagger up the stairs. She’d make it up maybe two steps before toppling down drunk. My parents were dating at the time, so my dad participated too. When I was a kid, he loved telling me about the time Mosquito cuddled up next to him on the couch and he let out a noxious fart. The dog jumped down, walked halfway across the floor, and shot him the dirtiest look! Even though it happened years before, he laughed every time he pictured Mosquito’s disgusted, judgmental face.
Pets are part of our family. They enrich our day-to-day lives, and never ask for anything more than food and a bit of attention. In exchange, they offer us love, companionship, and cherished memories. Penny and Mosquito have been gone for more than fifty years, but my mom and her siblings still share stories about their gorgeous, always-pregnant cat and their crazy little dog, which is cool when you think about it. Good people love and remember their pets...even if they did get them drunk on occasion.
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