Do You Have the Pet Gene?

LUCY BURDETTE: I am starting the week overloading you with puppy pictures, but I can’t help myself as this little girl is only 9 1/2 weeks old. Here Lottie (Carlotta) is meeting Snuggle Puppy, who has a beating heart that is supposed to remind her of her mom so SHE CAN SLEEP. Possibly even one day THROUGH THE NIGHT...

T-bone and John are a little grumpy about having a puppy in the house. (I am trying to do most of the puppy duty until they come around). 

T-bone's thinking about it

Twice in the span of our 28 year marriage, we’ve had a set of animals die close together. First it was Poco the Aussie followed by two undistinguished cats. And then two years ago, Tonka, the wonderful amazing Aussie, love of my life, and the marvelous and popular gray cat Yoda both died within the span of a month.

John adored both of those animals in the end, and enjoyed the antics of the others. But he would be perfectly content not to have a pet in the house. He acquiesced about a cat after I moaned and groaned for five animal-empty months, and I went with a friend to pick out my wonderful T-bone. This spring, I began to agitate about getting a dog. 

“I thought I might be able to extinguish the pet gene if I waited long enough,” he said with chagrin. “But it’s too strong in your family.”

Lucy's mom with Schatzie

And that’s totally true. My mother was mad for animals and we always had two or three around, often more. German Shepherds, cats, guinea pigs and other assorted rodents all took up residence. My father could’ve done without, but he caved because my mother adored them. So that’s the question for today, do you have a family history of a pet gene? Even if you don’t have an animal right now?

RHYS BOWEN : my family absolutely had the pet gene. Growing up we had Sooty followed by Brownie followed by Patch ( who was a champion bull terrier. Looked terrifying but was a big old softie) and lastly Waldi the dachshund the love of my life. When the kids were small we had a disaster of an English Setter but a lovely cat called Marmalade. Since then no animals. Why? Because John absolutely does not have the pet gene. He claims it’s because we live in two places and travel so much. But I’ve worked out what it is with men!  Any attention given to a cute furry thing is attention not given to them!

At least I have adorable grand-dogs who love me.

HALLIE EPHRON: I don’t know it’s genetic (my mother was decidedly not an animal person) but if it weren’t for asthma and allergies, I’d have cats. Jerry and I had one, then two, then four in a two-bedroom apartment in NY. The basement of our NY UPPER West Side apartment building seemed to breed them. 

Gradually we gave them away as I got sicker. My favorite was a black and white male we named Eloise before it became obvious that she was a he. I still miss him/her. 

JENN McKINLAY: Oh, yeah, I have that gene BIG TIME. In my defense, I grew up with dogs,  rabbits, guinea pigs, gerbils, chickens, ducks, geese, a horse, fish, and on and on. My dad rescued a lot of birds and rehabbed them - my favorite was a sparrow hawk that lived in his art studio for an entire winter while he trained it (with raw liver) to hunt and thrive with one foot -- Dad found him on a farm caught in a bird leg trap and had to amputate the mangled leg. Naturally, my own very small house is overrun with pets. Presently, we are at three cats, two dogs, and a fish who won’t die (seriously, we’ve had him for 13 years -- he’s going in the will).

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Not much of a pet gene here. My dad liked dogs, and they had several in the years before I was born, but they were outside dogs who all came to bad ends and my mom never wanted an animal of any kind in the house. She especially disliked cats! When I was nine, my parents gave into my pleading and adopted a middle-aged  miniature poodle that was being given away by relatives who were moving out of the country. Poor Jolie, she was such a disappointment. Certainly not the dog of my dreams! In my teens I had fish and gerbils and finches, much to my mom's dismay, then eventually a nearly feral kitten. My mom was horrified, but the cat stayed. My maternal grandmother did like cats, however, and in the last years of her life adopted a blue Persian, which had to be re-homed when she died.

These days we have two dogs, three cats, and four koi in the pond.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, dear, well, that’s a good question. Growing up, we had SO many pets! Endless cats--Mrs. Purdy, who gave birth to her kittens in my closet on my first day in eighth grade, Picnic, Rosemary, and Rosemary’s babies, who were named F. Scott and Zelda.
We had a whole string of Irish Setters--Rusty (who chased cars and lived most of his life with three legs as a result) and Penny (who saved my sister Liz from being hit by a car while riding her pony and in order to protect our parents, Liz and I buried Penny back in the fields by ourselves) (Liz got in trouble.) And Roderick St. John. We had a Hungarian Sheepdog (a Puli) named Maggie, and two English Spaniels, Bailey and Barkely. Oh, and at one point, a massive Great Dane, Milton. And the ponies and horses. And two gerbils, named Chet and David, which Mrs. Purdy, um, ate.
AND a stupid stupid STUPID Mynah bird (named Yurza, get it?) who learned to imitate the phone, which was beyond annoying.

You all know about my darling cat Lola, who died at age 20 and loved only me --ONLY me--until she met Jonathan, who is deathly allergic to cats, and as soon as she figured that out, she sat on him every moment she could. And the hilarious and unique Leon, who would wake me up in the morning by batting me in the face with a paw.

So, bottom line, Jonathan is allergic to dogs and cats, (probably a good thing, since I’d adore to have a cat), we have our ducks!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I very rarely had pets when growing up, as we moved a lot in the military. My sister and I begged and pleaded for a dog, and we adopted one... and three months later were were posted to Germany. The dog went to Grandma's, and by the time we returned from Europe four years later it wasn't our dog anymore, but Grandma's beloved companion.



Perhaps as a result, my brother, my sister and I have always had pets as adults. Patrick specializes in one very well trained dog at a time. Barb has packs of dogs. No exaggeration - she's down to three since one recently passed away. As the only one in the family without cat allergies, I've had one or two kitties since I was twenty-five, with one or two dogs mixed in (not counting the foster dogs and long-term sitting for friends.) Just adding them up in my head, I realize right now we all have the same number of pets as we do children! 

In my household, the Maine Millennial is the owner of the current dog and one cat, and I have the other (for values of the words "owner" and "have." I keep saying when Neko passes away, I'm done with kitties, because of family allergies (see above.) I'm sure you'll all get to see if I keep that pledge or not. I suspect I'm a lot more like Lucy in this regard!

Reds, does the pet gene run in your family? Or are you just as happy to watch from the sidelines?