The Ginsburgh family pets in 1961. Don't know how my father got both of them to pose like that. Scotchy, cocker spaniel and Misty, tabby cat.
My parents were never big on cats, Misty was the only cat they ever had. Tabby tom cat who lived outside. We had him for a number of years, eventually he disappeared.
Scotchy, the beloved family pet, also lived outside most of the year. He put up with kids and generally enjoyed being a family dog. My parents bought him on impulse during a 'ride in the country'. They saw a sign advertising cocker pups and they decided to take a look. They picked out a black and white puppy. "What's black and white" asked my father. "Scotch" replied my mother, referring to the popular brand of scotch whisky. They were always social drinkers.
So we had Scotchy for many years. In the spring, my mother had all of his long coat shorn off for the hot Sacramento summer. In the morning, he would be a shaggy dog and in the afternoon, he would look completely transformed.
He liked tennis balls and running around the yard. When I first learned to read, I want to read out loud endlessly which my mother could not always do. "Go out and read to the dog" she would say. She would take me out to the backyard and sternly commanded the dog to sit. He would sit and listen to me read. Or I believed that he did.
4 comments:
Scotchy looks pretty contented with slimmy ball in mouth. Misty looks pretty relaxed too.
I wonder how Dad got the shot. Couldn't get Scotch to stay in one place too long for Dad to focus. Someone must of been off camera telling him to stay.
What good dog he was . . . small tail always wagging even though he had a neighborhood of kids to contend with.
Today pure breds are suspect to be impatient and snap at kids. Not our dog. Put up with all of us and our friends and only snapped once or twice.
We took real good care of him and he always had a yard and pleanty of food. He was loved by the people he owned.
I don't remember the cat being inside.
Mom says "I don't either, he preferred it outside I remember the dog sharing the dog house with the cat.
The dog was not allowed on the carpet and when we let him on the carpet, he was so nervous. There was linoleum with brightly colored pictures on it and Scotchy did not like it at all.
The time that Scotchy broke his leg on vacation. We were in Las Vegas. He was jumping over the half fence. We got home the next day and we took him to the vet. They took him to Davis to set the leg. The first thing he did was to walk into the living room and jump on the couch. Funny!
On Bow Place, we had installed a doggie door. It was hard to train Scotchy to use the doggie door.
He would take things out of the doggy door. Including Charlie's best hiking boots. Once he was pulling a vinyl tablecloth and one of mom's heavy candlesticks fell down. Probably scared him and he stopped dragging things out.
We wanted him to stay out on the porch but he didn't want to.
Let's watch him for awhile, says Mom. He took one of his blankets and he put it under the bar in the kitchen and he circled three times and laid on it.
So we decided that he wanted the bed there.
In that house, he had to go on the carpet to go outside. He was old at that point.
Pam said:
I remember the first year Charlie went to college. I had had a growth spurt and I thought that I could look him right in eye. And I was so disappointed when he came in that he had grown seven inches and was so much taller than me.
The dog just kept looking up!
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