Full house

When I was six years old, I lived with these two awesome guys named Chance and Isaac. We were one big happy family squeezed in a small two-bedroom log cabin in Scriba, NY. It started out as me, my mommy, my nother mother (as I call her) and Isaac Marie, a beautiful husky-lab mix with sky-blue eyes.

We should have smelled trouble when my nother mother started visiting the dog pound on a regular basis. There she met Romeo, a black and white spotted mix-breed who had been living at the pound for several months. My nother mother brought home a picture of him and put it on the fridge because we didn’t have room for another body in the house…or so we thought.

One day my nother mother got a call from the pound. Someone had dropped off a litter of puppies and they needed to make room. Romeo was going to be put to sleep. My mommy and my nother mother quickly agreed that Romeo would come live with us. We weren’t sure what kind of a doggy he would be, especially after being in a cage for so long.

Romeo got a new name when he came to live with us…Chance or Chancey. He won us all over right away, all 65 plus pounds of love. He loved to lean all his weight on you, or just lay in your lap. Although he stayed in a cage for the first few days to be sure he wasn’t going to go AWOL on the house, my mommy and nother mother quickly realized Chance was just happy to be home.

I loved to play with Chance and Isaac. For such big boys, they were so gentle with me. One time though, my ear got caught between somebody’s teeth and it broke a blood vessel. My ear puffed up really big and filled with blood. I had to get surgery, but it didn’t stop me from playing with my boys or humping them. It was an accident after all.

And just when we thought our family was complete, along came a cat. This cat must have had nine lives. When it came to our house, it was the dead of winter. The cat had been seeking shelter under the porch, and preying upon my mommy and nother mother’s animal loving hearts. Before you know it, we had a new family member.

At first we figured the cat wouldn’t want to live with three dogs and that would be the end of things. As soon as the black cat stepped foot in the door though, Isaac fell in love. He immediately stepped up to clean the cat’s coat with his teeth, a habit he would continue until we all separated. And the cat loved us all in return. We named our new family member Miner, as in coal miner.

It turns out the cat was a rabid killer. Miner would bring home more food than it could eat to the chagrin of my two moms, as well as our landlord. One time Miner got in a fight with a raccoon. My mommy heard it in the middle of the night but figured it was some wild animals fighting. Miner’s tail almost fell off before we discovered her wounds. She lived though and the hair grew back white on her tail, so now she’s not a true black cat.

I only saw Chance and Isaac a few times after we moved out of the log cabin. Chance is 14-years-old now and crazy as ever according to my nother mother. He lives in Germany. Isaac Marie passed away in October 2007. He was nine. Miner is now retired on Irondequoit Bay in Rochester. Her age is unknown.