Memories from the Past by Jerry

I will write about some of the pets we had as a family.  It is my understanding that when the Mary Verna and John Leonard family lived in Blackfoot, Idaho, Dad had a beautiful hunting dog. (Paul will have to verify this story)  I don’t know what kind or if dad used the dog for hunting.  (We do have a picture of dad standing with a group of mothers’ brothers and sisters and he is holding a shot gun).  The story as told to me is that the dog bit someone and in those days they did not have an animal shelter to take the dog to.  You had to put down the dog yourself.  Dad took the dog out in the desert and had to shoot the dog and bury it.  Dad said that he never wanted to do that again and so we never had any pets.  One time a turkey wandered into our yard on 30^th street and we kind of made a pet of it, but we ate it for Thanksgiving.  When we moved up to Monroe, I built a pen that I kept pigeons in.  I would let them out in the daytime and they would come back at night.  They’d  get into the pen by themselves but could not get out. (A one way door)  I also had Guinea pigs in the bottom of the pen and they were fun to play with.  We would take them out on the grass and watch them run around.  (We use to tell the neighbor kids that if you held a Guinea Pig up by its’ tail, its’ eyes would fall out.  Guinea Pigs do not have tails) 

It seems like we always had rabbits.  It was part of my job to gather hay for the rabbits to eat.   I Would go to a vacant lot and there would be clumps of hay for me to cut.  But the rabbits were not so much a pet as they were our source of meat during   WW II (when meat was rationed) and after.  We would take the small bunnies, when they opened their eyes and had fur on them, out of the pens and play with them on the grass.  But dad taught us how to kill and skin the rabbits.  We also learned how to kill chickens so that their feathers would come loose without putting them in hot water.

I think that not having pet dogs around the family, we all grew up not having a real fondness for dogs.  I am not aware of any of my generation having had dogs as pets.  Mother had a few cats after father passed away but they were all outdoor cats.

It seems like on Margaret & mine two missions, a lot of people have house dogs and you have to put up with them when you go into their homes.  I have been bitten by two dogs in my life, one when I was young and staying with our Engh cousins and once when we lived in Castro Valley, on my way home from work.  I think dogs know that I’m scared of them.