Animal Lover

It is important to note that my father was a lover of animals. I don't mean that he just admired them from afar he loved them and wanted to take care of all of them. As a result I grew up in a regular menagerie of animals. At our height we had 3 dogs, 4 cats, 1 Yellow Headed Amazon parrot (that's a BIG parrot), 1 ferret, 1 Vietnamese Pot Belly Pig, 1 Ball Python snake (that's a BIG snake), several gerbils and hamsters, several lizards and two turtles. No, our house was not a big one and yes they all lived inside the house with the exception of the two turtles that lived in the backyard.

My father worked on a construction site for 25 years, it was a prime place for stray animals so other than the cats and dogs, many of the animals were picked up while he was on the job.

Every one of the animals and I do mean EVERY one of the animals was given a bath weekly. Every week, each dog, cat, snake, bird, ferret and rodent got a bath. The snake was allowed to wrap itself around the shower bar the bird sat on the shower bar (not at the same time) while the shower ran. The cats CLUNG to the water spout screaming, the gerbils and hamsters were thrown into a sink filled with water, the ferret was thrown into a bathtub filled with water and the dogs were bathed outside either with a hose or in the plastic baby pool.

Every animal, every week. My mom and I were in hysterics as we remembered this weekly ritual of my dad's. In fact he gave our parrot a bath in the middle of February outside in her cage. He sprayed her with the water hose. Then while we were on vacation the parrot died while our friend April was on duty watching the animals. He blamed her for her death until the end we secretly blamed the outdoor winter shower :).

Near the end of his life dad added a tank full of fish to our collection. The fish of course gave birth to tons of babies in the tank. To let my mom and I know about their birth he called my mom and said "happy mother's day happy mother's day happy mother's day". He called me to say "you have hundred's of new brother's and sister's!". I kept that message on my phone for long after he died and it made me smile every time.

While on his death bed mom with tears in her eyes leaned over and then shouted at him "I can't believe you are leaving me alone with all these animals!!!!" It made the rest of us laugh and pretty sure that dad would have gotten a kick out of that one.