The annual Rescues on the Runway event to benefit the Humane Educational Society is Saturday and, while it is sold out, reading about it made me realize that of the pets I’ve had over the years, the best have been rescues.
That’s not to say the two English bulldogs didn’t have their moments or that the lab mix I got from a friend wasn’t the craziest, most troubled animal I’ve ever known. When Elvis wasn’t jumping through the glass garage windows six feet off the ground, he was playing the piano to block out the sound of thunder. I’m not making either of those up.
Barry Courter
I once woke from a deep sleep to the sound of piano clanging and found him beating the keys with his front paws.
The best pet by far I ever had was Snoopy, a mutt. I still have the check for $2 that my father wrote to the Humane Society in 1970 for him. I was about 7 when we got him, and that dog went everywhere I did for the next decade or more. We roamed all over Brainerd, which I realize wouldn’t fly in today’s world, but when we went into the Red Food Store or the M&J, he’d sit by the door and wait.
He survived being hit by at least three cars, being bitten by a snake, being doused by a skunk (he didn’t “survive” the dousing so much as he survived my mother, who was not at all pleased with the odor he brought home) and a near plummet off Wilder Tower at the Chickamauga Battlefield.