Goin' up the country, got to get away

FAMILY PETS: Alex, Charlene Sput, Ed, and Nik.

When I was growing up in Sudbury, our family had lots and lots of pets

Fish. Dogs. Rabbits. Cats. We even had a chicken once. It could run around the backyard tethered to a rope linked to the clothesline. Turtles, too, though you didn't have to tether them.

And it's not as if we lived on a farm. We were in the middle of the city.  

So in addition to the 10 kids my mom gave birth to, various cousins and workers and strangers staying at our house, we always had animals around. 

I can name a few of the dogs. Sput and Nik were  twin pups that came to our house courtesy of a Russian guy named Nick Soulhani who worked for the bus company my dad and his brother Ed ran. The ingenious dogs' names were my father's idea, I think.

Others? Lucky; Jigs; a mutt called The Grump. "Mixed-breeds" weren't a thing. I believe my older brother Tom won The Grump in a poker game; Loonie; Casey the St. Barnard, and I know I'm forgetting some. 

The only cat's name I recall is Kitten Little.

I was likely kindergarten age when Lucky and Kitten Little were palling around like a pair of cartoon characters. Lucky taught Kitten Little everything. She didn't meow so much as she barked. 

Another thing about the Carter menagerie. Animals came and went with dispatch. Fact of life. And death. The gone-boy script was followed regularly. That was okay. We were Catholic. Mysteries are just something you live with.

So were minor miracles. Once,  I think it was The Grump who went AWOL. Young Carters postered the West End and recruited friends in the search party. Somebody finally called the Humane Society. Turns out the dog catcher had nabbed The Grump. My mom forked over the $15 or whatever it took to bail him out, and we learned a few years later that she was the one who called in the dog catcher in the first place. That, too, had cost her.

Why am I telling you this now?

Guilt. Good old guilt.

Stick with me here.

Recently, we packed our much-loved 17-year-old white heterochromic (two different coloured eyes) Iris off to a small house in the country to live with my son Michel. 

She didn't put in for the transfer. It just felt right. Still does. 

I visited a few weeks ago, and never mind that when she saw me on the deck, Iris took one look, twisted around, hoisted her tail and walked away, effectively giving me the feline finger. Otherwise, Iris fans will be glad to know she's healthy and calm.

Here's my guilt.

WHEN IRIS' EYES ARE SMILING:
The world is her litterbox.

Let's go with 10 years ago.

I was telling my wife Helena about how one day when I was a pre-schooler, our part-collie -part- something-else Lucky and Kitten Little went missing. Just like that. 

I asked my mom what she figured happened.

She knew. The furry friends, mom told me, decided to head to the nation's capital, about 300 miles east of Sudbury, because a day earlier, my dad and two older brothers, Alex and Ed, had driven to Ottawa to visit our grandmother.

Lucky loved Ed and Kitten Little loved Alex so much they followed. I don't remember the pets ever arriving.

When I told Helena this story--remember I was 57, she immediately said, "And you believed that, right?"  

She waited a moment and added, "You kinda still do, right?"

Right up until that moment, that is. 

Yes, I was a bit embarrassed. I had a very hard time with two things: Not only the thought that Kitten Little and Lucky met with some other kind of fate, but also, my mom had fibbed.

I've come around.

My mother wouldn't tell her baby boy a lie. Any more than I'm fibbing when I tell you Iris is happy living in the country with Michel. 

Helena was wrong. 

Kitten Little and Lucky did head down the highway, God bless their furry little ears. They're probably at Arnprior by now.

And Iris loves country life. Honest to Pete.