The Casey Syndrome

   As long as I can remember we have been a family in possession of, or possessed by animals. (Starting in Lethbridge circa 1918)

     My first memories are of horses, perhaps because I was in mortal fear of them, and of a cow named Goldie, I think that was her name. A Jersey cow which my grandmother milked so much she had to send pails of milk up the street to neighbors. She supervised the feeding, as I recall, Eddie always carried the pails of bran across the yard to feed the cow.

   We lived in a locale of a barn and lawns, in what is now downtown Lethbridge, and later the large verandahed, Edwardian home became the Chinook club headquarters and then a warren of small apartments, before it was destructed to make way for a parking lot. It was 1119 3rd Ave. That was the address.
    Babe and Bess my father’s black team were Raw-boned mustangs and I disappointed my father tremendously because I screamed when he put me on their massive backs to back them into the barn.
     I don't know whether I remember the Dalmatians that were dad’s carriage dogs or just saw pictures of them.
     Patsy was our pet and our problem in Ottawa. A wild black and white English setter, Patsy was so named because the black markings on her seat were shaped like shamrock leaves, with her tail for a stem. Patsy was every inch a bird-dog confined in and frustrated by, the city streets of Ottawa! Sparrows the only birds around became her particular challenge, and when challenged no fence was too high for her to leap.
     Dad brought a kitten home to me once in the pocket of his winter coat, a gray and cuddly kitten. At this point we didn't have Patsy. I don't really know what happened to her, although I was allowed to believe that she had been trapped by Methodists in the basement of the neighborhood church and we were not Methodists.
     Patsy also served as our sled dog in harnesses made out of dad's old suspenders. It was a sparrow that ended our rides behind Patsy. She went over the snow banks over the drifts and she went spilling Frank and me, and leaving Eddy with a broken collar bone and harness in his hands. Patsy was blocks away in no time and we didn't know where she went.
    Our cats were usually called “Kitty”. One used to follow Frank and me to church, wait outside in the handy tree and then hopped down to greet us with a meow and lead us home.
    Dixie was a small creamy golden cocker spaniel. She was Mary special pet, ours too, but especially Mary's. She slept in the basement of our house in Kingston and every morning when allowed up, she toured the bedrooms, checking on her family, especially Mary, before she returned to the kitchen to have breakfast. I think we got her in Morrisburg, "the runt of the litter" of pure-bred dogs from the kennel run by a friend of Dads.
    We only had one pure-bred while Dad was alive. Dixie was killed by a car one evening when we returned from a frolic with her in the park.  Still excited from her run with us she jumped out of the car with Mary and raced across the street, under the wheels of an oncoming car. Mary was heartbroken, so was I. We cried incessantly for several days. Finally Dad fixed his stern eye on us and said “enough is enough”. So our mourning came to an abrupt end but her memory is still with us.
   When we moved to the Sault in the late mid-30s Lassie was our first pet, a small delicate black-and-white spaniel puppy. She died of a heart attack while being spayed.

   Glen Gyle Nancy of Argyle entered our lives. A red setter beautiful and brainless! At the same time we had a Persian cat also beautiful but stone deaf. Nancy was wild! She was a hunting dog, exposed to city living and in a small house on Church Street in Sault Ste. Marie. The passageway through the four downstairs rooms became a race track for the cat and the dog. Kitty would sit on a chair, tail hanging over the edge, watching a bit, and the dog would creep up behind her. She was deaf remember, grab her tail and flip her over her back and then the chase began. Living room- dining room- kitchen- hall, round and round. Cheered on by Frank and Eddie and till an abrupt halt was called loud and clear from Dad "What the hell is going on? Stop that noise!!!"
     Nancy hated the Iceman. He had a wagon and Nancy would hear it turn up our street, and by the time Bill the Iceman reached our house, she was in a frenzy. She couldn't figure out the apparent deformity of a human being-the Iceman who had a leather half cape over his back and shoulder, and slung a large block of ice on his shoulder holding it up there with the tong. Nancy was tied so he was safe. Bill stuttered, and it took him all the way up the laneway and back steps to say “I hope that's a strong rope Mrs. Gallivan” while he dropped it into the top of our icebox.
     Nancy did all of us a favor once. Nancy got carsick and was standing in the backseat of the car one day, front paws on the back of the front seat, Dad driving, Mr. Donegan beside him. Nancy dumped her last meal onto Mr. Donegan's shoulder and into his coat pocket. We did not like Mr. Donegan, Nancy was our hero.

 Nancy ailed and had to be destroyed. Dad performed the autopsy; she had cancer of the liver.

   When we went to camp we not only had a bevy of children, and a ton of groceries, beach equipment, bicycles and games, but we also had pets. Sadie and her five kittens accompanied us to Maskinodge Bay with mother an unhappy camper by the way, my four children nine to two, Mary’s two boys 3 1/2 and one and a half, in the 50s. There were no stringent highway restrictions those days, so the nine of us distributed ourselves amongst the groceries, with Sadie's basket filled with her kittens across us in the backseat. Sadie prowled and howled and the kittens meowed pitifully.

    In the front seat sat my mother, who disapproved of the entire expedition. The kittens did not get carsick as we feared, no, they did it differently. They and their mother suffered from an odoriferous looseness of the bowels. The children yelled and held their noses and gagged but the caravan was past the midpoint of the journey so we put the windows down and let the breezes blow. Have you ever tried to keep a panic stricken yowling diarrhoeas cat in control, especially when your first instinct was to flaunt the Humane Society, and fling it into the roadside bush.

    We arrived at camp, adults in angry silence, and children racing down to the beach to wash, with the cat leisurely marshalling her brood. She led them from the car and promptly attacked an unsuspecting chipmunk.

   Mary who couldn't bear to be parted from her pets broke her silence "Sadie let that animal go, I'm going to kill that cat!"

    Sadie was a hunter, mice and chipmunks and birds were her prey and one skunk. The one that got away, yes she had a will of her own, but I swear she could will the skunk to silence. She stalked and caught up with the skunk in the tree shelter behind the camp. We smelled a skunk but our first real indication of trouble was Jimmy's high-pitched squeal. “Sadie! Sadie's got a skunk, poor old Sadie! And before we could stop him Sadie was in his arms. Oh poor Sadie, the skunk got Sadie there was a pregnant pause before Mary ran with a big can of tomato juice, took Sadie down to the dock to coo  at her, as she doused her  in tomato juice. The theory was it destroys the odour. She then dumped her in the river, gently of course and cooing her sympathy.

    Jimmy was prodded to the woods and I divested him of his clothing which to this day is still buried there, and then the poor lad, towel around him, went for total immersion into the river.

    Patrick crawled after a kitten under the cabin with a 6 inch to 1 foot crawlspace, sat up between the timbers and promptly forgot how to crawl out. Mother came out of her icy disapproval long enough to suggest his favorite chocolate marshmallow cookies were a good lure, so Suzanne laid flat on her stomach and stretched under the beams and held out a chocolate biscuit.” Put your head down Patrick, come on head down, keep it down, slither over here, you can do it Patrick, I have your cookie, you can do it Patrick I'm right over here, don't cry, I'm right over here. Scratched and dirty he was finally loured out by Suzanne. That was mother's last camping trip. Afterwards she always would once come to our camps make sure we were safe, visit us to make sure the children had adequate shelter, but she neither trusted us her daughters, nor the great Canadian outdoors, having been nurtured on the gentle slopes and fields of the “old land” Ireland.

    “Sport” was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with the best in dogdom. She was a mix, part spaniel, part Spitz, part Terrier part whatever, but all loyalty and love. Her real name was “Sportelia Laureen”, Sport for short. Mother's dog, Suzanne's dog, Jimmy’s dog, a family member, acquired for us through Mary Jane, whose friend’s dog had a litter that was to be destroyed. Her friend was peddling them from door to door in the neighborhood and Mary Jane assured us that the pup was a male, hence the name Sport. We had her spayed she was not a male.

   Sport was a day camper, as night fell she would go to the car and wait to be transported, after all mother was in town alone and unprotected. She did not hunt or bother the neighbors she was at heel whenever the children moved.        

She raced the car from one camp to another; her vocation was to keep as many members of the family within her sight as much as possible. Sportelia Laureen was put to sleep at the age of 16.

   No matter how many pets we had, we were not prepared for Casey! Jimmy, who was working as a student part-time with a local vet, called Mary one day and asked her if she would like a pup. Mary having only one cat the time was fair game. In the same breath before Mary could utter a word he said if you don't want him he's going to be killed. Enough said. Casey entered the family. Casey was ugly and Casey was incorrigible and the McIntyre's one and all fell prey to his cantankerous charm.

Casey had no judgment in choosing his enemies. Casey chased cars. Casey found every other dog was a challenge. Mastiff, Pekingese, he had no judgment whatever, his approach was attack. Casey was part – Dachshund because of his long body and little short legs, part Terrier, his plumed tail came from somewhere, your guess is as good as mine, but his drooping nose definitely indicated a snoopy connection. Casey was a hazard at home because he chased cars and a hazard on the beach because he chased children, attacked other dogs, bark incessantly and completely made a nuisance of himself, but was so much loved.

   Chipmunks drove him wild. They taunted him, accepted his challenge, and then beat him to the nearest tree. In the bear years we were afraid that he might meet his ultimate challenge, but the Bears respected his aggressiveness and speed, they must have because they didn't bother us when Casey was noisily in the residence. Paul looked up from reading one night to state that Casey thinks he is” King of the Bears”.

   My own memorable encounter with Casey was foolishly trying to stop a fight between Casey versus a large dog who was not intimidated by him and accepted his challenge. I tried to separate them, and Casey turned on me, and bit my helping hand not deliberately, but in his all-encompassing anger because he was being interfered with. Because it was Casey I lied to Mary and insisted it was the other dog that had gashed my hand. Why did I defend him, he was such an annoying pesky animal? Why did I lie for him he was brash and unpredictable, and cocky, and often chastened, but never sorry for his escapades not even momentarily. I guess because to quote Sheila as she held him squirming and protesting in her arms Casey is beautiful. Catherine tried for hours to capture his image on paper. Sheila summed it up. Casey is beautiful!

    Casey loved the swamp he harassed the frogs and they taunted him.  Inevitably he dove into the weeds in the lily pads in the swamp mush and swamp smell. Try that in a small cottage overcrowded with children when he came out dripping and muddy and draped with weeds and of course on the way home he'd roll in the sand.

Now I will talk about the Doorbell cats. The first big black cat was named “Dorabell” until we found out we had misjudged her sex so he became Doorbell. Doorbell didn’t like Wilfred and Wilf returned the compliment and hated him. It was in the days of coal furnaces. We had a monster at McDougall Street complete with a coal hole, stoker and a long instrument for clinker removal. Doorbell lay on the top of the furnace and taunted Wilf as he ministered to the furnace, hissing quietly crouched as I he would be poised for a jump. The confrontation usually ended with Doorbell dodging a shovelful of coal but Doorbell had his revenge. He would quietly enter the room when Wilf was reading the newspaper leap and hiss and walk sedately across the paper crumpling it as he went, before he was dumped onto the floor by Wilf.

   Lena was terrified of cats. He would disappear when she arrived, and later without warning hop onto the back of the chesterfield behind her shoulders relishing her hysterical reaction.

Then there was Candy a striped grey black and white cat that was Suzanne’s. Loved to chase and bring home dead birds. She lived for 12 years amongst the traffic on Wellington and Albert but was finally run over by a car. Suzanne was despondent, missed school because she couldn't stop crying. It seems she had wanted a new kitten and blamed herself for Candy’s death. We finally went to the Humane Society and got Ellie May but she would have no part of a new cat. Poor cat ran away probably feeling quite unloved. She was a special pet of the Society staff given to us with many admonitions for care and who disappeared the day after she arrived.

“Hippy” arrived in our lives from Toronto in 1967.She was a beautiful velvety grey Maltese. Hippy was an apartment cat having spent his kitten hood and early years in a down town high-rise in Toronto. Michael and Hippy were not buddies. He was about 11 lying on the floor on his stomach, elbows under his chin, watching television when Hippy did an appearing act. He jumped from the arm of the chair over Michael’s prone figure turned in the air and landed with a hiss two inches from Michael’s face. The prone figure elevated himself with a roar and Hippy was gone!

 Hippy couldn't climb a tree easily. He would run up the trunk and out on the underside of a branch and of course fall to the ground landing on his back. Hippy by dint of speed and cunning became the King of McDougall Street. He was a show off. He would entertain passers-by, by preceding them with mock stiff legged arched back, stalking, and end his act by leaping in the air and landing with a sideways gallop. Hippy was daring. He played chicken with cars. He would sit in the middle of the road facing an oncoming car, flatten himself out calculating the center between the wheels and let the car pass over him then pick himself up and swagger to the curb. He did it once too often. He forgot that his reflexes were not as sharp as he was ageing. He didn't quite calculate the centre. A neighbor child knocked on the door opened a garbage bag and said “Is this cat?” It was Hippy his eyes closed his mouth a tight line his expression said “Ouch Bad timing. One lovely life gone!

“Pixie” was a Terripoo, hyper like a poodle, persistent like a terrier and not very bright though lovable. A descendant of the Olsen dogs! He yapped (poodle) and tore things up (socks furniture underwear). Pixie did not want to be alone and Mother did not like him “Get that cat out of my room”. When Mother died the house was empty during the day and Pixie had to be confined in the family room. He ate the chair cushions and then decided to dig his way through a door. The grooves are probably still there. Pixie is not! We found him a home through the Humane Society conditional to getting his nails clipped. The new owner an elderly lady wanted companionship and that’s what Pixie wanted too so all had a happy ending.

“Gibson” is Suzanne’s dog, Stevens’s dog, and Joanna’s dog. An Australian shepherd who I am certain is three quarters Dingo! He had prominent round blue blue eyes, pointed ears and a shaggy black and grey coat with a unpredictable temperament. He barks wildly and throws himself at the door when one leaves. He hates the mail man, has a menacing growl but loves and guards the Olsen family. If I hug one of the Olsen's, Gibson leaps arguably between us. He is wild but intelligent and would be well trained if it weren't for Suzanne who spoils him and breaks his rules which confuses him. It is hard to know where his greatest allegiance is, probably  Steven. He and the cat Loser get along very well. Loser has him trained to respect her and tolerates only so much nonsense and interference until his nose feels the fury of her claws.

There were other pets. Fluffy the snake Steven’s Python! Suzanne’s chameleon that ate her guppies which was then eaten by Doorbell!

There was the turtle duo Elvis and Pokey who were buried at a formal funeral with headstones inscribed with nail polish in the back yard.

   There were Tyrone and Cleo and the family hit lady but that is a different