Meet The Family: Of The Four-Legged Variety
Our three kids are all young adults now, out on their own. Phil (30), Riley (soon 27) and Avery (24) are independent and all living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Being veteran and battle-scarred parents, we continue to find things about them upon which to worry, but this long distance fretting is less satisfying than being able to do the traditional "hands-on, eyes-on" worrying any parent is so well-versed in.
As a proxy for our kids, we've accumulated a passel of animals over the years toward whom we devote our day-to-day fretting ... wondering if they are scratching excessively, if their poop is too loose or too hard (sorry ... but oh so true. It's a thing), and a variety of other pet owner concerns. Here ... meet the "kids":
Below we have the newest four-legged addition to the Jamison clan. That is Dexter, a 15 month old Clumber Spaniel. At the dog park he is quite a celebrity, because Clumbers are pretty rare in the world. There are only about 350 pups born in the US a year, so seeing one in the flesh is not a common thing. They are the largest of the Spaniel breeds, and the males weigh between 70-85 pounds. They are dense dogs .... not in intelligence, but in stoutness .... Dexter is quite the massive bowling ball of a dog, and strong as an ox. Clumbers are bred for bird hunting ... find 'em, flush 'em, fetch 'em is the motto. We don't hunt so Dexter's native skills are wasted with us, but his amiable personality is such a treat. We're so taken with Dex, and the breed in general, we're in the queue to add another in the early winter.
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Next we have Trevor, AKA The Little Prince. Our daughter Riley brought him home from a road trip nearly five years ago, and we claimed him as our own. He was a stray who Riley literally plucked from the streets, and he has rapidly become the heir to the feline throne in our house.
The Queen of the house is Rinny, short for Torino (because we acquired her during the 2006 Turin winter olympic games). She is the Grande Dame, and has finally, after nearly three years, decided to allow Trevor equal footing with her as co-leaders of the house.
We fret terribly when we have to leave the animals for an extended time. We know that is ridiculous. They would likely survive if they had to spend the time in the wilds, versus at the kennel or with a daily visit from a cat-sitter. But, there's no way around it, we fret about our animals.
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