Pets, when someone says that word around me my mind does a flashback to all the warm, furry, loving creatrres I have had around me.

The first pet I can remember was a very large Alaskin Malmute that answered to the name of Bandit.  My parents got him before I was born and by the time I was one he was my protector.  I was scared to death of him for the longest time, but somehow he earned my trust and affection.  He would pull me around  on my big yellow wagon with a specially made harness made for him to do just that.  When a stranger came near me Bandit was right there by my side to protect me from an harm that might have come of me.

The day bandit disapeared was a reall sad day for me.  My parents said he had ran away because he was old and didn't want us to go though the pain of him dying.  I still to this day wonder what ever happened to him, I will always miss my protector.  He's been gone since I was a fifth grader. I used to sit in class while the teacher droned on and on, and daydream that when I got home that day Bandit was sitting on the front steps waiting for me to get home and brush his long hair.  But unfortunetly that dream has never come true.

The next dog we got was, another Alaskin Malmute named Allie, when I was a fourth grader.  She was a stupid dog.  Well I shouldn't be that mean , but, she wasn't the brightest dog.  She never grew to be as big as Bandit but she was just fine.  When she was hot on a sunny morning she would crawl under a car to find shade and would somehow manage to get herself stuck under a car.  So we would have to jack up the cars so we could get her out.  The very next day she would head right back under there and we would go though the same thing all over again.

I was not there the day they put Allie to sleep.  When I got home that night and I found out they had to put that five year old little puppy to sleep I just started crying and would not stop.  I can remember the day we brought that little girl home, she kept crying because she missed her family. I did not understand why she was crying, but I felt so sorry for her.  When I found out how she had come to have to been put to sleep I felt even worse, She had developed cancer in her intestings.  I miss that dog waking me up in the middle of the night because the sirens of police cars and fire trucks hurt her ears.  She was the announcer.  You always knew when someone was at our house, she would start to bark as only she could bark.

The newest animal to my ever ending list of pets is another Alaskin Malmute, he goes by the name of Bear.  He may be only six months old right now, but I can not stand him, he constantly whines, and he loves the the only way to bug me the most by bitting and going into the bathroom and all over the place, ecpecally in the places I don't look at where I'm stepping.

The first pet I had that was mine and mine only was a little hamster that I named Chewy.  I gane him so many nicknames, he was the fuzz-buster, the chewster and any other names I could think of to name him.  I remember the day he died.  I had just gotten hime from visiting my grandma and he just didn't seem to be the same.  He just layed there in his cage and when I took him out of his cage he looked up at me with his beady black eyes as if to say he was sorry or to say thank-you for me adopting him into my heart.  He died right there in my hands.  Belive me, I just cried and cried.  Burying him was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  He is burried right underneath my beadroom window that faces to the north.

The next hamster that I had gotten was when I was in the eighth grade.  My best friend bought him for me.  It was my fourteenth birthday present.  I named that little rat, Pookie.  He was all but short of nice.  He loved to scare the day-lights out of me.  He would always find away to escape from his cage and it would take me forever to find him, it seemed as if he thought it was all a game.

The day he died it was just the same as when Chewy died, right in my hands.  That time I didn't cry as much, maybe because I had used up all of my tears on Allie, all I knew was that it really hurts to have someone die that you have had to care for for along time.  Josh was in my life when Pookie died and he came over to make me feel better.

The last and final pet that will go into this chapter aooeared in our garage when I was in the fifth grand, it was after a really bad snowstorm in march.  At first we were going to name him Harry, he was a long haired tabby cat.  We finally decided to name him Nermal, he looked just like Nermal on the cartoon, Garfield.  Basically he is a stray, he only comes home when he's hungry or when he want to bring us home a gopher or a rabbit that he cought and wanted to share with us.  Nermal has had his share of problems.  He's had to goto the vet twice to have surgery on his ears and he has gotten sprayed by a skunk once.  He's my "Mo" and the day that he never comes home will make me break down and cry for a very long time.

Those are the animals that come to mind when someone says the word pets.  Big or small they have always meant something  to me and I will never foget them as long as I live.

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