THE FIRST LIVING THING I WAS EVER RESPONSIBLE FOR

The summer of 1965 was just before my 14th birthday that I learned what it was like to be a responsible parent (or child or a pet). In this situation, Mom informed me that there would be no help from my brother or sisters. At that time Mom informed me that my responsibilities wee as follows:

I will NOT ask my brother or sisters to feed Pauline it was totally up to me to do
I was responsible for her cleanliness
I was responsible for her training
lastly I was responsible her medical, housing (cage Daddy and I built, and of course her food. In ode for me to

I began this new relationship broker than broke. :-( OH, one other responsibility I was responsible for and that was I had to go down to the creek and catch crawfish every now and then I believe to give her a treat.

My goodness sake, I've forgotten to tell you all what kind of animal Pauline was.........Can you guess? :-) She had a beautifully long tail with rings on it anddddddd a little black face mask around her eyes some call her kind of animal the "little bandit". Yes, (giggle) she was a raccoon about 4 weeks old when she came to live with me for just a little while. After having her in my home and heart for about 10 months or so, she began getting out of her cage and I'd find her in the hayloft or other places around the house. As she got older and wiser, I became less blind to what captivity was for her. The bottom line was, she was meant to be free, out in GOD'S beautiful wild woods. At that time, I had a biology teacher I had talked to about her and he owned a huge plot of land covered in woods and he asked me if I'd like to bring her out there and turn her loose in the woods. I took a couple of days to think about it and decided that she did deserve to lead a normal raccoon life, so Daddy and I loaded her up in the car and drove her 10 miles down the road to my teacher's home and let her go free. She was the one who actually taught me to truly give to others and to think of others before self. You may ask what was it that finally made up my mind about letting her go. Well, one day not too long before I let her go we had some company and Pauline had gotten into biting so I put her in the bathroom and left her there until the company left. When I went in to let her out, there were little bloody paw prints on the counter, mirror. That scared me and helped me to see that she was not happy any longer with me so it became obvious that she'd rather be free.

After that we had one other special pet and his name was "Flower". Can you guess what he was? Yes...you got it, Flower was a skunk. There was also usually a gallon jar with a hog nosed snake in it that I had good morning talks with while I ate my cereal, but those my brother had to take out and release before we got on the school bus. Those were just some of my happy childhood days and I thank the GOOD LORD for HIS loving gift of them and the many more HE has given throughout my life.

Comments

StrongGrace55 November 8, 2017 at 9:36am

Sweet story. Thanks for sharing it with us. I am a cat person and have some cat stories to share!

- Terry Stonebarger > StrongGrace55 November 8, 2017 at 9:42am
  
  I will be watching for them. I simply love animals with some exceptions. LOL Like snakes and mice. But when camping I am constantly looking out for Bigfoot. :-)