Image: 20200120_1076_palm.jpg
Image: 20200120_1076_thumb.jpg
Text: 20200120_1076_text.txt:
- Members of The Pivot Rock Fund board of directors.
- Drawing by Craig Knitt, Boys and Girls Club of Green Bay,
- January 2020.
Text: Alek.txt:
- Alek arrived in the spring of 2019 from the Happily Ever After
- shelter. (Apparently he crossed many state lines to get here
- from Corpus Christi TX.) Smart, affectionate, wanting to please,
- and only half the minimum age I had in mind. Alek had to start
- his term on the board of The Pivot Rock Fund as an intern.
Text: Buddy.txt:
- Buddy Dog arrived in 2005. He had been rescued and
- treated by Neil Rechsteiner the year before. Buddy
- had been dropped off with an injured leg which had
- to be wired. Neil's plan had been to give Buddy to
- his daughter; when that didn't work out we became
- the second choice. Buddy lived through of all 2019
- but after 14 years his internal organs failed.
Text: Buffy.txt:
- Buffy Dog was reportedly given up to the animal shelter by
- a Catholic priest because she barked too much, embarassing
- the parish. She never barked excessively when she was with
- me, so that can't be right. The real reason has to be that
- she was asking to be transferred into my care.
- I got her after moving back to finish college in Green Bay
- and she went with me to Madison, Rib Mountain, and Madison.
- She enjoyed long walks up Rib Mountain and through rural
- Fitchburg.
- Buffy converted my mother to liking dogs and she became a
- favorite of almost everyone including her vet Dennis Nyren.
- In 1983 she succumbed to heartworm.
Text: Fluffy.txt:
- Fluffy Angel Kitty has an extra name because of her
- convoluted life history. Her previous owners called
- her Kitty, though her real name was supposed to have
- been Angel. I thought her long, soft, white hair
- could only belong to a Fluffy. She arrived in 2012
- as a refugee from an apoptotic home. Coming to a new
- house with a new, big dog and an extra cat was not
- really what she wanted and at first she hid in the
- basement. Gradually we enticed Fluffy to expand her
- range to the bedroom (where the cat food is normally
- dispensed) and the bathroom (with sometimes running
- water) and the upstairs (which was almost her own
- private space) and so on. Fluffy was an indoor only
- Kitty ... until she saw Wheatley having fun outside
- and decided to become a little bit more adventurous.
- Then Fluffy taught Wheatley how to slip out of the
-
⋮
≫ More Fluffy.txt
Text: Joshua.txt:
- As soon as I moved to Escanaba I went to the shelter to find
- a dog. The woman suggested that I consider a large, colliesque
- beast that had been given up by a family. We walked around the
- parking lot and looked at my truck and when the woman asked,
- "Should I put him back in the kennel now?" I said, "No." He
- had some paperwork but I couldn't read his name, so I tried
- out a series of possibilities until he said, roughly, good
- enough; stick with Joshua.
- Escanaba is a small city and we walked all over it, so it is
- not surprising that eventually we walked past a couple of boys
- who were part of Joshua's old family. The boys came regularly
- to visit Joshua. I learned that their parents had been sent to
- jail for stealing from the Republican Party, their older
- brother had also been in trouble. The dissolution of that
-
⋮
≫ More Joshua.txt
Text: Pepper.txt:
- Pepper was a yupper and yuppers have a certain reputation,
- intelligence-wise. My friend Travis and his grandparents
- helped me pick him out at the Iron Mountain animal shelter.
- It soon became clear that Pepper was not the smartest of
- my pets and eventually I told him, "I'm going to teach you
- to be cute, because that's all you've got going for you."
- I may have exaggerated, but he did learn to be cute and a
- lot of people noticed. (That is, when they could see him.
- One time we were walking at night a a surprised woman
- said, "You can't even see him in the dark." I said, "His
- hair is so black you can't see him well even in the day.")
- Pepper did have one impressive skill, however. When you
- threw a stick for him, even in the middle of the woods,
- he would always bring back that stick back to you. Never
- did he give up and never would he substitute.
-
⋮
≫ More Pepper.txt
Text: Ruby.txt:
- Rainbow Ruby was an old dog with a systemic infection. I
- found her in the Manitowoc animal shelter and she lasted
- about 10 months. Ruby was a beautiful and inventive dog
- but her illness limited her. Before my parents moved to
- assisted living, Ruby and I would walk the mile to their
- house nearly every day. She loved to go, but she could
- only manage to move at about 2 miles per hour. She loved
- the woods but couldn't climb the river banks, so she would
- have to walk upstream or down to search out a more gentle
- crossing place. On her last day, Ruby asked for one final
- walk around the block. She made it, but collapsed in our
- driveway and gently passed away.
Text: Skippy.txt:
- Skippy was my first dog. My father found him when I was in
- second grade. The mother of the family that had adopted him
- turned out to be allergic. Skippy was just a puppy at the
- time and we fed him Cheerios until he graduated to dog food.
- My mother agreed to letting me have a dog only if he stayed
- outside. He was never allowed in the house except when he
- went straight to the basement for a bath. My dad built an
- insulated doghouse which we moved inside the garage for the
- winters.
- When I was a high school senior, Skippy went to the woods
- with my parents and was hit by a car along with the neighbor
- dog.
Text: Smokey.txt:
- Smokey Cat was a wanderer. In February a kitten wandered
- into our yard and met Joshua Dog (who spoke Cat). Joshua
- insisted that we adopt the little fellow, who had even
- walked around the block with us one morning. Smokey never
- lost the wanderlust and so he had lots of adventures some
- of which are recorded in the Cat Tales.
- [/Opera%20perfecta/CatTales]
- Smokey would even travel to the woods with us. He didn't
- like the ride, but he enjoyed exploring and camping in
- the woods. When Wheatley came in 2002, Smokey undertook
- teaching the new cat to catch mice, which they proudly
- brought into the house to show me, and they enjoyed each
- other for about 3 years.
Text: Tiger.txt:
- Tiger Kitten was owned by a boy across the street
- whose mother turned out to be allergic to cats. She
- was a wonderful little cat, but when being spayed
- she proved to be hemophiliac. Despite the vet's
- efforts she didn't survive the operation. She was
- only with me long enough for me to miss her badly
- when she was gone.
Text: Wheatley.txt:
- In 2002, Wheatley Cat was given to me as a kitten by
- Travis, Molly, and Tracie (to shake me out of missing
- Tiger). Wheatley was a shoulder cat for many years and
- became a mouser to compete with Smokey. I named him for
- his coat color. I thought the fur might be the color of
- barley but I was worried I'd mispronounce it as Barf-ly.
- Instead I settled on wheat color; mispronouced that
- would come out Sweetly. (My neighbor told me later that
- a previous owner of our house was also named Wheatley.)
- Wheatley lived for just over 20 years, outlasting a few
- dogs.