pet peeve

They say that pets tend to look like their owners, but I don't believe it.



Then again, I never believed those wild theories that the sky is blue and the grass is green either.

My dog Sasha (who has her own Facebook page) wasn't impressed by the above photo, by the way. She advised me not to flatter myself. But then, she was having a bad day after sneaking a large chunk of ham off the table and suffering the Mother of All Bellyaches for a couple days after. That's enough to make the most angelic dog a little grumpy.

You can see some resemblance to humanity in the dog in this next video too. Thanks to my mother-in-law for this one.



If you are one of the 3,053,837 people that have already seen that video, I hope it at least made you smile again.

I've always had a soft spot for animals of any description. It started with a beagle named Jennifer who used to terrify me by putting her front paws on my shoulders (I was about four years old . . .).

Then it was a cat named Pickles, who was named after Pickles the Firehouse Cat. It must have been destiny, knocking at my childhood door. Little did I know that I would grow up to be a real firefighter, who rescued a real cat from a real tree, while my deputy chief simultaneously tried to steady the ladder and stifle real laughter.

In my teens, I became interested in horses, and spent the next seven years in their company . . . farming, logging, riding . . . it was a horse-lover's paradise. I will eventually get around to posting some of those old photos here, but for now I have to stick to my theme.

My theme . . . which was . . . ah yes, pet rescues. At least that's what I turned the theme into. I've personally been involved in dog, cat, cow, and sheep rescues. I've come to the aid of numerous horses, pigs, chickens, and turkeys. I know a firefighter who resuscitated a fish. I read about some firefighters that responded to a python rescue. I draw the line at snakes, by the way, animal lover that I am. Come to think of it, are snakes even in the animal kingdom?

Firefighters will continue to be called upon to rescue furry, scaly, and slimy critters of all descriptions. It isn't in the Firefighter Manual, or the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Firefighters, or even the Firefighter's Job Description. But they will continue to call us for one simple reason:

We don't say no.