By Bill Vogrin on July 9, 2023

Animals have played a big part in my life starting as a boy with our beloved family dog, Boots, a stray who joined the family when I was about 5 years old.

She was the nicest member of our family, hands down. Patient. Kind. Always smiling. A great watchdog. Boots would play tug-of-war and tolerate grooming, being grabbed and held and petted way too hard by young children.

Boots had four white paws, thus her name. She was mostly black with brown mixed in and white on the tip of her tail, her nose, throat and belly.

She would wag furiously when I came home from school and roll over for scritches on her tummy. That’s when we’d “make her motor run” because her hind leg would wave wildly in the air when you scratched her in the right spot.

It’s lucky Boots was so friendly because she had to share the house with other pets who wandered along, including “Mama Cat” and her litter, two white mice, a white rabbit and various birds, garter snakes and other critters we dragged home.

Boots wanted to be in the middle of everything. If we were watching cartoons on TV, Boots would curl up next to us on the floor. Often, I’d rest my head on her, like a pillow, and she never moved. (That’s because I was her favorite!)

She missed us like crazy when we’d leave for vacations, which usually lasted two weeks each summer.

She was the best dog ever. Boots was the first proof the word “dog” is misspelled. It should be reversed!

Eventually Boots died and we adopted Gypsy, a Cocker spaniel mix who showed up, disappeared and then returned to stay.

Gypsy quickly became the new best dog ever. She, like Boots, was a perfect fit in the loud, raucous Vogrin household. We named her Gypsy because she would vanish for days. 

I remember being very sad the first couple times Gypsy went wandering. I figured she didn’t like all the arguing, bickering and fighting that went on in our house. I know I hated it. But then she’d show up at the door, whining to get in, wagging her tail and smiling, just as Boots had done.

Of course I didn’t realize it then, but Gypsy was teaching me that friends come and go in our lives. You might not see them for long periods of time, but when you are reunited, it’s joyous and you pick up like you’d never been apart. 

Gypsy also taught me a difficult lesson about pain and suffering when she ran in front of a car and got hit. I remember seeing it happen. I heard her cry out, then limp under a neighbor’s porch. Her rear leg was broken and it was traumatic to see.

Someone managed to coax her out and we took her to a veterinarian where her leg was put in a cast. Over the next few months, I learned about being a caregiver because Gypsy had to be carried in and outside frequently. And she needed her bandages changed and ointment applied for weeks until her skin healed and fur grew back.

For the rest of her life, Gypsy was unable to bend her back leg. She’d still run as fast as she could, swinging her stiff rear leg. But she never whined or showed any change in her personality. She accepted her near reality, adapted to her disability and carried on like normal. 

Except she never again left the house to roam the neighborhood. And she stayed out of the street.

It seems strange today to think that dogs wandered anywhere they wanted. But Boots and Gypsy and the rest of the neighborhood dogs pretty much were free-range pets. (Like the kids!) They had the run of 16th Street. And that means they did their business in other neighbors’ yards! We’d let them out after dark, they’d go do their thing, and happily run home, scratching at the door to get in.

I doubt the neighbors were too happy about it.

Anyway, when Gypsy died, it was devastating. I was away at the University of Kansas and the folks were alone in their house on Washington Avenue, having moved from 16th Street. My Dad swore he would never have another dog. 

That was just his grief talking. My Dad loved his dogs, starting with the legendary Jiggs, a Dalmation he had when he and Mom got married in 1951. He especially loved Dalmations and Jiggs was his second.

But Jiggs didn’t do well with kids around and eventually, I recall, Jiggs “went off to live at the farm.” 

So there was no way Dad and Mom, retired and in their 60s, were going to spend their remaining years with no dog. So we surprised him with a Cocker puppy for Christmas 1981 and he named her Lady.

She was a beautiful dog and my Dad’s companion for many years. His final dog was another Cocker named Rusty, who went to live with Jimmy and Dene’ when the folks died in 2000.

As for the rest of the menagerie at the Vogrin house, I barely remember the bunny we got for Easter in 1961. 

(This is a photo of me holding the bunny as my brother Edward looked on, wishing he was as cool as me. HA!)

I do remember we’d block off the doors to the living and dining rooms so it couldn’t get on the carpet. Then we’d bring it into the kitchen and it would run around the stove in the center of the room (yes we had a huge gas stove as an island in the kitchen) and it would poop little pellets as we chased it.

The two white mice we had were pretty interesting, too. They lived in a bird cage and we’d take them out and let them run around.

This is a photo of the mice crawling around my cowboy hat as my brother Edward again looks on, again wishing he was as cool as me. (HAHAHAHA!)

Again, the most remarkable thing about the mice was the volume of poop they created. We cleaned their cage constantly to hold down the smell.

As an adult, I wanted my own dogs. In 1993, I took Anna down to the animal shelter in Peoria, Ill., to pick out a stray to adopt. We came home with . . . Boots!

She was a great little dog. Smart, happy, smiling. She was a barker, but she was very loving and great with kids.

She was also accepting of a new friend when Kirby came to live with us.

Kirby was a Springer spaniel, very energetic and also quite a barker. Drove our old neighbors quite crazy with Boots and Kirby chasing around the backyard at full volume.

Kirby was also very loving and he would sprawl on the floor next to the kids’ beds at night.

Those dogs made quite a pair. A few times, they escaped from our yard and we went looking all over the neighborhood, worried sick.

The one time I couldn’t find them, we got a call on the home phone (you remember, the plastic box with buttons and a hand-held receiver you’d put to your ear and mouth to hear and talk.)

The dogs had followed Monument Creek and the railroad tracks a mile or two north of our house. The man who found them said the big dog (Kirby) seemed to be following the little one (Boots). He said Kirby ran right up to him when he called but Boots wouldn’t come near him! They were both filthy from being in the creek but they seemed happy to see us and came home.

Of course, we can’t talk about pets without talking about Nugget and Han Solo.

In 2007, Nugget was born and joined our family, quickly earning the title of the world’s greatest dog ever. He really was. Again, I think he was the nicest member of our family. Who’s a good boy?

Everyone loved Nugget. Grandpa Mike. Grandma Lois. The kids. The neighbors. (They all had pet envy due to Nugget!)

We had a great life with Nugget. He’d travel with us and get carsick. He’d get so excited everytime we came home, we’d have to clean up his “Wee-wee of Joy.” He was so laid back and he made everyone think that they were his favorite person. (I was really his favorite. HA!)

No family photo was complete without Nugget resting in someone’s arms. (Usually Ben’s arms.)

Nugget even came to work with Cary and me on occasion.

He was as beloved as any human. And we miss him incredibly.

Cary and I thought we were done with pets after Nugget. With Anna, Peter and Ben all off on their own, we didn’t think it was fair to leave a new dog home for hours alone while we worked or traveled.

Then Ben did us the favor of adopting a cat he wasn’t allowed to keep.

Enter Han Solo, also known as Mr. Scritches. Han (I added Solo to his name) arrived in October 2021 and I admit I was not a fan of the idea. But I quickly fell in love with this little orange cat. 

Han is the reincarnation of Nugget, according to Cary. And Han adores her. I am not even a close second in the rankings of his favorite humans.

It hasn’t always been easy, being the human to a dog or cat. I’ve had to hold them as they were scared to death at the vet’s office. I’ve comforted them when they were suffering with broken paws or other injuries.

And I’ve cried when I made the heartbreaking decision to let them go.

I’ve never been able to watch one of our pets suffer with no hope for recovery. I believe it’s far better to hold them as they take their last breath than to prolong their pain just because I don’t want to go through that awful goodbye.

I simply focus on all the joy, the smiles, the wagging tails, the purrs, that I’ve enjoyed from my four-legged friends. They’ve been there for me and put up with my moods and sometimes misguided handling of them. 

All our pets were loyal and loving and brought so much to our lives. We were lucky to have enjoyed them in our lives.