When I was a little girl, my mother brought me a Golden Book, and it was called Dixie, Trixie, Nixie, and Pixie [perhaps not in that order].  The book was about four little cocker spaniels, and those were their names.  I fell in love with the book and wanted a cocker spaniel.  So for Christmas, Momma and Daddy located a black cocker spaniel in the area and purchased him for me.  I, of course, named him Pixie. 

As I finished unwrapping my Christmas gifts under our Christmas tree, I didn't notice Daddy's disappearance.  He had gone outside and gotten Pixie and let him in.  Pixie ran wildly through the living room and gave me quite a fright.  I'd never been around dogs much at all.  None of my playmates had dogs, so I was clueless.  Mom and Daddy hadn't really been around dogs other than working dogs on a farm, so with no experience, we weren't the best owners for Pixie.  

Mom couldn't imagine keeping a dog in the house, so Pixie was outside in a pen, and whenever we let him in, he'd get so excited, he'd urinate all over himself and the floor.  I later heard that black spaniels were the most rambunxious of the breed!  It wasn't too long, and Mom found another home for Pixie.  It didn't really bother me much because I was halfway afraid of him and really allergic to him, too.  But I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Cocker Spaniels because of the little Golden Book that I read as a child.  

I spent my entire childhood pet-less!  Then one day, my former neighbor, Teensie Butler, brought me a grey cat that she named Dittawack.  The Butlers always had cats that they couldn't get rid of, and when Teensie visited one time, she brought me one, which we had not asked for!  But being soft-hearted, we let it stay but outside.  The weekend after Teensie brought the cat, Mom and I took Grandma, Grandpa, and Margie to Amherst County to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousin, Ralph, Geneva, and Nancy, and as we pulled out of the driveway, my last words were to Daddy, "Be sure to take care of Dittawack." 

Daddy looked after Dittawack as I'd asked, and while backing his pickup truck out of the driveway, he heard a clang and saw a bloodied cat fly out from under the hood of the truck.  Apparently, it was warm up inside the truck where the motor was, and Dittawack had crawled up there to sleep.  Daddy thought one of the belts in the motor had hit her head and stunned her.  All he could think of were my last words to him!  

Duke, a young man who worked for Daddy at the time, was in the truck, and he said, "Aw, cats will lick themselves clean, and she'll be all right." So Daddy took him at his word, and they went on to work.  When Daddy came home, Dittawack appeared to be okay--although she was a little crazy acting, which we always attributed to a brain injury in the accident.  

After that, Dittawack became a "house" cat and lived 16 years!