When you were growing up, did you have any animals or pets?

We didn't have too many pets when I was growing up. We got a rooster one year for Easter. We appropriately named him "Easter". We kept him in the garage until he started waking us up in the mornings! We gave him to a farmer down in Boschertown to raise and keep on his farm. We used to keep turtles frequently when we would find them in the neighborhood yards. We had a few hamsters but nothing too exciting. When we were in early junior high school years, we finally convince Mom and Dad to let us get a dog. I don't even remember where we got the dog from but we got a small poodle and terrier mix. She was black and grey colored and we named her Pepper. She was a great dog - very friendly and playful but I didn't care much about her. I guess that I was too young to be concerned with a dog. Pepper kind of became Mom's dog....Pepper loved Mom and Mom took care of her most of the time. We used to drive through McDonalds and get a plain hamburger for her and then drive through DQ to get her a small dish of ice cream too. She wasn't overweight but I am sure that it wasn't healthy for her. Pepper tried to jump into the house from the backyard and caught her leg against the door frame and hurt her leg really bad. She had to have surgery and was never really the same after that. She kept getting injured and her health was getting worse and Mom & Dad made the decision to have her put down. Mom was so upset and very sad about losing Pepper but they didn't want to get another dog after that. Mom used to call her "Jou Babe". Our hamsters were named Pooter and Scooter and Skippy. I think we had 4 or 5 hamsters named Skippy.

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