Animals

 Scott loved animals, and animals loved Scott.  They flocked to him.  Cats, dogs, chickens, cows, sheep, you name it.  They all loved Scott.

Every morning when we would go for our dog walk on the ranch behind our house, we would inevitably run into the herd of cattle.  The cows and calves would scatter as we approached.  Scott would always stop, murmur to them, and before long, he would have a small cluster gathered around him, seeking head scratches.  The barn cat that lives on the ranch would come running every time she saw Scott striding up the road.  He would pick her up, give her lots of pets, and check her over for any mats.  If he found some mats, he would go back later with a pair of scissors and cut them out.  He also took her a heated cat house to sleep in during the winter.

When we did our morning beach walks in Mexico, we would start out with just us and our two doggies.  As we walked, dogs from far and wide would join us, charging up to Scott with wagging tails to get pets and loves.  By the time we reached the end of the beach and turned around to return to our apartment, we would have acquired a pack of ten random dogs.  Other beach walkers would see us approaching with our dog pack, laugh, and shake their heads.  Scott would smile, nod, say, "Buenos dias," and keep walking.  

I now have two dogs and three cats in my care, and every one of them came to live at our house because of Scott.  Our oldest cat, Lily, is 18.  We got her as a tiny kitten.  Some friends of ours had a barn cat who had two kittens.  The kittens had goopy eyes, and our friends were going out of town.  They asked us to go over and clean out the kittens' eyes.  I remember sitting on the couch, me holding one kitten and Scott holding the other.  He looked at me, then at his kitten, then back at me, and said, "You know, if we were going to get another cat, this would be a pretty good one."  That was that.  We came home with Lily.

A few years later, I came home from work one day and saw a cardboard box on the kitchen counter.  What the heck is that? I wondered.  I walked over to the box and unfolded the lid.  There, inside, was the tiniest kitten I had ever seen.  I immediately texted Scott.

There's a kitten in a box on the counter.

I watched the three dots blink on my screen, then the reply.  What?  That's weird.

I knew he was joking, and I knew he brought the kitten home.  When he got home from work, he told me the story.  His crew was deconstructing a wall at the job site.  One of his guys was running a saw down the wall, and Scott saw something dart out just beneath the blade.  Scott yelled at the guy to stop cutting, went over to see, and found two teeny kittens shivering and shaking in the debris pile.  He immediately picked them up, found a box and some shop rags, and put them inside.  He searched all day for the mom but never found her.  One of Scott's crew wanted a kitten for his daughter, so he took one.  Scott brought home the other, and that's how we came to have Gigi.

2020 came, along with Covid.  Scott was working on another remodel and house flip on a property we had just purchased.  Along with the property and fixer-upper came a thriving feral cat colony.  Scott spent hours after work sitting on the front porch of the house, letting the cats get used to him.  He counted six adults and fourteen kittens.  His goal was to re-home all of them.  After a week of sitting on the porch, he got a few live traps and set them out, unarmed.  He put food around the traps to get the cats used to eating near them.  Another week passed, and Scott started feeding the cats inside the traps, still unarmed, so the cats could go in and out of the traps to eat.  Finally, after nearly a month of getting the cats conditioned, he started setting the traps.  Within two days, he caught all of them.  He set them up in crates and carriers in our garage, with food, water, and litter boxes.  Within two more days, he had re-homed all of them.  Well, he re-homed almost all of them.  There was one kitten, a tiny, fluffy, fierce, black puffball, who Scott did not re-home.  He claimed he was only getting her "housebroken" and would try to find a home for her in a few days.  

On day two of the "housebreaking" process, as Scott was carrying her around in the hood of his sweatshirt, I asked, "So, what's her name?"

Without hesitation, he answered, "Marge Gunderson, but we'll just call her Marge."

We got Juno, our yellow lab, in March of 2023, after losing our beloved Zoey the previous October.  Scott went back and forth about getting another dog.  Zoey's death was devastating for both of us, but it hit Scott especially hard.  The two of them were inseparable from day one.  He was hesitant to seek a "replacement."  He finally decided to go for it, so we started looking and found a breeder who had exactly the type of dog he wanted: yellow, female, American-style, strong bird-hunting heritage.

When we arrived at the breeder, she took us into a kennel and let the pups out to meet us.  Immediately, a rolly-polly stocky little puppy came right over and sat down on Scott's boot.  He laughed and played with her, then tried interacting with the other puppies.  Some of them played with him for a bit, but mostly they slept or went back inside to eat.  All except the one.  She kept sitting on Scott's boots, or chewing on the edges, or bouncing around his feet.  

After nearly an hour of interacting, Scott asked out loud, "Which one should we pick?"  The puppy at his feet let out a heavy sigh, then sat squarely down on his boot.  We both laughed, he scooped her up, and that's how we got Juno.

Ernie, our Yorkie, was inherited from Scott's mom after she passed away.  I could not envision how a nine-pound dog was going to fit into our life, but Scott made a promise to his mom to take good care of Ernie, so that's what we intended to do.  Ernie came to live with us in the spring of 2024, and he adapted instantly.  Juno showed him the ropes of being a mountain dog.  The cats showed him how to be a cat.  Scott and I fell in love with him.  Every morning when Scott would leave for work, he would ask the dogs, "Do you guys wanna go?"  Both Juno and Ernie would jump up and charge out the door, trotting jauntily to Scott's big work truck.  Scott would lift them both into the back seat, close the door, and off they would go.

Scott's love of animals was one of the countless things I loved about him.  He had the biggest heart of anyone I know, with endless compassion and kindness.  I saw it.  Everyone who knew him saw it.  The animals saw it more clearly than all of us.