CCU faculty and staff are going to the dogs and cats
by Prufer
Be careful what you ask for. If you ask someone for a photo of their beloved pet, usually a cat or dog, you are likely to get on average five or six images of the animal posing with his or her human, in repose, looking directly at the camera lens, wearing clothes and/or doing other “cute things.” (One staffer sent 15 images!) We love our pets.
It is also hard to limit people to one paragraph of copy about their dog or cat. We really love our pets.
But they are so much fun to look at and read about, so here are a few faculty and staff members widely known for adoring their animals. Some are foster families and help rescue and place homeless animals. We know we missed a lot of you, so send us your pictures and their stories (mprufer@coastal.edu). After all, it’s summer, and the news is slow, and, well, we love our pets.
In their own words, here are a few CCU animal lovers sharing their photos and stories of their fuzzy buddies.
• Alexandra Morris, digital journalist in Video Production Services
My closest hairy friend, Sofi, has a special role in the household. She is modest and always wears clothes, mediates quarrels between the two other dogs, understands an impressive amount of English words, and has a unique affinity for apples. She is small but fast like a bullet. She may greet people three times excitedly before she feels satisfied. Her tongue knows no bounds. Sofi sometimes needs reassurance when another dog in the house steals her toys. She is a gentle soul and would be delighted to extend her paw to anyone who will accept it.
• Aneilya Barnes, associate professor of history, Edwards College and director of QEP
I’ve always had dogs in my life growing up, and I missed not having them after moving to SC. I had been too long without one, and I was spending far too many hours a day in the office. I decided that it would be nice to have a furry little friend to encourage me to come home at more reasonable hours. Fortunately, I had a friend who owned two dachshunds, making them a great trial run for having the breed in my own house. They spent about four days with me, and I had no allergy issues, which was a significant concern for me when choosing a dog. Also, because we were concerned about making a responsible choice, my husband and I made an agreement with his colleague, who had long been a dachshund owner and was ready to adopt another of his own, that if I did develop a allergies to the puppy his colleague would take it, ensuring it would still have a wonderful, happy home.
In January of 2014, we brought home Esmeralda Lolita, who was an eight-week-old miniature black-and-tan dachshund. It was one of the best decisions I ever made! She has been the sweetest companion since the day she arrived and has brought more joy to our home than I ever imaged ten furry little pounds could muster. In fact, we have taken such delight in her that we decided to add a second addition to our home. In April of 2015, we brought home Theodora Bellatrix who was a chocolate dapple miniature dachshund puppy. They are best of friends and full of all the ridiculous antics that their equally ridiculous names would suggest. H.L. Menken once said that dachshunds are “a dog-and-a-half long and half a dog high,” so I have given them names to match both their length and height and call them Elda and Thea for short, in addition to about a dozen other nicknames they have worked very hard to earn. While I would love to have adopted a pet from a shelter, unfortunately, it is not always possible to find the right choice for every home, which can be a disaster for both the owner and the pet. Therefore, I would strongly encourage others who face complications similar to mine to take the time to do the research necessary to find both the proper breed and responsible breeders before committing to a pet, ensuring a proper match and years of happiness for both. They are just the stress relief that this doctor needed!
• Holley Tankersley, associate dean of the Edwards College, and Dan Albergotti, English professor, poet and outgoing chair of the Department of English
Holley: The second we moved from an apartment to our house, I began agitating for a puppy! Dan was skeptical because we travel a good bit, and we both occupied fairly demanding administrative positions. He feared we would not have the time to train or exercise a puppy in the way that it would deserve, and the kicker was that we both have mild allergies. About two years ago, I saw an opening: I would be on scholarly reassignment in the fall semester, so I reasoned that if we got a puppy in the summer, I could spend time on training while I was working on my research at home. I had been scouring rescue and shelter websites for breeds that are low-allergy or low-shed.
One morning I saw a picture of this tiny, fluffy, Schnauzer/terrier mixed breed puppy that had been taken in by All4Paws, a no-kill rescue shelter in Pawleys Island. My seriousness about this little girl was too much for Dan to fight, so we scheduled an appointment to go meet her. The wonderful staff at All4Paws got Mindy out of her pen and brought her into the shelter room for us to get to know her. They placed her right in Dan’s arms, and I knew he was a goner!
The puppy – our Mindy – snuggled right up against him and licked his face. After all of my years of cajoling, all it took for Dan to relent was one little kiss from that fluffy puppy! There are a lot of studies that show that dogs relieve stress and anxiety in humans; we can definitively state that this is true. Mindy brings us a bucketful of happiness every day, teaching us joy and patience along the way. The only problem is that she is so darned cute that we cannot resist her. She is one spoiled puppy!
• Dennis Edwards, chair, finance and economics, Wall College
During the first week of August 2003, I had to go to the Walmart in north Conway for a few basic items. On my way to the front door, there was a woman outside with the tiniest black lab/chow mix puppies you ever saw. I held one and asked how old they were. She responded “four weeks,” much too young to be separated from their mother. She and her husband lived on a local farm and she said they could not possibly care for any additional animals. So she had set up shop in front of Walmart and was giving them away for free.
On our way home, the little solid black pup howled the entire way. When I would take her outside to house train, a loud noise such as thunder or a passing truck made her wince and run for the safety of my car’s undercarriage in the carport. At this time, she literally fit in the palm of my hand.I would pet her as she ate soft dog food (she couldn’t chew anything solid since her baby teeth were still coming in). She would put one paw in the food on the plate and stuff her nose in the middle of it. I would have to wipe her face every time she finished eating. She was given the name Zoe Marie (Zoe for short) for no other reason than I thought it sounded good.
She will be 14 in two weeks.White has now taken hold on the chin of her once solid black face. I know her time to cross the rainbow bridge is approaching. She is the sweetest dog I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t growl at anyone or anything, instantly loves everybody and wags her tail constantly. I can’t watch television on the couch without her lying on the floor beside me. If she feels my hand leave her fur, she looks up and puts her paw on the couch until I put my hand back.
• Kerry Schwanz, associate professor of psychology
I'm a little hesitant to tell my story about my kitties because when people ask me how many cats I have and I say six, I often get "the look." Yes, I am CRAZY about my kitties and in fact, crazy about cats in general. I spend a great deal of time volunteering with homeless kitties at the Grand Strand Humane Society, which is part of the reason that I now find myself in a household with six cats of my own. All of my cats are rescues. I owe my love of felines to my stepfather, who rescued many cats when I was young, so we always had more than one as a pet when I was growing up.
I adopted my first kittens on my own when I graduated from CCU and was heading off to graduate school at the University of Georgia. My brother, who was home from college, went with me to the Grand Strand Humane Society to pick out a kitten. We looked at many cats and kittens, and it was a bit overwhelming. Then one “picked me.” A little black and white tuxedo kitten lunged from his cage in the lobby and grabbed my leg. I decided to adopt him and call him Freud after Sigmund Freud since I was a recent graduate from the psychology department. All of a sudden his littermate came bounding through the cage and tackled him, and they were both hanging on to one another swinging from the top of the cage. My younger brother, who was a big fraternity guy at the time and over 6 feet tall, looked at me and said, “You need to get both, they are brother and sister, they are just like us.” So that's how I ended up with Siggy, Freud's sister. Siggy ended up living until 15 years old, and Freud lived until 21, so I had the same cats for a very long time. Perhaps that is how I now justify having my second generation of six kitties.
Most of my current kitties were adopted from the Grand Strand Humane Society 21 years after I got my first kittens from there! Bodhi, Frosty and Izzy were all adopted as kittens from the shelter, and Paisley was a “foster failure,” meaning that I was only supposed to foster her, but when her adopter fell through I couldn’t bring her back. I no longer foster, even though fostering is vital to saving homeless animals. I have learned my limits and know that I can volunteer with the kitties at the shelter but not bring them into my home. With six kitties, we are at our limit!
Two of our other cats came to us by “accident.” Ani, our beautiful calico, was dumped at our house, and we think she was abused because for the better part of a year she attacked us. Ani is now rehabilitated and is so sweet and loving. Puffy, aka Puff Daddy, was left in the neighborhood when his owners moved away without him, so he now lives in my garage. So that's my current generation of kitty kids. They give unconditional love, make me laugh when I am down and provide hours and hours of entertainment. They are fun, quirky, loving, wonderful, trying at times, but I am truly crazy about my kitties! Please just don't call me a crazy cat lady.
• Wendi Lee, public information coordinator, Wall College of Business
Blue is a lively, rambunctious, playful, yet loyal and sweet beagle/hound mix who became a member of the Lee household in April. Our 7-year-old son, River, begged us for a dog for several months, but my husband Justin and I kept brushing it off because we didn’t want the extra responsibility.
Finally, we relented and visited the Grand Strand Humane Society, but River didn’t feel a connection with any of the dogs there, which made him sad. But just as father and son were leaving the Horry County Animal Care Center in Conway the next day, a little white and brown dog caught Justin’s eye. He stood out from the rest with his calm demeanor (we have since found out this was a farce – ha!) and his sad puppy eyes. Justin and River asked to play with this seemingly calm puppy, and after a few minutes River said, “Dad, this is my forever dog.” I was at work at the time, and when I came home that day, we had a new dog. I must admit that I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but I have fallen in love with Blue and his wild yet loving personality. I cannot talk about him without smiling and laughing, and I feel like now our family is complete.
• Mirinda Chestnut, administrative specialist, Office of Financial Services
Ginger is our “fix” for our broken-hearted family when we lost Bella, our beloved Jack Russell terrier, last year. Ginger fills our home with joy! When you have grown boys who aren’t home much, this little sweet girl is our perfect fix! Ginger is a short-legged, smooth-coated Jack Russell. She has beautiful markings and a wonderful disposition. We got her in Aiken when she was 15 weeks old, and she has never whined the first night since we got her.
She is still young and hasn’t learned any tricks yet, but we hope she will learn some of the ones that Bella knew. She has learned to bark for certain things she wants. She does occasionally escape out of the door on a run. (My husband is a slow learner.) She is very fast and very hard to catch. She loves cookies, chew bones and squeak toys (usually these don’t last long). She loves to go on walks in her harness and leash and never meets a stranger!
She really, REALLY wants to get a squirrel! Her favorite spot is on the ottoman in front of a window so she can lie there and survey the neighbors coming and going and working in their yards. She is always excited when we come home, especially for me! She has so much personality, energy and love to share. We will be taking her to downtown Conway some this summer for some of the music and events now that she is fully grown. I highly recommend Jack Russells; this is the only breed we will ever own.
• Tammy Holt, accountant/fiscal analyst, facilities planning and management
Toby is a schnauzer/poodle mix, which makes him a schnoodle. He is 4 years old, and he is my best buddy. He runs with me every morning at 6 a.m., and he loves to run – much more than I do. There are some mornings when I don’t feel like getting out to run, but once Toby puts his chin on my leg and looks at me with those eyes, we are off and running. I like to think I rescued Toby from the pet store, but the truth is, Toby rescued me.
• Elizabeth Howie, art professor, Edwards College
I got my first cat when I was 6, on a trip to Myrtle Beach with my parents. My mom wanted to shop at the Foxy Lady, which at that time was a kind of hippy store in a little yellow house. They had free kittens, and I begged and begged until they let me take one home. That cat, Meca, lived to be 21!
When I was in my 20s, a young cat showed up at the house where I lived in the country. I assumed it would keep wandering, so didn’t feed it as I didn’t want to encourage it to hang around. Later, we found it dead under the house. That was when I made a promise to myself to never ignore another stray in need.
I adopted two cats from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SCPA) in my 20s. When I had had them a couple of years, a starving dog showed up at my house in the country and joined the family. She was sad because the cats didn’t like her, so I got a Siberian Husky to keep her company. After the last cat died at 19, I was petless for a few months until a former advisee asked me for help finding a home for a kitten she’d rescued. That cat and his brother had been abandoned and left to starve at 12 weeks old when their owners moved out of their apartment. Not surprisingly, Riley ended up with me. A year and a half later, she told me that Riley’s brother, who was with a family member, needed health care that they couldn’t afford, so Cat the Cat joined the family. And shortly after that, fellow cat lady Andrea Bergstrom was fostering kittens for the North Myrtle Beach Humane Society, and I fell in love with a tiny tabby girl – Sable joined the family when she was 10 weeks old.
Meanwhile, a semi-feral stray cat showed up at my house in Conway with a puncture wound through one paw. I took him to the vet to get it treated and get him neutered etc., and now Francesco has been with us for 2.5 years – one of my friends calls him my porch panther. Francesco is friends with a possom and a raccoon, with whom he shares his food. When a beautiful Siamese girl showed up, I took her to the vet and found her a home with friends of friends of Boston and shipped her there via United Airlines. Two years ago I fostered a black lab who had been living wild behind the Conway Medical Center, until he found a home with a former student. He is now enjoying the good life in Montana. Most recently, I tried to rescue another cat who showed up at my house, but my attempts to catch him to take him to the vet seem to have driven him off, sadly. I’m hoping he will return. My three indoor and one outdoor cats are such wonderful companions, and so full of personality. I don’t know what I would do without them!
