Gen X Pets: They're Just Like Us

Back in the 70s and 80s, the pets were just as feral as the kids. Roaming the streets, marking their territory, and never hesitating to sink their teeth or claws into your skin if you got too close.  They didn't go to the vet, they didn't get pampered with a groomer, there were no puppuccinos, no one celebrated a "gotcha day" and they certainly were not allowed in the bed. 

But thankfully, we have evolved.  Thankfully, pets are celebrated and loved more than ever. In this week's episode, Eileen speaks about her Soul Dog, Bear.  Reflecting on the stark differences in our relationship with our pets from the 80s to now.  So curl up with your fur baby and tune in to Gen X Pets. 

Transcript

Eileen Kelly (00:00)
And when they were puppies, he anytime they put a toe over the property line, he would smack the paper on his hand and make a loud noise and scare them. And I'll tell ya, it worked. They never went down to the

Eileen Kelly (00:40)
Eileen Kelly. Welcome to Strangers with Kittens. I'm really glad you're here. we're at the top of the Ferris wheel about to go down into a really bad heat wave. So I'm kind of dreading that and very grateful for my air conditioning and thinking about heat waves back when we were kids. And I don't know about you, but I didn't have air conditioning

Wasn't as hot back then though either, I don't think. But we were also like skinny and kids and didn't know the difference, so ⁓

That'd be interesting. I wanna go back and look at temperatures from like averages from like I don't know nineteen eighty and now.

Eileen Kelly (01:22)
I have two dogs, but Bear is my Soul dog.

I've had quite a few dogs since I was a kid and Bear is really he's the Snoopy to my Charlie Brown. He's not really a dog. Here's a picture of him.

And here's a picture of us for May the 4th.

The photo and the scale of us is accurate. That's a picture of us in my front seat of my car. But the outfits were put there by AI. I apologize for the bottle of water it probably cost to make that, and I don't ever use AI except for that. Anyway, he's he's kind of not really a dog. He's 150 pounds and he's just the greatest. And dropping him off was really scary, he doesn't like to be away from me.

With a kid - it's not easy bringing your kid for a medical procedure, but with a kid you can explain what's happening. Whereas he has no idea what's going on. And that terror and that confusion in his eyes was just killing me this morning. And he's gotta stay overnight and I get him tomorrow. So it was making me think about pets, dogs especially, but pets and how things have changed so much for the better since we were kids. ⁓ I always felt very close to my dogs and would sneak them into my bed and break the rules. You know, my parents' rule of not having them sleep in bed with us. and was very protective of them and walked them on a leash, but that wasn't really the norm. in my neighborhood anyway, there were definitely dogs that roamed.

We lived like right on Route 17 which is a major highway in New Jersey and we didn't have a fenced in yard. We had a small yard and I was terrified and said let's get a fence and my dad was like absolutely not you know because it would cost money and ⁓

He just trained them to stay in the by yard smacking a newspaper against his hand.

And when they were puppies, he anytime they s put a toe over the property line, he would smack the paper on his hand and make a loud noise and scare them. And I'll tell ya, it worked. They never went down to the

they did start to roam a bit, and especially if there were fireworks or thunderstorms, my one dog would take off 'cause she was terrified. But thank God she never seemed to take off to the left, which was the highway. She always went to the right. but like can you imagine now? I'd call the cops on somebody who lived like that.

I would walk home from babysitting and get bitten by a dog just on the way on the way home. I remember this these two dogs eating out of somebody's garbage when I was walking home from babysitting and I crossed the street 'cause they were eyeing me, like, "don't move in on our garbage." And I was like, "I'm I'm definitely not interested in your garbage." And so I crossed the street so that they would know I wasn't a threat and they ran across the street and bit me anyway.

Roaming cats were like all over the place. They would sometimes disappear and it's like, did they find a new family? Did did they get hit by a car? Nobody knows. And we just lived like that. I know that does occasionally happen with cats now, but most cats it seems to me are indoor cats now. And people spay them.

Just our attitude. People used to have dogs chained up in their yard. And that always bothered me and I would always say something, but I was the weirdo who thought that that wasn't okay, you know? Also, Doberman pinchers and German Shepherds were big back then. Also Irish setters, but Irish setters always seemed to be friendly. But ⁓ Doberman pinchers and German Shepherds, especially German Shepherds, were really popular in the seventies and eighties.

And they were ferocious. Like they were not socialized. There was a German shepherd that lived across the street from us, and my dogs and that dog would fight sometimes. It was this terrible dog fight in the middle of the street. And we all the kids would go out and try to break it up with like a broom and a hose or whatever. 

Yeah, I always talk about how kids were feral, but animals were pretty feral. And then kids had to deal with feral animals. You would just be walking everywhere by yourself, walking over a babysitting job or walking home from school or walking home from dance class or whatever it was and there were dogs roaming the streets or cats. I mean cats usually left you alone except for my friend Stacey's cat that was terrifying and would attack you from the bushes.

Yeah, in addition to Stranger Danger and and bullies and all the perils of growing up Gen X and not having adults supervise you or pick you up, there were also animals just roaming around and you tried to cross the street and stay out of their way, but sometimes they bit you anyway. Huh, it was a different time.

I cannot imagine letting my dogs do that now. You know, we have a fenced in yard and walk them on a leash and that's that. And also, I mean I used to clean up after my dogs, but people didn't. Most people didn't. There weren't dog poop bags that you could buy in bulk in a in a box. You would just use a plastic grocery bag when those started being used, which when we were kids it was just paper. It's it's changed so much. The idea of having knee replacement surgery on your dog in nineteen eighty I I mean I don't even think the procedure existed, but people would be like, you are

Eileen Kelly (07:38)
And the car, our parents didn't seatbelt us, let alone our pets. My dogs have a whole hammock situation in the backseat of my car, and it's partially to protect my car, but most really it's to protect them. And it's comfy. It's got like a three-part solid ⁓ floor that's then covered with a softer material and mesh in the front so that the air conditioning and heat can pass through, but it comes up so they can't go flying through the space between the two front seats. I also have harnesses for them, but they do enjoy putting their faces out the window and that's sort of the last bastion of of

of Gen X that I keep alive is letting the dogs put their faces out the window.

But our dogs used to be flying around the car with us, right? Hole in the backseat floor of the car our dog did fall partially through it and my brother and I saved her. ⁓ we were on our way to Harriman State Park and my dad stopped short.

We had two dogs, Clancy and Murphy, and Murphy was trying to, get a grip on the vinyl seats with her claws and couldn't and was disappearing down the hole. And you used to, you know, you could see the pavement through the hole in our Ford Country Squire station wagon. And we grabbed her by the scruff and the collar and pulled her back up. And that's how we rolled.

No hammocks, no dog harnesses.

Eileen Kelly (09:13)
I remember the puppies that my parents had gotten us when I was in second grade. We took them to a There was like a convent in the next town over and they had all this land and it was called the villa and we would sleigh ride there in the winter so we brought the dogs to run in the villa and one of the

puppies all of sudden she comes back and her paws gushing blood, and I freaked out because I was seven, and this puppy that I loved so much was clearly seriously injured. And there's no going to the vet back then. I mean, when I tell you it was DIY everything, I'm not kidding. So I was begging my dad to take us to the vet, and he refused, and we went home. I think I might have.

Taking my t-shirt off and wrapped her paw in it. It was very dramatic. Tried to remember what I saw on the show Emergency and put it into put it into action. And I wrapped up her paw and we got home and cleaned it out and then bandaged her paw and then I I had this Native American cloth.

girl doll with long black braids. She was embroidered and soft and everything was it

It was handmade and there were these little cloth felt ⁓ booties that she was wearing that had this had this cool beaded embroidery to make them look like moccasins and that's what that's what she wore. She had her foot in a little replica of a Native American moccasin and that was how we took care of our dog. So going from

trying to be the best vet that I could be at seven and putting my dog's foot in a doll shoe and now taking my dog for knee replacement surgery. Like Gen X we've come a long way. We really have. I'm proud of us. We're doing it better.

Eileen Kelly (11:22)
And I'm so happy that we've evolved. I wish it went further, but I'm so happy that we've, as a society, come to understand how important animals are, how important our pets are, how much value they add to our lives, how worthwhile it is to take care of them and not keep them chained in the backyard.

It's really thank goodness. So I'm trying to keep my mind off of my dog. I don't know if he's in surgery right now. If he's I mean they said he'd call they'd call when he came out, but I don't know if he's having surgery at the moment or if he's just waiting. But it's really nerve wracking and hard to part with them when you can't

make them understand what's going on. You know, it just feels really unfair and kind of cruel, even though you know that it's for the best. so half of my studio audience is not here and the other half is rendered lost without her better half. And so she's silent not making a peep. Normally she's kind of brazen and

you know, patrolling, looking for someone to bark at and she's just quiet and freaked out right now because her big brother is not here and she doesn't know what to do. taking my dogs to the vet

Eileen Kelly (12:45)
this surgery that my dog Bear is having is

major. And ⁓ he's having screws, like metal plates. It's called a

Tibial plateau leveling osteotomy. he's having a metal hinge put on the side of his knee to stabilize his knee. Takes the place of the ligaments that are shredded. it's it's metal screws in his femur, in his tibia, right?

Fibula, tibia, I think it is, your shin bone. I don't know if that's what it's called with dogs, but I think so. yeah, must tibial plateau. Yeah, it's a t a tibia. but anyway, it's major and it's a three to six month recovery. And I got him these surgical recovery pajamas, which was no small task trying to find pajamas big enough for him. And

did find them. They're these. Chewy dot com carries them. Thank goodness for Chewy.com because they are the only ones that have things big enough for my big dog. So yeah it goes up to a size fifteen which we got the fifteen and it just fits him. So it'll

covers leg, covers whole body really, but covers leg and and they're copper infused, which is supposed to help healing. I don't know if that's true or not, but whatever, I'll try it. But it also inhibits bacterial growth

in the cotton because there's like copper threaded throughout. when it's covered and it's a wound that's stitched, it can get infected. So these copper infused pajamas are supposed to help with that. And I and the Gen X in me, like I'm like, my god, thank God I was able to find size 15 copper infused pajamas, right? Like that's what my soul says. But then the, you know

kid from the 70s and 80s, whose father wouldn't take a puppy for stitches, is like, okay, I'm getting copper-infused pajamas for my dog.

But what are you gonna do? I mean what are you gonna do? You gotta get the copper-infused pajamas because we love them, right? they're ready to go. Get home tomorrow. Get him in his copper-infused pajamas, and hope for the best.

And if you need gigantic or small or medium copper-infused pajamas, the link is going to be on our social media post so you can find them. But I'll bet if you go to Chewy and search copper-infused post-surgical pajamas, you will find them. Then they're orange, just to remind you that they're copper-infused.

They're kind of a a ⁓ 70s rust color, as a matter of fact, sort of like what's behind me. So they're they're really like, on point for Gen Xers.

Eileen Kelly (15:49)
We've evolved quite a bit.

I'm so glad That there are animal hospitals, like actual hospitals with real operating rooms and emergency rooms and 24 hour service 'cause we've had that.

capability for decades, right? we've had it for humans, why not, provide it for other living beings. So while I'm very anxious about Bear and I'll be worried until I have him back with me tomorrow. I'm so happy that we're in an age where he can be taken care of and this is more than norm and other people get it and other people treat their animals like members of the family because they are. Alright, that's it for me. Thanks for listening.

I'll be back next week. Bye!