Perhaps too shy at first to share this aspect of his life with me, I learned of my husband Clyde’s forays into the world of art later after we were married.   Self-taught, but maybe owing a bit to DNA inherited from his artistic mother, some of Clyde’s boyhood pencil, pen & ink, and charcoal drawings showed promise.    Unfortunately, his dominating hobby interests in motor racing and naval history led him astray for many years into collecting books and games, building individual models and then extensive dioramas but… when he finally runs out of space (and money?), what do you think about encouraging him to get back into drawing?

Clyde did these pen and ink profile drawings of his family’s pets, two dogs and a cat, when he was around 11-12 years old while growing up in Tripoli, Libya. The comments are his recollections.

Siamese cats have a reputation for being somewhat ‘neurotic’ or having a nervous disposition. Sam proved to be just the opposite, the epitome of phlegmatic indolence. Sam must have slept comfortably for at least forty percent of his life on chairs beneath the dining table and a half-dozen other hiding places around the house where the dogs would not disturb him. A mischievous game I played as a child would be to ask the dogs loudly ‘Where’s Sam?’ Despite appearances, Sam was not totally stupid. When he heard me utter this question, he was the first one out the door and into the backyard before the dogs had understood and reacted. He was comfortably away and safely up a tree before they could catch him where he would then pursue his siesta on a limb until he knew it was time to come in for dinner. Sam ate from the food bowl first, then came Perline, and finally aggressive Rusty ate last. If any one of them lifted their heads from the dish for too long, they forfeited the rest of their meal as the next in line rushed in to take their place. My mother fed and policed the animal menagerie.

As a terrier, Rusty had character, loads of character…like his ill-tempered father George.  Fiercely loyal to the family, he was also incorrigibly territorial.  Rusty would bark to announce the arrival of any car outside and bark at the guests until they were seated at which point he too would assume a slumber position.  When they got up to depart, he barked until they were out the door.   Untrainable Rusty had to be locked up in a bedroom whenever my parents hosted a cocktail party.   This was the ultimate humiliation and he barked and clawed away at the back of the door all evening long.    He was unaccepting of Perline, although a female, when she first pitched up at our home as an abandoned dog.   My mother took pity and would let Perline in to eat but had to trick Rusty into going outside to chase her down.  This was yet another humiliation for Rusty to find himself outside the house while Perline ate from HIS food bowl inside the house.   Eventually, he grew to accept her and they became pals.   Rusty was the king of the house and its surroundings.   When my mother was ironing, she sometimes would look up to see from the window that an unattended flock of sheep had come over the low wall surrounding the backyard in order to eat her geraniums, flower beds and the green grass within.   Her expression of alarm told Rusty all he needed to know.   He was out the door in a flash before my mother could stop him after which he would fiercely do his job and pursue the alarmed sheep around the yard at great pace until they had thoroughly finished trampling the remaining flowerbeds and geraniums to bits.   I thought Rusty was fearless until the day he heard me shoot a cap pistol.   He hid under a bed and trembled for over an hour.  The next day, I came back from school to find that Rusty had devoured and pulled the stuffing out of a childhood teddy bear that my mother kept placing on my bed.   Revenge was sweet and complete.   

Perline showed up on our doorstep unannounced, shivering and miserable.  At first, my mother did not want to adopt yet another animal, especially as Rusty was fiercely hostile to another dog in the family.    My mother did her best to try and dissuade Perline so she would move on and try another family, another home but nothing worked.   Perline had clearly been through rough times and in her own mind, this was the end of the road – either she had found a new adoptive family or she would die.   She was gentle, overly-affectionate, and once my mother started feeding her, she had clearly earned her place in the household.  Furthermore, she very much reminded my mother of a sweet dog she had known in her youth in Auvergne who was named Perline….thus this stray was named Perline.  Of all the pets, she was the ‘saint’ who caused the least trouble, was forever happy, well-behaved and limitless in her show of affection and gratitude for having been adopted.