Gallops Among Angels

I am sure sometime in your life you’ve owned a pet, be it a squirmy goldfish or a special puppy, that touched your heart and helped you learn about life. I have been pretty lucky in the pet department. A lot of my childhood memories are filled with these loving critters…lots of fun stories and maybe a few not-so-fun incidents...

One of my favorite memories of all time was when my dad came home from work one day and told my sister and me to look in his lunch box. We rushed to the old container and slid the cover off. You cannot imagine our surprise! For hidden between my dad’s lunch remains was a puppy dachshund! Yes…a wiener dog! That was probably the coolest surprise, even though my Momcat wasn’t too impressed at the time. We named him Rusty and he was definitely in the running for BEST DOG EVER.

A lot of my favorite pets have been horses. We used to own a Shetland pony, named Cherokee. He was white all over and sprinkled in brown spots. He had a very interesting personality and got into a lot of scrapes. But they all turned out okay! I remember the exact brown spot that tickled him and also singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on beat with his farts when going uphill. Or downhill. Or basically anywhere…he also put up with us little kids, sometimes three of us at time riding him bareback. He was very tricky and got out a lot, but once we started chasing him, he knew where he belonged! I remember riding my first trail ride on Cherokee…I was pretty young and after a while I had to go to the bathroom. But for some reason I couldn't move. I called to my dad and he lifted me off and set me down but my legs were so stiff I couldn’t walk. Hahaha I also got a black and blue hand from holding on to the horn so hard! But it was a great ride, and I remember galloping for the first time by myself on good ol’ Cherokee.

I think my all-time favorite pet, was our horse Tilly. Full name: Matilda Bay. She was a bay quarter horse and was basically us kids’ second mother. She gave us some great foals over the years and she ruled the roost. (Of course…she was a female!!!) She was the horse everyone wanted to ride when we’d camp in the Badlands. She never did anything bad, except maybe crow-hop a couple times if you didn’t let her snatch a bite to eat. She was the same age as my older sister, so Tilly was in my life for, well, for forever. Unfortunely, like most pets, you have to say goodbye. Last year we had to put Matilda Bay down, she had terrible arthritis and could barley walk. That was very hard for all of us, but she left us with tons of fun filled memories and lessons.

I got to thinking about Tilly the other day, and I decided to create something in her honor. And since I’m on a jewelry kick I decided a necklace would be fun way to remember her by. So here is my Gallops Among Angels necklace, in honor of a great horse, that will forever be in our hearts...