Guest Post

This is a story my dear friend Geoff shared with me the other day after reading my Bunny Rescue blog. Geoff is one of the most interesting, well-traveled, men I have ever met, and he has a carnivorous sense of humor. Literally. He's a card-carrying carnivore and LOVES to tell me ALL about it. We met years ago on a press tour and were then fortunate enough to get to travel together many times. My self-proclaimed "virtual uncle", he is :) I thought this photo was fitting, given the nature of the subject of Geoff's post.

I love when people share stories from their childhood. It gives me so much insight into who they were then and it's fun for me to marry the image I have of Geoff as a little boy and the Geoff I know now. Lately, I have been reading through my old diaries and journals. I love to sit and think about what I was like at 8, 10, 15, 23. The things that were important then vs. what is important to me now. Now that I keep a blog instead of a diary/journal, I feel like I may not be as honest as I was back then, because I didn't have an audience. Now that I'm an adult, and whether or not Casey Woods wants to sit on the bus with me is not my biggest priority, I have decided to start sharing old diary entries every now and then. 'Til I get that ball rolling, here's a post from Geoff:

"When I was a teenager I had an Alaskan Malamute name Shinook (Shinook of Nanook Seego). Anyway, I also had six Gerbils as pets in one of those Habitrail cages. Anyway, Shinook would always go over to them and bite at them, but never did get the idea they were behind clear plastic. It was funny watching him torture himself biting at the plastic. The gerbils got to the point they seemed to mock his presence - or at least became comfortable with the fact he couldn't get to them.

Then one day we came home from somewhere and the habitrail was knocked over and the gerbils were out - Shinook apparently had enough and used his sizable weight to give it a heave - I would guess.

I did manage to find, almost immediatly, 5 of the six gerbils. But I couldn't find the last one. After a couple of days we (I) assumed it had escaped or died from hunger.

I think it was the third day we were sitting around watching TV and heard Shinook scrambling on the wood floor. He got almost to the livingroom stopped and and returned to my bedroom, where he slept.

My mother said "Oh my God Geoffrey he's got it" Well I didn't not what she was talking about and I said..."Got what?"

"The gerbil, Shinook's just caught the other gerbil!"

Well, Shinook was a Malamute - a dumb one at that. They like meat. Once I remember him snagging and killing a sparrow [that flew too close past his face] in mid-flight. So I decided to wait a few miniutes to let Shinook finish eating the gerbil and clean up the mess.

After about fifteen minutes I went to my room and there, laying on my prayer mat was Shinook. He looked up at me and went back to work licking the gerbil which he had (gently) penned down with his paw. Yup, Shinook... the great mouser... was playing with his new found buddy.

The poor Gerbil look pathetic drenched in dog spit. Shinook actually let me take it and I returned it to the cage where it immediately started eating.

Ironically the other gerbils died not to long afterward, there was rat poison in certain areas (under the radiators, etc.) that they might have gotten into. But not that gerbil. It lived another year or so with his buddy Shinook constantly staring at it. We guessed that maybe Shinook's licking it saved it... ya never know.

Shinook never knocked over the cage anymore though he continued tormenting the plants and fish tank."