Furry and feathered Valentines warm hearts

Valentine's Day is traditionally a holiday to celebrate human relationships, but some of the greatest love is between owners and their pets.

An English Rose in Eastport

Valentine's Day is actually the birthday of Eastport Lady Leftina Rose, better known as Rosie to owners Ralph and Joan Sullivan of Eastport. The six-year-old English bulldog was actually named Eastport Lady Leftina, but Joan laughs, "We added the Rose because she's such a rose."

Born in Tewksbury, Mass., Rosie came to Eastport with her owners, Linc and Millie Mulno of Kendall's Head, and came to live with the Sullivans on September 17 when she was seven months old.

"She's taken over the house," points out Joan. Rosie is the third English bulldog to be part of the Sullivans' family. She follows Sir Gregory of Gunnison and Miss Beazly of Boynton and, before Ralph married Joan, he had an English bulldog named Von Wrinkle Sir Hancock.

"They're very kind dogs," says Joan of the breed. "And Rosie loves the car. You just have to rattle the keys, and she's ready to go."

Every afternoon the 49-pound bulldog sleeps on Ralph's shoulder while he's taking his two-hour nap.

Sharing the house with Ralph, Joan and Rosie is a six-year-old Scottish fold called Precious Luv, the most recent in the line of black cats belonging to Joan. "The police in Ellsworth found him in a snowbank, and his ears were frozen. We had to wait five days to see if anyone would claim him, then we went back to Ellsworth to the small animal clinic to pick him up."

"He and Rosie are best friends. They eat together. They play together, and they raise hell together. They bring a lot of fun and joy [to us]."

"The dog belongs to him. The cat's mine," points out Joan. "But they're still both ours."

Horsing around on Grand Manan

Anyone who frequents the Dock Road in North Head is familiar with Gypsy, the friendly horse who frequently stops traffic on Grand Manan and looks for hand-outs. The 19-year-old Arabian belongs to the Sam Greenlaw family, and Annie Greenlaw has had a special relationship with Gypsy since the red mare with the white blaze was brought home in a horse swap eight years ago. Annie's oldest sister, Cara, was visiting a ranch to get hay, when she saw Gypsy standing in her own pasture away from the ranch's other horses. "Gypsy was 'head shy.' She'd had an accident inside her trailer and had her jaw broken," recalls Annie. "It had happened quite a while ago, but nobody had taken the time to cure her." Cara really wanted Gypsy, so the Greenlaws traded their pony and thoroughbred/pony mix for the Arabian.

Annie was eight years old when Cara brought the Arabian home, and it wasn't long before the youngster was jumping on Gypsy bareback, with no reins, and following the family's thoroughbred, Jim, everywhere. She and her cousin Sable would get skipping ropes, tie them to the halters of the two horses and "go wherever they wanted to take us."

"Gypsy was devastated when the thoroughbred died," recalls Annie. "But she has a nice life. She's retired."

Gypsy will come to the window to be fed and snap at the windowsill if someone doesn't do her bidding as quickly as she'd like. "She's pretty full of herself. And she's quite a partier," according to Annie. "Any get-together here that she can hear C she'll come to. She does the same thing at my uncle's."

Members of Annie's family own most of the property on Dock Road, so there's a fence for the Greenlaws' garden, but no fence for Gypsy.

"She's welcome everywhere. She likes to stop cars because she thinks they're all going to feed her."

"One day there was a new cop who said a horse was loose and on the road," recalls Annie. "I gave a loud whistle, and Gypsy came up the driveway, looking around to see what I wanted.... The cop couldn't believe it."

Caring for feathered friends

There are three lucky chickens living with Cheri Walton of Eastport. Not only do they not have to worry about being a Sunday dinner, they receive a lot of love and attention from their owner.

"They have personalities, and they're a heck of a lot smarter than people give them credit for," points out Walton. "They have a particular cluck so I can tell if they're out of water or out food."

Her favorite fowl, Hannah, died recently, leaving Rhode Island Red Demeter, blonde Annie and Barbed Rock Mary. "I named them after famous mothers," points out Walton, who also had a Persephone when she acquired the original flock four years ago. "I had moved into a house on Washington Street that I was renting, and the owner had a couple of chickens he was going to give away unless I wanted them. I hadn't been intimately involved with chickens before that, so I decided it would be something different."

"I absolutely loved them," chuckles Walton, who grew up in Bangor. "I feel like I'm living a farm life. On Washington Street, I had a wood stove and I'd be bringing in the wood for the stove and feeding the chickens. I just loved it."

"They have individual personalities, and it just confirms my belief that animals understand names. They come running if I ask if they want a treat, and they have the biggest fit if I don't bring them one," she points out. Treats include vegetables, crackers, cookies and raisin bran.

Although she loves all three of her chickens, Walton says she has a soft spot for Demeter, who, along with the late Persephone, was one of the two original birds acquired four years ago. Walton has made two moves since then and Demeter is still with her.

"I've become famous as a chicken lover," laughs Walton. "And I don't even like eggs." If you want to know more about Walton's chickens, check out <eastport.blogspot.com>.

Deer Island kitties have a friend

Twelve lucky felines live with Alice Lambert in her Deer Island home, while 18 "outside cats" also receive food and attention. One of the top cats in Alice's house is Missy, a 15-year-old money cat that Alice's late husband, Stirling, found at the dump. "Someone had thrown her out, and he said, 'We've got three or four. What's another one?' So we stopped the car, and she jumped in on my lap."

Alice's five "babies," ranging from 10 months to six years old, are Honey, Ninja, Gizmo, Minnie and Mr. Lambert. "He's the last one, and I was running out of names," she chuckles, referring to the last cat.

What isn't amusing to Alice is the number of abandoned cats in the area. She hates to see them multiplying but doesn't have the extra money to have them neutered or spayed. "Just before Stirling died, he said to have them fixed, so I had them all operated on except one," recalls Alice. "But then neighbors left a lot of cats."

"Someone said, 'You just live your life for the cats, don't you?'", she recalls. "They're kind of a tie, but I feel a responsibility to care for them. As long as I can do it, I'll do it."

Stirling Lambert, in his book Tales from a Small Island, wrote about the friendship of one of their cats and one of the rabbits they used to have. Although he had been told that cats would kill rabbits, no one had told his cat. This particular cat and rabbit were the best of friends, and during the winter the cat, about half the size of the rabbit, "would sleep either cuddled up near the rabbit or draped over his neck or back."

"And when spring arrived again, I would watch them go out in the meadow together each morning, the cat running ahead, then waiting as the rabbit nibbled his way through a patch of clover. When night fell, back they would come together..."

"One often hears the expression 'dumb animals,' but it appears to me that the inhabitants of this earth who disagree and fight and kill because of linguistic, racial, religious and political differences could learn a lot from my cat and rabbit."