TRACEY STARIN: The breeder had three dogs, one that was six months old, and I pet that dog on the head.

And that dog wasn't that interested in me, and the feeling was mutual.

(laughter) KENDRA DAWSEY: I generally was in the funk of a failed relationship, and no other companions but my cat.

SUZANNE SIMMONS: As anyone who's had roosters know, they don't just crow at the break of day.

They crow whenever they feel like it.

And my neighbors now wouldn't make eye contact with me.

♪ ♪ WES HAZARD: Tonight's theme is "Pets."

Pets enrich our lives in so many ways.

They are our companions, our fitness partners, our protectors, our guides, they exasperate us.

They make us laugh.

They bring us so much joy.

And all too often, they devastate us with their passing.

Our amazingly talented tellers tonight are going to share their memories of animal companions and the incredible bonds that they have shared.

♪ ♪ DAWSEY: My name is Kendra Dawsey.

I am from Upstate New York, and I am a tour guide in the day and a comedian at night.

And I know that, you know, this story that you are sharing did originate in sort of your stand-up.

How do you approach telling it?

Is it a different sort of vibe in this environment?

I did add in more, I guess, like, emotional elements.

I don't think it's, like, a tearjerker, but I try to, like, talk more about my feelings, whereas in stand-up, you're just trying to get people laugh.

So, you just kind of hit, like, the main jokes and kept it moving.

And this one has more of a richer interior world, I guess.

So, a big question for comics, What happens when people don't laugh at your jokes?

Oh, this happens all the time as a comic.

I think especially at open mics this happens often, pretty frequently.

So if you get a smile from the back of the room, it's, like, "Oh, that means the joke works."

There is, like, a devastating, like, five minutes after you do a set that did not go well, that was in front of, like, a lot of people, where you're just like, "Ugh," but you pick yourself back up again.

♪ ♪ At the start of March 2020, I already knew I had a hard month in store for me.

I recently broke up with my live-in girlfriend, but because rent is expensive, we agreed to stay in the same apartment for the rest of our lease, with the small cat that we got when the relationship was going well.

I wanted to give my ex space to grieve the end of the relationship, while I tried to furtively play the field in Boston, so, I went on one date.

(audience laughs) Uh, she leaned in for a kiss.

I don't know if it was nerves or food poisoning, but I ran in to the toilet to throw up.

(laughter) And then the next day, COVID-19 hit and lockdown started.

So, my living situation went from sitcom-zany to downright anxiety-inducing.

Because living with your ex in the first major pandemic of your lifetime is not a comfortable situation for anyone involved, uh, my ex decided to move out.

Uh, but there was the issue of our small kitten, Tula.

I really wanted to keep Tula, but I felt like keeping her would be like keeping the car, the kids, and the house in a divorce.

(laughter) So we agreed that once my ex's living situation was all settled, she would come back to get the cat.

Once my ex moved out, I settled into my pandemic routine of taking Zoom calls for my public health job in sweatpants, doomscrolling to keep tabs on the COVID-19 surge, and finishing off each night with half a bottle of red wine and the saddest anime I could find.

(laughter) I generally was just sitting around in the funk of a failed relationship with this huge historical event as a backdrop and no other companions but my cat.

And Tula was a lovely cat.

Uh, she was a beautiful gray tabby.

I'm Black and my ex was White, so we got a gray cat so she would look like both of us.

(laughter) Very important.

And she was so nice to have around.

She was a brief reprieve from everything else going on.

I would play with her each day.

I even taught her to walk on a leash.

And she was so innocent.

She didn't know that she had become a child of divorce, as the world was burning around her, you know?

I wish I could be as carefree as she was.

But, after a little while, I noticed she was acting weird and not her usual weird of suckling the bath mat.

So she started going into corners of the apartment and stamping rhythmically, kind of like a militaristic twerk.

(laughter) And then, she started yowling and yowling, and she was the type of cat that never really even meowed before.

In addition to that, she started just pacing all over the apartment at all times of night, going to the windows, and yowling and stamping and generally keeping me awake.

At first, I tried to just wave this off, tried not to think much about it.

But one day, I searched Tula's new behaviors, and I found that she had become a young woman.

(laughter) And her body was telling her to find any hot young tomcat in the area.

Unfortunately, Tula was an indoor cat, and there was no one around but me, a depressed lesbian.

(laughter) And she was really interrupting my sad pandemic routine.

I could not just take any Zoom call that came in, because she would be screaming in the background.

And it is so hard to watch anime when your cat is in heat.

She was adding a lot of stress at an already stressful time.

So, I tasked myself with trying to find a way to get her spayed.

But none of the vets in my area were open, so I had to look for other solutions.

One day, I was scrolling on Spotify, and probably due to my frantic "how to get cat to shut up" Google searches... (laughter) ...I saw an album online that was called "Music for Cats."

Intrigued, I looked up the information about the composer, and he decided to create an album that would keep cats cool and collected.

And it was filled with things that were considered soothing for cats, like purrs and far-off bird noises.

One day, in a last-ditch effort, I just threw it on.

And I myself did not like it at all, because it had no groove.

(laughter) But Tula did react.

At first, her ears perked up in the direction of the speakers, and then her pacing turned into laying down in the same spot.

Her caterwauling turned into just gentle purrs.

And after a half an hour, she fell asleep.

I decided to celebrate by drinking another glass of wine and falling asleep myself.

We settled into that routine whenever she got in heat, so I would just throw that music on.

It would release her energy, and things were more tolerable.

In May, lockdown ended, I saw my friends outside again.

Unfortunately, I did have to say goodbye to Tula, because my ex did find stable housing.

But she promised me she would send me photos of her every day.

I moved out of the apartment that acted as my depression cave, and I just moved on.

My job started a very cautious hybrid schedule.

And one day, in December, I was at the office.

I had my mask on, headphones in, and I was listening to Spotify.

And on my phone, an image popped up.

It was Spotify Wrapped.

It said, "Wow, what a year it's been.

"Here's the top five most listened-to songs... (laughter) ...over the past year."

And everyone, song number three was a dehornifying cat banger.

(laughter) (laughs): When, when I listened to it, it brought me right back to that headspace of sitting on the couch, wearing the same pajama pants for three days in a row, with no other companions except my small cat that was currently humping my coffee table.

(laughter) And in that moment, it made me realize how happy I was to be far away from that March, but how bizarre that time period was.

But I do have a happy ending.

I have my own cat, and she's going to remain my cat, no matter what happens.

And I will always have Spotify on the back burner.

All right, thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ STARIN: My name is Tracey Starin, I'm from Queens, New York, and I'm a storyteller.

How did you first get interested in storytelling?

I was looking for something new to do.

I had lost my vision, and so all the other things that I used to do were not available to me anymore.

I knew I wasn't a comic, I knew I wasn't an actor.

And I was at a club called Q.E.D.

in Astoria, Queens, at, at a storytelling show.

And I thought, I think that I can do that.

Wow, and I'm so curious, in that time since then, how has storytelling impacted your life?

Storytelling allows you to see parts of your life in a way that you might not have noticed before.

So, it lets you control your own history, your own story.

So maybe in your family, you've had a certain role your whole life.

Maybe you were the youngest, maybe you were the screw-up, maybe you were the hero, maybe you were the brain.

And now, when you tell your stories, you get to control who you are.

♪ ♪ I was home from college for the weekend to visit my family.

I came into our two-family house through the back door and up the winding back staircase to the door that led to our kitchen.

When I came into our second-floor apartment, I saw my parents and my stepsister Nancy and her family.

And I dropped my bag and my jacket, and I said hello to everyone, including my fluffy little dog Taffy, who was delighted to see me, as always.

She comes out and gives me a quick hello before she goes to make herself scarce because she doesn't really like when we have company.

She's little-- she's 12 pounds, smaller than a bread box, but too big to put in your purse.

(laughter) And then I go and I sit on the floor with my 11-month-old niece Lorelei, and I marvel at how different she is every time I see her, which is only every few months.

The first time I met her, she was a newborn, and I thought she was cute, but as I held her, I thought, "She kind of looks like every other baby I've ever seen."

(laughter) The next time I saw her, she was a lap baby, and she had bright, sparkling eyes and a personality.

And she wiggles and giggles, but she kind of sat where we put her.

But now, at 11 months, with her bouncy pigtails and a look of total concentration on her face as she played with her toys, she's, like, a whole person now.

And she's on the move-- she's crawling and she's getting ready to walk.

So I played with her for a little while, and then I went into the living room, where my mother and Nancy were sitting on the couch and talking.

And I sat next to my mother.

And just a few minutes later, Taffy comes running into the room and she starts pawing and jumping at Nancy's legs and barking at Nancy.

My mother goes to pat her on the head, but she doesn't want to be pat on the head.

And she walks away from my mother, and she's pawing and pawing at Nancy.

And my mother thinks maybe it's because Nancy is sitting in the spot on the couch where my mother sits every night.

So they switch seats to appease the tiny dog.

(laughter) But that didn't do it.

And now, Taffy is ferociously barking and pawing at both of them, and running in and out of the kitchen and the living room.

And so, my mother bends down to pick her up, and she doesn't want to be picked up.

She wiggles out from my mother's grasp, which is highly unusual for her.

She's such a laid-back little dog.

I was an only child until I was 13 years old.

I had been asking for a dog my entire life, since I could talk, and my parents resisted my whole life.

And we had every imaginable pet to make up for it.

We had mice, hamsters, turtles, lizards, frogs.

And it wasn't until I asked for a ferret that they relented and said, "Let's just get a dog."

My father said, "No weasels.

We're just getting a dog now."

(laughter) And my mother had very specific ideas for what she wanted in a dog-- she wanted small, she wanted one that didn't shed, and she wanted a good temperament.

This was in the '80s, there's no websites to look up, so you just had to learn things from people you knew.

Our friend had a Shih Tzu.

Shih Tzus are small, they have...

They're dense and furry, and they have those little pushed-in faces with great big eyes, and ears that look like they've been tacked on to the side.

And so, we found a breeder.

Back in the '80s, there was no such thing as a Shih Tzu rescue group.

(laughter) So, we went to a breeder.

The breeder had three dogs up for adoption.

One that was six months old and had hair that grew all the way to the floor.

If you ever see a Shih Tzu in a dog show, that's how you'll see it, with the fur that grows all the way down to the floor.

And I pet that dog on the head and that dog wasn't that interested in me-- and the feeling was mutual.

(laughter) And then, there were two brand-new puppies, and one was barking and scurrying on the floor.

She was too young to even run, she's just sort of scooting along the floor and barking this teeny-tiny little bark.

And I picked her up, and she wiggles around in my hand and she gnawed on the tip of my finger.

I thought, "Eugh."

And I, and I put her down.

And then there was this one dog that was just sort of sitting there.

And I picked her up, and she sat in my hands like a rag doll.

And I put her on my hand, she was no bigger than my hand-- and she stretched out her legs behind her and laid her head down, and let out a big yawn and fell asleep on my hand.

And I said, "That's my dog."

(laughter) And the breeder said, "Well, actually, she's only six weeks old.

"She's not ready to go yet.

She won't be ready to go for two weeks."

And my parents said, "Pick one of the other dogs.

We're leaving here with a dog."

And I said, "No, this is my dog."

And my parents said, "You've been asking for a dog your whole life.

"You're not really going to walk out of here without a dog.

What if we don't come back?"

And I said, "Oh, you'll come back.

This is my dog."

And so much to their chagrin, we walked out of there without that dog, but I made sure we came back in two weeks.

And Taffy was instantly my best friend, but Taffy was also my partner in crime.

She never snitched on me and she knew everything bad that I did.

I used to smoke out my window.

She never told.

(laughter) I used to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, sneak back in, she never barked, she never did or said anything.

She'd just follow me into my bedroom and crawl into bed with me.

Never told anybody.

But all she ever wanted her whole life was to be picked up and fall asleep on you.

So, this tantrum she's having in front of Nancy and my mother is completely out of character.

So my mother decides, maybe if we ignore her, she'll just stop.

But it didn't work, because now she's coming to me and she's putting her paws up on my legs and barking at my face.

And then, she runs to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room and she looks back at me, very serious.

And she barks, and then she runs into the kitchen.

So, I turned to my mother and I said, "I think that she wants us to follow her."

And my mother looked back at me with narrowed eyes, like I'd been speaking Latin or something, because I've never said words like that before.

And let's face it, this dog wasn't Lassie.

(laughter) She was more like a sentient Muppet.

(laughter) Maybe even technically a member of the pillow family.

(laughter) But we did, we got up and we followed her, where she led us to the back door, that I had carelessly left open and where my 11-month-old niece was crawling backwards down the winding staircase.

(audience gasps softly) And everybody screamed, which the baby didn't seem to notice.

And then Nancy snatched her off the stairs, which made her cry.

And it took everybody a minute to realize she wasn't hurt, everything was fine.

It took another minute to realize that Taffy saved the day.

(laughs): That little 12-pound dog seems to have saved the baby's life.

And so, when we looked down to congratulate her, she was nowhere to be found.

She was already in the other room, asleep on her blanket, exhausted.

(laughter, cheering) (voice trembles): And I looked at that little dog, and throughout my life, she'd been my sister, my friend, and my partner in crime.

It never occurred to me that that little fluffy dog would be my hero, too.

Thanks.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ SIMMONS: My name is Suzanne Simmons.

I live in Maine, I grew up in New Hampshire, and I'm a writer.

And when did you discover or feel that you were a writer?

SIMMONS: I think it was in sixth grade.

I left Catholic school, where I had been in a class of 50 students, so we pretty much sat at our desks all day with our hands folded in front of us and, um, didn't get a whole lot of personal attention.

And then I went to a very small school, and we had to write a story every weekend in a notebook.

And I just, I loved it.

I couldn't wait for the weekends and to write my story.

Is this your first time bringing a story from the page to the stage?

SIMMONS: Yes.

And how are you feeling about tonight?

(inhales): Um, nervous and excited.

It's funny, when you are telling yourself the same story over and over in your mind, um, you stop hearing it.

Today I've been trying to reimagine myself in those moments, um, when these things were actually happening.

Um, it's very different than standing on stage, reading from a manuscript and having a podium to hold onto.

(both laugh) Um, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm excited, I hope it goes well.

♪ ♪ During the early days of the pandemic, I had a broody hen.

All of my hens are named after poets, and this particular one was Anna Akhmatova, although I called her Toby for short.

Toby wouldn't leave her nest to eat or to forage.

She just kept sitting on this little clutch of eggs that I knew was never going to hatch, because I didn't have a rooster.

Chick Day was coming up at the local feed store, so I decided to get some eggs.

I thought I could slip the chicks under Toby and pull the eggs out, and she would think that they had hatched.

That ended up working really well.

She adopted the chicks instantly and she was a really good mom, very protective.

Sexing day-old chicks is a very tricky business, and sometimes you end up with a rooster.

As it turned out, I ended up with two.

I live in a fairly densely populated neighborhood in Maine, and as anyone who's had roosters know, they don't just crow at the break of day.

They crow whenever they feel like it, and I, my two guys felt like it a lot.

(laughter) Um, I tried to find homes for them.

I called the Humane Society and I put up notices at the feed store.

Uh, they were driving me crazy.

And my neighbors, who had told me in the past that they loved when my girls came and visited their yards, now wouldn't make eye contact with me.

I ended up calling a butcher in Maine, um, who processed farm animals and asked him if he would take the roosters.

I told him that I couldn't keep them and I didn't want the meat, but I didn't want to have to slaughter them myself.

When my kids were little, my husband and I had lived on a small farm in New Hampshire, and we raised a lot of our own food.

We slaughtered our first batch of broilers ourselves.

Killing them was a pretty miserable experience, and after that, we decided it was worth paying a neighbor at No-View Farm to do the dirty work for us.

She had a professional setup, and we got the birds back gutted and plucked and wrapped in plastic.

The butcher in Maine was really kind.

He said to bring them in the next Saturday around 10:00, and that he wouldn't charge me for them.

So, that was that.

Meanwhile, all of the hens were very busy with spring.

The young birds were thriving, and the older ones all seemed to live up to the personalities of the poets I'd named them after.

(laughter) For example, Emily Dickinson liked to be off by herself, scratching little slanted lines into the dirt.

(laughter) And she was obsessed with getting into my car.

If I was going in and out of the house, loading and unloading, she would hop in as soon as my back was turned.

I got into the habit of checking under the backseats before I pulled out of the driveway.

(laughter) The night before the roosters were scheduled to go and meet their maker, I made them a last supper.

For a treat, I made them spaghetti.

Uh, chickens love spaghetti.

It's kind of like big, long worms.

When I went to close up the coop that night, I did a quick count, and Emily Dickinson was missing.

I went outside and looked at all of her favorite outdoor roosting spots, and then I walked down to the creek, clucking and calling for her as it got dark, but there was no sign of her.

I finally gave up and went and locked up the coop.

Um, the next morning, I hunted for her again, but no luck.

I put the roosters in a crate and loaded them into the back of my van, and as I was pulling out of my driveway, my neighbor Jeannie flagged me down.

Jeannie loved the roosters.

She'd tried to help me find homes for them.

I rolled down my window and she leaned in and said, "Are you on your way?"

She looked like she was a little teary-eyed, and I felt terrible.

"Yeah, I said."

I told her about Emily being missing and asked her to keep an eye out.

"Can I say goodbye?"

she said.

And I said, "Sure, they're in the back."

She went around to the back and opened the back of the van, and I heard her talking quietly to the roosters.

Then, she came back around and waved goodbye to me, and then said, "Suzanne, wait!

I think somebody found Emily!"

I looked in my rearview mirror and there was a woman coming down the street carrying a small dog crate.

I got out of my car and ran towards her.

It was my neighbor Kathleen, who I didn't know very well, and Emily was in her crate.

I said, "Kathleen, what happened?

I've been looking all over for her."

And she said, "Well, she was in my car, but I didn't know how to get in touch with you."

(laughter) I was confused because she only lived a couple of doors down from me.

(laughter) And then she said, "I was in my car on the highway."

(laughter) So, she told me the story, she had been on her way to spend a night with a friend in New Hampshire, and she was well into her trip, when suddenly she heard something rummaging around in the back of her van.

(laughter) She was afraid that a squirrel had gotten into the car and that it was going to climb up to the front and attack her.

(laughter) So she pulled over to the side of the road, and when she looked in the back window, she saw a chicken looking out at her.

(laughter) She pretty quickly figured out that it had to be one of mine, but she didn't have my number, and it was too late to turn around, so she went on her way.

When she got to her friend's house, they put Emily in the garage and left her in the care of the friend's daughters.

And then Kathleen and her friend went off to buy supplies.

Um, the two daughters were delighted with Emily.

They named her Barbra Streisand.

(laughter) Um...

So obviously, this chicken had some kind of an air of greatness about her.

They also made her a little roost, and she spent the night in very deluxe accommodations.

And the next day, on the way home, Kathleen had to stop at her daughter's soccer game.

So, Emily-Barbra was a special guest there, as well.

(laughter) I thanked Kathleen profusely.

I offered to clean her car, um, give her some eggs, um, anything else that she wanted me to do-- pay for the supplies she bought.

Um, and then I released Emily into my yard and got back in the car and took off with the roosters.

By now, I was pretty late.

Um, when I got to the butcher's, just as I was unloading them, a big pickup truck pulled in beside me.

A man got out and started following me up the path to the butcher shop.

"What do you have there?"

he yelled out.

I held up the crate so he could get a look.

"They're just some roosters that I can't keep," I said.

"Well, they're nice-looking fellows," he said.

"Are they aggressive?"

"No," I said, "they're just really noisy."

Um, and then he said, "Well, my rooster just died.

I'd take them off your hands for you."

(audience murmurs) And I said, "Really?

That would be awesome."

So I handed him the crate, and we turned around and walked back towards his truck.

And then he said, "Boy, my wife's going to be surprised."

And I said... (laughs) (laughter) And I thought, "Yeah, I'll bet."

But I didn't say anything.

(laughter) I'd like to tell you that Emily never got in the car again after that, but if anything, it only whet her appetite.

I check under the seats every time I leave the house.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) THERESA OKOKON: The Stories from the Stage podcast, with extraordinary true stories, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Consider supporting more great storytelling at give.worldchannel.org/stories.

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