Family pets

Bingle, ca late 1890s

Our family heritage includes a love of animals.  All the branches of the family have had pets.  Some of these beloved animals even had professional portraits.  I think this white dog, named Bingle, was the first of several dogs called Bing.  There were at least two German Shepherds that carried that name both owned by Walt Lorig.  The dog below named Charlie was Walt Lorig’s first dog. 

Charlie, ca early 1900s

Petra, I.C. and Topsy, ca 1910

Miss Topsy was well know by all the friends of Petra and I.C. Lee and even received written invitations to parties.  Topsy looks a lot like the dog that was the Fire House dog when I.C. worked for the Fire Department.  There has been speculation that she was an offspring of that dog.  The Fire House dog was considerably slimmer but Petra was a very good cook and undoubtedly Topsy got extra table scraps from time to time.  At least she looks like she did.  She was a great favorite with both the Landaas and Lorig families.  She could do a number of tricks and was well behaved.

Fire House dog with the firemen.  I.C. Lee is 4th from the left in the back row, ca 1900

Bing, ca 1930

This is one of the dogs named Bing with Edd & Maggie Lorig, Lizzie Keller (Edd’s sister) Robert Ward and MayBell Keller Ward.  Clara Lorig (Walt’s wife) is petting Bing.  There was another Bing in the 1950s and 60s.

There were cats too, like Mrs. Gooberdust or more commonly called Dusty but cats are not as cooperative about having their pictures taken so we don’t have many early photos of them.

Archie Foo Evans, 1950s

This one of Archie is so cute I couldn’t resist putting it in even though he is a more recent addition (1950s) to the pet file.