Day 115: China Animal Families

My sister and I collected china animals when we were young. Most were purchased in the gift shop of this tiny natural history museum that used to exist on the way to our cabin, but many other gift shops sold these animal family sets (usually a male, female and their offspring, or a mother and two kids) which were glued to a piece of card.

Here are some classics: German Shepherds, some kind of terrier, and brown (black) bears:

These antelope fawns have lost their mother as well as a limb and horn or two. Our critters were often in the china animal hospital, which existed in our father's "Bug room."

These were a favorite pair as I was always a Lear fan: The Owl and the Pussycat. Below them you can see part of a puffer fish (yes, real) and some mice characters, also favorites.

These fawns were once chained to their mother but have since broken away. In the bottom right you can see a porcelein corgi.

We also had some glass animals. A lot of these were acquired at our school fair in Gardena, though I think the green deer on top were my grandmother's.

And here's another salt and pepper shaker set. This would have been my grandmother's, because by the time I got to New Orleans, I was into other things.

Here's a squirrel family, and I believe the fish and donkey were given to me by my mom from when my parents went on a trip to Mexico.

I belive I have shown you the cat with too many kittens once before... There's a solo grey squirrel and a wandering calf.

More solo animals here: a rat, another squirrel, a mouse (they still sell that model in the gift shop in Knott's Berry Farm), a chipmunk and a springer spaniel. Most used to be part of a set.

More chipmunks, a squirrel family, a solo fox, a seal family, a fox terrier, a Siamese cat family with dried glue still stuck on their legs, a paraplegic elephant family and a Basset hound with some even shorter than normal legs...

Here you can see the seal family, (or sea lions I suppose), a fawn, some Persian cats, a boxer pub an its mother who can no longer stand, and my first and favorite china animal back then, a begging dachshund, who lost its tail outside the garage of my parents' friends in Palos Verdes when I was about five years old; don't ask me how I remember that, but I spent ages looking for it!

Here come the polar bears, with some gunk on their fur!