Sickly Expensive January

It's been a fabulous last two weeks of January in my household.  And expensive.

The month's vet bills started with Rocky and Wednesday.

Wednesday we suspect is our carpet pee-er.  We brought her in to see if she might have a urinary tract infection.  But of course, the day we brought her in she had not a drop of urine in her bladder, so we have to bring her back again.  That was a wasted visit.

As for Rocky, he's had some fits of coughing and shortness of breath in the past few months, so we hauled his furry fat hind quarters into the vet.  X-rays followed, as did blood tests, and he got diagnosed with feline asthma.  Did you know cats could have asthma?  Neither did I.

The vet prescribed some steroids.  Ever given pills to a cat before?  Always a good time.

Then Simon got sick.  Really, really sick.  The poor little guy came down with severe diarrhea, which turned into bloody diarrhea, which turned into pure blood.  Within a few hours he went from his usual boisterous obnoxious self, to a shaky, lethargic, pathetic figure.  A few hours after my husband came home from the vet with Rocky and Wednesday, he wound up whisking Simon off to the emergency vet clinic.  Why do these things always happen after normal vet hours?

In the course of two days, Simon had x-rays, and blood work, and visits to the emergency vet (which charges more than $100 just for walking in the door) and our regular vet.  We spent a lot of anxious hours worrying about him, trying to make him more comfortable, cleaning up the mess, not sleeping, and trying to tempt Simon to eat a few bites of a bland diet.

We never did figure out for sure what Simon had but our vet thinks it was a virus, and because he's a puppy mill dog with rotten genes it just hit him far harder than it should have.  I think her conclusion is a valid one, because just as Simon turned the corner and started picking up his head and sniffing at his food bowl again, Phoebe came down with a mild case of whatever Simon had.  She never slowed down for a second though... she never does.  She continued to ricochet off the walls and stairs and furniture, and just had the runs for a day.

Thinking we'd finally gotten past the worst of it, I then came down with a horrid wretched cold that laid me up for a couple of days.  I've seldom had a worse one.

Then just as I started to improve, Rocky came down with an upper respiratory infection.  He suddenly got sneezier and snottier than I was.  I guess some upper respiratory ailments in cats are actually viruses that can stay in their systems for life.  I kind of wonder if the steroids suppressed his immune system like they do in humans.  But the advice we got was to "isolate him from the rest of the cats."  Ok, not a problem, we figured we could put him back in his attic.  After all, he was once the Attic Ghoul, and loved it up there.

Not so much now.

After a night of incessant yowling, and a busy day of trying to destroy my woodwork, paint and carpeting, I give up.  The rest of the healthy beasts are going to have to take their chances with Sneezy.  He's gotten a fair bit better already.  I'm going to hope he's no longer contagious.

The month's vet bills have surpassed the $1,000 mark, Wednesday still has to go back for urinalysis, and several pets are still due for vaccines.  And that's not taking into account the cost of having to recarpet the attic stairs.

*sigh*

It's a darn good thing they're cute.  DARN good, I tell you.

Speaking of cute, this is Pippin's way of letting us know he wants to come in.  He sits on the railing outside and peers in at us.  It makes me jump - I never expect to see a feline head up that high.  Here's hoping his extreme cuteness helps make up for some of the other less joyful aspects of pet ownership.

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Lazy Rainy Sunday Afternoon

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First Flight

It seems this happens once a year in our house.  Or, I should say, at least once a year.  This is the problem with having cats who go outside.  If I leave them inside they drive us all to the brink of insanity.  But letting them out has consequences because, well, they're hunters.  They hunt things I think are cute, but apparently they just believe are either tasty or entertaining.

I was cooking dinner and heard a ruckus through the open back window.  Pippin (a.k.a. "Sir Killer Fluffypants") was being dive bombed aggressively by a pair of blue jays, which could only mean one thing.

Rescue time.

Thankfully my husband and I both shot directly out of the house, and we got there in time.  Bitty Baby Blue Jay was unharmed, though not happy.  I scooped him up, and he and I stared eyeball to eyeball with one another for a moment while I considered what to do with him and felt his tiny heartbeat fluttering against my fingers.  No blood, no obvious wounds, alert.  But, tail feathers too short for real flight for a few more days.  In fact, no tail to speak of.  Just a stump he can waggle like a duck.

Given the ruckus over our heads, clearly mom and dad were around and looking out for him.  So into some shrubbery he went, hopefully high enough to avoid being eaten by anybody else overnight.  As I walked him over to the nearest shrub, my husband exclaimed and pointed to another Bitty Baby Blue Jay, hopping frantically through the yard and futilely flapping his stumpy wings.  So into a shrub he went, too.

Death grip on the branch:

A little conversation among friends:

Why do baby birds all look so frowny?

My guess, though I have no way to substantiate it, is that something disturbed these fellows in their nest, and caused them to take flight before they were quite ready.  I know approximately where their nest is, and it's high above cat level in our giant spruce tree.  But perhaps a crow or other predator came too close?  Regardless, as you can see from the pictures, they don't have a whole lot of wing or tail feathers to speak of, and despite valiant efforts, cannot become airborne.  They're definitely not quite as old as the blue jays in our yard usually are when we get to witness their first flights.  But, birds growing as fast as they do, it won't be long before they can fly... if they live that long in the great wilderness of my back yard.

Hiding in the quiet dark depths:

And THAT means my devilish cats, including Killer Fluffypants (Pippin) and Fatty Lightning-Fast McGee (Rocky), and even Grouchy Old Man Bird Eater (Tucker) are all relegated to the indoor domain for the next few days to give those poor blue jays a fighting chance.  God help us all.  Pippin already swept all the photo albums off the shelf behind me in a fit of pique.  Now he and the fatty are wrestling around my ankles as I type, which is pretty much what they spend their time outside doing anyway.

Pippin has angry ears.  First he lost out on his birdie snack, and now he's losing this wrestling match to Rocky.  It's so good for his ego.

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Growing Things

The garden continues to turn into a rainforest jungle from all this rain.  The last set of pictures was posted  eleven days ago.  Check out the comparison.  Eleven days ago:

and today:

It's getting a titch ridiculous.  I'm afraid to walk down the length of the garden for fear something will reach out a tentacle and grab hold of me.  Here's the shady half of the perennial garden, in all its present glory:

I see why they call this "elephant ear" hosta:

Lots of things are blossoming or about to blossom or just finished blossoming.

Any guess as to what these are from?

Why, holly, of course! I missed the flowers in their peak because it was raining too dang hard to go take pictures of it.

Spirea, and Pippin posing in front of the spirea:

Soon there will be irises:

And this is what kale does when left to its own devices:

And suddenly, all at once, columbine:

What is also growing around our household, you might ask?  Er, Rocky's middle.

The cat has become downright porky in very short order.  I had to take all five cats into the vet in two days this week.  Initially it was supposed to be just three of the cats for vaccine updates, but the rest had to go too because the vet discovered an earmite infestation.  Yeeeeeeick.  All told, it cost $670 in two days.  And I think my soul will bear permanent scars from all the searing glares I got from all five of them.  Lordie, how they hate the vet.

In the course of that fun, though, the vet weighed Rocky, and gave me one of her "disapproving" looks.  They tend to last a long minute, while she decides what to say.  The upshot of her speech was that gaining more than 3 lbs in 2 months is insane, even for a guy who just came in off the streets, because he wasn't particularly skinny when he came in.  And now topping the scales at 16 lbs 4 oz, even with his large frame, Rocky officially falls into the category of "obese."  Apparently he skipped over just plain "overweight" within a couple of weeks. 

He's kind of like a dense little bowling ball on legs.

Oops.

He just loves food so much that it's a pleasure to feed him, so I've been overlooking the fat rolls a titch.  He IS a pig.  If you feed the cats soft cat food as a treat and you don't watch him carefully, he snarfs down his own portion in about two swallows, and quickly makes the rounds, kicking all the other cats out of their dishes to eat 2/3 of their portions too.  Being top cat, they let him.

Here's are some shots of the tiger convention, all begging for food at once.  Rocky's begging for food because he's always begging for food.  Sneakie and Pippin are probably begging for food because Rocky at ate it all.

So, it's a diet for our new buddy.  No soft cat food at all, and trying to encourage him to spend more time romping.  As anyone with a multiple cat household knows, it is extremely hard to put only one cat on a diet.  And we cannot restrict the kibble from the other cats because if Wednesday doesn't have constant uninterrupted access to food, all she does is gorge and projectile vomit as soon as she gets access.  Ah, the joys of taking in neurotic strays with food issues.

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Cabin Fever

The winter just won't let go of its death grip on Central New York.  40 mile an hour wind gusts are (again) buffeting the house.  There is a grim warning of snow in tonight's forecast.  If I wake up to a white Village tomorrow morning I shall scream.

Anywho, we've all got cabin fever.  All eight of us.  Yes, that's right, all eight.  That includes the Attic Ghoul, who just this past weekend wandered out of his fiercely guarded attic hideaway of his own volition.  I was making myself a snack around 8:00 Saturday evening, and heard a meow several times before it registered in some dim recess of my brain that the meow didn't seem to belong in the scene.  I looked down, and discovered Rocky sitting on the kitchen floor, looking up at me, meowing curiously.  It was as if he was saying, "Hey Mom.  Is this where you go when you're not petting me in my attic?"

The former recluse hasn't looked back.  He wandered about exploring a little that evening, cool as a cucumber, as if he had been living comfortably with the rest of us forever.  Sunday morning, I awoke to find him sitting draped over my husband's legs, purring comfortably.  Why it took him seven weeks to emerge from his attic, I shall probably never know.  In a couple of days, he's progressed from practical non-existence, to being a persistently purring ankle-bumper, who follows me from room to room and is surely going to cause me to trip down the stairs in the immediate future.

Somehow our giant 2,200 square foot house seems to be shrinking with each pet we add.  It seemed HUGE when we moved in here with just five of us.

What with the miserable weather, we all need something to occupy our attention, so while my husband braved the winds to glue parts of his car back together (curse the road debris from someone's @#%$*^! uncovered load on the highway!), I got the bright idea to construct a cat playhouse.

It took three sizable cardboard boxes, a box cutter and some tape. I had to dump cats out of it several times before I could finish it, which I took to be a good sign.

Ta da!  Hours of feline entertainment.

Here's proof Rocky has emerged.  There he is, on the left, looking burly.  I love how the boxes have sprouted a tail.

Watching for paws to come waving through the hidey holes:

Thus far it's the biggest hit with the young 'uns.  Pippin is only a bit over a year, and Wednesday, though past two, retains an eternally kittenish disposition that I expect she'll retain forever.  The three year olds, Sneakers and Rocky, are more dignified, and though intrigued, will likely only explore it when they think no one else is looking.

And grouchy old Tucker?  He would never stoop so low as to acknowledge the presence of something the "kids" play with!

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Attic Ghoul

For lack of more inspired blog subject matter, I thought I'd post another Rocky update.

Rocky has healed beautifully.  He no longer wears the cone of shame, he's eating well, using litterboxes faithfully (after a few false starts, to the detriment of a now pee-soaked suitcase) and purrs his little brains out whenever anyone visits him in his attic.  His shaved fur is slowly growing back.  He's gained weight, and looks great.  In fact, he's a beautiful cat, in a hulking, no-necker, body-builder sort of way.

He is, no exaggeration, the most affectionate cat I have ever met.  When I say he purrs his little brains out, I mean he purrs so hard he starts cooing, which turns into little cooing meows, because the purring just isn't letting enough enthusiasm out.  He's almost embarrassingly demonstrative.  He has discovered laps, and he nuzzles.  He head butts whatever part of a person he can get to, and writhes around on the floor in pure ecstasy when we focus on petting him.  He has decided, quite simply, that he loves humans and he loves being "owned".  Rocky radiates pure adoration.  It's so cute, and so very lovable, especially since he looks like a tough, battle scarred warrior.

Only trouble is, he wants to stay upstairs in the attic, by himself, forever.

That whole "let's integrate Rocky into our household" thing just isn't happening.  He hates EVERYONE with fur.  He hates the dog, and he really, really hates the other cats.  He seems to have forgotten that he once got along just fine with Tucker and Pippin outside.  Whenever another cat is nearby, either in his attic, or in any other room of the house, whether he's protected in a crate, behind a closed, solid wood door, or free to wander around, he starts growling and hissing and spitting and yowling.  He sounds possessed.  I keep expecting his head to spin around 360 degrees.

The other cats look back at him (or the crate, or the closed door that he's behind) in frank surprise, then eventually hiss back.  Weenie Wednesday weighs in at a delicate 7 lbs, compared with Rocky's 15 lbs of burly, rippling muscle.  Yet after getting hissed and growled at on Monday through our closed bedroom door, she waltzed right up to the door, shot out a sleek, petite black paw right under the door, and ripped a gash in the top of his ginormous hairy foot.  I stared in shock as blood started to ooze out of Rocky's paw.  I could just envision Weenie turning her back on the other side of that door and waltzing away swishing her tail, as if to say, "That's what you're going to get if you're a stinker and hiss at ME."

I escorted Rocky back to his attic solitude where there's no room for footsie under the door.  And then I cut Weenie's claws.

So, we're left wondering if keeping Rocky is going to work after all, or if he really ought to have a new home where's he is the only cat.  Finding a home for an adorable kitten is tough - finding one for a battle-scarred adult male cat who won't share with other pets is even harder.  And making sure it's a good enough home to meet my standards is nearly impossible. 

Yet integration is going to be stressful for everyone.  Our oldest cat, Tucker, who's 10, recently had an unexplained episode of vomiting blood, and shows signs of possible early stages of kidney disease.  I would really like to keep his stress levels down.  Then again, he's endured the introduction of 3 dogs and 5 other cats in the time we've had him, so perhaps I'm not giving him enough credit - you'd think he'd be used to it by now.

We've paid our dues when it comes to integrating aggressive cats before.  Our old cat Max spent six months living in his own room when we first acquired him, because he was violently aggressive.  And after months of work, slow introductions of him to the others, and everyone acquiring a lot of scars, he only ever managed to establish a reluctant and tense understanding with the other pets.  Shall we grit our teeth and batten down the hatches for another long, drawn out attempt at integrating someone who doesn't want to be integrated? 

Sigh.  It's so hard to know what's best for everyone.

For now, I guess he's content enough in his attic.  He kind of reminds me of the ghoul that lived in the Weasley's attic in Harry Potter.  It's a good thing we have a big house.


(Ellen - are you having better luck than I am with your new foundling???)

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Rocky Road

Just a quick update on our newfound friend...

As you can see, Rocky came home yesterday and has settled into his new comfier life.  He's currently hanging out by himself in our finished attic, and thinks the futon is pretty darn comfy.

The results of the vet's investigations are that Rocky had a severe abscess in one front leg, his other front paw had been bitten clean through, and he had a nasty gash on his ear, along with other cuts and abrasions.  He was a mighty sick kid from the infection.  After a bunch of work, he's now had a drain put into the abscess (ew!), a big dose of antibiotics, all the wounds have been cleaned.  He's bleeding and oozing all over the attic.  I think that futon cover will never be the same again.

Oh well.

Oh, and he got neutered.  Papa is no longer a rolling stone!

I have never encountered a cat who endured all the discomfort and pain with such grace.  He lets us do whatever is needed to keep his wounds clean, and purrs the entire time anyone is even near him.  In fact, I don't think I've spent more than a minute with him when he wasn't purring.  I'm a little afraid he'll vibrate himself to pieces.

The happy boy:

He's also going to eat us out of house and home.  He eats with such frantic enthusiasm that he flings food everywhere.  The cone of shame is certainly not helping with that.

I am betting that once he starts feeling better, he may start resenting this whole captivity thing.  Maybe not.  Only time will tell.  For now, though, he's clearly thinking he might be able to get used to this new life of his.

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The Rock Monster, or We are Such Suckers

I was running late for work this morning.

As I shot out the front door and started down the path to the car, I heard an inquisitive and anxious little "meow?" from behind me.  Since all the felines I refer to as "mine" were inside, I was curious who would be talking to me.  It was our old friend Rocky.  Rocky is monstrously huge stray cat, who's shy, but who once upon a time must have had a home, and who stops by our house to say hello on occasion.  Because of our cat Tucker's affection for Rocky, we've sort of kept an eye on him for a long time, but he's been so skittish, and visited so seldom that we've never even been able to capture him to get him a check up or neutered.

This morning he was standing at the corner of the house with a worried expression on his face, holding up one front paw, slowly dripping blood on the snow.

Oh, jeez.  Guess I'd better send my assistant a message that I'll be late for work.

Poor Rocky.  He's usually afraid of doors and won't come near them, but injured animals tend to know when they need help, and this fellow was no exception.  He let us scoop him up and corral him in the downstairs bathroom while we assessed the extent of the damage and cleaned out the paw.

Aside from his injuries, he was looking a little rough around the edges.  He's thinner than usual, had a bunch of oldish scabs from injuries that are healing, plenty of fleas, and a lot of bites and scratches.  This is what happens when stray, unneutered tom cats make their rough way in the world, especially in this neighborhood, which is ridiculously overrun by both abandoned pets and feral cats.

That paw was looking too rough to let him back out, even though we'd staunched the flow of blood and cleaned it with antiseptic.  As I sat and looked around my bathroom, now liberally coated in bloody paw prints, my husband called our vet and made an appointment for the afternoon.  We fed Rocky, and shut him up in one of our big old dog crates with a towel, water, and a litter box, and left him to stew about his captivity.

A few hours later, I got the poor booger to the vet without incident and with remarkably little resistance. And then there was that moment.  I've had that moment so many times before.  The vet looked me in the eye, and asked point blank whether we were treating him as a stray, cleaning him up and giving him an antibiotic injection and turning him loose... or were we giving him our usual new pet treatment, complete with vaccines, thorough testing, and neutering.  I sighed.  She smirked a little as she stood there and looked at me.  As if I needed prompting, she slowly said, "Weeeell, he IS a handsome boy... "

"Oh good grief," I said.  "Might as well give him the works.  Because we need five cats."

The vet nodded in a dignified manner, but I saw her grin as she turned around.  She knows us only too well by now.  She knew darn well what my answer would be.

So, the Rock Monster is hangin' tough at the vet's as I type this.  He's got a bunch of undignified shaved spots, has had a few shots, and is, whether he knows it or not, awaiting tomorrow morning's neutering. He is also probably thoroughly regretting choosing our doorstep this morning.

I need to start selling more artwork just to cover the vet bills that result from my ridiculously soft heart.

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Top 10 Reasons Holly is Glad it's Winter

1.  Winter misery makes me appreciate Upstate New York summers so very, very much.  Ah, the warmth, the sunshine, the growing things.  How delicious it all was all those months ago!

2.  Fires in our nicely remodeled fireplace/wood stove are so lovely.

Here's Pippin, sound asleep, worshipping the fire:

Here's where it starts to get tricky... I think those ARE the only two things I like about winter right now.  Hm.  Time to think creatively.

3.  The male cats, who like to spend their time frolicking in the great outdoors, are feeling fractious from being cooped up all the time.  The result is a fascinating animal behavior experiment, and since it's cold and miserable out, I have plenty of time in the evening to sit and watch it.  It turns out, to my shock and consternation, our docile and dumb girl kitty Sneakers is the anchoring personality in the household.  She spends her time monitoring everyone's behavior, breaking up fights, and defending any cat who's getting picked on.  Who knew?  Perhaps I shall have to ratchet up my estimation of her intelligence.  She may be daft enough to light her own tail on fire on the wood stove doors, but she's apparently got some spark up there.

4. Fuzzy Muppet socks.  They make my feet happy.  If you don't know what I mean by "Muppet socks", take a look at the ones I have on right now:

What else can you call those other than Muppet socks?  Honestly, they look like they're made out of the hides of retired Muppets.  I have dozens of pairs of Muppet socks.

5.  I am developing an even greater appreciation of the stubbornness of mold.  Since we largely heat with wood and have been too lazy to buy a humidifier, it's so dry in our house that I can't wear my contacts for more than 10 minutes before they start to irritate me.  My nose is dry, my skin soaks up gallons of lotion daily.  And yet, despite the lack of airborne moisture, my favorite wooden chess set, which to my knowledge has never gotten wet or even damp, randomly started sprouting a fine fuzz of mold.  ??????  Dang, that mold stuff is impressive.  My house is now both an animal behavior experiment and a fungus experiment.  Yay for science!

6.  More animal behavior fun:  When you leave Simon the Basset hound indoors for too long and don't give him enough exercise, every once in a while he just snaps.  I call it Frapping ("FRAP" = Frantic Random Acts of Play).  It could also be referred to as going bonkers.  He will spontaneously jump up from in front of the fire, and rip around the house full speed, catapulting off the furniture, sliding across the wood floors.  He does it all with this maniacally joyful expression on his face, with his tongue flapping out the side of his mouth, and his long ears flying wildly behind him. 

Frapping is hard to photograph, but here are two random shots of him spazzing in our upstairs hallway. They give you some idea of the ridiculousness of it.

Sometimes he inspires Pippin the cat to join him and it becomes a great barky game of tag.  His glee is contagious.  And people wonder why I don't have a television! 

7.  http://goldensnowball.blogspot.com/.  Because if I'm going to get all this snow anyway, I may as well gloat over the citizens of my neighboring upstate cities.  "Oh yeah?  Your winter has been miserable this year?  Well ours has been worse!  We've had even more snow than you have!  And therefore Syracusans are even tougher than [insert citizens of neighboring city here]!"  Oh, we Upstate New Yorkers are a weeeeird breed.

I swear this has been the view out my bathroom window for most of this winter:

8.  Speaking of bathrooms, winter makes me exceedingly appreciative of indoor plumbing.  Every single time I send my poor dog outside to do his business in Arctic temperatures and gale-force winds, I am grateful that I don't have to do the same.

9.  I am, honest to goodness, one of those weird people who actually likes driving in the snow.  No, really, I do.  I drive an awesome all-wheel-drive car with Nokian Hakkapelitta snow tires.  I would argue strenuously that they are the best damn snow tires EVER.  And driving in snow and ice is more interesting than driving on dry pavement - it keeps my commute from getting boring.  Now if only everyone else on the road drove sanely in the snow, I'd like winter driving a whole lot more than I already do.

Random history lesson of the day:  Per Wikipedia, "Hakkapelitta" is a Finnish word, that was used to refer to light cavalrymen in the service of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).  Who knew?

10.  I don't have to feel quite as guilty when I spend a weekend sitting inside doing artwork.  Because, after all, no matter how "nice" it is outside, it's only comparatively nice.  It's nicer, than, say, the prior weekend when it was -17 with the wind chill and snowing like the Dickens.  But 25 degrees outside can only ever be comparatively nice.  It can't be that gloriously intoxicating way-too-nice-to-go-inside-other-than-to-use-the-bathroom kind of nice that we get during some Syracuse summer days.

Which leads me back to #1 on my list.  Oh, how I appreciate Syracuse summers right now!!!

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Random Observations

Not much inclination for blogging lately, so I'll just throw out a few quick tidbits.

1.  Snow + Me = Happy Human.

Yippee!!!!  There are 24 inches of snow out there.  My motto: if it's going to be cold, it may as well be snowing.  My goal for this winter: to go out in the yard and build a bunch of demented snow people, a la Calvin & Hobbes.

2.  Snow + Cat = Instant Hilarity.

Pippin, the lunatic, LOVES the snow.  He's so excited about it that he bounds around in the most uncoordinated manner, with his back feet getting ahead of the rest of him.  If you play tag with him outside,  he will veer off the path, take a flying leap at a snowbank with all four feet flailing, and floomp!  Disappear into the snowbank in a flying cloud of white flakes.  Only the tip of his tail remains visible.  Then up pops his spastic fluffy little head, with a pile of snow for a hat.  Then he rockets out of the bank straight for your ankles.  Pictures to come, with any luck.  Up until now I have been laughing way too hard to hold a camera steady enough to take pictures of the phenomenon.

Best I can offer: a Pippin in its natural habitat:

3.  Tree + Indoors = Happy Cats.

The tree and lights are up, and the cats seem to very much like having a tree in the house, albeit a fake tree. Shock of shocks, Pippin likes to climb it.  None of them are any too fond of the Lego train that runs around underneath it.  Darn train is intruding on their feline space.

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A minor rant (Well, okay, a fairly major one)

I realize all my posts are about my pets lately.  There are other things happening in my life, and I promise I'll start blogging about them eventually.  But, please bear with me while my furry family is dominating my consciousness.  This is yet another pet post, which I shall sub-title:

WHY IS IT SO *BLEEPING* HARD TO ADOPT A DOG?????!!!!!

My husband and I take in strays.  It's just kind of our thing.  We have always had dogs from shelters, and have rescued cats from shelters, from dumpsters, and from the streets of our neighborhood.  They've almost all had Issues (with a capital "I").  We've had a number who were abused, some who had serious socialization problems, and plenty with wacky and expensive medical issues.  Some we theorize were weaned too soon, and some we've never managed to completely house train despite years of effort and expert advice.  They've all been life's rejects and misfits, in one way or another.

But we wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course most pet owners probably think they're good pet owners, but I'll swear we are among the good ones.  We buy them the best food, and make sure they stay fit, active, and not overweight.  We provide the best veterinary care, and practically drown them in love and affection.  We put up with antics and behaviors a lot of people wouldn't.  My gorgeous woodwork suffers for it, yet I refuse to declaw a cat.  We won't board our dogs at traditional kennels because it's too stressful for them, so when we have to leave them we pay a fortune for a high-end doggie hotel where they can stay in rooms rather than cages.  We take our dogs with us when we can, and plan our vacations accordingly.  We worry about them, and do our best to make all decisions about their care based on what's best for them, especially the hard end-of-life decisions.

Are we perfect?  Er, no.  I currently have fleas in the house because I was late in putting Advantage or Frontline on everybody.  I've now treated them, but several are itchy, and I feel awful about it.  I have a cat overdue for a checkup and shot.  And I have most certainly been known to lose my temper and shout at a dog on occasion when it's completely beyond hyperactive and won't stop ricocheting off the furniture long enough to listen.  But in the grand scheme of things, my pets have it pretty good.  All 5 of them.  For that matter, all 10 that my husband and I have had over the years.  Make that 12, if you count the hamsters.

So, now that we are down to one dog, and he's showing some rather serious signs of separation anxiety when we have to leave him at home during the day, we're considering adopting a companion for him.  You'd think with all the shelters and rescue groups and all the dogs who need homes in this country, that we'd have no trouble finding dogs we're eligible to adopt.  For crying out loud, an estimated 3-4 million dogs and cats are euthanized in shelters each year.  And besides, we're experienced pet owners and we certainly have a vet who will vouch for us.

Not.  So.  Much.

Why are we being turned away from pretty much all the local shelters and rescue organizations?  Because our yard isn't fenced.  We (*gasp*) take our dogs for leashed walks instead.

Really really.

We had this problem when we adopted our hounds.  We had to sweet-talk the shelter volunteer into allowing us to take them even though we didn't have a fenced yard.  She lied for us, God bless her, because they had been there 6 months and there was no indication she'd ever find other people willing to adopt two special-needs adult dogs together.

Now I'm facing the prospect of that same experience again. 

When I expressed my frustration to various friends, I realized this is an epidemic problem.  One friend, who is a wonderful parent to two cats, said she was denied being able to adopt a cat from several organizations simply because she'd have been a 1st time cat owner... never mind that she was an adult, a teacher, owned her own home, and had had a bunny for 10 years and a vet for references.  A colleague (another experienced pet owner) tried to adopt a cat a number of years ago from shelters said the experience "left a total distaste". 

Yet another friend observed that where she lives, "a lot of rescues won't adopt out to people with kids under 7, which I agree with if the people are novice dog owners, but completely disagree with if the people are experienced dog owners. Yes, kids and dogs are a lot of work together, but families with children under seven are far more likely to have either a parent or nanny home most of the time with the young children, so it can be the best time for a puppy."  The same friend observed that requiring a fenced yard is a recipe for finding adopters who think they can just leave a dog outside in the yard all the time and not spend time with it.  I agree with her wholeheartedly, on both counts. 

And besides, there are plenty of happy dogs in New York City who don't have fenced yards.  What, pray tell, is wrong with walks?

Now, I do see this from the other side, too.  I volunteered at an animal shelter when I was in law school, mostly assisting with socializing and exercising dogs.  I saw the tragic stories of the animals who came to the shelter, and hated when animals got returned because their adopters had bitten off more than they could chew.  I also saw that some of the good-hearted volunteers just didn't have what it takes to be making judgment calls on whether certain people should be allowed to adopt certain animals, and recognize that shelters sometimes have to make rules for the volunteers to follow.  Some shelters really do want what's best for the animals, and I think most of the ones around here do.

But at the same time, it's such a disservice for the animals to make adoption a miserable experience for the humans.  The way we get grilled when we walk into shelters and ask about adoption you'd think we were criminals who'd been caught trying to steal one of the animals.  If I were any less dedicated to animal rescue, I'd get around the whole problem by going out and buying a healthy, well-adjusted puppy from a reputable breeder.  No more weird socialization problems or neuroses that typically come with shelter dogs - start from scratch and bring up a dog properly. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, I can't bring myself to do that.  So I check Craigslist (scary people post on there), talk to local vets, and ask around.  I'm left just hoping I'll stumble upon a dog who fits our needs.  I'll call a few more dog rescue organizations to see if they'll even talk to me without having a fenced yard, and hope no more people hang up on me when I ask (no joke).  I'll also get yet another quote for fencing our sizable yard, in the hopes that some miracle will occur and the price will have somehow halved itself.  And in the meantime, I'll just hope my current dog's separation issues don't get worse while we wait.

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Inter-Species Love

So now that Simon is an only dog, he's learning to cope with being alone much of the day.  He's doing an admirable job of adjusting.  He's very needy and even more enthusiastic than usual when we get home at the end of the day, but otherwise is pretty much back to being his old happy-go-lucky mischievous self.  And because he's Simon, he has found a new companion for getting into trouble with.

Rotten, stinkin', no-good fluffy-pants Pippin the cat.

Last night when I got home from work I wasn't feeling particularly well, and wanted a few quiet moments on the couch to relax.  Ha!  I most certainly did not get that.  As I wearily dropped my belongings and settled into the couch, the two of them began a lively game of tag, romping around the entire downstairs, across the valuable antique area rug in the living room, and quite literally ricocheting off the couches, my knees, the arm chairs in the library, and the walls.  They knocked a bunch of books off a shelf, and I lost patience.  After getting up and going into the library to shout at them loudly enough to get their attention (my neighbors must think I'm nuts), they stopped and looked at me as if to say, "Gee, Mom, what's up?  Shouting like that isn't good for you."

I grumbled under my breath and went back to my couch.

Pippin came casually waltzing in and immediately got himself tangled in the lace living room curtains.  While I was cursing under my breath and unhooking his claws from the lace, Simon took advantage of my attention being diverted to rummage in the lunch bag I'd unwisely dropped on the floor.

I confiscated it.  And sat back down on the couch.  Dog and side-kick cat casually wandered off.

Within about another minute, a giant howling, yowling ruckus ensued in the dining room, where Pippin was gaily thromping on poor cat Sneakers while - I swear - Simon looked on and chuckled.

I broke up the spat, soothed Sneakers, went back to the living room, and heaved a great big sigh as I sat back down on the couch.  Figuring I'd finally shouted loudly enough to take the wind out of their sails, I enjoyed nearly three whole minutes of quiet.

Too much quiet.

At the faint sound of rustling in the kitchen and the conspicuous absence of animals in the room, I went to investigate.  Pippin was on the counter (where he is strictly not allowed and he knows it) rustling up to his scruffy neck in a bag of dog treats.  He'd torn open one bag and swatted a few treats down for Simon, who had gobbled them down, as evidenced by the large, wet, recently licked area on the floor. Simon was intently staring up waiting for more.  Conniving little rascals!

Pippin was so engrossed in his task, that when I poked him in the side and cleared my throat, he jumped clean out of his skin.  In the .1 second it took for him to become airborne, he managed to knock the dish rack into the sink, the open bottle of San Pelligrino onto the floor (where it merrily fizzed into a giant puddle), followed by three bags of dog and cat treats, a shot glass, and my daily pills organizer, which shattered on impact and sent dozens of pills in a lovely spray across the entire floor.  Of course, he'd scared the pants off me, too, by jumping that suddenly so that I stood there, gasping and empty handed, having tried unsuccessfully to catch any of the objects he'd sent flying.

About halfway through picking up pills and picking fur off them (my floor washing skills leave something to be desired), I started to laugh.  A great, weak-kneed, eye-wiping, floor-rolling laugh.

Good God.   And people wonder why I don't have a TV.  Who needs one when I share my house with these lunatics?

It seems Simon is, for now, fine without a canine companion.  He has someone to scheme with, who's more agile and conniving than his sister hound ever thought of being.  He appears to be having a rollicking good time of it.

We've had canine/feline buddies before in our household.  Our old dog Clancy used to open doors to let our cat Tucker out of the house, and the pair of them once got caught by my father sharing a hamburger he'd momentarily left unattended, with Tucker on the counter pawing bits down to Clancy.  And yet, still somehow it amazes me, the inter-species friendship thing.  How many times have you seen an enormous empty field, with its only two occupants - a goat and horse, or cow and sheep - standing in the middle, together?  I guess even human/dog friendships are inter-species, and heaven knows there are plenty of people who are inseparable from their canine friends.  But when it's two animals it seems all the more impenetrable to me.  How do they talk to one another?  And what draws them together?

I am just grateful that Simon's the kind of dog who will make friends wherever he goes.  When I saw this video today, it reminded me of my nutsy friends, although this pairing is even more impressively mismatched.  Thought I'd share.

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Belly Whuffles

Cats and hot weather do not mix.  Our four have been pretty crabby on the hot and humid days.  We don't have central air conditioning in our house, just one window unit that we put in our bedroom for the really sticky nights.  We have discovered that if any of the cats is being insufferable, locking him/her in the bedroom with the air conditioner on for a few hours makes him/her emerge a totally different cat.  Poor kids.  I wouldn't want to be wearing a fur coat in the summer, either.

When not locked in the bedroom with the a/c, they use their own method of kitty belly cooling, which amuses me no end.  At any given moment, one is liable to find all four splayed flat on their backs:

It takes everything I've got not to go up to them and whuffle in their fuzzy bellies.  Reason usually trumps over temptation, though, as soon as I remember just how grouchy they are about being hot.  

The dogs still haven't learned that cat belly whuffling isn't a good idea in the summer, though.  If they haven't learned yet that the cats are pointy, they never will.  They look so surprised every time they get whacked in the snoot for taking liberties with the cats' bellies.  Dumb dogs.

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Trouble with Tribbles

My husband has a problem.  It has to do with fluffy tiger tuxedo cats.

The first time around, it was Maxfield (a.k.a. "Smacky").  We were happy at the time with our one-cat-one-dog household, particularly because we were living in a rented 700 square foot townhouse with a lease that prohibited us from getting any more pets.

My husband, unbeknownst to me, became fixated on a cute fluffy little stray with a lot of attitude that had been wandering the neighborhood.  One morning he woke me up with a cup of coffee as a bribe, and said, "You know that little fluffy tiger cat that's been hanging around?"  I replied, "Yeeees..."  He responded, "I, um, let him in.  He's in the downstairs bathroom."

And we had acquired Maxfield.

I admit his little fuzzy lion face peering in the back door must have been hard to resist.  He was cute as a button, and insistent on coming in.  But poor Max had had a hard life before he found us.  We suspect he'd been abused, as he was terribly afraid of quick movements of any kind, particularly if you had anything in your hand.  He was also terrified - and I mean unbelievably terrified - of dogs.  And, unlike some cats who get skittish and shy when afraid, Max was an attack cat.  He acquired the nickname "Smacky" because he smacked everyone.  A lot.

Max spent the first 6 months with us living by himself in the spare bedroom.  If he was left on his own in there he was fine - affectionate and calm.  As soon as we left the door open and gave him the ability to roam the house, he'd get panicky and aggressive.

It took months of patience, and a whole lot of scars for all of us before Smacky settled into our household.  He did, finally, although he never trusted our dog Clancy, who was such a sweet soul that he just learned to avert his nose and never make eye contact with the fuzzy devil cat.

Crazily enough, I loved that cat.  Sometimes the more work a pet takes, the more I wind up loving them in the end.

A little love nibble:

Unfortunately Smacky had a too-short life.  We had him for perhaps 2 years when he developed repeated urinary blockages, and there was nothing we could do to make them stop.  We tried everything, including changes in food and even surgery to essentially turn the little guy into a girl so that the crystals wouldn't block his ureter.  It didn't work.  Within weeks scar tissue had occluded the opening again, and we had to put him to sleep.  Poor Smacky.  I still miss him.

Sooooo, my husband has done it again.  Fluffy, tiger, and tuxedo.  This time, it's Pippin.

You remember this little fellow?

He's been hanging about for the last few months.  We believe he's the offspring of two of the local feral cats: his papa is a ballsy little cat we call King Friday, and his mama is our sort-of cat Rocky's sister.  (We do our best to look out for Rocky, but he's a wild thing.  We've never been able to capture him even to get him neutered.  He continues to roam the neighborhood lookin' for love, and drops by only on occasion.  I still have hopes of snagging him and getting him snipped, but recognize it's a bit of a long shot.  He was too old and too wild when we tried to befriend him, and he remains extremely skittish with only very sporadic visits.)

My husband cannot resist this little kitten he's dubbed Pippin.  Is it the tiger or the tuxedo or the combination of the two?  My spouse, the same spouse who complains that I have a bad habit of acquiring cats, has been spending great amounts of time and energy coaxing the little fellow toward the house, getting him comfortable with petting.

In personality, he's frightfully like Max.  He's got the same kind of incredibly brave, not-intimidated-by-anything attitude, although thankfully no one has ever been mean to Pippin and he's exhibited no aggression of any kind.  He's feisty, stands his grounds with my spastic dogs, and isn't afraid of Tucker.

He spends much of his time flirting with my girl kitties through the window screens.  While Sneakers wants nothing to do with him and hisses at him, Wednesday, who is spayed, purrs and yowls like she's in heat when she sees Pippin.  Methinks she has a crush on the handsome devil.  She's been spending all her time trying to escape the house so she can roll around with him in the dirt under the neighbor's porch.

Although a couple of months ago Pippin was a wildly skittish kitten, he now comes when he's called and follows my husband around like a little shadow.  Amazing what can happen when you catch feral cats young enough.

Saturday morning, I caved.  After watching my husband scoop the little guy up and nuzzle him while Pippin blissfully rubbed his jowls against my husband's scruffy chin and purred like he was going to vibrate into pieces, I resigned myself to the fact that we have a new cat.  I fed the scrawny thing a good meal, and we called our vet and scheduled his first checkup, his first shots, and his neutering.  He made his first foray into the house this afternoon.

Good God, that makes 4 cats, plus our two awful Basset hounds.

My closest friend in law school was this wonderful woman who, along with her husband, had 2 dogs and 6 cats, all rescues.  My husband and I used to chuckle and shake our heads about how crazy they were for having so many pets.

Okay, universe or karma or whatever you're called, I cry Uncle!  I apologize for laughing at that wonderful couple.  You can stop sending us pets who need homes now.  No, really, you can.  I get the point!

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