Katie has kittens!

So, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post – sometimes we have varying cats that live around my apartment complex.  There is one I have seen for several months who is a silver tabby.  She is skittish, but likes to get out in the open.  We would see her almost daily walking the dogs.

Yesterday morning, I was walking the dogs earlier than usual and I saw her with a pile of fluff next to her.  Tried to get a good look, finally determined they were kittens!  I told the staff and we took another peek at them..I counted six little fluffy heads.   Feeling compelled, I used some of my contacts at the local humane society.  By mid-day, I had the approval to put the kittens in the program, but by then the mom had moved everyone under the pool deck.

Also discovered that one of my neighbors has been feeding the momma cat and has dubbed her Katie.  She had no idea that she had kittens.  My estimate is that the kittens are between 4-5 wks old.  Many attempts to lure them out have failed.  Katie won’t let anyone get closer than 20ft to her.  So, here we are, 24 hours later, no kittens, a canceled trip and having to call animal control to trap them.

Hopefully, animal control will reliquish the kittens to me in order for me to foster them and get them adopted through the humane society.  Katie will probably have to be trapped and spayed, but I don’t know what is going to happen to her then.  The kittens are young enough to be socialized and adoptable.

I will keep you posted.

Cody is a Therapy Dog!

Yea! Cody passed his evaluation yesterday to be a registered Pet Partner with Delta Society! I was so nervous during the evaluation, but I am not sure why.  Everyone there was great and tried to make us as comfortable as possible.  I am excited to get our badge and start visiting places.  I will continue to report on our experiences.

Lexi gets evaluated on Monday.

Pet Therapy – ComForT

I am so excited!  Both Lexi and Cody passed their pre-screening for our local pet therapy group!  (For the record, I did not take Meg – too much stress for her).   Our local program, ComForT (Companions For Therapy) is affiliated with the Delta Society.  I am currently taking the training class and then both dogs and myself will have to be evaluated before we can be registered.  The program is not limited to dogs – we have a cat and a bunny in the class!  I can just imagine Trillian.. *grin*  Maybe in a few years when she mellows a bit! 

I feel like both Cody and Lexi will be good a this in different ways.  My predictions are that Lexi will shine with sickly patients or very elderly, whereas I feel Cody will be fabulous with active adults and children.  There are so many wonderful ways that animals can help people.  ComForT has several programs reaching beyond the typical – including but not limited to the READ program for children and the ComForT in the Courts program for victims of violent crimes.  I will keep you all posted as we progress!

Out with Dogs

Today I went with some friends getting together with other friends with our dogs to walk a trail.  It was great fun and all of the dogs behaved very well (always a plus)!  We walked around Lafayette Heritage Trail and had a great day.  The weather was perfect and I also picked off one geocache at lunchtime.  

I am including some pictures:

Enjoy Life!

Why puppy mills are bad

There are very few things that I feel so strongly about.  Pet overpopulation is my “cause”.  For me, buying a puppy from a pet store is unethical.   I recently had a very close friend buy a puppy from a chain pet store.  I was really upset about it and just assumed that she knew everything I did about how horrible puppy mills are.  I realized that there are still many people that don’t know what they are endorsing when they buy a puppy from a puppy mill store.   Here are some quick facts I put together… 

Reasons not to buy a puppy from a pet store:

1.       Your money continues the breeding of dogs in horrible conditions (see below)

2.       The animals are not healthy, nor well cared for, or properly socialized

3.       There are rescue groups that specifically rescue animals from puppy mills

4.       Paperwork is often forged, including health documents and the actual age of the puppy

5.       According to bestfriends.org, more than 90% of puppies sold at pet stores are from puppy mills

6.       The money is not for a high quality dog, it’s to make money for the breeder, broker, and pet store

Conditions at puppy mills (adapted from bestfriends.org):

·         Large, commercial breeding operations where they’re treated like inventory and stored in crowded, filthy cages with other dogs.

·         There are no limits on breeding. Female dogs used for breeding are bred over and over again until their bodies give out. Then they’re destroyed, sold for research or dumped at the local pound.

·         Dogs may well be inbred, which means their puppies might have deformities.
Dogs raised in substandard conditions often suffer from all kinds of physical ailments, which can result in large veterinary bills – and a lot of heartbreak – for their unsuspecting new owners.

·         Puppies raised in large, commercial breeding operations are not socialized and often have behavioral problems.

·         Because they suffer from diseases and behavioral problems, many of these animals end up in shelters, and are then euthanized. It’s estimated that one in four animals in a shelter is a purebred.

This is a great website with tons of information – please take the time to review it.
http://stoppuppymills.org/

Wikipedia also has a lot of information, including the difference between “backyard breeder” and “puppy mill”

For some graphic images:

http://www.a-r-f.org/html/dognews.html

The number one way consumers can help shut down puppy mills is to avoid purchasing dogs from pet stores, and adopt from a local shelter or rescue group instead.

There are many wonderful puppies and dogs in constant need of homes, many of them are purebred (estimates are 1 in 4). 

Petfinder.com is a wonderful resource, breed rescues exist everywhere, as well as your local shelter.

If anyone has any other things that I have left out, please leave a comment.

Cat Safety Collar

Trillian almost died last night.  I awoke to find her collarless this morning and when I found the collar I thought: Thank goodness she wears a cat safety collar!  

 

Almost dead Trillian

As you can see, she got caught on the dishwasher and must have tried to leap off, causing the elastic portion of her collar to snap.  If she had not been able to get free she could have strangled herself to death.

So there are many cute collars in pet stores for small dogs, but I will caution you to NEVER put those on a cat.  All commercial cat collars are supposed to have a saftey release for just the event pictured: if they get hung up they won’t choke to death.   There are two basic kinds, ones with a plastic release snap buckle that pops open with a little force and one with a buckle and an elastic portion.   I find that the plastic snap ones come off too easily (in play, etc) and the Trouble Twins end up naked most of the time.  So they wear the buckle version.  I am happy to see that the collar functioned properly!

Some might point out that they could go collarless.  Not an option in my opinion.  I have seen and rescued far too many pets that had no ID on.  It would have been a cinch to reunite them with their owners had they had owner information on.   My cats are strictly indoors, but that does not mean that they don’t get curious, or that the unexpected could happen (strangers letting them out, fire, etc).  All of my pets wear ID tags all of the time.

Stress & finding a Pet-Sitter

Life went crazy for about 1.5 weeks there.  Arthur landed himself in the Emergency Vet on the night of Aug 12^th.  He managed to get blocked even with the treatment from the vet the week before.  They put a catheter in him overnight and the next morning our vet took it out.  It has been a tedious road of pills, special food (canned s/d, a step up from the c/d apparently), and one sick kitty.  His recovery has been slow and is just now starting to show signs of improvement. 

I finished my first scarf, knitting with sick kitty on my lap mostly.   I also completed my second scarf (pictures are of) yesterday and have cast on a third scarf. I guess I need to learn how to knit something else!

I have been interviewing pet-sitters all week for our cruise in December.  I am going to post my list of my questions to the various pet-sitters that you can use to help you in hiring a qualified individual. 

·         Are you the one doing the pet-sitting?

·         Are you bonded and insured?

·         How long have you been in business/is this your only job?

·         Do you consider yourself a cat person or a dog person?

·         How experienced are you with dogs?

·         How many and what kind of pets do you have?

·         Do you like to stick to a routine that the dogs are familiar with?

·         Is it important to you to learn details and quirks of the pet?

·         With 6 animals there are a lot of dynamics, how do you think you will be able to handle that?

·         How do you feel about feeding a special diet (i.e. RAW, prescription food)?

·         Would it bother you to give pills to the dogs?

·         What is your protocol for a veterinary emergency?

·         What is your contingency plan for your clients if you have a personal emergency?

I would also recommend you check for sitters certified by NAPPS.  They have a great program.  ALWAYS meet your pet-sitter and have them meet your pets before you leave town.  You learn A LOT about a person in person and their reaction to your animals and the animal’s reaction as well. 

Much geocachingwas had while Mom was here… 22 finds, most of them just while we were out an about.  More plans to geocache this weekend!

First Cast

I had my first knitting class today (yea!) and we are doing a bulky scarf with chunky (but very soft) yarn.  For Barbara’s sake, it’s Sulka 60% wool, 20% alpaca, & 20% silk.  I am posting the picture of what I have accomplished today.  The colors are a merlot and heather gray.

  

Btw, for Mom’s sake, to ‘cast on’ in knitting is ’starting a project’ because it stays on one needle or the other as you go on. 

I am having a lot of fun with it and am surely making mistakes, but that’s how you learn! One of the hardest things to get used to (compared to crocheting) is that you can just “pull it out” if you want to back up.  You have to learn how to undo stitches as well. 

Also, I am still figuring out how to count rows.  It’s a matter of being familiar with how the stitches look and practice! For now, I find using glass stones (life stones, from the Magic days) helps me keep track of what row and whether I should knit or purl.  I find it is a very useful system when there are distractions around. 

Arthur

This morning, rushing out the door for class, I stopped at Trillian’s insistance and fed the cats.  Arthur did not show up for breakfast.  I went looking for him and found him licking his private parts.  He proceed to get up and climb in the dog bed and squat.  He laid down in the same spot.  Concerned, I felt under him and it was not wet.  Worried about the propensity for neutered male cats to be blocked, I called Zach out to run the symptoms by him.  We stared at the cat, who was propping himself up and looking around dazed and uncomfortable.  I finally decided I needed to go ahead and call the vet.  Vet said to bring him in.  He promptly got up and squatted again (still in the dog bed).  This time he peed quite a bit.  I still took him to the vet, thinking UTI.

Neither.  Well, almost one.  It turns out he has lots of crystals in his urine which leads to blockage.  Dr. prescribed wet food and more water (because his urine was concentrated as well).  Also, 10 days of amitriptyline to reduce anxiety and inflammation.  Poor kid!

Geocaching with dogs (Poor Cody!)

We geocached today with some friends new to caching.  We brought Cody along with us for the day because kids were caching with us today!  Cody LOVES kids.  So, hunting in the woods about 30 feet off a paved trail, Cody (on a leash) starts freaking out – shaking his head, trying to run and frantically paw at his face.  I finally got him out of the woods and on the path and he was still trying to tear his right ear off his head. 

Zach got a look in his ear and discovered a yellow jacket in his ear stinging him (probably repeatedly).  You can’t just grab it with your fingers, so Zach is trying to get it out with his shoe.  Poor Cody, what must he be thinking?  Here he is being stung and now someone’s trying to kick him in the head.  He’s such a good boy, though and we got it all taken care of.

But- we still hadn’t found the cache, and we were close.  Cody and I were still recovering on the trail when they found it, right near were he picked up his little hitchhikker.  We came at it a slightly different way, but alas, on our way out of the woods, a yellow jacket landed on his head!  Keep in mind, these things are not bothering any of us (four adults, two kids).  Zach scoots the thing off his head (still in the woods) with his shoe again, but then Cody starts going crazy again. This time it’s his paw!  Poor thing must have stepped on it after Zach knocked it off.  Back on the trail we finally knock it off and kill it.  Cody got stung at a bare minimum 3 times in the span of about 15 minutes.    I had a first aid kit with anti-sting pad in it and we wiped it on his paw and his ear.  Hopefully it helped.  He was a trooper and hung in there all day.  He really is a good boy.

Meg’s thyroid results indicated the current dosage is keeping her in the normal range.