Another indulgent cute cat photo

She has been quite interested in the TV lately, fortunately she doesn’t have front claws!

Splash…

Capri Patt’s little sheltie hero girl!  She is featured on this site, as the animal hero of the day!

Way to Go Splashie!

This is a fun meme

Capri K knows I love talking about my pets, so she has tagged me to answer some questions.  Sometimes I look the other way when I am tagged, but this one is fun and easy.  So here we go. 

1.  What is the first pet you remember?

When I was a young child, we lived very near my grandparents.  They had a dog named “Archie”.  She/he was a rather large dog, probably a golden retriever/sheperd mix, a well fed mut most definitely.  She was sweet, and but I’m sure I abused her just a little.  Once I remember her giving me a warning to back off with a growl and a snap.  What I really remember was the time she came to our house to stay, my grandparents were probably travelling to Europe.  She was elderly by this time, and we couldn’t get her to eat.  And then she got sick, and yes she passed away under our care.  Guess it was just too tramatic for her, missing her people, being in a household with young children. 

2.  How many different kinds of pets have you owned?

Does my childhood fascination with grasshoppers, crickets, frogs, toads, snakes, ladybugs, fireflies, praying mantis’ count as pets?  I definitely thought they would have a better life in my jar with holes punched in the lid rather than in their natural habitat.  But other than that we’ve had dogs(Tiffy, Toad, Marlo), cats(Mr. T, Samantha, and Bibbs), a parakeet(Pebbles), gerbil(sss, then more gerbilssssss), rabbits, and a hamster.

3.  What was your strangest pet?

When we were first married, my grandmother was ill, and could no longer care for her cat.  Jeff and I volunteered to take her in.  Well, this kitty did not make the move well.  I think she turned wild, she literally climbed our curtains, clawed the walls, and would appear to be peacefully sleeping and then spring in the air several feet and take off across our house.  Jeff was spending hours and hours on a model ship, the USS Constitution, painstakingly handpainting it.   The cat knocked it off the shelf and broke the masts and many of the details.  We eventually had to find her a new home, on a farm…she was much happier as a barn cat. 

4.  What is your dream pet?

We’ve been blessed with great pets.  I can’t put one in front of the other, or wish for any better!

5.  What is your nightmare pet?

See #3 above.

6.  What is your best/funniest pet story?

Well, lets see.  I could talk about this all day, I find my animals fun, amusing, inspiring.  Our dog before Marlo was Toad.  She was also a collie mix.  In her old age, she developed graves disease and diabetes and the voracious appetite to go with it.   On garbage pickup day, she would sneak away and take a walkabout, following her nose, and looking for any morsel to eat.  On several occasions we got a call, because she had a tag with our phone number on it, from random neighbors a few blocks away.  They would say, “we have your dog, she just parked herself on the front porch, she was thirsty, I gave her some water, she looks tired”.  I think Toad was getting a little forgetful, and would forget her way home.  But also, maybe she  just ran out of energy to get home.  Anyways, I would go get her in the car and bring her back home.  

7.  Tell your worst/saddest pet story….

Probably would have to be when Toad died.  She had been the kids dog as they grew up, their childhood companion.  She got sick, had diabetes….required insulin 2x a day, I did this for two years.  She lost alot of her coat, and in the end her magnificent collie tail was totally bald.  It was a slow decline, and we did everything we could to help her live as long as she could.  The day after Toad passed away, we went up north for Thanksgiving.  When we go up north, we always volunteer at the animal shelter.  There waiting for us was the sweetest cutest puppy, with a resemblance to Toad.  That was Marlo.  We were without a dog for less than 48 hours. 

8.  Did you ever have a scary animal experience?

 It was scary to have a pitbull living next door.  When Marlo was a young pup, she had no concept of danger, she trusted everyone and everything.  We were talking with our neighbor, and their dog was chained up outside.  Marlo wandered into the pitbulls reach, and was attacked immediately.  Luckily, we were right there.  But after that, Marlo was more wary…..she would always look over into the next yard before stepping off our deck. 

9.  What was your favorite pet?

That is an unfair question because I hate to make that judgement, they have all been favorites.   But, since I haven’t mentioned Bibbs in this meme yet, I will say its her.  She is a one  person cat, and I am that person.  I am her chosen one.  I adopted her from the same up north animal shelter that Marlo came from.  She arrived there as a tiny kitten with her mother and other siblings.  Every other sibling and the mother had been adopted long before, and she was still at the shelter after 8 months.  She was just waiting for me, that’s all.  She had been unfriendly, a  little standoffish to everyone.  But when I arrived, she jumped on my lap, let me carry her around, purred and purred.  Yup, she was just waiting for me. 

10.  What did you really want to tell us about pets that didn’t fit into the other questions?

Just want to say that having pets has enhanced my life with their unconditional love and companionship.  I am so glad that I grew up with animals, and that my children were able to also.  Having a pet around has brightened our days and given us comfort.  We are all better people for  having learned to appreciate, enjoy and care for animals. 

There you are, hope you enjoyed my stories. 

And now I tag Steph…..

Missy Bibbsy close call

I can finally tell you this story, the outcome has a happy ending.  It all started a week ago last Tuesday, first thing in the morning.   Bibbs had a string laying under her, draped across the back of a chair.  My friend Kathie, Jackie and I were all on the porch, enjoying that first cup of coffee when we discovered that the string’s source was her mouth.  I picked her up, and pulled a little, and just a few inches of string came out before she squirmed out of my grasp and took off running under the dining room table, with the perle cotton trailing behind her.   The string caught under the table leg, while she kept running.  About 9 additional feet of string pulled out before she stopped in her tracks, obviously hurt.   We picked her up again and tried to pull out the rest of the string(who knows how much was still in her digestive tract..a few inches or feet????), but it wouldn’t budge.  So I cut the string, and rushed her to the vet, they induced vomiting…no string.  The danger is that the string could get caught up in her stomach or small intestine and twist and fold and bunch her gut up…not a good thing.   A few hours later, we brought her home but she was soooo sick….won’t go into detail.  We continued to watch her that evening, she did okay.  But in the morning she was obviously weak, in much distress and I was questioning whether she would even make it.  I took her to my SIL’s vet….he cleared his schedule and operated on Bibbs that afternoon.  He didn’t find any string, (so it must have passed safely to the large intestine) but he also said in 30 years he had never seen a stomach so severely lacerated as Bibbs.  This had to happen when the string was caught under the table leg and she kept running, causing a violent ripping internally.  She had a three day stay at the hospital after this surgery, then she came home and has slowly recuperated.  She really was such a good little patient, with just a little protest when the tech’s had to attend to her, took her pills so easily, too.  Finally, she is the happy kitty that I know and love, eating well, all bodily functions working well….phew….what a close call.  There is a risk that she will develop scar tissue, but we are hoping and praying that all will go well.  My sewing room door is always closed now, she is not allowed in there.  I am very very careful to put all thread and yarn away.   She is my Miracle Kitty!