Our baby's birthday happened to fall on Thanksgiving this year. Sadie turned 11 and did what she normally does all day long:
She didn't get a birthday cupcake or a party hat but we did manage to save her some turkey. As you can see, she was perfectly happy with that!
Who could resist this?
If you read here regularly, you know that we have many pets and love them all. Currently, we have a miniature schnauzer and four cats. Our dog, Sadie, is like one of our children. Our cats, Lucy, Molly, Tabi, and Mr. Tumnus, bring lots of joy to our lives. It's hard for us to imagine anyone living without a pet.
Recently, we learned of an online social network for pet lovers. At zootoo we found like minded people who love their pets and love to help other animals. There is so much information available and all very helpful. For instance, do you have a general pet question? Do you have questions about pet products or services? Do you want to read pet news? You'll find all of this plus a lot more. One of my favorite areas is the free pet samples. Here you can sign up to try out and review pet products. This is especially helpful if there's a product I'm curious about but unsure of whether to invest in it. Another favorite place is the pet video area. The kids and I usually spend an hour or two a week just watching pet videos online. There are also ways to help a shelter get a make over or generate income for them by becoming a member of zootoo. We are always looking for ways to help animals so this was a no-brainer for us.
There are so many ways we can help animals so I encourage you to see what you can do to help shelters in your area. Start at zootoo and go from there. Animals bring so much joy to us. Why not return the favor?
Do you love reading pet stories? If so, you've got to check out Thoughts Fur Paws. This blog is a place where pet owners can connect to share stories about their pets, as well as a host of other Pet Information. You can find posts about microchipping your pet, buying insurance for them, and even poems about pets. There are stories written from a pet's perspective that are pretty cute. I enjoyed the post that included an online quiz you can take to tell you whether you are more like a cat or a dog. It was a lot of fun and as I expected, I am more cat. That makes sense since we have four cats!
If you love talking about your pet and would like to connect with others who love to do the same, check them out. You'll find lots of information and many amusing stories. Enjoy!
Today was quite a day. I had to go to the doctor early and then stop by Walmart for several things we needed. I really dislike Walmart this time of year. It's always so busy and it seems they never have enough people on duty. It's crazy. Anyway, the girls were home doing chores and schoolwork and by the time I got home, it was after lunch. I jumped right into grammar with Caroline and Logan went to another area to work on her math. After I had gone over the grammar lesson with Caroline, I grabbed my laptop and tried to check my email. I was getting caught up when my internet connection went down and I finally gave up. I'm very impatient where the internet is concerned. That's another whole post.
I thought I'd get some chores done myself so off I went. I started to vacuum a rug and noticed that my almost dead Hoover was not picking up. I decided to flip it up and look underneath to see if there was a problem. I wish I had taken a picture of what it looked like. Honestly, I thought I had sucked up a troll. There was so much hair and other stuff wrapped around the little brush thing that I just sat there for a minute, taking it all in. I took the bottom part off so I could remove the brush and I started cleaning it off. It was nasty. Are you supposed to clean this thing regularly? I never hear anyone talk about that. I don't know but obviously I don't clean mine. I really think I could have made a wig out of the hair I pulled off of it.
If that wasn't fun enough, the kids informed me that one of our kitties had made another mess that I just had to see. This particular kitty has issues. Mental issues. She has a bad habit of playing with the toilet paper roll in our master bathroom. I'm not sure what she finds so fascinating. She doesn't just play with it. She demolishes it. You'd think that Edward Scissorhands had been in there! The kids told me that they just couldn't clean it up until I saw it. I have to admit, it was funny. The problem is that this kitty does this quite often and it wastes a lot of tissue. I try to remember to close the door but I forget. A lot.
Don't let her cute face fool you!
The pile of demolished tissue
This is her trademark
Everything is cleaned up now and it's almost time to start supper. I'm off to make some beef ravioli with tomato cream sauce and a nice salad. I hope you've had a nice day. I'm looking forward to the weekend. Our UT Vols play LSU for the SEC championship on Saturday. That should be interesting. On Sunday night, we are off to Knoxville to watch the Lady Vols play North Carolina. That should also be a very interesting game. What are you doing this weekend?
** Warning, the next few lines will contain details that are, well, just gross!** A few days ago, I mentioned that I had to take one of our kitties to the vet. Tuesday night, we noticed that this particular kitty had a swollen place on her jaw. It looked like she had a golf ball hidden under her skin. I rubbed it but didn't feel anything. I started to think it was sort of tumor that had grown overnight (yes, I know, dramatic....that's how I think!). I told hubby about it and he agreed that we should keep an eye on it. Before bedtime that same night, we noticed that she had scratched and there was a very small patch of hair missing. By morning, she was scratching more and eventually I noticed blood on the carpet. I searched for her and sure enough, when I found her she had scratched a much larger place and now there was blood and other "stuff" all over the fur on her face. When I looked closer, I could see flesh. It was so nasty. I got a rag and dabbed her face with it and I could tell that whatever this was had infection in it. As my hubby would say, "gag a maggot off a gut wagon".
I called the vet up and I was on my way within fifteen minutes. When we got there, he showed me that she had a small hole, the size of a pen tip, in that area. Apparently she was poked by another one of our cats without our knowledge. There were no scratches. Just this tiny hole. He explained that it was abscessed and that's why all of the beautiful yellow stuff was coming out. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. The vet shaved the hair off her jaw and split the wound open wider so that it would drain more. As in drain more yellow stuff....and blood. Insert gagging noises here. He gave her a shot of penicillin, washed the wound with peroxide, and applied antibiotics directly onto the wound. Lucy, the kitty, didn't fight him at all. This is huge since she obviously has mental issues. She is very scared of people, besides us. Sometimes she's scared of us. We have no idea why because she was born inside and has always been able to do what she wanted.
The best part? Well, the wound could not be covered. The vet also said it would look much worse before it started to heal. Great. Not only do I have to deal with blood and yellow stuff getting in the house, but I have to look at this nasty thing too! Wonderful. Forty-five minutes after we arrived at the vet's office, we were home and Lucy found a spot and went to sleep. By Friday, the wound had scabbed over so I'm not cleaning up nasty stuff. Yay! The funny thing lies in the fact that we have come to accept. Our home is a magnet for strange, homeless, under fed, deformed cats. Seriously. We have five cats. Only one is truly ours (we bought that one) and it is the only truly normal one. She is cute, has all of her tail, and has no mental disorder. Of the other four, three are bob-tailed cats. The one that does have a tail has constantly runny eyes. Apparently that's common for a wild cat. To prove my point, you'll remember that a sixth cat showed up here about a month ago and he has absolutely NO tail. Where do they come from???? Is there a colony of funky tailed cats out there somewhere? How did they find their way to our house? How can we make them stop coming?
I really don't exaggerate these stories. You would have to see these misfits to believe how unbelievable it is! It's pure madness, I tell ya!
Every night before Caroline goes to bed, she yells to us and says "don't let the bed bugs bite". We laugh about it but did you know that bed bugs really exist? Most of us have heard of these pesky critters. They are tucked away in our mattresses, just waiting to come and suck our blood. That's what they do. They feed on our blood and each time they bite, they drink our blood for about five minutes. Yes, it's gross, but it's true. It doesn't hurt but they do leave little red bite marks.
If you think you have them and need to get rid of bed bugs, just call the exterminator and he'll come wipe those little buggers out. Steam cleaning will work too. Show those little critters that you mean business!
I'm really starting to wonder about our house. If you've read here before, you know we have lots of pets. Lots of cats to be specific. Only one of those cats truly belong to us. The others were living in the woods behind our house when we moved here four years ago. Being the animal lovers we are, we had compassion on the cats when they started coming into our yard and eating with our cat.
In the beginning, there was one male and one female cat. The wouldn't let us touch them but they'd eat once we weren't around. We just let them do that because it was evident they were wild and not eating well. About a year after they first appeared, they were finally comfortable enough with us to allow us to pet them. To make a long story short, the female cat was pregnant every time we turned around. There was nothing we could do because she wasn't comfortable enough with us, to let us hold her or bring her inside. She gave birth to at least three litters of kittens out in the woods. Of those three litters, only one kitten survived. It only survived because I snatched it from the mama one day when her guard was down. We brought the kitten inside and he lived there until he was about eight months old. Then we took him to the animal shelter. That broke my heart. We did stay in touch with the shelter and although they would not give us details, they did tell us that he got a good home. About two years ago, the wild cats started to become very comfortable around us. We could pet them and they would even come in sometimes to eat. We decided we would start by having mama cat fixed and then the male cat would be next. We gathered mama cat up and somehow managed to get her into a kitty carrier (don't ask how we ever managed....it was tough!). We got her to the vet so that she could have a pre-op visit before being fixed (the vet required this since she was wild). Well, five minutes into the vet visit, we found out mama was pregnant....again.
Last March, mama cat gave birth to five little kitties, three male, two female. Mama cat was fixed soon after that! Finally! A few of the baby kitties were, well, a little different. Mama cat only had about 3/4 of a tail. She is classified as a bob-tail, although she's not a true bob-tail cat. Two of the babies were the same way, except not. LOL! One baby had 3/4 of a tail with some sort of funky end (it reminds me of a flyswatter), while the other baby has a little less than half a tail. It's strange....and a little creepy. I cannot touch their tails because it grosses me out. Of the five kitties, we only kept two. One "normal" kitty went to a family in our church and the other two normal ones went to the animal shelter. Yes, we made sure that they were adopted. If they hadn't been, we were gonna go back and pay to get them back. Anyway, the two "special" kitties still reside here. The flyswatter tail kitty has some mental issues. Her brother is totally normal, except for his strange, less-than-half tail. He's absolutely wonderful and my favorite kitty, by far. We didn't take them to the shelter because we were afraid they would not get adopted due to their strange tails. I'm glad we kept them because the female is mental and would have had a hard time finding a family. The male kitty, well, he was born just for me. We are soul mates :-o)
All this brings me back to my opening paragraph. I'm starting to wonder about our house. It attracts animals from all over the neighborhood. We don't mind as long as they go home after a visit. However, nature has other plans for us. Somehow, the animals have told other animals about our home. It's a safe haven, a place of animal love, a place to get a free gourmet meal (of special indoor kitty blend food). It's a place to get warm on a cold winter night; a place to sunbathe on our big ole' deck; a place to get lots of affection from the four humans who live inside. So why are we surprised that we have a new arrival and that it appears he isn't going anywhere?
How could you not love this face?
He's not going anywhere!
Well, maybe just a few words! This is one of our cats. Her name is Tabi and we got her from a local animal shelter a few years ago. She was fixed when we got her so she's never had kittens. Anytime our dog, Sadie, will allow, Tabi gives her a bath. This consists of long periods of time where Tabi just licks the dog. Tabi seems to enjoy it but I can't say that Sadie does! She always looks like she can't wait for it to be over!
For more WW's, head over to 5 minutes for mom.
My baby is pretty sick this morning. She spent most of the night throwing up and itching to death. We started noticing her weird habits last night and when we looked closer, we noticed that she had raised marks on her belly. After some short research on the internet, we've diagnosed her with having poison ivy. We think she ingested some of it and that's why she's throwing up. She threw up a few times before dinner last night and she's thrown up even more since then. I think some of that is from the shrimp tales we threw in the yard...she apparently ate them all!
This is my baby, Sadie:
So this morning I'll be calling the vet and probably taking my baby to the vet. Last night, the only thing that helped her itching was giving her a good long bath. That seemed to help the itching somewhat but then the throw up marathon started. I'd never heard of a dog getting poison ivy. Most of the time, this wouldn't be an issue because dogs tend to get poison ivy on their fur and pass it on to anyone who pets them. A few weeks ago, I had Sadie shaved down to her ankles because it's getting hot and I usually do this in the summer. I don't want any ticks attaching to her longer hair, etc. It seems that since her hair is shaved off, the poison ivy got directly on her skin OR she ingested most of it and that caused the big marks on her tum-tum. All I know is that this is the strangest thing that has happened to this dog yet.
Not only do I have to contend with the ants that are still in my kitchen, but today I'll add upchuck cleaner to the list. From the look of things, I'll be doing that ALL day long! If any of you have pets, please be aware that they can get poison ivy and if they do get it, it's pure MISERY for them! I hope Sadie will feel better afterwhile. We'll see what the vet says!
