Adventures in Pet Land
Idiocy runs rampant where animals are concerned.
First there is niamh_sama's crusade for puppy justice. Anybody in Canada want to help out a rambunctious but perfectly normal six month old Australian Shepherd puppy?
Then there's the stuff that's been happening to me.
It's still kitten season. Litter of kittens after litter of kittens keeps pouring into the humane society. The little critters are so blasted cute, but every time I walk into the quarantine area and see all of the new arrivals my stomach drops. There were 8 new little ones on Tuesday, making a grand total of 16 kittens actually on the premises with several other litters currently in foster homes. Add in 36 adult cats, 41 dogs (with 7 additional Labs cycling through for some reason), and one bunny. I have stories to tell about them too but that'll have to wait. For now, just consider the numbers of unwanted and sometimes sick/neglected/injured/abused animals I help care for as the reason to my reaction to practically everything.
Several people have posted on my local Freecycle list giving away litters of kittens. Two posts begging people to take kittens so they wouldn't have to go to a shelter and likely be put down came on Tuesday before I went to the humane society. So I wrote up a little email about using Petfinder.com to locate and contact the many local no kill groups to ask if they had the resources to take on a couple of kittens. One woman had stated in her email that the mother was a pregnant stray she took in and she was having the cat spayed. If it's true I have no beef with her.
It's the other person I have the problem with. She was leaving and going out of town Wednesday. She posted the notice on Tuesday. The kittens had less than 24 hours to be gone or they were going to the pound, but she so sooooooo didn't want to do that and was soooooooo worried about the kittens wah wah wah. No mention of what was being done with the mother. So I sent her an email about using Petfinder.com and added an additional paragraph with the contact info for the county low-cost spay/neuter bus and 2 other low-cost spay/neuter organizations and suggest that she get the mother spayed so she wouldn't have to worry about finding homes for kittens again. All of it totally civil.
Leave work. Go to the humane society. Spend two hours caring for all the kitties there and gawk in horror at the apparent Lab kennel clean-out. Come home to a snippy little email from the woman.
am aware of how to prevent kittens. I in fact had contacted the spat neuter bus and left messages for them and no one ever returned my phone call. I appreciate the information but resent the underlying tone of irresponsible pet owner!!!!
She's aware of how to prevent kittens. Right. Let's assume that she really did try to contact the bus and no one returned her call. Singular. One call. She could have called again. And again and again and again until she talked to an actual person since the bus is only staffed by one vet and a handful of volunteers 2 days a week and they are busy. She could have looked into other local agencies. She could have gone to a normal veterinarian. If she did not want to pay the spay rate a normal veterinarian would charge, they would have referred her to the many low-cost alternatives in Memphis and the surrounding areas. She could have kept the mother cat indoors AND AWAY FROM MALES DAMN IT!!!! Because THAT is how you prevent kittens! And, oh, she could have been looking for homes for the kitten a little bit sooner or perhaps pushed her vacation back a little bit. She had several weeks after the kittens were born to think about this and request different days off from work.
I managed to control myself though and refrained from snarking back at her with all the points above. I also didn't make any snide comments about the cat probably already being pregnant again since cats can go into heat 1-6 weeks after giving birth and now the woman will have another set of kittens to worry about. And another and another and another.
Nope. Didn't say any of that because I do want her to actually get the cat spayed and if I had replied what I was really thinking then she probably wouldn't do it out of spite. So I apologized for offending her, which was never my intention, and it wasn't. Hell, I was using her wording in my first letter. But I composed a perfectly civil reply explaining that I had meant to be simply informative since most people in the area don't know that there are low-cost alternatives to paying $100-200 for a spay and that I hadn't meant to be rude. And I sent her a link to a list of all the low-cost spay/neuter programs in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Haven't heard from her again.
So that was Tuesday. Wednesday was just bizarre. I was driving home when work when I saw a scrawny GSD bitch in the back of a trunk ahead of me in the next lane over. That's not all that unusual in itself.
No, what was usual was the fact that the truck bed had one of those tall covered things on top of it which was closed while the actual tailgate of the truck was down. THE DOG WAS STANDING ON THE LOWERED TAILGATE OMGWTFBBQHEARTATTACK!!!
The speed limit on that road is 40 mph but we were approaching a red light so we were probably only going about 20. She was still wobbling a lot though and almost fell back into the truck as it stopped. I pull up past the truck, staring intensely at the dog as I go by. She's wearing a collar, but she wasn't tied to anything. (Which wouldn't have made it any better because there's the hanging risk.)
So I get out of my car, leave it unlocked and running with my purse in the passenger seat at a red light in NOT the best area of town (Airways and Ketchum is fairly notorious, although this was in the middle of lunch rush hour and not at night or anything like that), and go knock on the driver side window of the truck. The driver is an older man. I tell him that his tailgate is down. He responds "And my dog is back there standing on it, right? She's done it for two years."
Nothing could have shocked me more really. I was completely unprepared for the guy to not care that his dog was standing on his lowered tailgate and they were about to get on the on ramp for the interstate. Just because the dog CAN stand on the lowered tailgate while he drives around Memphis (with its crazy ass drivers; oh my God, you all have no idea) doesn't mean he should LET her. And how the hell did he even figure out that she could?! Not only is it dangerous for her, it's dangerous for all the other drivers on the roads too if she should happen to tumble out and people get into wrecks trying to avoid hitting her.
But there was nothing I could do so I gave him my best "you absolute idiot" glare, told him I sincerely hoped she didn't ever fall off, and went back to my car. Rarely have I ever wished for the power to revoke someone's animal owning privileges though. The sheer level of STUPID still leaves me boggled. I doubt that poor little girl will live to a ripe old age.
Which brings me to my own critters. The cats are as young and bouncy and full of vigor as ever. Roxey, at 7, is regular hellion who is shedding profusely and reluctant to go outside because it's so hot. Consequently, she hasn't been as active as she needs to be and so probably tomorrow, after attacking her with the undercoat rake and shedding blade, I'm going to slather myself with bug spray and take her after dusk to do some bitework and let her get out some of her energy.
But as much as I love Roxey, she is not "mine" the way the other two are, and it's the other two I'm worried about. Lady turned 14 in January. She's fat, lumpy, bumpy, stiff, and incredibly lazy, as she should be. She sometimes messes her bedding because her body's wake up signals don't work like they used to and she has difficulty navigating the kitchen and garage floors. But there's still a sparkle in her age-clouded eyes, she still plays daily (although not so vigorously) with her toys, and her appetite has never been better. She's in remarkable health for a dog her age and although she's silvering at the edges she isn't even white-faced. But eternity is only going to loan her to me for so long, and no matter how much I'd like to deny it, her time is going to run out sooner rather than later.
Then there's Fred. Freddy turned 11 in April. He's a bit of an enigma to me at the moment. He doesn't normally act old, but he's started having spells in the last three weeks. He's pinched nerves in his back before which have left his hind legs weak and in spasms for a few minutes occasionally (but rarely) throughout his life. Three weeks ago, he threw something new into the picture.
I was sitting at the computer for whatever reason and there was a crash behind me. I turn around and Fred was falling into the litter box. I called him to me and he came over to lay in his usual corner spot beside me. Freddy has never been the most graceful dog in the world, but it was easy to see that something was very wrong. He was staggering and teetering over to the right. It seemed like that whole side of his body just wasn't working, but he was still trying so hard to do what I asked and get to me.
Of course, I immediately went to him to calm him down because he was obviously frightened that his body wasn't working the way it is supposed to. I talked him through it and held his head and neck and that seemed to stabilize his balance. Five minutes later it was over, I'd gotten him outside, he vomited, and then he was jogging around the backyard marking his territory like nothing was wrong before heading back in to demand his dinner. He had another spell about a week and a half after the first and one again yesterday. Each time he has recovered completely within five minutes.
I've been doing some research on stroke in dogs, but it is supposedly extremely rare. (Of course, Freddy would have to be special.) Vestibular syndromes are more common in dogs, but although Freddy matches many of the symptoms, he's recovered much faster than the literature indicates is normal (it talks about days and weeks rather than minutes) and relapses are supposedly rare. The only way to find out for sure (maybe) what's happening would be to run a battery of neurological tests and possibly some biopsies, and that's not really an option. First of all, it's totally out of the budge. It would be out of the budget even if I or my parents needed them. Second, Fred would have to be anesthetized, and I think he's really too old to be anesthetized.
Other than occasionally stumbling around like a drunkard, he seems fine though. He was downright frisky with me today when I came home from work early, play bowing, bunny hopping and prancing around me like a little puppy. Even Lady managed to work up a jog down the hall. So I guess we'll just wait and give the puppies the best quality of life that we can for as long as they're here. They've had longer runs than many. Lady and Fred are so tightly bonded though that we expect whichever one is left behind to quickly follow the first. So I just have to prepare myself to be broken.
But not today. Today we're playing keep-away with the hedgehog plushy.
First there is niamh_sama's crusade for puppy justice. Anybody in Canada want to help out a rambunctious but perfectly normal six month old Australian Shepherd puppy?
Then there's the stuff that's been happening to me.
It's still kitten season. Litter of kittens after litter of kittens keeps pouring into the humane society. The little critters are so blasted cute, but every time I walk into the quarantine area and see all of the new arrivals my stomach drops. There were 8 new little ones on Tuesday, making a grand total of 16 kittens actually on the premises with several other litters currently in foster homes. Add in 36 adult cats, 41 dogs (with 7 additional Labs cycling through for some reason), and one bunny. I have stories to tell about them too but that'll have to wait. For now, just consider the numbers of unwanted and sometimes sick/neglected/injured/abused animals I help care for as the reason to my reaction to practically everything.
Several people have posted on my local Freecycle list giving away litters of kittens. Two posts begging people to take kittens so they wouldn't have to go to a shelter and likely be put down came on Tuesday before I went to the humane society. So I wrote up a little email about using Petfinder.com to locate and contact the many local no kill groups to ask if they had the resources to take on a couple of kittens. One woman had stated in her email that the mother was a pregnant stray she took in and she was having the cat spayed. If it's true I have no beef with her.
It's the other person I have the problem with. She was leaving and going out of town Wednesday. She posted the notice on Tuesday. The kittens had less than 24 hours to be gone or they were going to the pound, but she so sooooooo didn't want to do that and was soooooooo worried about the kittens wah wah wah. No mention of what was being done with the mother. So I sent her an email about using Petfinder.com and added an additional paragraph with the contact info for the county low-cost spay/neuter bus and 2 other low-cost spay/neuter organizations and suggest that she get the mother spayed so she wouldn't have to worry about finding homes for kittens again. All of it totally civil.
Leave work. Go to the humane society. Spend two hours caring for all the kitties there and gawk in horror at the apparent Lab kennel clean-out. Come home to a snippy little email from the woman.
am aware of how to prevent kittens. I in fact had contacted the spat neuter bus and left messages for them and no one ever returned my phone call. I appreciate the information but resent the underlying tone of irresponsible pet owner!!!!
She's aware of how to prevent kittens. Right. Let's assume that she really did try to contact the bus and no one returned her call. Singular. One call. She could have called again. And again and again and again until she talked to an actual person since the bus is only staffed by one vet and a handful of volunteers 2 days a week and they are busy. She could have looked into other local agencies. She could have gone to a normal veterinarian. If she did not want to pay the spay rate a normal veterinarian would charge, they would have referred her to the many low-cost alternatives in Memphis and the surrounding areas. She could have kept the mother cat indoors AND AWAY FROM MALES DAMN IT!!!! Because THAT is how you prevent kittens! And, oh, she could have been looking for homes for the kitten a little bit sooner or perhaps pushed her vacation back a little bit. She had several weeks after the kittens were born to think about this and request different days off from work.
I managed to control myself though and refrained from snarking back at her with all the points above. I also didn't make any snide comments about the cat probably already being pregnant again since cats can go into heat 1-6 weeks after giving birth and now the woman will have another set of kittens to worry about. And another and another and another.
Nope. Didn't say any of that because I do want her to actually get the cat spayed and if I had replied what I was really thinking then she probably wouldn't do it out of spite. So I apologized for offending her, which was never my intention, and it wasn't. Hell, I was using her wording in my first letter. But I composed a perfectly civil reply explaining that I had meant to be simply informative since most people in the area don't know that there are low-cost alternatives to paying $100-200 for a spay and that I hadn't meant to be rude. And I sent her a link to a list of all the low-cost spay/neuter programs in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Haven't heard from her again.
So that was Tuesday. Wednesday was just bizarre. I was driving home when work when I saw a scrawny GSD bitch in the back of a trunk ahead of me in the next lane over. That's not all that unusual in itself.
No, what was usual was the fact that the truck bed had one of those tall covered things on top of it which was closed while the actual tailgate of the truck was down. THE DOG WAS STANDING ON THE LOWERED TAILGATE OMGWTFBBQHEARTATTACK!!!
The speed limit on that road is 40 mph but we were approaching a red light so we were probably only going about 20. She was still wobbling a lot though and almost fell back into the truck as it stopped. I pull up past the truck, staring intensely at the dog as I go by. She's wearing a collar, but she wasn't tied to anything. (Which wouldn't have made it any better because there's the hanging risk.)
So I get out of my car, leave it unlocked and running with my purse in the passenger seat at a red light in NOT the best area of town (Airways and Ketchum is fairly notorious, although this was in the middle of lunch rush hour and not at night or anything like that), and go knock on the driver side window of the truck. The driver is an older man. I tell him that his tailgate is down. He responds "And my dog is back there standing on it, right? She's done it for two years."
Nothing could have shocked me more really. I was completely unprepared for the guy to not care that his dog was standing on his lowered tailgate and they were about to get on the on ramp for the interstate. Just because the dog CAN stand on the lowered tailgate while he drives around Memphis (with its crazy ass drivers; oh my God, you all have no idea) doesn't mean he should LET her. And how the hell did he even figure out that she could?! Not only is it dangerous for her, it's dangerous for all the other drivers on the roads too if she should happen to tumble out and people get into wrecks trying to avoid hitting her.
But there was nothing I could do so I gave him my best "you absolute idiot" glare, told him I sincerely hoped she didn't ever fall off, and went back to my car. Rarely have I ever wished for the power to revoke someone's animal owning privileges though. The sheer level of STUPID still leaves me boggled. I doubt that poor little girl will live to a ripe old age.
Which brings me to my own critters. The cats are as young and bouncy and full of vigor as ever. Roxey, at 7, is regular hellion who is shedding profusely and reluctant to go outside because it's so hot. Consequently, she hasn't been as active as she needs to be and so probably tomorrow, after attacking her with the undercoat rake and shedding blade, I'm going to slather myself with bug spray and take her after dusk to do some bitework and let her get out some of her energy.
But as much as I love Roxey, she is not "mine" the way the other two are, and it's the other two I'm worried about. Lady turned 14 in January. She's fat, lumpy, bumpy, stiff, and incredibly lazy, as she should be. She sometimes messes her bedding because her body's wake up signals don't work like they used to and she has difficulty navigating the kitchen and garage floors. But there's still a sparkle in her age-clouded eyes, she still plays daily (although not so vigorously) with her toys, and her appetite has never been better. She's in remarkable health for a dog her age and although she's silvering at the edges she isn't even white-faced. But eternity is only going to loan her to me for so long, and no matter how much I'd like to deny it, her time is going to run out sooner rather than later.
Then there's Fred. Freddy turned 11 in April. He's a bit of an enigma to me at the moment. He doesn't normally act old, but he's started having spells in the last three weeks. He's pinched nerves in his back before which have left his hind legs weak and in spasms for a few minutes occasionally (but rarely) throughout his life. Three weeks ago, he threw something new into the picture.
I was sitting at the computer for whatever reason and there was a crash behind me. I turn around and Fred was falling into the litter box. I called him to me and he came over to lay in his usual corner spot beside me. Freddy has never been the most graceful dog in the world, but it was easy to see that something was very wrong. He was staggering and teetering over to the right. It seemed like that whole side of his body just wasn't working, but he was still trying so hard to do what I asked and get to me.
Of course, I immediately went to him to calm him down because he was obviously frightened that his body wasn't working the way it is supposed to. I talked him through it and held his head and neck and that seemed to stabilize his balance. Five minutes later it was over, I'd gotten him outside, he vomited, and then he was jogging around the backyard marking his territory like nothing was wrong before heading back in to demand his dinner. He had another spell about a week and a half after the first and one again yesterday. Each time he has recovered completely within five minutes.
I've been doing some research on stroke in dogs, but it is supposedly extremely rare. (Of course, Freddy would have to be special.) Vestibular syndromes are more common in dogs, but although Freddy matches many of the symptoms, he's recovered much faster than the literature indicates is normal (it talks about days and weeks rather than minutes) and relapses are supposedly rare. The only way to find out for sure (maybe) what's happening would be to run a battery of neurological tests and possibly some biopsies, and that's not really an option. First of all, it's totally out of the budge. It would be out of the budget even if I or my parents needed them. Second, Fred would have to be anesthetized, and I think he's really too old to be anesthetized.
Other than occasionally stumbling around like a drunkard, he seems fine though. He was downright frisky with me today when I came home from work early, play bowing, bunny hopping and prancing around me like a little puppy. Even Lady managed to work up a jog down the hall. So I guess we'll just wait and give the puppies the best quality of life that we can for as long as they're here. They've had longer runs than many. Lady and Fred are so tightly bonded though that we expect whichever one is left behind to quickly follow the first. So I just have to prepare myself to be broken.
But not today. Today we're playing keep-away with the hedgehog plushy.