Just got back from taking Merry to the vet, as while he's been on a renal diet for his kidney issues, he's started losing weight again.
Back in March he was a thin 4.5kg, now he's a skinny 4 kg, but the vet says while he's definitely under weight he's not emaciated. Since he doesn't seem lethargic or out of sorts, but is alert and seems to be in good spirits, not in distress, we're running another panel of blood and urine analysis to see where we stand.
There are apparently some treatment options with medication, so the lab work will give us an idea of where we've come since March, and if treatment will help at all. He's also going to let us know the cost of a month's supply of the suggested medications, to help us decide if we'll try treatment for a month or so at least, or if it's something that we would be able to afford long-term.
Merry and Pippin actually turn 14 on Friday (July 1st is their birthday we determined when we got them as wee six week old kittens back in 1997). Hopefully he'll be with us for a few more years yet, but we'll have to wait and see.
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Silly Doggy
So, Maxx had the daggits with him on Friday night when he picked me up from work at ten, and as we drove down the road a lovely buck wandered across the road a little distance in front of us. As we got closer to the deer, Maxx slowed down and pointed it out to Hobgoblin.
....Let's just say that Hobgoblin doesn't think that ANY deer should be walking on HIS road! Growing and barking ensured, even as we drove away past the deer, chuckling at our strange little ragamuffin dog.
Angel could not have cared less. She was just happy to be sitting on my lap snuggled up for the ride home.
....Let's just say that Hobgoblin doesn't think that ANY deer should be walking on HIS road! Growing and barking ensured, even as we drove away past the deer, chuckling at our strange little ragamuffin dog.
Angel could not have cared less. She was just happy to be sitting on my lap snuggled up for the ride home.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Goodbye to the Jungle
Well, goodbye to about half of it at this point. I've been out every day at lunch and on the weekends for the past six weeks or so, weeding the back yard and dealing with the jungle of blackberry cane, morning glory, generic weeds ... and parsnips which had apparently reseeded and run wild ... in the garden section. It's an area 40' by 12', and I'm getting there, slowly but surely!
We saw a little portable greenhouse for $30 at Rona last weekend, so Maxx picked it up for me when we couldn't find a better deal ... or indeed any of the same sort of thing ... at other stores around town. This weekend I'll actually get to start some seeds, and having them in the greenhouse will hopefully get them a good kick start, so I'll be able to get some veggies out of the garden this year. I've got two topsie-turveys, too, so once I get brackets to hang them up I'll get a couple of tomato plants. I figure I'll get those set up on the posts at the front porch, so I'll have some greenery there to make it look a little prettier, and nice and convenient to pick a tomato or two!
If we ever won the lottery, I'd have a lovely garden with raised beds to make it easier on the back and knees to garden. I love to dream about what I'd be able to grow ... carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, radishes, peas, beets for Maxx, various herbs ... to be able to supply quality home-grown vegetables for the table would be so lovely. We'd also have chickens and ducks, so we'd have eggs. The horses wouldn't themselves contribute to the dinner table, but maybe I could find a plough to have a field of some sort of wheat to use to make our own flour and or own bread. If you're going to dream, dream big!
Actually, if we ever won the lottery, could retire and buy our plot of land and build our dream house, we'd not just have our own little hobby farm, I know we'd end up with some sort of animal shelter. I'm just such a softie when it comes to sweet little furry animals. But I'm actually really good when we are at the vet and there are kittens waiting for adoption from the SPCA. I ALWAYS go and say "hi" to them, but I haven't taken a single one home!
Actually, at this point, other than Merry and Pippin, who we did purchase for $15 each from a pet store in Richmond back in 1997, saving their little lives in the process as we found out later ... and Angel, who I got almost two years ago from a family here in town who's dog had a little ... and Hobgoblin, who we adopted from the Victoria SPCA last year ... the three other cats adopted us.
Jinx actually adopted us the day we buried PV, our cat who lost her life to cancer of the tongue ten days before we took possession of our house back in 2005. We had been out at a friend's house and were leaving around mid-night, and when standing at the car saying good-bye there was a flash of movement and we looked down to see this tiny wee black and white kitten sitting on Maxx's foot. The little fellow was wearing a flea collar but no ID, and it was way too late to start knocking on doors asking who he belonged to, so to keep him safe we took him home and then put up "found kitten" flyers in the area. We found out that the poor little fellow belonged to a family in the same complex where our friends lived: No Pets Allowed. They were caught with the kitten and told "either it goes or you go", so they literally tossed him out the window. You don't even have to have much of a soft heart to say a kitten that went through that gets to stay with the family he chose, and he got named Hi-Jinx, Jinx for short.
The next kitten that came to us didn't actually adopt us herself, but her mother chose Maxx to take care of her baby. He was working driving truck out of a warehouse in Parksville, and there was a feral cat that would hang around the warehouse, which he took to feeding when she'd let him get close enough. She got pregnant and when she had the kittens, Maxx didn't see her for a while. When she was back around, she wasn't doing well at all, super skinny and her fur breaking off and falling out. He gave her his entire lunch to eat, so she could get something on her belly and maybe have some milk for her kittens. That was the last time he saw her. Since it was summer, he'd leave the car window cracked a few inches to keep the car from overheating too much, and the mother cat apparently made it up the side of the car to deposit her kitten in the car for Maxx to take home. He found her the next day while driving on the highway, when the car started making a weird grinding growling noise. He pulled off the highway into a parking lot to see if he could figure out what was wrong, and realized the noise didn't stop with the car, even with the engine off. He could tell it was coming from inside the car and when he peeked under the passenger seat he could see these little gleaming eyes, so he bravely reached under and pulled out this tiny wee black kitten. I'm told that Trouble (full name Car Trouble) looks exactly like her mother, who was never seen again. If a dying feral mother cat gives you her baby, you have to keep it!
The last kitten actually chose Maxx herself. Friends of ours had a neighbor with a cat that had kittens, and when those neighbors when on vacation, they put the kittens, only four or five weeks old, in a box in their shed, without the mother cat, to die. Luckily, one of the little darlings escaped and in the night our friend heard a kitten crying, investigated, found this tiny wee thing and figured out what had happened, broke down the door of their shed and rescued the remaining kittens, one of which was face-down in a puddle of water. They actually all survived, and when Maxx was over at their house when the kittens were about eight weeks old, DJ kept coming over to him and climbing onto his shoulder to hang out with him. The kids would keep coming and getting her to play, or she'd get down to have a bite to eat or use the litter box, but she'd keep coming right back to Maxx and purring ... so we ended up taking her off their hands.
I would never be able to be on a jury for a trial that involved animal cruelty, because I love animals WAY more than I love people, and I have a straight forward view of what should happen to people who abuse animals. I'm sure you've heard of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. If you beat a puppy to death, you should be beaten until you suffer the same sort of injuries. If you groom a kitten with such force that you break it's jaw, the same thing should be done to you. If my animal abuse justice was put into place, I like to think that we'd actually see a decrease in the number of sickos out there who take advantage of poor defenceless critters.
We saw a little portable greenhouse for $30 at Rona last weekend, so Maxx picked it up for me when we couldn't find a better deal ... or indeed any of the same sort of thing ... at other stores around town. This weekend I'll actually get to start some seeds, and having them in the greenhouse will hopefully get them a good kick start, so I'll be able to get some veggies out of the garden this year. I've got two topsie-turveys, too, so once I get brackets to hang them up I'll get a couple of tomato plants. I figure I'll get those set up on the posts at the front porch, so I'll have some greenery there to make it look a little prettier, and nice and convenient to pick a tomato or two!
If we ever won the lottery, I'd have a lovely garden with raised beds to make it easier on the back and knees to garden. I love to dream about what I'd be able to grow ... carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, radishes, peas, beets for Maxx, various herbs ... to be able to supply quality home-grown vegetables for the table would be so lovely. We'd also have chickens and ducks, so we'd have eggs. The horses wouldn't themselves contribute to the dinner table, but maybe I could find a plough to have a field of some sort of wheat to use to make our own flour and or own bread. If you're going to dream, dream big!
Actually, if we ever won the lottery, could retire and buy our plot of land and build our dream house, we'd not just have our own little hobby farm, I know we'd end up with some sort of animal shelter. I'm just such a softie when it comes to sweet little furry animals. But I'm actually really good when we are at the vet and there are kittens waiting for adoption from the SPCA. I ALWAYS go and say "hi" to them, but I haven't taken a single one home!
Actually, at this point, other than Merry and Pippin, who we did purchase for $15 each from a pet store in Richmond back in 1997, saving their little lives in the process as we found out later ... and Angel, who I got almost two years ago from a family here in town who's dog had a little ... and Hobgoblin, who we adopted from the Victoria SPCA last year ... the three other cats adopted us.
Jinx actually adopted us the day we buried PV, our cat who lost her life to cancer of the tongue ten days before we took possession of our house back in 2005. We had been out at a friend's house and were leaving around mid-night, and when standing at the car saying good-bye there was a flash of movement and we looked down to see this tiny wee black and white kitten sitting on Maxx's foot. The little fellow was wearing a flea collar but no ID, and it was way too late to start knocking on doors asking who he belonged to, so to keep him safe we took him home and then put up "found kitten" flyers in the area. We found out that the poor little fellow belonged to a family in the same complex where our friends lived: No Pets Allowed. They were caught with the kitten and told "either it goes or you go", so they literally tossed him out the window. You don't even have to have much of a soft heart to say a kitten that went through that gets to stay with the family he chose, and he got named Hi-Jinx, Jinx for short.
The next kitten that came to us didn't actually adopt us herself, but her mother chose Maxx to take care of her baby. He was working driving truck out of a warehouse in Parksville, and there was a feral cat that would hang around the warehouse, which he took to feeding when she'd let him get close enough. She got pregnant and when she had the kittens, Maxx didn't see her for a while. When she was back around, she wasn't doing well at all, super skinny and her fur breaking off and falling out. He gave her his entire lunch to eat, so she could get something on her belly and maybe have some milk for her kittens. That was the last time he saw her. Since it was summer, he'd leave the car window cracked a few inches to keep the car from overheating too much, and the mother cat apparently made it up the side of the car to deposit her kitten in the car for Maxx to take home. He found her the next day while driving on the highway, when the car started making a weird grinding growling noise. He pulled off the highway into a parking lot to see if he could figure out what was wrong, and realized the noise didn't stop with the car, even with the engine off. He could tell it was coming from inside the car and when he peeked under the passenger seat he could see these little gleaming eyes, so he bravely reached under and pulled out this tiny wee black kitten. I'm told that Trouble (full name Car Trouble) looks exactly like her mother, who was never seen again. If a dying feral mother cat gives you her baby, you have to keep it!
The last kitten actually chose Maxx herself. Friends of ours had a neighbor with a cat that had kittens, and when those neighbors when on vacation, they put the kittens, only four or five weeks old, in a box in their shed, without the mother cat, to die. Luckily, one of the little darlings escaped and in the night our friend heard a kitten crying, investigated, found this tiny wee thing and figured out what had happened, broke down the door of their shed and rescued the remaining kittens, one of which was face-down in a puddle of water. They actually all survived, and when Maxx was over at their house when the kittens were about eight weeks old, DJ kept coming over to him and climbing onto his shoulder to hang out with him. The kids would keep coming and getting her to play, or she'd get down to have a bite to eat or use the litter box, but she'd keep coming right back to Maxx and purring ... so we ended up taking her off their hands.
I would never be able to be on a jury for a trial that involved animal cruelty, because I love animals WAY more than I love people, and I have a straight forward view of what should happen to people who abuse animals. I'm sure you've heard of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. If you beat a puppy to death, you should be beaten until you suffer the same sort of injuries. If you groom a kitten with such force that you break it's jaw, the same thing should be done to you. If my animal abuse justice was put into place, I like to think that we'd actually see a decrease in the number of sickos out there who take advantage of poor defenceless critters.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Old Poem to Share
DESERT SHIP
The desert ship wades ankle deep in sand
Through endless waves of glittering gold …
A tide, relentless, halted only by a cliff of stone.
In the distance, mirages shimmer –
Promise of a cure for thirst
Yet here in this sea of grit no water.
Evening shades melt, running together
As the artist lays aside his brush,
Waiting for his arid scene to dry.
(Oct 16, 1991)
Welcome to My Lair
For those of you who don't know me, I'm not a DragynLady in the "classical" sense ... I just happen to love dragons, as well as my many furry and feathered friends. Currently, the lair is home to myself, my husband, our five cats, two dogs, and one feisty bird (we think he was an active participant in the escape of my cockatiel, particularly as he's sounded happier since then and been significantly more friendly towards the humans of the family).
You'll likely be treated to tales of the funnier sides of pet-parenting, hopefully few of the sadder tales, although they do happen. You'll also likely hear about the humans living in the Lair from time to time, although we are much less interesting!
If you're lucky (depending on how you look at it) you may from time to time see posts which include original poetry or prose, or possibly even photos of paintings or other art projects. Hard to say, as the creative juices seem to have dried up mostly over the past decade.
Now I'm going to go prowl through the nooks and crannies of this blog to see if I can figure out exactly what we're dealing with, to make it a somewhat accurate representation of Dragyn Lady's Lair.
Farewell for now!
You'll likely be treated to tales of the funnier sides of pet-parenting, hopefully few of the sadder tales, although they do happen. You'll also likely hear about the humans living in the Lair from time to time, although we are much less interesting!
If you're lucky (depending on how you look at it) you may from time to time see posts which include original poetry or prose, or possibly even photos of paintings or other art projects. Hard to say, as the creative juices seem to have dried up mostly over the past decade.
Now I'm going to go prowl through the nooks and crannies of this blog to see if I can figure out exactly what we're dealing with, to make it a somewhat accurate representation of Dragyn Lady's Lair.
Farewell for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)