Eric's 19th birthday (May 1, 2019)

I hoped, but didn’t really believe this day would come. My beautiful fluffy Eric is 19 years old today!!

For Thursday - I mean it

I love animals. All animals, except cockroaches, I really don't like those. And some humans.

After some undesirable gestures and some purely unacceptable comments towards my dog, Thursday, this summer I intend to get  or make a sign like this and post it where everyone can see it.

Thursday is a quirky, weird, high strung dog. I know people like that and no one threatens to do the things to them they want to do to my dog. I bet those people, both the quirky and the rude, haven't been through half of what Thursday has been through.

I'd growl and bare my teeth, too, if I lost all of my family within 18 months and been taken from my home. No warning, no explanation and I suspect it's hard for her to look at her home everyday and not be able to go there. Thursday is very fortunate that a loving, tolerant family that was familiar to her took her in, but it's still not easy. She never lived with a cat before, let alone 3, and then there's the birds, too. On top of that, just as she was getting used to our habits and routines, we all moved to another house for a few weeks! So yeah, she can be in a bad mood sometimes. She is getting used to us and to our guests. We're training her and LOVING her to teach her to trust us.

Thursday and Clover on the bed at the same time and they are not fighting!

Thursday doesn't look too happy about it, but she is tolerating it.

We are learning, too. I had one dog in my life and I wasn't at home about 80% of the time, so my mom looked after her. Kevin had one dog in his life. We are not experts, but we ask questions and do our research. We have learned that she is fearful in the dark, maybe because she can't see well in the dark, and that causes her to be on guard. She will growl, snarl, or even snap at anything that startles her. Now we know that when we are at the bonfire at night with her, you have to make sure she can see you before you touch her. 

We have learned that she is very protective. If someone is holding her or she is sitting on someone's lap, she will protect that person, so don't touch them, their chair or the dog! This is not a desirable trait, but again we are working on it with the people she loves and trusts. 

We have learned that she doesn't like feet and will snap at them, especially near her food dish. So the food dish is as out of the way as possible to avoid this, but we can't stop walking around the rest of the place! We have been working on showing her nice feet. Touching her gently with our feet, teaching her "footsie" (which is to give her paw, but on an outstretched foot instead of a hand), and Darcy has even been able to pet her with her foot. Progress!

I am impressed with the changes in her in less than a year. When she was our neighbor she could not be trusted off leash, but now she is regularly off leash in our back yard, which is not completely closed in. She walks off leash with us to the car, to bring out the garbage, to get the mail, etc. She comes when she's called. Her protectiveness used to extend to the whole couch or the whole bed, but that is almost gone now. She still has her moments, but we are all learning what works and what doesn't, and as such we need your cooperation, too. So when we ask you not to touch her with your foot, it's because we don't want to undo all the progress we've made, we don't want her to get hurt and maybe we don't want you to get hurt, either! 

Watching a movie with Thursday. Don't touch me!

I have made a commitment to her and spiritually to Dave to look after her, and I intent to honour it, so if you don't like it, don't come over. As my mom would say, if you don't like my gate, don't swing on it!

Tribute to Tigger (June 21, 2016)

Cancer sucks, even for pets! 

I noticed a sore on Tigger's lip mid-May.

I know he fights with his brother and gets little scabs, so I didn't think anything of it. He was acting normal. At that time I was really in end-of-the-school-year crunch. There were field trips to prepare for for both kids, Girl Guide outings, field trips for my own class, opening the cottage, my gardening clients to take care of, the closing ceremony movie to make for preschool, not to mention the daily grind of a family of 4 and my 2 normal jobs at school. So... by June 21, my last day of work at school, and Tigger was getting worse, I took him to the vet.

He looks perfectly adorable, but the left side of his face was slightly swollen.

The vet examined him and diagnosed the big C...cancer. Wide spread cancer. OMG! The vet and I agreed that for a 16 year old cat it did not make sense to do invasive and costly treatments.

To make matters worse, Darcy had not been feeling well when I finished preschool, so I picked her up and she was with me at the vet. She heard the diagnosis and the prognosis that without treatment Tigger has at best a few months to live. The poor child was devastated. I forced myself to be strong for her and managed to keep my tears at bay until later that day. 

On June 23 I brought Tiggie up to the lake, his favourite place. He was allowed to drink lake water out of the bathtub and roam around outside, with supervision. 

June 26, Danny and Tiggie

July 5, the swelling is more noticable.

You can see the raw-looking skin here. By this time I could feel lumps in his neck. The tumours were growing very quickly.

Brothers, July 10 (Kevin and my Anniversary, by the way. 9 years!). The bump is bigger and moving down his neck making his voice change.

July 12, Tiggie watching Darcy in HIS bathtub. He was not having a good day. I had to put his food bowl in the bathtub to get him to eat a bit. 

Tigger jumped off the living room chair to come and eat, but some how landed on or tripped on a doll stroller. Then he was mad at me, ran away from me with his mouth bleeding and refused to eat. He finally ate some cheese and some left over fish, which he loved. I was worried it would make him sick, but at this point I figured I might as well spoil him.

I sat on the couch and he came and lay down next to me and purred. I was so relieved he wasn't shying away anymore. I treasured the moment knowing there wouldn't be many more. 

It is so hard to have the responsibility to choose the day that will be his last. I knew it would be any day, but how would I pick a day?? Waiting too long meant letting him suffer, but what if I cut his life short? 

July 13: enjoying a drink in the tub.

July 13: you can really see his face is misshapen now. My poor baby. He stopped eating today and hid under the bed, which he never does. Both are signs the vet told me to watch for, signs of distress and failing health. I made the dreaded call today. 

I slept on the couch with Tigger when ever he wasn't in the bathtub. 

July 14: his last walk outside. 

Today is the day. Mom drove, I held Tigger on my lap. His last car ride was a good one for him. He was always a bad traveller, throwing up, drooling, pooping. Not today! He sat/lay on my lap and was quite content. So content I questioned my decision, but I knew it was only a matter of a day or two and I did not want him to suffer any more.

Darcy and Cameron came along, too. Cameron has had Tigger in his life since he was 3 - 9 years! For Darcy, she's had him her whole life. It was a hard day for all of us.

The vet reassured me that I was doing the right thing. I was with Tigger and they allowed Mom, Darcy, Cameron and I some time alone with him afterwards. Some time to collect ourselves before having to walk out through the waiting room. We brought Tigger straight to Bum's house where Cameron and Bum gave him a proper burial. I made a little marker out of stones. May he rest in peace and chase an endless string in heaven. 

The next day Darcy altered the note I always leave on the door:

I am writing this in September, more than 2 months later, and we really miss him. Darcy was sad to come back home from the cottage and not have Tigger to bring home. I was too! Even Kevin misses him in his way. Eric (his brother cat) is in mourning. He was always a meek, quiet cat and now he caterwauls many times a day. I figure he is calling out to Tigger, looking for him. He was already an affectionate cat, but he seeks even more attention now. We have adjusted to not having Tigger always on the back of the couch to pat as we walk by. Darcy and I have gotten used to not having Tigger join us for story time at bedtime. We have Ollie at the house, too. He is a good companion, too.

Here he is on his last walk outside:
https://youtu.be/zOP847qGRSQ

Ollie update 2016

Ollie sleeping on the back of the chair. Yes he is inside, in fact he has been inside virtually every night since November, except the 2 nights he disappeared in January. Turns out he got into the basement from outside through the basement window and since we keep the door at the top of the basement stairs locked, he was trapped. He couldn't get back out the way he got in and he couldn't get upstairs. All of his attempts to get our attention were easily explained away by the other 2 cats. For example, I heard scratching, but when I went to look I saw Eric there, so figured it was him. Of course now I realize Eric and Ollie were probably communicating on either side of the door. Poor Ollie! (The basement window is fixed, now, so hopefully that won't happen again!)

Ollie's paw prints in the snow...waiting to be let in.

Ollie playing:

http://youtu.be/E7Ru9PAp7tA

Ollie sitting in the barn/garage window. It's getting to be the time of year when he won't even want to be let in. 

Ollie is not spoiled at all.