The Lynnster Zone

babbling since february 1997

Archive for the ‘cats’ Category

« Previous Entries

Good, Bad, More Bad, and Even More Good

Posted by Lynnster on June 26, 2009

So now that I’ve got all the other out of the way, a little post about things good and bad, but neither of which have anything to do with how poor I am or Michael Jackson.

Bad - the heat. My car registered 107 degrees the other day. I think it got down to 105 by the time I got from Kroger back to the house. The heat index was 113 that same day. It’s been like this for about a week and is not supposed to break at all until after Tuesday – there’s two spots of rain in the forecast between then and now, but I don’t have much hope it’s really going to happen (it’s rained in Nashville and Knoxville a couple of times the past week or so, but not a drop here). I have been in discussions online on and off with friends from all over the country (and the world, for that matter) this past week and I don’t care how cold you are or how sick of rain you are – I’ll trade. Immediately.

More Bad – Little has had another bout of old age vestibular disease this week, which some may recall this time last year I was dealing with that with both her and Dobie at almost the same time. Dobie’s was much more pronounced and took a much longer time for recovery; with her, once again by the next day she was better and is continuing to do better. She’s a 17 or 18 year old cat (I can never remember which year she arrived as a baby) so these things are to be expected, but it’s like a stroke and it’s so frightening and unnerving – I think even more so with cats, since they like to get in higher places and the first couple of days she flatly tossed herself off her perch and scared me to death. But she is much better now. I am starting to wonder if this is heat-related, though I read a pretty voluminous amount of information on the syndrome last year (both canine and feline related) and don’t recall any mention of that.

Good - my Rite Aid box fan. I’d forgotten about that thing. I bought it a few years ago when the AC went out and was having to be replaced. After several days of the above heat already come this past Tuesday, and then reading that it wasn’t going to break at all until maybe next Wednesday, I thought I was probably going to be suicidal come the weekend. I have air, but my window unit that usually does a pretty decent job in the summertime just can’t handle this kind of heat and for this extended a period.

Then I remembered the box fan. I would have NEVER guessed it would make the difference it has, but it has. Granted, really over here in my one little corner in the room with the computer and Internet, but that’s where I am almost all the time anyway. In the afternoon after noon or 1:00 or so, it’s still getting a little stuffy in here – but NOTHING like the completely intolerable horrific awful heat it was before I got the fan out. Much, MUCH better. And I’ve even been COLD sometimes in the early mornings or middle of the night this week and had to turn it off. Rock!!!

Even More Good – In their old age, and especially as Dobie’s health went into the serious decline it did the last year or so of his life, Dobie and Lulu both developed some incontinence problems – especially Dobie. Though it’s still very hard to believe he’s gone and makes me sad, one kind of unexpected plus has popped up since his passing – even though they turned five years old last month, I really had no idea that the young’ns are as well house trained as they apparently are! They’re not perfect – with me living alone and my sleeping schedule being all out of whack and not really a schedule, on the off chance I actually do sleep a whole lot and probably more than I should instead of my usual three or four hour catnaps here and there, occasionally there’s an accident, but rarely. They are, for all practical purposes, beautifully housetrained! Daisy doesn’t surprise me because she’s perfect anyway (heh), but it is kind of shocking to me just how well her brothers are.

On the one hand, it’s a pleasant surprise to discover just how really well trained that way they are when, with them, I never really did even try all that hard when they were very young because I was still working out of the house and not here a lot.  On the other hand, that makes Dobie’s frequent accidents (even long before he ever got sick) a little frustrating seeing as how I DID make an effort with him when he was young. Go figure.

In any case, hope everyone has a great weekend! I have been so pitifully socially deprived working around the clock so much, I’m really looking forward to meeting up with KathyT and Melissa on Sunday, so more on that later in the weekend or Monday, I’m sure.

Posted in about the weather, blah, cats, dogs, my so-called life | Leave a Comment »

Kitties in Middle Tennessee – Get One

Posted by Lynnster on June 15, 2009

LeBlanc has baby kittens that need a home and are as cute as can be. He and the Missus wound up with eleven and successfully found homes for most, but two cute little tabby girls are still in need of a home. They are somewhat inexplicably named Clint Eastwood and Paul Stanley at present (heh), but I feel certain he won’t mind if they receive new feminine names upon adoption, if one so desires.

Most likely if you are anywhere in the Middle Tennessee area and in need of kittenage, he’ll be happy to work something out. Get in touch with him if interested.

Posted in blogfolks, cats, middle tennessee, nashville | 2 Comments »

Super Ultra Extra Comfy

Posted by Lynnster on December 23, 2008

I love this.

It would be sort of the same at my house if I had a mattress on the living room floor, except there would be four more dogs there and a smattering of felines.  B’s cats were apparently fairly uninterested, though.

Posted in * dog photos, blogfolks, cats, dogs, holidays, lynnster's zoo, other people's lives | 2 Comments »

The Usual, Unfortunately

Posted by Lynnster on December 15, 2008

Here’s yet another example of how rotten my luck is (and notably has been for some time).  I was getting ready to work on a project a couple of days ago that I badly needed to work on and finish before Christmas got much closer, and as I sat down at the computer all motivated and ready to get productive – the power went out.  Because at the house next door, they were chopping limbs off a tree… but had to get the utility company to kill my power line to do it.

The power was out for, I don’t know, seven or eight, maybe nine hours.  Just mine.  Not the house where the tree is.

In fact, the worker chopping the tree got through about 3:45, and had made several calls, but over two hours later, the utility company had yet to come back and put the (live) line back up.  So I called them too.  They finally showed up after 7 p.m., and by then it was really too late to do anything.

There’s something else I need to get done, but I need a large shipment of (free) Priority Mail boxes from the postal service to be able to do it.  I’ve been waiting a while.  I realize it’s the Christmas season and all with the mail, but just yet another monkey wrench thrown my way.  At this point, even though I badly need to get this done, I’m thinking maybe I’m better off waiting until after Christmas anyway.  Maybe people will have more money to spend on stuff they want but don’t necessarily need (which is what this project mainly consists of) by then.

In any case, I just can’t really catch a break lately.  There’s always something somewhere throwing a monkey wrench into everything.

I applied for a couple of jobs recently.  The very next week, both organizations announced major layoffs and a hiring freeze.

I’m very tired of things like having to choose between buying groceries or putting gas in the car.  Or whether to buy food to eat, or buy paper towels and toilet tissue.

It’s too bad I have to buy groceries at all, since it seems like nearly all the things I have to buy that are necessities have gone up 75-100% practically in the last few months.  Some of them have even gone up that much – yet the packaging has gotten smaller, there’s less of whatever it is in the package.  Other stuff is the same price but now, like, 11 ounces of whatever instead of 16.

Seems like I’ve been saying for months when will this all end?  Seems like it’s not going to.

People close to me will help, but by the time I’ve gotten another round or two of groceries and other necessities or bills paid, there’s nothing left and I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to make $1.49 or so stretch out for weeks again.  I need to put gas in the car again later this week and I’m thinking, OK, now how am I going to do that?

I eat maybe three, four times a week.  I know that’s not good.  But I do things like last week when I made the mistake, after having craved it for days and being hungry as heck anyway, of spending a little extra (less than ten bucks) on a spaghetti dinner from a fave joint around here.  Now I’m wishing I hadn’t and had that ten bucks back.

I have cut back virtually everything, pretty much, until there is no more.  The utilities are almost two months behind again, as that’s pretty much stayed for months now – it’ll get paid somehow.  I wouldn’t have Internet anymore I suppose, except since that’s my sole source of income I can’t very well not have that – of course if the utilities get cut off – well, you know.

Christmas?  I don’t get to participate in Christmas for the second year in a row.  I mean, we’ll have it, and it’ll be fine and nice and all that.  But I can’t buy anything for anyone, and just be opening presents I’ll wish nobody would have bought me since I can’t do anything myself.  I do have one thing for my sister that I just happened to wind up with, but I didn’t really intentionally go out and get it as a Christmas gift.  That’ll be it.

I’ve built up some residual recurring income.  It’s small now, but it will get better.  It’s just stuff that takes some time to grow and is going to continue to.  But it’s not going to solve any big problems right away, that’s for sure.

I do some work but there are issues with that too.  Always issues.  I’m actually constantly working, almost around the clock, sleep here and there when I finally crash, get up and get to work on something else again.  It’s some income, but not enough.  Working on other things too but again, more stuff that’s going to take time for anything to come of it.

I’m just really, really tired of it all.  Sorry.  I probably wouldn’t read here anymore for all the repetitive doom and gloom there’s been either.

Dobie is in such decline that I don’t really think we have much longer.  He is so frail and skinny now, it just breaks my heart.  And that in itself – him getting so frail and thin and pitiful, as well as blind – has posed all kinds of new problems, like today when he got stuck somewhere I wasn’t sure for a while I was going to be able to get him out of.  Last week he got a foot and claw stuck in the old furnace grill and I wasn’t sure I was going to get him loose from that either.  I keep thinking what if he does something like that sometime when I’m (rarely as I am) away from home and is stuck like that for hours?

He and the only other extremely elderly pet left are really throwing me for a loop.  Neither of them are eating as much as they should, although the cat is really doing all right otherwise for her 17 or so years.  It takes her hours to eat when she does eat, though, and she spends most of her time in there talking to her food.  Which is kind of funny, yes, but she’s always had this habit of talking to inanimate objects, starting with a roll of duct tape that was on the floor once years ago.

I always was big into Christmas.  I was thinking the other day of how nice it always used to be between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We’d have the tree up and on every night, and my parents had all this Christmas music on a couple of reel-to-reel tapes that were usually playing every night, and I’d just hang out laying with my head under the Christmas tree listening to music and looking at the lights and ornaments most every night.

Back when people used to have time to enjoy stuff like that, anyway.

I’d do the same at my grandmother’s house.  I remember what all the Christmas decorations she used to pull out every year looked like – probably because I was always helping get them out and put them up – even though I haven’t seen most of them in 25 years.  I guess my aunt still has most of them, I don’t know.  I don’t think there’s really anything I wish I had of all that stuff, except for maybe the little lighted Christmas trees that probably actually originally belonged to my great-grandmother.  There were two of them – one was silver and one was green – they weren’t anything special, just aluminum or tin with a light inside, and colored cellophane or something that made them look like they had lights on them.  Probably from the Fifties or Forties, maybe earlier.  They always sat on the end tables in my grandmother’s living room which, before that, was my great-grandmother’s living room.

I’m older now than my mother was when I left home for college.  Have I already written that here before?  I can’t remember.

So, enough joy and good will to men from me for now.  Maybe sometime I’ll have something better or funny to write about, there just isn’t lately or I’m too busy anyway.

I was about to write that at least Tojo has been staying mostly out of trouble lately, but I just reached over to move him as he was standing over Maggie looking like he was about to jump on her (again), and he bit me (not hard).  So there’s that, too.

Posted in a family thing, ancient history, blah, cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, getting older sucks, holidays, lynnster's zoo, my luck sucks, my so-called life, neighborhood rants, the economy sucks | 6 Comments »

The Thanksgiving Crab

Posted by Lynnster on December 5, 2008

I don’t remember where I’m stealing the idea behind this post from – I think I read and responded to someone talking about it in someone’s comments somewhere last week – but I was in total agreement with it.

Why couldn’t the Pilgrims have looked to the sea, instead of the land, for their Thanksgiving feast?

I know, I know – I KNOW the answer to the question and the Indians and the harvest and being thankful and land and blah blah blah and all that.  I’m just saying I really, really wish the Pilgrims had done that instead.

They were right there by the danged sea.  There must have been lakes and rivers (and heck, ponds!) nearby.    Couldn’t the Indians have taught them how to fish instead?

I am not, and never have been, a big fan of turkey.  Most of the rest of the usual Thanksgiving fare, I like just fine, but the turkey is usually the least eaten thing on my plate.  Most of my favorite Thanksgiving dinners have been the ones where there was ham as well as the turkey.

And then there’s the dark meat thing.  Put any branch of my entire family together – there was only one person who liked the dark meat.  My father – who’s been gone many years now, and really, even before that, pretty much since my parents divorced twenty years ago, and I usually spent holidays with my Mom and family – there’s nobody to eat the dark meat.  It’s useless, except to give to the cats and dogs (obviously they like that idea).

Post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches (with lots of mayo) are fine – for about a day, maybe two, then I’m over it.  When I was a kid, I refused to eat the after Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches at all.

The turkey was fun the one year when dinner was over, and my Dad put the carcass and scraps out on the deck for all the then-outside cats we had at the time.

A few minutes later, we were a bit shocked to see the carcass appearing to walk by itself across the yard.  The female cat who was, over the years, often referred to as “The Turkey Monster” was a great deal smaller than the carcass, so that was a pretty hilarious sight.

But turkey – for me anyway – just sucks.  I know the difference between good turkey and mediocre turkey and bad turkey – but I could almost just about eat cardboard instead, really.

On the other hand, seafood – now THAT’S a Thanksgiving feast I could love.  Lobster, crab, salmon, scallops – yum.  There’s really no seafood I don’t adore, except clams.  I’m a little picky about fish, but most fish is okay.  Heck, give me a Thanksgiving catfish or a Christmas catfish!  That would be A-OK with me.  Thanksgiving catfish, Christmas lobster, Easter salmon – oh, yes!

So, I think that one day – if I ever evolve out of extended adolescence and actually become the kind of matriarch that is the cooker of all Thanksgiving (and Christmas and Easter) feasts – I will begin the tradition of the Thanksgiving crab.

In more ways than one, I’m sure.

(Although I really would have been even happier if the Mayflower had drifted down to the Gulf of Mexico and landed in far south Texas near the border instead.  Thanksgiving fajitas, Christmas quesadillas, and Easter tamales – that’s what I’m talkin’ about!)

(And no, I don’t know why I included Easter in the above.  Every good white Anglo-Saxon Protestant knows you have ham on Easter instead of turkey.)

Posted in a family thing, ancient history, cats, fun with food, holidays, lynnster's zoo | 6 Comments »

Found

Posted by Lynnster on November 22, 2008

In my back bedroom: a very scared and (was anyway) still shaking black & white cat, who presumably thought he would never eat again during his 24+ hours away from home, as he has now in the last three hours eaten a can of Fancy Feast, a can of tuna, and a significant amount of dry cat food.

I really thought he was probably gone for good, after having been out looking around for him dozens of times in this unbelievably cold and freezing weather we’re having since last night.

I know I talk about the cats AND the dogs like they’re babies, and talk about them to an eye-rolling, sighing, “she’s talking about the damned cats again” point and often – but this was not quite like when my Mom’s 20 year old cat went on a two-week vacation in her neighborhood.  As worried as we were, that was mainly because she was old and had been sickly – but Snow had lived outdoors many years before I rescued her and sent her home with my Mom.

I’ve long suspected Tojo to be one of those cats who was taken away from his mother too early as a kitten (they tend to exhibit certain signs), and based on what I knew of his past history – other than the night of my car wreck when I found him again and brought him to my house, I don’t really think that cat has ever been outdoors in his life.

AND though I live on a quiet, dead end street, I live just a few steps away from one of the busiest streets in the city.

Anyway, I had pretty much given up and resigned myself to never seeing him again.  He’s never been outdoors, he doesn’t know the neighborhood, it’s freezing, busy street – etc.  Kept telling myself that maybe he had found another place with nice people petting him and feeding him – he may be psycho, but he’s also very, very friendly – etc.

So I went out one last time tonight, shortly after midnight and taking the dogs out for the last round before morning, and walked around a little bit.  Saw nothing, was freezing, turned around to head back in the house.

Then there was this flash of white up the way, zooming across a neighbor’s driveway.  So I went in that direction until I saw what I knew was a cat, but really couldn’t see it in the dark, huddled against the front of their house.  But I was pretty sure it was him, even though I couldn’t really see him.

The first time he came to me and I tried to grab him, I was unsuccessful and off he went again – though not far.

So I just sat down on the ground and talked to him until he came back, and petted him until he was a little bit more calm – and finally grabbed him and took him home.  Thank goodness, because I probably would still be out there sitting in their yard in the dark and turning into an icicle waiting for him to come to me, because there was just no way I was going back to the house without him this time.

He really was scared to death, apparently (a situation probably not helped by the neighbor’s dog wandering around the last two nights).  After giving him some food and some time on his own in his room to chill, two hours later when I let him back out in the house among the rest of us and picked him up and held him for a while, he was very uptight and rigid, and still shaking like a leaf.

Which is just so NOT Tojo.  Tojo is afraid of NOTHING, not even Petey, who is ten times his size.  Before tonight, the thought of him scared and shaking like a leaf would have just been preposterous.

Anyway, he’s a little dirty, but he’s okay and he’s home.  Pretty soon, I’m going to go crawl in the bed like I always do back there, with him under the covers when it’s cold, and hopefully we will BOTH get a good night’s sleep this time.

I couldn’t bring myself to go to sleep back there last night, and slept out here at the desk in the chair instead.  I suspect he either didn’t sleep at all, or didn’t sleep very well last night, either.

Posted in about the weather, cats, lynnster's zoo | 4 Comments »

Missing: Tojo the Psycho Cat

Posted by Lynnster on November 21, 2008

Tojo, who my friend Rachel refers to as “the OCD cat”, slipped out the door last night when I was trying to get the dogs back inside and has gone missing.

This year has been particularly bad for the Zoo, as you all know.  Good thoughts, if you will.

Posted in cats, lynnster's zoo | Leave a Comment »

Here We Go Again

Posted by Lynnster on September 26, 2008

Things will get back to “normal” here soon, September has been the busiest and craziest month full of stuff and I am real annoyed about not having had time to get back to things, especially the music blog because I’ve got a couple of big announcements to make.  But hopefully next week.

My mom’s 20+ year old cat Snow – the one who took a little vacation this summer for a couple of weeks and scared us to death – died quietly in her sleep almost two weeks ago.  So it had been a rough month already.

Then this morning my fluffy white angel left us.  He was about 17 years old, so not all that unexpected, but I would have liked to have had a little more of a break after his buddy Schuyler, who hasn’t even been gone two months yet, and Miss Snow.  And of course Lulu, my Beagle-Dachshund, earlier in the summer and Rocky earlier this year.

I know I was very fortunate to have had these last eight years with him because, for one thing, he was actually almost near death when I took him in in 2000, when he had to have basically a facelift because some dog or cat had gotten hold of him outdoors and nearly torn one side of his face off.  Once his fur grew back, you never really could tell what had happened and he was all gorgeous and white and fluffy once again.

And he almost died again two or three years after that when he stopped eating and developed fatty liver disease.  For a couple of weeks he was barely conscious, and I babied him and force-fed him food, water, and medicine from the vet until he finally started getting better again and eating on his own.  I can tell you in no uncertain terms that once he started staying more conscious and alert again and improving, that whole force-feeding thing did NOT go over too well, and he probably started eating on his own again not so much out of really wanting to eat, but wanting me to cut that foolishness out and stop bothering him with it.

And we kind of just went through that again this week on a lesser level with me trying to get water in him to keep him hydrated and comfortable.  He was so sick, but not so sick that he wasn’t getting mad at me for repeatedly bothering him with that nursing kitten baby bottle full of water.

Anyway, I know we were fortunate to have had eight pretty good years together and especially considering the two other times he almost died, which were now both so long ago.

Which now leaves me with just the two elderly ones – Dobie will be 14 in November, which is really old for a bigger dog, and Little the cat at 16 or 17 (I can never remember).  Both of whom already had frightening stroke-like episodes this summer, but are basically doing fine.

Though Maggie, the black and white cat on my shoulder above, is not so young herself now at 11, and Missy’s not too far behind her in years now.  Everybody here’s old now, really, except the “puppies” and Quincy and Tojo… and Quincy is approaching middle cat age at this point too.

I feel pretty old today too.  2008’s been a pretty exhausting year, in lots of ways.

I’ll be taking Audi up to Mom’s tomorrow, and lay him to rest in her gorgeous back yard next to his buddy Schuyler, and Miss Snow.  I’m so sorry now that I didn’t take Rocky and Lulu up there too, and Audi’s old best friend my best cat ever, who was also old when he left us and has been gone several years now.

My mom saw a black cat with green eyes around the neighborhood that she had never seen before shortly after Schuyler left us.  It would be really weird if she started seeing white cats she’d never seen before too, fluffy or short-haired either one, or both.  Or all three, a black cat and two white cats.  That would be really weird.

I will miss my fluffy angel kitty.  He rested all morning curled up in my arm with his head on my shoulder while I slept, and I woke up again right when the time came, and he left just like that, curled up with his head on my shoulder.

Now Tojo’s out here this afternoon aggravating everyone else, like most days.  Life goes on.

Posted in * cat photos, cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, in memory of..., lynnster's zoo, updates to the zone | 13 Comments »

When All’s Quiet on the Tojo Front

Posted by Lynnster on September 4, 2008

And now, on a lighter note – sleeping with cats.  Sleeping with Tojo the Psycho Cat, specifically.  Somewhat surprisingly, this is usually a more than just pleasant experience.

Lately (for reasons too long and boring to go into), I’ve been sleeping in the guest bedroom – which, as readers know, is Tojo’s room, mainly because all the other cats hate him so much.  That’s where he mostly lives, playing with and arranging his Beanie Baby dog and cat army (and the flamingo, who always seems to get tossed on the floor for some unknown reason), rearranging my guest room in ways I don’t quite understand how a relatively small cat manages to do – I’ve long since stopped to go open the door and look when the odd thump or bang emits from that room.

Tojo is great fun to sleep with, though.  All his other psychoness aside, he actually is one of the most affectionate cats I’ve ever owned, and is surprisingly snuggly.  He will curl up in my arm, or alongside my arm or leg, snoozing away and purring loud and happily and doing what an ex-boyfriend’s mother used to call “making biscuits” (patting with his paws) on my arm or leg.

And sleeps the sleep of the DEAD.  That cat does NOT wake up unless I actually am getting up and getting out of bed and moving.  I have rarely seen a cat that is THAT unconscious while asleep, other than my brother-in-law and sister’s cat, Mouse, who is missing a few important brain cells anyway.

I’m so used to sharing a bed with various pets that when I’m spending the night away from home, sometimes it takes a little getting used to having a bed to myself and falling asleep.

And sleeping with cats is not always so pleasant.  When Schuyler, who passed away this summer, was healthy and big, he was great to have cuddled up with you in the winter and some nice extra warmth – not so much in the summer, and even more so with his habits of sleeping on your head (our family research over the last 40+ years shows this to be a definite black cat thing) or biting you sometimes – not hard, but not very comfortable, and another black cat thing – in places you would rather not be bitten.  He also had really bad breath as he got older and more sickly, so that was even worse.

But Tojo is just a delight to snooze away a rainy morning with.  I woke up several times yesterday and just got a kick out of him, purring and snoozing away, unconscious like the dead, occasionally stretching and so obviously happy and comfy and snuggly, just so peaceful.  And you think, how on earth can this relatively small and – right now – very, extremely peaceful little being be such a psychotic chaotic maniac tearing through the house like the Tasmanian Devil most of the time, terrorizing the other cats and sometimes a dog or two, and just generally leaving mayhem in his wake everywhere he goes?

In any case, I truly treasure our fun and sweet little naps together.  As I should, because those hours before he wakes up again are like the eye of the storm in Hurricane Tojo.

Posted in cats, giggles, i never sleep, i sleep too much, lynnster's zoo | 6 Comments »

Double the Horror, Double the Poverty

Posted by Lynnster on September 4, 2008

Last night was depressing.  I went to the grocery store.

Back in the spring, I mentioned that I had noticed a lot of the things I pretty much HAVE to buy on a regular basis had gone up relatively significantly.  Well, now (in just the past week or two), they’ve gone up AGAIN.

40 lb. bag of (store brand) dog food – up from $7.99-8.99 in April 2008 to $13.99.

20-ish lb. bag of (commercial) cat food – up for around $11 to $15.

Box of (store brand) dog treats – used to be two for $2, now $4 ($6 somewhere else for something similar).

Kitty litter – I always buy cheap kinds and store brands because my cats simply usually prefer them.  The store brand cat litter at my usual grocery stores is now costing what Tidy Cats, Fresh Step, etc. USED to.

All totaled, well over $15, possibly even up to an additional $20 a month or so if you’re a pet owner.

So yes, that is all pet stuff and I suppose some people would scoff that pets are a luxury (even though they’re the only “kids” I have).  So let’s look at stuff for ME.

Nearly all the food and personal items I buy for myself are, these days, generic and store brands.  Nearly all of THEM have increased in cost similarly.  Thank goodness I don’t habitually eat very much or often – which is bad, I know – but the simple fact is right now I couldn’t afford to eat TWO meals a day, much less three, so right now my borderline eating disorder is a blessing.

One of my preferred easy quick cheap meals is not so cheap anymore.  Formerly 89 cents, I discovered just over the weekend the price had gone up to $1.09.  And now it’s gone up to $1.29 SINCE the weekend.

Here was the real shocker for me, though.  I actually noticed this at another store last week, but thought maybe it was just one of those things, since I was at a retail drugstore where things sometimes are higher than they are at, say, Kroger or Wal-Mart.

But no.  Angel Soft toilet tissue, usually acquired for $1 or less per four-roll package many places – now pushing $2, at $1.85.  This isn’t Northern, this isn’t Charmin, this isn’t Kleenex – it’s ANGEL SOFT, for goodness’ sakes.  Granted, even if I had lots of money I’d probably buy it anyway instead of the others.  I like it just fine, think it’s great anyway, and after what a plumber once told one of my best friends after a thousands-of-dollars plumbing repair job, I probably will buy it forever (well, if I can afford to).

And I have long lamented the high cost of feminine hygiene/protection products for years, as that is something most women HAVE to have on hand and cannot do without, yet even the store brands are often horrifically expensive.  I have always considered that one of those things that’s just simply not fair and borderline sexist.  Fortunately I stocked up on that stuff a few months ago with the generous gift of a kind friend of a Wal-Mart gift card.  I am NOT looking forward to seeing what that stuff costs when I’ve depleted my current stock.

But seriously – do you see what I’m getting at here?  This is GROCERIES, people.  This is generic and store brand people food, as well as pet food.  This is “lesser brand” TOILET TISSUE, for Pete’s sake.

And most of it’s nearly DOUBLED in cost in just the last four months.  100% inflation, folks.

Gasoline prices were bad enough, and I realize they have decreased somewhat (at least temporarily).  It still sucks that I have a compact car and it costs over $50 to make a two and a half hour trip to my hometown there and back, and that I’m 42 years old and my mom has to send me the money if I want to come home for the weekend.

But this – this is groceries – and TOILET TISSUE, for crying out loud – doubling in cost.  What happens next year?  Tripling?  Quadrupling?

I can’t afford any of it, and my income is tentative enough as it is.  What really sucks is that I’ll still be owing taxes next year on what pitiful, way below average “poverty level”, amount of income I have actually earned this year.

All I’ve been hearing about lately is people getting laid off, hundreds here, a few there, hundreds more over there.  I suspect few of you reading right now could tell me you’ve gotten a raise this year that’s helping to offset this incredible rise in not only cost of just living, but cost of necessities.

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here lately.  I don’t know how many times I’ve asked this in the last five or six months, and I’m getting kind of tired of asking it and wondering about it at this point, but anyway…

Where does it stop?  When does it end?

You want my vote in the Presidential election?  Then tell me it is going to stop, and where it’s going to stop, and when it’s going to end, AND make it happen.

Preferably before we’re all homeless and out on the street, starving, and having to tear up family Bibles and dictionaries and encyclopedias because we can’t afford to buy four rolls of toilet paper.

Posted in blah, cats, dogs, fun with food, in my head, lynnster's zoo, my so-called life, the economy sucks | 6 Comments »

These Hands Weren’t Made for Manual Labor

Posted by Lynnster on August 8, 2008

The trip home to lay Schuyler to rest wound up a real comedy of errors.  When it comes to hard manual labor, really I am pretty much useless.  Edge has marveled before at how it’s not just that I don’t have much strength, it’s like I have NO strength.  I don’t think that’s a totally fair assessment; after all, I carry 40-lb. bags of dog food around often, or at least from the shelf to the cart, the cart to the car, the car in the driveway to inside the house.  No, Mr. Sacker, I don’t need help with that, I do it all the time, thanks.

But suffice it to say that even if the ground in my mother’s back yard had been more willing, I don’t know that I would have gotten all that much farther than I did.  As it was, the ground back there is little better than digging into solid rock.  I’m sure the fact that it’s been so dry and there’s been no rain didn’t help, but I’m not sure it’s much better during wetter periods.  I had one of the two old shovels of Dad’s I have with me and then was using Mom’s shovel too, which several times I was afraid was about to BREAK.  That’s how hard that ground was back there.

It’s also one of the oldest neighborhoods in town, although for the most part houses weren’t built there until the turn of the century.  Just about the time I started thinking, “You know, I really hope I don’t wind up digging up a Union or Confederate soldier back here,” I hit something that for a minute I was afraid was bone, then discovered it was just a very large tree root.  Every little once in a while I’d dig up a small piece of red clay and think where is the REST of this clay, and why can’t everything back here be like that?!?!  Between the roots and the rocks and the plain old just about hard as rock dirt, things were just getting more fun by the minute.

Even though I didn’t start ’til well past 6 p.m. since we were having yet another almost-100 degree day that day, it was still hotter than Hades and even when I was STILL out there at 10:30 that night with Mom holding the flashlight, sweat was just pouring down my face, into my eyes – ugh.  The neighbors probably wondered what questionable ritual we were carrying on back there and the temporary state of the resting place may not help that rumor.  I couldn’t dig nearly as deep as it probably should have been, but it was deep enough to do the job, and we covered up the area for the time being with a small stack of concrete blocks to keep any critters from trying to dig Schuyler back up.  We’ll move most of them back later on.

The concrete blocks were a nice little surprise too.  We don’t know why they’re back there, but there’s been a large stack of them there all along since we bought the house.  Nothing else in the immediate area is made of those blocks save for (maybe, now I don’t remember) an ancient barbecue pit so maybe they were left over from that.  I walked over there to the stack expecting to pick up, you know, your usual garden-variety concrete block.  With hollowed-out holes in it.

Nope.  They were SOLID.  And weighed probably 40 pounds or more each.  There was a bigger one that probably weighed closer to 60.  There are now about ten of them on top of the little grave site.  Ain’t nothing short of King Kong digging that cat up.

My hands are all blistered and cut up and sore and my arms are still aching but at least it got done.  For a little bit there I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get finished and didn’t know what we were going to do.  If there’s ever a next time, we’re getting a pickax this time.

So now I’m back home in Memphis and things are getting back to normal.  Three of the puppies (I know they’re not puppies anymore) are surrounding me sleeping underneath the desk and Dobie behind me.  My old white kitty – who would not leave my side the whole day and night that Schuyler ended up leaving us – is snoozing on top of a super-soft winter bathrobe that I got out for Schuyler to lay on that day and he wouldn’t, but my white cat and Maggie have been loving it.

And my oldest cat, Little, who has had a habit for years of talking to inanimate objects – rolls of duct tape, whatever – is talking to her food right now.

So everything’s back to normal again, sort of.  It seems much quieter in here though.

Posted in a family thing, cats, lynnster's zoo, west tennessee | 2 Comments »

I Don’t Have a Title for This Post

Posted by Lynnster on August 6, 2008

One day a little over ten years ago, a nurse who used to work at the surgeon’s office where I would eventually have wound up spending 14 years of my life – and who was an animal lover like me and another woman we both worked with for a long time (this nurse, in fact, was the owner of the killer Schnauzers I wrote about a few posts ago) – called my co-worker up and announced there was this stray cat in her neighborhood who was declawed and was getting beaten up a lot by the other neighborhood cats. She was, of course, less concerned about the other cats than the possibility of a dog getting a hold of the cat. In the meantime, she and her next door neighbors had discovered this cat was very friendly and sweet, and had obviously come from a home but had been lost for a long time, as he’d been hanging around their yards and their street for some time at that point.

My co-worker immediately volunteered me, and I immediately said no. I had Dobie and his mama, three older cats (including cranky miss Little), and had just rescued Maggie and her sister Molly from the parking lot of a convenience store that used to be up the street (and almost probable roadkill) the year before. At that point, my co-worker and I had pawned off a few foundlings to everyone we could possibly talk into it over the past several years, so there was really no one left but us. And at the moment, my co-worker had more pets than I did, so I lost the argument pretty quickly. Not that I was arguing that much.

There have only been a few periods in my life that I didn’t have a green-eyed black cat around since I’d been about 8 or 9 years old or thereabouts. One of the longest was just prior to this episode, when Sox, who was the brother of my very best cat of all time who lived to be 16, died of feline leukemia in 1991. He and his brother had been some of the last kittens born at my parents’ home, and the last of a long line of cats going back to when I was a sophomore in high school. They were the first cats I had as an adult living away from home; when I moved into an apartment by myself for the first time, back in Murfreesboro in 1986, I picked the two of them to bring with me, and they were the only pets I had until the ex-then-live-in talked me into agreeing to get a puppy a few years later.

So I went about seven years without a green-eyed black cat in the house, until I got talked into taking Schuyler so he wouldn’t continue being terrorized by a bunch of Bartlett cats with claws.

So I brought him home to get terrorized by my little demons, though it didn’t last long because, for one thing, he was a lot bigger than all of them. He was always a big, strapping, stocky boy, and it really was probably a good thing he didn’t have front claws because he could have done some damage at times, though most of the time he was too good-natured for that. Other than Little – who basically has always hated almost everybody – he won everyone else over quickly, especially Maggie and Molly, who were still pretty young at the time. My orange then-kitten Rocky came along not too long after Schuyler and Molly promptly adopted him, so Maggie was kind of always Schuyler’s.

But then again, all the cats (except Little) were fine with Schuyler. He was so easygoing and laid back, and never really fought with anyone. In fact, he spent most of his time cleaning and grooming everyone else, which is why I always called him my “hairdresser cat”.

I don’t have a whole lot of pictures of Schuyler because black cats just generally don’t photograph well – or I’m just not a good enough photographer. I have almost none on this computer, though I think I have some more on the hard drive of the dead old one.

This above was a pretty common scene the last few years since the white cat decided he would leave the guest bedroom he insisted on living in for years (now home of Tojo, the psycho cat) and come out and live with the rest of us. These two have been big buddies, and the only two declawed cats I’ve ever had – both declawed before they ever came to me. And both big cleaners and groomers, so they were constantly grooming each other too. That’s probably what they were doing either shortly before or right after I took this picture.

And this looks odd to me, because for the last couple of months he was getting so frail and thin, I can’t believe how big he looks here compared to what it’s been like the last few months. Really he’s been in sort of a slow decline with the old age kidney failure ever since Rocky died of the same thing in January. But Rocky was kind of unexpected, because he was only ten, it usually hits them later than that. Schuyler was at least 15 or 16 or 17. Maybe even older. He wasn’t a young cat when he wound up with me, but he wasn’t terribly old either.

Last week, he was looking and seemed to be doing better, but I guess that happens a lot, they sometimes get better before they get worse.

And yesterday morning he was no different than he had been, other than I noticed he didn’t eat as much, but he was still eating and drinking water. Then he didn’t want any more food the rest of the day, whereas the past several weeks he’d have eaten 24/7 if I’d have let him. Then he stopped drinking water sometime last night.

I know we were lucky this time. Just like with my last green-eyed black cat now so many years ago – when it was time, it was pretty quick. No spending agonizing days and days in a coma like with Rocky, and with Sox’s brother Dare before that, which is what I was preparing for and was dreading. He was resting and mostly comfortable, right up until the very end. I just kept petting him and telling him what I’d been telling him all night – that it was okay to go, and that Rocky and Lulu and Baby and Molly and Dare would all be there waiting for him. And then he was gone.

I haven’t had any sleep, but this time I’m doing what I wish I’d done with Rocky, with Lulu, and taking him to my mom’s. He and Mom’s cat Snow (she of the recent adventure/slash/disappearance and subsequent return) have always had this weird thing, whenever Mom and I were on the phone, the two of them would always be in our laps, usually nudging the phone in Schuyler’s case. My mom’s got a great back yard with lots of nice trees and I just think that’s where he should be. I wish Rocky and Lulu were too, but I guess in a way I can pretend they are now.

See ya later.

Posted in cats, in memory of..., lynnster's zoo | 6 Comments »

News from the Nursing Home

Posted by Lynnster on August 3, 2008

Living with an elderly cat in decline has certainly become a challenge lately. Of course, there’s also the fact that I have two more elderly cats who are doing okay for now, but Schuyler, my black cat, is presenting all kinds of new challenges lately.

I previously mentioned the recent loss of normal toilet habits. That’s gotten better in some ways. We now have this routine where I think he may be about to go, so about forty times a day, I pick him up and we go to the litter box, and about three or four of those times, we’ll have success. The rest of the time he just jumps out because no, he doesn’t need to go.

Or then we’ll have an episode like we did a few minutes ago, where we made it to the litter box and had a successful pee, and then a very short time he later he started acting like he needed to go again. So off we went again, and immediately he jumped out of the box. And then about five minutes later had an accident in the living room.

I would think he’s getting senile, but he’s apparently mostly with it. In fact, most times that I’m either not paying attention or asleep and he can’t make it to the litter box in time (honestly, I don’t know whether he’s even trying to anymore), he’s picked a ceramic bowl that used to hold keys and whatnot and really hasn’t been in use in some time to go in. Which is fine. Bowls can be washed, and that’s way better than a lot of places he could be going. And he’s going there every time, so I can’t complain too much about that.

Otherwise, he really seems to be doing okay and has even put on just a little bit of weight, which is not much considering he’s so pitifully thin and he was always such a big, stocky, strapping boy. He still purrs constantly, and he still keeps busy cleaning everyone else as well as himself (I’ve always called him my “hairdresser cat”). He’s eating better and keeping it down and other things have improved.

So really, we’re doing okay, but the forty or fifty times a day trips to the litter box is about to wear me out. I’m not going to complain much though; obviously we’ve been blessed with more time than I thought we had a few weeks ago.

And speaking of elderly cats with issues, Little has improved to the point of being on the verge of getting fat again (longtime friends and family will remember she used to look like a little basketball years ago). And the very strange sweet and lovable and clingy disposition that developed after her stroke-like episode (with the vestibular disease) a month and half ago – well, that’s all gone. She’s back to her normal crabby self and hissing at everyone in her path all the time.

With all that’s gone on this year with Rocky and Lulu’s illnesses and then deaths, Dobie and Little’s episodes with the vestibular disease, and now Schuyler and his particular challenges, I don’t know what I would have done if I was not working at home these days. We wouldn’t have been able to manage all this at all.

I’m also happy to report we are finally totally flea-free (or at least almost), no thanks to Frontline Plus. I keep reading where people are concerned that the company changed the formula because so many people are having such bad luck with it now and not killing fleas as it once did, and then there’s always the possibility, I guess, that the fleas are just becoming immune to it, but it no longer works here, I can tell you that; and, I believe Frontline Top Spot works better – or at least it seemed to last I used it. We have been using all that stuff since it first started coming out, from Program to Advantage to Frontline and then Frontline Plus, and then I was able to get by for a few years with some over-the-counter stuff and only on the dogs before the dogs next door moved in. Our experience with Frontline Plus this year was a nightmare, whereas going back to Advantage a month later, we had peace within a week, if even that long. Between that and the original Dawn dish liquid flea traps (still working, I’m going to keep one down 365 days a year now whether I see a flea or not), we’ve had super success. Pooh on Frontline Plus.

And Tojo the psycho kitty’s been out here for about twenty minutes now without causing any chaos or making anybody mad. He’s getting better. Sometimes.

Posted in cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, getting older sucks, lynnster's zoo | Leave a Comment »

Yuck

Posted by Lynnster on July 28, 2008

“What am I stepping in?”

Definitely one of my least favorite phrases to utter while walking around the house.

(PS Yep – new music blog here.)

Posted in cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, lynnster's zoo, my so-called life | Leave a Comment »

Dobie’s New Little Friend

Posted by Lynnster on July 25, 2008

Not been a real good week for animal issues, both near and not so near to me, like one particularly horrible issue of animal cruelty noted in one of my most recent posts.

This next was a little bit closer.

One afternoon last week, Dobie and the young demon spawn and I were outside on one of our usual afternoon breaks in the back yard. There was a sudden commotion at the back fence with all the dogs barking like mad, so I walked back there to see what was up.

And found a puppy, who was of course barking right back at them. I had heard him, but not seen him before. He, I’m sure, belonged to a young couple with a kid (or two, I’m not sure how many kids they have) who has lived in one section of that house for some time now. I figured he was theirs because the husband asked me if I knew anyone who had any puppies a while back.

My four younger dingbats finally got bored with barking at him and I rounded them up and sent them back inside, but Dobie wouldn’t budge from the fence. He’d bark. The puppy would bark back.

He was the cutest little thing, probably about four or five months old. Definitely was going to grow up to be a smaller dog than Dobie, but a few things about him reminded me a lot of when Dobie was a puppy, especially his head and his ears. Pretty much the same goofy looking floppy triangular ears, and a too big for his face clown nose, same as Dobie.

A little darker in color than Dobie; actually he was about the same color one of Dobie’s brothers who I called Jaws had been, who had been such an odd darker shade, more brown but kind of strange, that he was almost a dark green. The puppy was was brown and lighter, but sort of in that same odd shade zone.

I really wanted to get back inside but Dobie just wouldn’t budge, and I finally gave up trying for a while. They just stood and barked at each other for a while.

Then this game of sorts started between the two of them. The puppy would edge up closer and closer to the fence. Then Dobie would bark, and the puppy would take off running away and go zoom around the yard two or three times, then run right back up to the fence and start edging slooooowly up closer again, and the cycle would start anew.

This must have gone on for 20, 30 minutes, maybe longer. Even though I’d wanted to go in, I didn’t mind too much because Dobie was obviously having fun (though he wouldn’t want anyone to know that), and being 14 years old and having slowed down tremendously the last several years, he doesn’t get a lot of “fun” and “playtime” anymore, especially since his young nephews and niece are such attention hogs.

The ease-up-then-run-away-when-Dobie-barks-and-come-back-again game just went on and on, and I laughed and laughed. And kinda got teary-eyed too, several times. I didn’t mind staying out anymore, I was glad he was obviously having fun, my old guy.

Toward the end of our time out there the puppy had stopped the running away and was obviously no longer terribly concerned about Dobie – not surprising, because that’s usually what happens. Dobie might scare another animal for a minute or two but it doesn’t take long for them to realize he’s nowhere on the scale of being a threat. Having been the only puppy among three older dogs the first couple of years of his life and having had a mother who would only let him eat when she decided he could for the first ten years of his life – well, Dobie’s just never really gotten much respect. The four young goofballs who wound up (begrudgingly) as his charges when their mama died kind of defer to him as an elder, but they’re never frightened of him (I think I saw Petey look concerned all of once when Dobie was mad at him about something), and Dobie’s never been anywhere even remotely close to being an Alpha.

Anyway, so we hung out at the fence a little while longer and the little puppy even came closer and I petted him a little bit. He was really sweet and friendly and, you know, just full of puppy-ness.

It crossed my mind at the time that it was a little worrisome that apparently his owners were just letting him run around – that yard is not fenced in at all, other than the neighboring fences at the back. There’s no enclosure, and he was just running free.

I think the run-away-zooming-around game must have just completely worn me and Dobie both out just watching the puppy zoom around the yard over and over and OVER for as long as he did. I was getting really tired, and Dobie was either tired too or just bored with it all, so when I made a move to head back to the house, Dobie came along this time and we left our new little friend at the fence. And came in and both took a very long nap.

I had to call my mom a couple of days later and tell her about Dobie’s new friend, and we just laughed and laughed some more. We didn’t see him any more the rest of the week, really, except for one day when we were all out and the puppy was out and way off to side of their house, but Dobie and the four dingalings could see him so they all barked at each other for a little bit, and then we came back in.

Monday morning, we went out at our usual time for the first potty break of the day. There was another commotion at the back fence, so I walked over to see what was going on.

The young ones have always had a habit of barking at inanimate objects that were not previously there before, whether in our yard or in the neighbors’ yards where they can see; in fact, my next door neighbor just a few days ago started parking her car further down the drive and right next to our side fence, so they barked at the car the first night it was there. Dobie’s never really done that habitually like they do, but he will sometimes.

So I got back to the back fence to see what they were barking at. And then I saw it, though it took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at.

Just a foot or so from my fence, there was a stick, about the size of a croquet stake, sticking up out of the ground, with a small bunch of yellow plastic flowers tied to it. And a small blue plastic dog food and water bowl placed at the bottom. That bowl’s what really took me a minute to register what I was seeing.

I just burst into tears, couldn’t help it. Daisy and Buster and Bruiser and Petey finally got bored with it, as they usually do with inanimate objects that weren’t wherever they are previously, and went elsewhere.

Dobie wouldn’t budge again. Just kept standing there barking at it with his increasingly hoarse as he gets older bark.

And then it occurred to me that he apparently knew, that he wasn’t just barking because they were previously-not-there objects. So then I started crying even harder, at which point I knew without a doubt that he knew the puppy was dead and buried there.

I don’t know what happened, though I would guess he probably either got run over by a car or was killed by one or a pack of the roaming dogs I sometimes see around. It wouldn’t have taken much, he was so little. I’ve got cats bigger than he was.

And I was so heartbroken. Because of the needless loss. Because my old dog that I helped his mama birth, who probably doesn’t have all that much time left, had such a nice day the other day messing around with that silly puppy zooming all over the yard. And now here his new little friend had gotten run over or killed somehow, and probably because he’d been left to run around unattended. And I know Dobie knew, and that broke my heart too.

Dogs – and cats – know stuff. When Rocky was dying – Rocky who’d always been “Dobie’s cat” – Dobie laid down next to him and stayed there until 20 or 30 minutes after he was gone.

They don’t forget things; well, most of them. The four young’ns were really too young to remember their mama very much and I don’t know that they do. But when I mention Lucy or Dez or Batman or Dare or Molly or Satin, the young one’s mama & even though she wasn’t with us but for about eight or nine months – any of the cats and dogs we have lost since Dobie was born nearly 14 years ago – there is recognition in Dobie’s eyes.

And especially if I bring up his mama, who has been gone about four years now. I call everyone “baby” from time to time, but he knows when I’m talking about his mama, whose name really was Baby. And he looks sad, and I wind up crying enough for both of us.

But I know he knew where the puppy was. Maybe it was the scent, even buried in the ground, but I know he know he knew.

I guess otherwise I would have never known what happened, but I can hardly stand to see that tiny little grave back there, right almost up against my fence. I’ve avoided going back that way most of the week. It just makes me so sad to see it.

God, this has just been an awful year, though I guess it makes sense since I have/had so many all reaching elderly stage at the same time. Losing Rocky, losing Lulu the Beagle, Dobie and Little both having their freaky stroke-like episodes at almost the same time while Lula was still sick. Now Schuyler, my formerly big and strong black cat now just skin and bones and weighing nothing; it’s coming, it’s just a matter of when.

I’m so tired.

(PS I have to add this because it’s kind of funny in a not funny but really funny sorta way. In Schuyler’s decline, one thing that has happened is that he is not controlling his bowels very well; he just can’t make it to the litter box most of the time, though in recent days I have been able to see it coming and grab him and get him there.

Unfortunately one of the spots he goes to the most is a place where Audi is, more often than not, laying around. Can I just say of all the cats in the house, the one I would like LEAST for Schuyler to be pooping on is my VERY long-haired white cat?!?!?!

Cleanup has been excruciating. Oddly enough, Audi doesn’t seem to mind or notice – I don’t know why!!! He’s old too, 16 or 17, maybe he’s gotten senile and just doesn’t care. Ugh.

We’ve gone a few days now, though, without Schuyler pooping on Audi so, fingers crossed. Heh.)

Posted in cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, in memory of..., lynnster's zoo, sad stuff | 2 Comments »

Throwing Them to a Pack of Hungry Wolves or Lions Would Be Well Deserved (Even Though You Can’t Do That)

Posted by Lynnster on July 24, 2008

A word of warning – this is a particularly vile and horrific tale of an episode of animal cruelty, so don’t go on to the next paragraph if you don’t want to. I usually try to avoid reading such things when I run across them because they break my heart and I can’t take it, but it was too late and my brain had already registered it when I came upon this one in my hometown newspaper. I would link to the story (which was really just a news brief from the sheriff’s report of that date), but the paper requires registration/subscription for most such things so there’s no point in me linking it.

The Henry County Sheriff’s Department was called out to a home in Buchanan, Tennessee – a community down by Kentucky Lake and a few miles outside of my hometown of Paris – about the death of a man’s dog. A teenager gave the Sheriff’s Department the information that the nine-month-old Golden Retriever puppy had been tied to a tree and attacked and killed by a pit bull.

The report said three suspects were spoken to, all of whom denied involvement (of course), but one of them was the owner of the suspect pit bull, and the puppy was found dead in the woods behind that suspect’s home. Although the paper didn’t say, due to the way the report was worded and the fact that the information was supplied by a teenager, I am kind of assuming the “three suspects” were probably also young people.

Well, goodness knows since I’m such a softie for animals anyway, I’m horrified, and who in their right mind wouldn’t be? It was a nine-month old puppy, for goodness’ sakes. It was still basically a BABY. Close to fully grown, yes, but still a very young dog, basically a baby dog.

I look at this old and in failing health 14-year-old clown of a dog underneath my desk right now, who I literally helped birth, and these four dingalings running around my house who I would have also birthed four years ago if their mama hadn’t gone into labor while I was at work. And then I think of that poor little nine-month-old baby – a Golden Retriever, for the love of whatever, one of the sweetest, most gentle breeds on the planet!! – who must have spent his last moments horrifically terrified and in an incredible amount of pain. For NO good reason except for the entertainment and the sick whims of some people who obviously need some very serious psychological help.

And don’t get me wrong, there’s no “pit bull outrage” here. It’s not that pit bull’s fault, it’s the fault of whoever its owner or owners are and the fault of those involved in this horrible act of violence. You won’t see me calling for the outlawing of pit bulls – if I had children, I would have no hesitation about letting them be around The Most Famous Pit Bull in Nashville (I won’t link, we all know who I’m talking about). Supervised, of course, but then I’m not going to let any young child of mine be around ANY dog fully unsupervised. I myself would gladly share a bed or a couch with TMFPBIN. She’s a lovely dog and much more well mannered than my brats.

Granted, pit bulls are a breed that are capable of severe damage or worse but heck, so is Dobie – and it would be more than a little overconfident and a reach to even just state that Dobie would be the Forrest Gump of “killer dogs”. I’ve seen him make mincemeat out of pigs ears and fleece chewmen, but only in the case of someone trying to hurt or kill me might his natural instinct kick in to attack, and even then the amount of damage he might cause is questionable if not totally non-existent.

My young ones are a little more in touch with their instincts about being protective – well, except Daisy because she’s a girl and never has needed to be with her three bumbling brothers and Uncle Dobie around, and Bruiser’s actual instincts in that direction are pretty debatable too. When he growls, he doesn’t know what he’s growling about, he’s only growling because his brothers are. But let another dog be in their territory of the back yard (even ones that they’ve seen outside their back yard and could care less about), or were someone to be trying to hurt me or Daisy, yeah, they’d go after them.

Still, Petey is my only real fighter and the only one capable of anything at all. I’ve had my hand right in the middle of things when Bruiser and Buster were fighting with another dog, and right in the middle of their TEETH at the time, and I can tell you there’s no real danger there with those two.

Not to mention the fact they all live with cats who are much smaller than they are. Petey could SIT on little Missy and kill her, but he’s also the one that is most frequently scared to death of the prospect of being about to get beaten up by Audi the white cat, who regularly tires of all their BS and goes after them. And doesn’t have any front claws.

But my real point here is ANY dog can be trained to be vicious and mean and attack and kill, and this episode with this poor puppy in Buchanan was just not this pit bull’s fault. It’s the sick person or people who trained that dog to be that way, and the fault of the disgustingly sick persons involved in this episode who got their kicks out of orchestrating it.

Granted, larger dogs by virtue of their size and general makeup are capable of causing more damage, but you can train a poodle or a Yorkie to be vicious and bite and attack. The dogs I have been most scared by in my life were the Chihuahua who lived next door when I was small, who was just plain mean (though not trained that way by her elderly owners, she was just mean, period) and a former co-worker’s two Schnauzers, who were known to sink their teeth into the ankles of people who unfortunately turned their backs on them. One would do better to be more wary of the small breeds than worrying about most big dogs; it’s the little ones you’ve gotta watch out for. And ANY dog is liable to have a negative reaction if they are surprised or messed with.

But this one that is suspected of killing that poor little Golden Retriever baby obviously had been trained to attack and kill, which is wholly the fault of the sick people responsible for training it that way and for putting that puppy in that position.

Reading about it will likely give me nightmares for a long time to come; I am having difficulty shaking the image from my head, knowing how terrified and in how much pain that poor dog must have been in. But what probably bothers me even more is that I fear this episode will wind up not further investigated and fully prosecuted dependent upon the results of the investigation, and basically swept under the rug.

From what was reported in the paper, I think the evidence is already pretty much NOT in the suspects favor, and there are animal cruelty felony laws in this state and – at the very least – I think those responsible (or their families, if they’re minors) should be subject to the maximum fines, and those responsible ordered into strict psychological counseling, both of which are possibilities under current Tennessee animal cruelty laws.

Like I said, I don’t know for certain if the suspects in the case are teenagers or young people, though I suspect they are. And we all know of the tremendous evidence collected over the years that serial killers and other violent criminals often have a past history of animal abuse in youth.

If it were up to me, I think I’d probably just as soon tie the three to some trees and let a pack of wild and hungry bears or wolves or lions or tigers at ‘em. I’m not sure if people who would do such a horrible thing deserve much better than that.

Or at the very least (and obviously more reasonable and no more killing involved), the same scenario under the care of an expert animal trainer. Let those responsible feel the terror that that nine-month-old puppy felt in its last moments on earth, even if they’re going to get to be untied and live to tell about it another day.

In any case, I’m just sick about this and sick that people that live in my home county could be capable of such a horrific and vile act – my home county which used to be a place where nobody ever locked their doors or their cars before meth addiction became epidemic in rural West Tennessee and the meth heads started stealing everything they could get their hands on. It just makes me sick.

I really do hope the Henry County Sheriff’s Department will fully and truly investigate the case, and will fully prosecute it if they can. Or if that doesn’t work, I hope the puppy’s owner will take those suspects and/or their families to civil court and sue them for everything they’ve got and win, and that court-ordered psychological counseling will be a part of it.

It shouldn’t be a case of “oh, well, they just killed a dog”. At the very, very least, these people responsible are seriously mentally ill and need help. I hope they get it and I hope this case doesn’t just get swept under the proverbial rug.

And maybe if spmething does get done about the case, I can stop thinking several times a day, every single day, about and being horrified and sick to my stomach over what that poor terrified little puppy, who was still basically a baby, must have gone through. ‘Cause right now I am having a horrific episode of my own, remembering what I read in that in that article over and over again.

Petey, around four or five months:

Daisy, around four or five months:

Dobie, around four or five months:

I just can’t even imagine the terror. Nor do I want to. That Golden Retriever puppy was only a little older than they were when these were taken, and I just can’t even imagine the horror.

Posted in * dog photos, animal cruelty, cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, in my head, lynnster's zoo, outraged, simply horrified, west tennessee | Leave a Comment »

Mystery Solved

Posted by Lynnster on July 4, 2008

Guess who came home for dinner?

She’s fine, a little dirty and a little skinnier (but not that much), no wounds, and otherwise none the worse for wear.  Thank goodness Mom had put up the flyers, as it was someone in the neighborhood that had seen Snow walking past and called Mom.

She now has a belly full of tuna and water and was sitting in Mom’s lap being petted last I heard.  Silly old cat.

Posted in a family thing, cats | 5 Comments »

The Case of the Vanishing White Cat, or, White Cat Missing in Downtown Paris TN – One of the Two

Posted by Lynnster on June 27, 2008

So I have just returned from one of the most bizarre 24-hour periods of my entire life, I think.

My mom has a cat that I pawned off on her many years ago, having pretty much achieved my limit of foundlings at the time. Snow had originally belonged to a neighbor who moved off and left her to fend for herself, and after a few years of that and never allowing me to get near her, she finally made friends with me. My mom has always been a little partial to “pretty” kitties and Snow was, true to her name, a solid white semi-long haired cat who needed a home, so of course I orchestrated the whole thing and basically she couldn’t refuse, and the two went home together about, I don’t know, 14 or 15 years ago and have been best friends ever since.

I always had an idea of her age because I knew the neighbor who originally owned her fairly well and knew when she had acquired Snow, so she is pretty close to the 20-year-old mark – even older than my elderlies. And has really been in great health all this time until fairly recently when she was having some problems. But she improved and has really been doing pretty well ever since.

But we’ve, of course, known she was really, really old for a cat, and have sort of been in that trying to be prepared for her time to come any time now for the last couple of years or so. You know, you don’t want to think about it, but when I look at my oldest cat now in failing health and knowing that Snow was significantly older than mine in cat terms – well, you know.

So the other night, my mom lets me know (though I didn’t read it until yesterday morning) that she can’t find Snow. Snow has not been outside (nor even tried to go outside again but once, a long time ago) in the 14 or 15 years she’s been at Mom’s, and while she has her napping and hiding places like any other cat, it was unusual for her to not be seen before Mom went to work, when she came home for lunch, AND after she got home from work. And VERY unusual for her not to pop up when I walk in the house as I did yesterday – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So of course, we feared the worst and knew that time had probably come; that more than likely, she had curled up somewhere and gone to sleep and just didn’t wake up.

What we didn’t count on was the cat just having VANISHED into thin air, apparently.

When I finally read the e-mail yesterday morning and called my mother and confirmed that Snow still hadn’t turned up, I thought about it for a few minutes and then knew I was getting on the road. I didn’t even call her back to let her know I was coming, I just figured I’d throw some stuff together (thinking at the time I’d come back to Memphis later that night) and drive up there and find her before Mom got back home from work. Even though Mom had said she’d already looked all over the house, though there were a few spots she hadn’t checked yet that were hard to get to without a ladder and such like that.

So that was my master plan – I figured yep, I’ll drive up there, I’ll have found her by the time Mom gets home, then we’ll bury her in the back yard or something, and I’ll drive back. Snow’s never been much of a hider and we know all her usual places plus the rare ones she does go hiding in, like underneath my bed up there among the mattress springs. I had no doubt that by the time the sun went down Thursday night, she would have been found. I was just SURE I would find her by the time Mom got home from work, but at the very least, was certain we would find her by the end of the evening.

So I get there and unlock the door and walk in.  No white cat comes out to greet me (which was really what I was hoping most, of course – that me showing up would finally bring her out – though I knew it was unlikely and was pretty sure wherever she was, she was no longer alive). I start searching pretty much ALMOST everywhere, though there were a few places I needed to look more thoroughly but couldn’t locate a flashlight. But after a couple of hours, I had done a pretty thorough search of the most probable places in the house and even some fairly improbable.

Then I went outside to look, and locked myself out of the house. House keys, car keys, cell phone, and pretty much anything I would have liked to have had for the next two hours – sitting on a chair in the kitchen. The only possible way I could have gotten back in was through the basement, but I knew the door at the top of the basement stairs was bolted and locked twice because – yeah, go me! – I’d locked it back myself after going down there to look for Snow, even though I knew good and well she couldn’t have gotten down there.

So having nothing better to do for a while, I walked around the neighborhood a couple of times looking for her. We were pretty sure she hadn’t gotten out of the house – there was one single moment she could have, but we thought it pretty unlikely too, or at least unlikely she wouldn’t have been seen doing it. Plus she’s a little skittish around people she doesn’t know. That cat getting out and not winding up practically right back on the front porch crying to get back in – also unlikely.

At some point, I knew what time it was because of something I totally forget about living in the city as I do – the courthouse clock chimed four o’clock. So I watered the lawn and the plants outside, since there was nothing better to do, and looked around for other stuff to do but found nothing else I could really do to make myself useful without certain things that were, nay, inside the house that I’d locked myself out of. So at that point, I figuratively throw up my hands and take a seat in the rocker on the front porch and wait for Mom to get home from work. Once she did, aside from our break to go grab some Italian food for dinner, the search began again.

I am telling you we have looked EVERYWHERE in that house, all places probable as well as totally improbable. I have crawled up in the top of closets with ceilings taller than two of me. We opened doors and cabinet doors that have probably not been opened in three years. After I searched under the aforementioned bed again, we eventually picked up the mattress and turned the box spring upside down and looked again just to make absolutely sure. We’ve looked in the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the stove, and every other appliance that wasn’t open anyway but just to be sure. We’ve looked in trash cans (under trash that was already in there), toilets, behind and under and top of every single thing there is in the house to get behind or under or on top of. By this morning and totally baffled, we were looking in places a mouse would have had a hard time squeezing into, much less a cat, just to be sure.

We have looked at and in and around every single inch of that house. It’s like she just evaporated.

Now, common sense would tell you okay, she just got out. But we really don’t think so (though going to keep looking). And granted, as much as we love her, if there’s a deceased cat somewhere in that house, it’d be nice to find her BEFORE she’s inevitably found due to other reasons I don’t think I have to describe in detail.

But I am 99.9999999% sure that cat is not in that house. I’m STILL trying to think of places she could be, but I swear to god I have looked at and poked around in and shined a flashlight in every single solitary inch of that house that she could be in.

And I’m almost as sure she is not outdoors. Yes, common sense would tell one that, but you just don’t know this cat. It is so very, very unlikely in her case, but even if she did, it would have just been impossible for her not to have been seen exiting the house by the two people that could have.

We are grieving and sad, of course – she’s been a part of the family for such a long time – but after the last 24 hours and much more than that, we are simply dumbfounded. I have never experienced anything like it. We’ve had a million cats (well) since I was a kid, I know what cats do. We scoured every centimeter of the house, two and three times over in most cases. She disappeared. Vanished. Again – like she just evaporated.

I of course have a LITTLE hope that she did get out and maybe someone found her and took her inside, but that cat is skittish around ALL people but us and certain members of the family – I don’t see it happening. Traffic’s not really a danger in the immediate area – we’re close to downtown, but not THAT close. Other animals – possible but unlikely, besides, she lived on the streets before, she’s not un-street-smart.

I’m just really going with the vanished into thin air thing right now, after expecting a million times to find her any second yesterday and last night, for hours. If she’s in the house, I guess we’ll find out sooner or later (sooner probably). But I can’t imagine where because I’ve been EVERYWHERE in that house now, and beyond. It beats all I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot with cats in all these years.

I wish I had a picture but I don’t seem to have one on this computer, but she’s just your basic solid white cat with orangey-sorta eyes, medium haired – mostly short, not long – not real big but not that little either.

Well, so anyway, if you’re in or around the downtown Paris, TN area and see a solid white cat – please catch her if you can, and get in touch with me, and even if you can’t catch her, please let us know where you saw her. (PS She is a total fiend for tuna.)

I don’t think she’s out there, though. I don’t know where in the world that cat is – or at least her physical self – but I’ve about decided wherever she is, it’s not anywhere in this plane of existence the rest of us are in. Jeez. Dumbfounded, just totally and completely dumbfounded here.

Posted in a family thing, cats, west tennessee | 4 Comments »

Ancient

Posted by Lynnster on June 25, 2008

So I’m trying to get caught up this week on some things that have been waiting to be done for months, so that I can move on to other stuff I need to get to work on and not still have all those pushed-aside projects hanging over my head on the back burner.

In the process, I discovered an old post about one of my cats that shocked me because I had NO idea this cat had been here this long (since 2000) or is as old as he is.  I know how old he is (now) because I know where he came from.  And that means one of my other cats, whose history prior to winding up with me I don’t know, is about the same age.

Which means they are both about 16, and thus the same age as Little, who is 16 or 17 and who recently had a bout of old age-related illness, as did my elderly dog, Dobie.

Anyway, wow.  I need to try to get a pic of the three of them together ’cause lately they are all hanging out in the same spot (but aren’t right this moment)… I feel like I need to put little kitty rocking chairs there.  Signing off from the Old Folks Home…

Posted in cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, lynnster's zoo | Leave a Comment »

It Works, It Really Works: Dawn Dish Liquid & Fleas

Posted by Lynnster on June 22, 2008

I’ve been reading for years about Dawn dishwashing liquid (the original, not the “new” kind) and its ability to get rid of fleas and just kind of went “ehhh” about it.  Not that I didn’t believe it worked at all, I just figured it probably didn’t work as well as people claimed it did.

I was so wrong.

We have had an awful time with fleas this year – which makes me want to cry because for years we were flea-less until the neighbor dogs moved in a couple of years ago, but anyway – this year has been the worst ever, and I don’t think Frontline is working as well as it used to, though it does seem to finally be working, or at least I think I’m finally seeing a dent in the cycle because most of the fleas I’m seeing now are juvenile and baby ones (heh, that sounds funny).

I’ve been reading a lot lately where people are saying Frontline Plus is no longer working, or works for a week and quits, or suggesting going back to Advantage a while and then reattempting Frontline, or postulating that the fleas are gaining immunity towards all of that type stuff.  One of the statements I see frequently I tend to agree with most – Frontline Plus just does not seem to work as well as Frontline Top Spot.  I do think the cycle is breaking, but it’s certainly not with the speed and severity that Frontline Top Spot always had.

In any case – before I get off topic any further – we’ve just had a time this year and among some other things I’ve been trying, and trying to avoid spending any more than the megabucks I finally had to cough up for Frontline and other measures, I finally decided to see if the Dawn legend really worked.  It does!

My flea traps are drowning a number of those suckers nightly, all for the cost of a bottle of original Dawn dish liquid (a whole 96 cents at Wal-Mart right now).  I have played around and tried a few different things now with it all (including another dishwashing liquid) and this method seems to work the best and attract the most fleas to drown.  You need:

  1. Said bottle of original Dawn dishwashing liquid detergent.  Not the now-regular Ultra or anything else.  Just plain old original blue Dawn.
  2. A shallow bowl of water, preferably white.  You can use clear ones, but the white bowls seem to attract them more.  If I use a clear one, I put a piece of white paper under it and that seems to help too.  But my small French White bowls (I call it the creme brulee size) and a Corningware mini-casserole dish I have seem to work best.
  3. Best spot to place the bowl is on the floor.  I’ve tried other and higher spots and they’ll work, but it seems to attract more if on the floor.  You can put it in a corner or out of the way otherwise, they’ll find it, believe me.
  4. A book light or night light.  Many places you read will say a night light and those may work, but my problem is I live in an old house with few electrical outlets and even fewer where there’s any floor space underneath.  I had a couple of mini-book lights, the kind that clip on the book and have the little bendable arm – you can get them at Walgreen’s lately, two for $3 – I just clip them on the side of the bowl and bend the light where it’s over the center of the bowl, and voila.  I have tried some other little book lights since, such as some that Dollar Tree has right now, but they just don’t seem to attract as well as these little lights Walgreen’s is selling right now do.

I have one bedroom that has been hit particularly worse than the rest (Tojo the Psycho Cat’s bedroom) and my flea trap in there is catching 15-20 or more a night and starting to slow down a little, finally.  The rest in the rest of the house are only catching one or two a night now, but it’s definitely all working.

I don’t usually use flea collars because they really don’t do much other than keep the pests away from their heads, but I did buy one for Tojo – unfortunately it was a cheap one and seemed to be making the fleas WORSE than they were, so last week I got the pricier Adams one.  And last week washed all the bedding in the house, too.

Bombing the house, which would probably have been the quickest and surest way to eradicate all fleas, just wasn’t an option – there’s nowhere for all of us to go for a day – and after having spent a small fortune on Frontline, and other stuff leading up to the Frontline which was wasted money because nothing was working – the fact that the Dawn really DOES work, for 96 cents a bottle, is just WONDERFUL.

It’s all working.  We are not 100% flea-free yet, but it’s better and we’re close, and I will swear by this Dawn method from now on.  The dogs (and quite possibly one very mad cat) are going to have a bath with flea shampoo next week and then it will be time to Frontline everyone again, and after that (fingers crossed) with any luck we can go back to only treating the dogs with that stuff.

But I will be keeping at least one or two homemade Dawn flea traps on the floor at night at all times, maybe all year long but definitely during the warm months, probably one in Tojo’s room and another in some other corner of the house somewhere.  I now highly recommend it for any dog or cat owner.  Even if you don’t really have a flea problem or aren’t seeing any, just one bowl set up like that with the Dawn and the book light or night light ever night will almost certainly assure you don’t see any.  It works!

Why fleas like the Dawn so much more than other liquid dish detergents – and why they prefer it as opposed to the newer, “ultra” Dawn – now that’s something to ponder, but I can tell you for a fact that they don’t like lemon Ajax as much.

Posted in cats, dobie is a dog, dogs, endorsements, lynnster's zoo, thumbs up | 6 Comments »

« Previous Entries