Boolie

Trixie Gets Comfortable

Trixie’s introduction to the rest of the family is proceeding apace but she’s not yet been given free reign of the house, we’re still keeping her in the guest bedroom at night and while we’re away. Boo is still rather uneasy around her but he is making progress and in the past couple of days has been willing to play when she’s around. Trixie, for her part, seems quite comfortable in her new home, as you can see when she stretched out on my legs a few days ago. You can see where they shaved her belly for the surgery when she was spayed.

Philosophy

“Do you ever wonder if life is an illusion and we’re all really just sitting in a paper bag?”
“Not really, Boo, but I bet it kept Descartes up at night.”
“Nihil enim somni ergo sum.”
“What?”
“I can’t sleep, therefore I am.”
“Maybe it’s time you came out of that paper bag.”

An End to Hibernation

Bullfrogs hibernate during the winter so their metabolism slows significantly and they aren’t very active but they don’t bury themselves in the mud the way a turtle might. Many bullfrogs at Ridgefield found their hibernation cut short this winter by the herons and egrets and bitterns that worked the shallow channels and ponds of the refuge.

This egret in particular was just walking up and down one such channel, avoiding a great blue heron doing the same, striking at bullfrog after bullfrog, following a familiar process between catching the frog and eating it. First, the frog would be dunked quickly into the water, as shown above. Next, the egret would spin the frog rapidly, presumably causing massive internal injuries to the frog, as shown in the following two pictures. In the first picture, the egret has closed the nictitating membrane in its eyes, a transparent third eyelid that protects the eye from damage while still allowing the egret to see, as water spins off the frog and its clawed feet flail about, while in the second picture the membrane has been retracted.

Then the egret would toss the frog into the air, catching it in a different place on its body, and either repeat the process again if it caught it by a leg, or perhaps crush it in its beak if it caught it by the body. This would happen multiple times until I gather the frog had died or given up fighting, although with the egret constantly keeping the frog moving it was hard to tell exactly when or if the frog itself stopped moving.

The final step was to position the frog head first in its beak and swallow it whole. Bullfrogs are voracious predators and, as they aren’t native to the area, have had a big impact on some of the other small creatures in the ponds and sloughs. However I’ve seen the bullfrogs themselves become prey for the larger predators of the refuge, including not just egrets and herons and bitterns but otters, raccoons, and grebes.

Accomplishing Much By Doing Nothing

Despite being off work for two days, when looking at my task list I didn’t get much done, although it feels like I’ve accomplished a lot, helping the pets work through the stress of Trixie’s arrival.

I was most concerned about Boo given his recent stress reaction so I was pleasantly surprised yesterday morning when he climbed into my lap while I was having breakfast. He settled in for a long nap which concerned me as I still had to get up to walk Ellie, so I waited as long as I could then gently placed him back on the couch when I got up. Perhaps he’s been learning from Sam, as he got up and took my nicely warmed spot.

He was still there when I got back from our walk so I sat down and put him in my lap and he fell back asleep. Later when I had to get up I came back to find him right back in my spot, so this time I let him be and sat next to him. Sam came in and curled up in my lap and that’s how the three of us spent the morning, until I at last got up for some lunch and came back to see Sam had taken my new spot.

I left the brothers curled up beside each other and Ellie and I went up to join Trixie for some quiet time in her room. She curled up in my lap and that’s how we spent the afternoon. A lazy day, but a good one.

Allow Me to Introduce Yourself

My wife left town on Wednesday and I was to take over spending the night with Trixie, plus getting up early to feed the pets, and walking Ellie in the morning as well as the evening. Already exhausted, it just seemed a little too much to manage to make it to work on time and get a reasonable amount of sleep, but thankfully Thursday and Friday were fairly open in my schedule so I took them off. Combined with a holiday on Monday I’m home for five straight days.

I’m thankful for that, as the introductions have begun.

My first task was to figure out sleeping arrangements for Wednesday night. Ellie usually sleeps in our bedroom on the dog bed or our bed, and since she had already met Trixie without eating her, I brought her dog bed into the guest bedroom and Ellie, Trixie, and I spent the night there. It all went well at first, I don’t know if she’ll grow out of it but Trixie is a snuggler when she sleeps, sometimes even curling up under your chin. Ellie took to her dog bed and we all drifted off to sleep.

At about 3:30 a.m. I woke to a tiny, snuggly orc chewing on my face and poking me with her claws. I petted her and explained in my best orc tongue that this was not the time for playing. She finally calmed down and we fell asleep until 5 a.m. when a loud and angry goblin began caterwauling outside our door. I assured him that feeding time wasn’t until 6 a.m. and would he please let me get some sleep, but my goblin speech is not as good as my orc, and he persisted.

At 6 a.m. I got up to feed Ellie and Sam and Boo and give Ellie and Trixie their pills and scoop the litter boxes and then snuggled up with Trixie to try and go back to sleep. Unfortunately I was wide awake but I did finally fall back asleep, getting up at 9 a.m. for some breakfast and to take Ellie on our walk.

This all repeated verbatim last night, except that Ellie joined us in the bed, so I’m especially thankful that I was able to be off work. I’ve been letting Trixie explore the house more and more, but she still greets the other cats with too much enthusiasm so there hasn’t been much progress there. She did eventually get pretty tired, it’s a stressful business exploring a new home, so I put her at the top of the cat tree and she settled in for a nap while Boo and Sam came up to watch the squirrels at the suet feeder. Trixie was tired enough that she just lay there and let the other cats sit inches away from her, so while it’s a very small start, it’s still a start.

After a while she was overwhelmed and came back to the guest room on her own, so I grabbed my laptop and came up with her, she’s asleep on my legs at the moment. She’s also taken to napping in the dog bed that I brought in from the bedroom, as you can see in the picture above.

Sorry Ellie.

Drizzle

A young elk bull grazes in a meadow on a rainy fall day in Grand Teton National Park in 2006. He was eating with another young bull, both keeping a watch on the nearby harem of a mature bull.

It’s a little hard to see the rain in the picture at this resolution, but I had just purchased my 500mm lens before this trip and while the lens has weather sealing, I was still a little nervous about exposing it to the elements. Nine years later it’s been through a lot more rain and is still going strong.

Tucked In

Shortly after we adopted Trixie, I went to check on her before leaving for work and saw that she was tucked in under the blankets with her head on the pillow. I assumed my wife had done it before she left and grabbed my camera as I thought it made a cute picture, but it turns out Trixie did it all on her own.

Her confidence has grown by leaps and bounds since then so we started introducing her to the other pets this weekend. We started with our dog Ellie and that went well for the most part, but Ellie did snap her jaws at times if Trixie got close to her mouth, we’ll have to keep an eye on that. Our cat Sam is still a little unsure of his new sister but he did ask repeatedly to come into her room to meet her, the biggest problem is that Trixie introduces herself as “HEY SAM I’M TRIXIE LET’S PLAY PLAY PLAY!!!!!!”, while Sam would prefer some gentle nose-sniffing and a snuggle. Nevertheless Sam is coming around a little quicker than I expected.

Boo will be the hardest, we brought him in and he just sat in the corner and hissed and moaned. On the other hand, he sniffed Trixie when she was in the cat carrier today and didn’t seem upset, so perhaps that’s some progress. He still seems out of sorts, our sensitive little Boo, but he is still playful and above all, is eating normally.

Which is not true for little Trixie and that’s why she was in the cat carrier after an unexpected vet visit. She’s been throwing up and not eating much, although seemingly fine otherwise, so my wife took her in today. It’s unlikely to be anything alarming, probably just that her young stomach is adjusting to a change in her food plus the stress of her new life, but given what we’ve been through the past few months, it’s distressing just the same.

If she’s eating by tomorrow we’ll keep her on anti-nausea meds until she’s back to normal, but if not she’ll have to go in for more tests. These last few months have left me emotionally exhausted and I tend to fall asleep early on my couch every night, hopefully things will return to normal soon. I’d like a week where everyone is eating and no one is throwing up. We’ve been cat owners for over twenty years so it’s not like we’re new at this, but we haven’t had a run of illnesses like this before.

Thankfully Ellie has been healthy despite her advancing age, although even she gave us pause when a routine test suggested she had an infection. Thankfully a follow-up test showed she was fine and the first test was a false positive.

The Guest Room

Looking at this picture from 2006 of Templeton recuperating in our guest room reminds me of the role the room has played in the lives of several of our cats. He spent a little time here in isolation from our cat Scout until he recovered from surgery to remove a sewing needle in his stomach. Two years later after he died, we adopted Sam and Emma and they spent time here before we were ready to introduce them to Scout. Now little Trixie is in the room after we adopted her in January, we’re just beginning her introductions to the rest of the family. Boo never spent time here after we adopted him as it was July and we don’t have air conditioning and this room gets rather hot during the summer.

The picture above I was surprised to see I had never put online before, the pictures below have been but I’ve recently re-edited them. Templeton was amazing and completely changed my thinking about cats, all the cats that have followed owe a debt of gratitude to this charming and occasionally mischievous little fellow in a handsome gray tuxedo coat. The pictures aren’t posed, I had been editing pictures on my Powerbook and got up for a moment and Templeton did what he always did — he stole my spot.

The Best of Times

Boo is clearly on the mend, he’s eating his normal meals and was pretty playful tonight, Sam even got in on the action for a bit. They’re both still a little high strung, especially Boo, so when we start their introduction to Trixie we’ll take it slowly. Our dog Ellie met her tonight for a few minutes but we didn’t push it, Ellie was a little wound up.

This picture is from September 2013, when all the pets were cuddled up around me. Boo, having been accepted by the older cats, was sprawled out in my lap with his arms around me. Emma slept down by my feet with Sam using her as a pillow. Ellie was curled up beside me, you can see a couple of her paws at the edge of the frame. Laying quietly covered in pets, these are my happiest times.

Sam is curled up in my lap at the moment while Ellie is snoring in her dog bed. My wife is upstairs with Trixie, Boo I think is in one of the cat beds just around the corner. What joy these little creatures bring into our lives.

Boo Gives Us a Scare

After Emma died early in January after a lengthy illness, and after Sam stopped eating a few weeks ago and after treatment only started eating just before we were going to have to start force feeding him, on Sunday Boo stopped eating. Normally he is food obsessed, and much like with Sam, had eaten normally in the morning but wouldn’t touch his food in the evening.

I walked down to the grocery store and got him some baby food as we did with the other cats, and thankfully knew from prior experience that Boo wouldn’t eat the beef variety that the other cats did, so got him turkey and chicken instead. He ate a jar later that night, and some baby food and cat food in the morning, but I was going to call the vet before I left for work to see what we should do, when he was able to eat another jar of baby food. If he was feeling stressed out, I didn’t want to add to that stress, so as long as he was eating enough and not showing other symptoms, we decided to just give him some time.

My wife thinks the the trigger may have been that I spent most of that afternoon with the new kitten, as I’ve been spending most of the time with the other pets while my wife hangs out with Trixie. Boo is a sensitive little fellow for sure and he’s had a rough month, but he had seemed like he was coping rather well.

Thankfully he’s back to eating his regular meals and while he’s not back to normal, this morning his energy levels were improving, although he’s still very unsure of himself. In another day or two I think he’ll be back to normal.

This picture is from the day after we adopted him in July of 2013 when he was in isolation in my wife’s office. He was terrified so I didn’t try for any pictures on the first day, but my new quieter camera arrived the next day and he was finally willing to come out of hiding at times, so I took a picture not long after unboxing the camera.

Trixie is still isolated in the guest bedroom and is doing great, we’ll start introducing her to our dog Ellie pretty soon, and then take it slow with the cats. We’ll keep a close eye on Sam and Boo given what they’ve just gone through, but I think they’ll be fine.