Pets – Page 99

Truth

In my many years and many travels, I’ve encountered only one universally accepted truth, one thing everyone agrees on, and that is this — when even Scout won’t sleep in her warm bed, it’s hot.

We had a lovely cool and wet spring here in the Northwest and escaped the summer with but a few hot days at the end. Scout is such a creature of habit that she likes to sleep in her warm bed no matter the temperature, so as the weather warms I unplug it to extend her comfort as long as possible. This picture is from one of those hot days in early September when she stepped out of the bed behind her and lay down on the cooler desk.

Recently I noticed that the bed doesn’t seem to be heating up anymore, even when plugged in, which puts us on the horn of a dilemma: do we leave it as is, knowing it won’t keep her as warm during the winter, or swap it out for a functional one but risk upsetting her routine?

For now we’re letting sleeping cats lie.

New Hedgehogs

I needed new hiking shoes and when I saw that The North Face had a model named Hedgehogs, I took this as a sign from God. The problem with signs, though, is how to interpret them. Was this a sign that they would bring me as much happiness as Ellie’s hedgehogs bring her? Or a sign that she would chew my Hedgehogs as mercilessly as she chews hers?

Ever the optimist I gambled on the former and so far, so good. I’m still breaking them in, REI didn’t have them in my normal size of 9.5 but half a size larger seems to be working OK. I wore them outside for the first time today on our evening walk, I’ll probably give them more of a workout in the Gorge this weekend to see how they do on hills. Plus I need to ease my body back into hiking if I’m going to take a big hiking trip late this month as I usually do.

Run For Your Lives! It’s the Vampire Dog!

Fortunately for our household, her favorite prey is hedgehogs. Not just hedgehogs, but baby hedgehogs.

Love & Loss

After the long writeup about workflow in the previous post, one more thought about tools. This is a picture of Templeton with the 15″ Powerbook I referenced in that post, my favorite computer of all time until my current MacBook Pro.

The picture was taken in January 2006 while Templeton was recuperating from surgery to remove the sewing needle he swallowed right before we left on Christmas vacation. He had to be kept from running and jumping, and isolated from Scout, so one of us stayed with him in the guest room while the other stayed with Scout. He had to wear a plastic cone to keep him from pulling out his stitches, but we gave him supervised time with it off so he could relax and clean his fur away from the incision.

I left the room for a brief moment and came back to find him sitting at my laptop, paws on the trackpad as though he was settled in for work. What he had really done was an old Templeton standby, though.

He had stolen my spot.

Templeton and my 15″ Powerbook. I loved them both. I miss one. Important as they are, tools are just tools.

The Love of a Dog

Sentient or not, Ellie’s stomach got upset after the 4th of July weekend and Monday morning and evening we had the pleasure of cleaning up after she pooped in the house. Sometimes she gets diarrhea like this when she eats something she’s not supposed to, but to the best of our knowledge she’s had no misadventures lately. My wife moved her right away onto a bland diet of rice and chicken and she regained control of her bowels.

It’s possible it’s stress related from all of the fireworks activity. When it got loud on the evening of the 4th I closed all the windows despite the heat to help deaden the sound and ease the nerves of the cats who were hiding under beds and couches. Ellie didn’t show much outward sign of distress, and although she would look up at me when a boom was especially loud or close, she always settled back down when I told her it was OK.

If she thought it was doggie Armageddon, she didn’t seem too concerned that she wasn’t being raptured, so long as we were together. That is unconditional love.

Temptations

Another change I made to the Giving of Treats is to swap out the treat I give to Scout. While she still likes the WildSide Salmon dried salmon treats, she wasn’t eating them with the same fervor so I decided to mix things up a bit. I started off with Whiskas Wild Alaskan Salmon Flavor Temptations, a little treat with a crunchy whole grain shell and a meaty treat inside. Despite the name, the first ingredient is chicken meal and the wild Alaskan salmon flavor (whatever that is) is one of the last, but Scout loves them. She’s normally a bit picky about food so it’s nice to find another treat she gets excited about.

Sam likes them too, but that’s not too surprising, Sam likes just about everything. He has gotten more tolerant of Flea Medicine Night, a monthly ritual necessitated by Scout’s flea allergy, partly with experience I suppose and partly because I started giving the cats a few treats afterward to soothe their injured souls. Now instead of hiding from me for a few hours afterward, Sam has learned it is treat time and he doesn’t even resist his treatments with the same vigor that he used to — in other words, I don’t end up bleeding anymore.

Emma is another picky eater and while she likes the wet food she gets in the mornings, and sometimes eats the dried salmon treats, I have not yet found a dried treat she will consistently eat. I picked up a couple of new Temptations flavors, Free Range Chicken and Yellow Fin Tuna, to see how they would be received. I had little doubt Sam would love them but really hoped Emma would take to them too.

On the latest flea night I assembled the three cats after their treatment, each a little irritable but each eyeing the treat bags I held in my hands. Emma didn’t like any of the treats, a disappointment but not a surprise, while Scout loved them all. The biggest surprise was Sam, who not only didn’t like the new flavors but actually spit them out!

Scout, who was learned well from her Snuggle Twin, body blocked Sam out of the way and devoured his spurned treats and Emma’s too, not a normal behavior for our gentle Queen. I guess it’s safe to say she likes these treats!

I have given her the Tuna flavor the last few days in the mornings, the first time after I handed her the last treat she swatted my empty hand with her paw. I thought it an aberration until she did it again the following morning. This morning though she just buried her head in my empty hand and rubbed her head through my fingers to capture any fleeing evanescences from the departed treats.

Sentient Beings

I’ve made a couple of modifications to our morning ritual of treats for the pets. We had started giving Ellie Checkups once a day, a white dog-shaped treat that is supposed to be good for her teeth. When we discovered this is by far her favorite treat of all, instead of giving Ellie a charcoal dog biscuit in the morning she now gets her white bone.

And oh how she loves them! When I open the door to the closet where we keep them, she runs into my office and quickly lies down on her dog bed, so intently focused that she doesn’t move apart from her big black tail which wags furiously.

My wife takes her about once a week to doggie day care so she can spend the day socializing with other dogs. She normally enjoys this and doesn’t need any encouragement to go out the door, but one day my wife was running ahead of schedule and was ready to leave while I was still feeding Scout her treats, and thus before Ellie had gotten her highly anticipated white bone. When my wife called her, Ellie got up and started for the door but then returned to me and half-sat and half-stood, torn between obeying my wife’s call and waiting for her treat, as if she were being controlled by two minds.

I think her stomach has become self-aware.

Queen of the Decade

Our good and gentle queen turned ten back in March. We’ve had Scout since she was a kitten so she’s been by my side the entire decade. She is a queen that rules with a soft furry fist. Her monarchy is characterized by a modified form of laissez-faire — everyone is welcome to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t interfere with what she wants.

For example, if Sam is sleeping on my lap and she wants to snuggle too, he’s welcome to stay where he is just so long as he doesn’t mind when she steps on him as she goes through her rituals of getting petted before she’ll lie down. I try to tell her that a good queen doesn’t walk all over the little people but this subtlety is lost on her.

She also considers one of the cat beds hers. The others are welcome to sleep in it as long as they get up when she wants it. When they don’t, she gives them the evil eye for a few moments. If that doesn’t work, she comes over and starts giving me the business until I evict them.

Yes, she can be a little grumpus. But she’s my little grumpus. I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

Seven and Two

Happy Birthday Ellie!

We adopted our sweet girl two years ago and, since we don’t know her real birthday, we celebrate it today as well. She was five when we adopted her and so now turns seven. This picture is from June when she was still recuperating from her surgery, this is the look I get in between sleeping and snuggling and hedgehogging. Speaking of which, someone has been patiently waiting all night for me to finish my chores, so I’d better go.

The Pink Pirate

“Aarrr! You’ll be surrendering all your hedgehogs if you be wanting to live, says I.”