Animals Blogs (472)

I got bored this morning so I rolled out some dough and after cutting it into little squares, filled them with a filling mix made with the raspberries mentioned in another blog and baked a dozen turnovers. They came out perfect.

Probably not good for my blood sugar that I have already eaten 6 of them.

My house has a new cat.. I picked her up at an animal shelter yesterday. Poor thing was put in there last October and has been stuck in a cage since then. They think she is about 3 years old. Most of the cats at the shelter look very sad. Some look scared. My Tom cat is 15 and now that he is all alone here (except for me of couurse) I feel guilty when I go out for a few hours. He comes running and crying when I come home. Before the death of my Moe cat this remaining one had never been alone before. I think he gets lonely and maybe a little scared when I go out. So I decided to get him a companion.

There exist selection criteria for a new cat to be here. They have to want to be with me. If not, then it is best to not adopt them. Some display of intelligence is also helpful. At the shelter there is a room full of 2' tall cages stacked 3 high all around the room with cats in all of them, maybe 60 such. Most of the cats were just huddled as far back from the cage door as they could be. I circled the room slowly inspecting each cage's occupant. Abandoned cats, captured cats, donated cats, old cats, young cats, declawed cats, friendly cats, not friendly cats, clawed cats, males and females. Their apprehension at my inspection was noticeable. A little tag on each cage describes the occupant. Some had been in there for months and months. It is a no kill shelter so they will be caged until the day someone adopts them. Only one cat displayed curiosity at me. The one I adopted. She meowed at me. None of the others made a sound except one old Tom who made a warning noise when I peered in at him. The one I adopted got up from the back of the cage, came to the door and stuck her paw out at me through the bars and waved. She had not been declawed. That is a plus as she may not initially like my Tom cat's attentions. The tag said she had been previously owned by a family. They moved to a place that doesn't allow pets so one day she just got plunked into a box and was brought to the shelter and caged. The tag sasy they described her as friendly and playful. Those owners never looked back or visited her again. Such love they display. No Heaven for them. There is no place in heaven for the cruel. Poor thing. Wondering what she did wrong. Where are the children she played with? Where is the woman who used to hold her? What crime did she do to so offend them they threw her into a cage and just left her there? No doubt most of the cats have similar thoughts. Whatever, I have adopted her and brought her home.

Introducing strange cats to each other is an art form. It is best to minimize stress by keeping a closed door between the cats for a few days. Let them sniff each other's scent and get used to the idea they are not alone. Allow a day or two their sliding paws at each other under the door. That hasn't begun yet. Thus far the new female is still in hide and explore mode. I have put her in my wife's old office and the cat is getting used to not being in a cage.

I left her alone last night, and today I spent a half hour brushing her. She seems grateful and licked my nose. I suspect it has been awhile since she was last brushed as the brush filled up quickly with loose fur. I crumpled a sheet of paper into a ball and she happily was still batting it around the room when I exited. Her first toy and her first thing to do since October.

....

1) the horse always comes first
2) they come home covered in horse hair
3) They smell of horse hair
4) they get up very early to clean out the stable..so early morning sex is out of the questions
5) they get big asses
6) Horses cost a bloody fortune !

Instead..marry a horse...

Sometimes I think I have too many pets and other times, I want more.

Today is a want more day

Ambled into my kitchen to make coffee and met the rodent.

He wasn't looking at all well. The cat, ever hopeful of a midnight snack, followed me in the kitchen, saw the rodent, and wandered over to have a look.

I left the kitchen. (Bear in mind I do know the cat has never, in 14 years, eaten so much as a nibble of any of his catches)

The cat then appeared in the hall, looking undecided, gingerly holding it in his mouth.

Take it outside, I said.

Cat instead went upstairs. I bravely followed. Can't find either of them.

So I'm here for the night. What we gonna talk about, chaps?

Don't Ignore a Weimaraner -

It was barely two months ago that this kitten came into the world. It seems like so much longer. It was a little boy that was born to a female gray-striped cat that I named Sheba. She was abandoned by her owner and left starving in the woods, so I fed her and developed her trust.

Her kitten was severely injured somehow. I have not found the source nor figured out how. It was filled out and looked healthy, and then it showed up limping along like a drunken pirate leaning to one side, barely able to move forward. It could have been a dog or a snake that harmed it. I'll never know. The poor thing looked like it's belly went to his chest and there was no longer any stomach where it should be. It was breathing too hard and fast. There was no blood anywhere, and I could not find any puncture wounds nor bite marks.

For awhile, it seemed as if it would recover. I gave it antibiotics and monitored it closely. Last week, it wasn't breathing as well and was losing the remainder of it's weight. There are no vets nearby and no one to carry me.

The baby stopped eating two days ago and died this morning. I asked the people who owned this place if they would tell me where to bury it, help me to dig a hole, or how they wanted to take care of it. Where I come from, you don't leave dead animals around to rot. Even in the country and on the roads, at least animal control would come by and pick up the dead animals and dispose of them.

No one seemed to care. I spoke to my landlords, my neighbors, and never received a reply. This afternoon while they were doing whatever they had on their agenda, I went and buried this poor kitten.

No one helped. There were two men nearby that I had asked, and not once was I told that they would take care of it. I went back out into the heat of the day, grabbed the shovel, went behind a building and near a tree and struck the ground to see if I could get the shovel into it. Slowly, inch by inch, layer by layer, I made a circle and broke some roots as I did my best to pull up some dirt. I kept at it until the hole looked big enough. Then I picked up the plastic bag that I had the animal inside of and placed it in the ground. I carefully covered it up and placed a large concrete block on top of the mound hoping that the dogs could not dig it up.

I'm not used to being ignored when I ask someone to do something for me. Especially when it is something that I feel a man could help with. It made me even sadder to think about the animals in this world where people have no compassion nor empathy.

I hope others will become more sensitive and aware of the animal's plight as well as the emotions of others who care for them.

Beauty, nature, wild animals, peace, and tranquility are what comes to mind when you tell someone you live on twenty-five acres of land.

They might envision their kids and grandchildren having plenty of room to run and play. Or take walks through the forest. Allow your animals to roam free. Fresh air and starry skies and all that.

The truth is: You only need one acre of land if you are not doing anything more than that. When you live in the country, there is so much more to think about.

If you are productive and care about your land, you might decide to do any number of things like these:

Be self-sufficient and have your own farm to raise food for yourself and your family. Why not for your community?
Raise rabbits, sheep, goats and lambs.
Raise cattle.
Run a you-pick berry, fruit, flower or vegetable farm.
Grow pumpkins.
Turn the house into a bed and breakfast lodge.
Rent it out to hunters. (My least favorite!)
Have it cut for firewood. (Also not my favorite.)
We all take many things for granted in our lives and this is one of them.

Let me tell you about the lazy, unforgivable, wasteful part of this story.

It sits and rots. It is abandoned as is the life within it. The trees decay from disease and die. Sometimes being choked out by vines and weeds. Their branches lying strewn about in the yard to further pollute the landscape because no one picks them up.

The animals you thought were safe are dead on the road or have mysteriously disappeared because a coyote or an owl took them and you will never know for sure nor have closure about it.

There are insects everywhere. From wood-boring bees, fire ant hills popping up, mosquitos out to bite you constantly, black flies that won't let you pick your fruit without stinging you, and wasps building nests on every area of your house that they choose to.

Bushes wildly grown over because no one trimmed them back so that you could see out of the windows nor walk down the sidewalk without brushing them aside.

Pinecones falling where they please with no apparent useful purpose. Maybe to feed the few sparse squirrels that are still living there.

The flowers that once were lovingly planted there that no one is outside to see. Orange tiger lilies, daffodils in white and yellow, violet lavender flowers growing in the grass among the pink wildflowers.

What beauty there is, goes mostly unnoticed and unappreciated by those who live their lives in a selfish possession driven state. They are ignorant of the abundance and pleasure that is theirs if they could only see. All they do is complain about what it takes to do the more menial tasks of just keeping it up for appearances. Whenever they get around to it.

Do you know someone like this? How sad!