Sunday, September 14, 2008

terribly early in the morning

RIP Pinto

Pinto, one of the cats we rescued from the Henderson Animal Shelter last year, died this morning.  His previous owners - hey, people, if you’re searching the internet and you lived in Henderson and dumped your elderly cats named Pinto & Shiner at the Henderson Nevada Animal Shelter in late 2007 - you’re awful people, awful parents, and you didn’t deserve the affection these cats probably had toward you, because you dumped them knowing that no one would want to adopt 14 & 15 year old scroungy looking cats.  You didn’t even take good care of them before you dumped them - they had to be shaved because they were so full of mats.  Your phony tears and crappy excuses of how you couldn’t keep them even one more day, which cost us $200, but “loved them” so much, was just worthless b.s.  Not once did you ever call to see what happened to them.

Here’s what happened to them.  Firstly, we changed Shiner’s name because it was dumb, and the only thing that sounded close enough, that we could think of, was Skyler.  So, from now on, the cats will be called Pinto & Skyler.  Anyway, because the owners were such jerks, we had to spend three hours in rush hour traffic (roundtrip) to save their cats, because they wouldn’t hang onto them one more day, when we would be out in that area.  So, three hours in traffic, $200 to the shelter to get them out, and the trip home in a car smelling of terrified cat pee.  These poor cats went from having a home their whole lives, to be unceremoniously dumped at the noisy shelter, to being picked up by strangers, to going to stay for a couple of days at a strange (ours) vet’s office.  The cats looked so gross that they both had to be shaved.  Skyler was so terrified that he bit the tech who was shaving him.  Then, finally, we took them home to be quarantined in our guest bedroom.  Pinto was sick from being at the shelter (and from the stress, we discovered), so he couldn’t be near any of our other cats.

Finally, after months of meds, good food, and attention, they turned into beautiful cats who groomed themselves and they were happy.  Unfortunately, Pinto still reacted to any sort of stress by getting sick (neon green snot, blech), and a couple of weeks ago when our air conditioner died, he didn’t handle it very well.  It was only a day and a half before my parents helped out and got us a new a/c unit, but Pinto never fully recovered.  The rest of us felt lousy for days after that (it got up to 100 degrees in a couple of rooms in the house), but poor Pinto took it harder.  We were gone for a few days this week, which may have also contributed to the little guy’s (he weighed maybe 6-7 pounds) stress.  He stopped eating & drinking for a day, so we took him to the vet yesterday and got some antibiotics.  Leigh-Ann gave him his pill, some sub-Q fluids and a few bites of food.  Unfortunately, about five hours later (it was late & we went to bed) when she went to check on him, he’d already died.  I’m happy that he had a better life with us, but sad that we could never adopt he and Skyler out to a nice family, so they could live out their lives like regular cats.  But, no one wants an elderly cat that’s going to cover their walls with snot - not even us, but we put up with it.  We’ll scrape and repaint now.  We’ll also try to integrate Skyler with the rest of the cats.  He’s healthy, adorable (he’s tiny, but long-haired) and he doesn’t seem to be afraid of the dogs.  We put in him the master bedroom with Phoenix & Cricket while Leigh-Ann was getting Pinto ready to be dropped off at the vet’s to be cremated, and while he ran from the obnoxious Cricket (she’s annoying with a new cat for about 24 hours, then she either ignores them or wants to play with them), he didn’t seem afraid of her.  Perhaps we can find someone who wants to adopt him, but in the meantime, he’s doing okay.

Man, what an exhausting week.  Oh, and to top it all off, Cricket has diarrhea from some new food.  She doesn’t react too well to change, but I was out of her regular stuff and rather than make some, I thought I’d try some of the new raw food we got.  Phoenix loved the rabbit (poor bunnies), and Cricket seemed to really like it too, but her system said, “No rabbit, chicken.”  It’s not too much of a surprise because we can’t give the dogs beef either.  So, chicken it is…and the big dogs score more meat.  Anyway, need to nap…for like a month.

Here are pictures of Pinto and Skyler.  They actually looked much better than this - these were pictures from early on.  We’ll get some new pictures of Skyler up soon.

 

Friday, September 12, 2008

terribly early in the morning

SuperZoo ‘08 - And the food, treat, toy, accessory, and company reviews begin…

We “shopped” until we dropped, literally.  Well, almost.  Lots of terrific companies and people donated to our li’l Wee Paws Animal Sanctuary, and this is where we begin to thank them.  Each year we get enough food donated to help feed the kids for weeks, sometimes months, depending on which dogs get the food.  Dante & Eli can wipe out a whole bag of raw nuggets in a day, and they’d last Phoenix & Cricket a week.  It makes it much easier to feed the little dogs incredibly fabulous foods; and on the other hand, it’s difficult to feed the 100 pounders as well.  The best part about the food we get from companies at SuperZoo is that they’re all high quality products - no one from Brand X company is there promoting their floor scrapings of undetermined body parts (”Chicken by-products include head, feet, entrails, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, stomach, bones, blood, intestines, and any other part of the carcass not fit for human consumption,” writes Henry Pasternak in Healing Animals with Nature’s Cures.  Meat meal can contain the boiled down flesh of animals we would find unacceptable for consumption. This can include zoo animals, road kill, and 4-D (dead, diseased, disabled, dying) livestock. Most shockingly, this also can include dogs and cats. That’s right, your pets could be cannibals. Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser writes, “Although leading American manufacturers promise never to put rendered pets into their pet food, it is still legal to do so. A Canadian company, Sanimal Inc., was putting 40,000 pounds of dead dogs and dead cats into its dog and cat food every week, until discontinuing the practice in June 2001. “This food is healthy and good,” said the company’s vice president of procurement, responding to critics, ‘‘but some people don’t like to see meat meal that contains any pets.”) that you wouldn’t want your pet to look at, much less eat.  I can’t believe that anyone ever thought it was okay to feed dogs & cats to other dogs & cats.  Gross!

The first snack sample we tried was simple, but delicious according to both the dogs and the cats.  Since it’s September 11th, I’ll be all USA USA USA - so the first snack I open was Ameri-Treats, which is 100% human grade dehydrated chicken slices.  As soon as I can find the website for them (not on the business card, nor on the package - we always think domain name first, but maybe it’s just because we enjoy the process of coming up with the names), I’ll link ya up.  The cats were trampling each other to get little pieces from me.  The dogs, fortunately, were a lot calmer, but I suppose that’s because they didn’t have a bunch of other animals around trying to get to the treats first.  Also, from my perspective, the “pet owner”, the chicken smells really good!

Stay tuned for reviews of the bones that look like treats, but are a fully balanced meal, the doggie potato chips, the multitude of raw frozen food that we picked up from several different companies (we even have a large chest freezer that’s totally packed to the top with raw chicken, lamb, beef, rabbit, duck, and buffalo - both the dogs & cats are thrilled), the zillions of new treats, some old favorites, and some cool gadgets.  And a bunch of really really nice people.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

late morning

The real “straight” talking John McCain

Ugh, it’s sickening that he can’t even agree with himself from one day to the next.  He was for straight talking, before he was against it.  Watch.

Friday, September 05, 2008

evening

Sara Benincasa is awesome - set aside 30 minutes and I promise pure political entertainment

This is entry #1, the beginning of my favorite series of YouTube videos ever.  Below, you’ll find the links to the rest of the vlogs.

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #2

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #3: CATS!

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #4: PURSE!

Gov. Palin Vlog #5: Sarah at the RNC!

Sarah Palin Vlog #6: BEFORE THE BIG SPEECH!

I can’t wait for more!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

evening

A couple more Palin tidbits before bed

Albert Brooks wrote his first Huffington Post blog entry (using the name A. Brooks) yesterday - it was entertaining, and I hope he sticks around and keeps writing.  His blog entry is titled “Anyone Can Become President” and this is the last paragraph - I’ve italicized my favorite line, which makes me laugh every time I read it because I’m actually picturing it. I am now hearing from the Karl Roves of the world that having a 17-year-old daughter pregnant out of wedlock will make Palin sympathetic to millions of Americans who know the pain of that situation. But my question is WHERE WAS THE ADVICE? Do we want a president who cannot communicate to their own child that possibly having a baby a year after you get your driver’s license is not the smartest thing to do? Is this the new way for women to break the glass ceiling? To have their daughters throw their babies at it? I want my president to control their children, then they can tell the Navy what to do.

Sick, I know, but this election is wearing on me and I just want it over with.  Although, to be fair, everything is wearing on me.  It seems like it’s going to take me a week to physically recover from the stress caused by the broken a/c.  I’ve literally spent most of my days in bed, sleeping, since we got the new a/c unit.  Stress just totally wipes us out because of the FMS.  I don’t even know how to explain how that happens so anyone who isn’t affected by it could understand it.  If only we could give someone an illness for a month, or even just a week, to help them empathize.  Like when I had the herniated disk - I had NO IDEA the kind of pain it can cause.  Now, when I read about, say, a professional athlete with a herniated disk, I can empathize and be amazed that they can play in that condition.

Oh yeah, and my other Palin tidbit.  This one comes from the renowned deep thinker, Cindy McCain.  Asked about Palin’s national security experience, Cindy McCain could not come up with anything beyond the fact that, after all, her state is right next to Russia. “You know, the experience that she comes from is, what she has done in government—and remember that Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia.”  Leigh-Ann and I were even closer than that to Bill Clinton, which means we’ve got national security experience by virtue of the new KBNSDS Law*, plus Leigh-Ann shook his hand; therefore, it looks like we’re both capable of running for POTUS right this instant.  Minor detail about Leigh-Ann being Canadian, but if the McCain folks were doing the vetting, they’d probably miss that part.

  Here’s Bill.  That’s me behind the camera with the stranger’s arm waving overhead.  Leigh-Ann is further to the right, with the pushers & shovers, trying to get to him, shake hands, or get something signed.

*Kevin Bacon National Security Degrees of Separation