Our latest pet rescues

It seems there is always something going on around here regarding our animals. As you know, we have three dogs, three cats and two African Gray parrots. You can check them all out here. As you can imagine, we are never short on fur-covered furniture or slobber around here, no sir-ee. One of them is usually doing something that makes me crazy, like peeing in the house (Mickey, our 15 year old dog, has forgotten, or just doesn’t care anymore, that going to the bathroom happens outside), or throwing up (the two girl cats – don’t worry, they aren’t sick, we’ve got the vet bills to show they just like to barf), or eating fallen bird food by ripping the newspaper from the bottom of the cage and dragging it around the house (all the dogs are guilty of this), or most disgusting to me – eating the cat poop out of the litter box (yeah, that would be all of them again).

There is always drool on the floor, and nose smudge art on the sliding glass doors. Most of this can’t be avoided – they will shed, drool and generally make a mess because they are not capable of stopping any of those things. The things we can stop, such as stealing from the litter box or eating the bird’s food have been fixed with well placed gates at the laundry room door, or by building grates to go across the openings at the bottom of the bird cages. At this point, I have given up on buying anything I don’t want ruined. We have ONE carpet now in the house, and it only cost me $150, so when it is ruined beyond cleaning, I won’t cry when I put it in the garbage. This is our life, and will be for at least the next 15 years…

So, what’s my point to bringing all this up? Well, let’s just say that things got a little bit crazier around here this past week. A few Sundays ago was our anniversary, and on our way to the beach for the day, we found a puppy at our front gate. We don’t know if he ran away from his former home, or was dropped in our neighborhood (it happens a lot around here). Either way, as soon as we found him, we posted a notice online, got him scanned for a microchip and scanned all the online sites for lost dogs.

That’s the picture we posted online, taken literally a minute or so after we found him. Instead of leaving him at home while we went to the beach, we took him with us. He was a super sweet little guy, but had no idea what do when we put a leash on him, didn’t know how to jump in and out of the car, and in general seemed super scared of everything and everyone. It was pretty sad.

We had to carry him from the car to the beach, because he would just lay on the ground when we put a leash on him. He did seem to get a little, tiny bit braver when we got to the beach and attempted to play with our dogs a little. He even made it into the pictures we took that day. And unlike one of our previous rescues, he doesn’t attack our geriatric dog, and the cats aren’t scared of him.

He’s not a puppy-puppy, he’s about eight or nine months old. He has no chip, he’s not fixed and no one has claimed him so far. Of course, my daughter has fallen in love with him, so unless he is claimed by the 15th, she will be his new mommy – and I will officially have my first “grand-dog”. (Since I started this post, the ten waiting days have past, and he is officially part of our family now).

If a new puppy isn’t enough craziness around here, then this happened…

Last Friday, my daughter called me from her job as a receptionist at a vet’s clinic, and asked me if I know anyone that can foster four, three-(or-four)-week-old kittens. Someone brought them into the office after they bought a house where the old owners took the mom cat with them when they moved, but left her babies. Lovely, huh?

Well, I couldn’t find anyone who could foster them, and the guy who brought the kitties to the office couldn’t care for them because he works all day. Kitties this small need to be fed every few hours around the clock. Oh, and they have to be “encouraged” to poop and pee, too. I guess you can see where this is going… yes, we are now fostering four tiny, adorable, loud, stinky kittens.

Since we’ve had them, we have treated them for fleas, worms and parasites. They went from hardly walking yet, to darting around the bathroom. They are still loud, however we’ve recently litter trained them and that has eliminated the need  to clean their “nest” six times a day. They are developing their own personalities, and keeping us entertained with their antics. It’s kind of neat to watch them grow and change – it happens fast!

They still require feedings late at night and first thing in the morning, so I’m getting a little tired of that schedule, but it should only be a few more weeks.We have not been able to get them interested in eating food with any kind of regularity, so I’m hoping that will happen soon. In the meantime, they are increasing their bottle feedings by a few tablespoons every day.

So, have you ever fostered animals? If so, how do you keep from falling in love with them and wanting to keep them all? And how do you get kittens to want to eat food, and not just bottles? I am so grateful that these guys have fur-ever homes waiting for them in a few weeks, or we’d be in trouble!

Thanks for stopping by!

Eliesa