Month: January 2016

These two buddies like to hang out in the kitchen hoping to catch any food that falls on the floor.

 

Polly, her bone, and the bones she stole from Fletch and Bates until her parents made her give them back to their rightful owners.

Bates loves extremely fluffy beds.  When we stack up the dog beds to vacuum around them, Bates hops on top of the stack for a few hours.  Whatever happened to him while he was in the hoarder situation seems to have given him a taste for anything soft, cozy and comfortable.

 

Halloween 2013  Our neighborhood always gets tons of kids on Halloween.  It’s only fair to let the cutest kids in the land dress up too.  Cali has a football jersey for her outfit but was not wearing it in this photo.  Polly is a police officer.  Fletch is a cow.  Bates is the one-eyed superman.

 

It was a big day when Fletchy finally looked at the camera when we photographed him.

Meet Polly.  She joined the family in May 2013 when she was 13 months old.  After having all special needs pets, we wanted a young and healthy dog.  She officially has alopecia but it is not bothering her now.  Her previous owners surrendered her to their vet because she had demodex mange and it frightened them.  Thankfully the rescue that had our cat now had a dog rescue that saved her.  She arrived home a week after Bates and they became instant best friends.  They share their food and toys with each other and they wrestle and snuggle together.  Many times Polly will sleep with her head on Bates.  She is very inquisitive, has endless energy, and is obsessed with all things toys.  She  runs up to anyone that enters the living room with the toy she wants them to toss to her or play tug-of-war with.  She’s small so many of her toys are cat toys.  When she is in the yard she likes to pick up large sticks that are way too big for her.  She will tug at the leash to keep walking farther no matter how long she has been walking.  She wants to meet as many people as possible and get petted by as many people as possible.  She loves going downtown, where people that have met her before will remember and call her by name.  If a neighbor is mowing the grass, she will still try to get petted by them despite the loud mower.  No noise scares her.  She is nurturing to all of our kids.  She will lick their eyes and their ears.  Fletch and Bates are ok with it.  Cali the cat still runs away after the first lick or two.  Polly may be the smallest kid in the house, but her siblings treat her like she is the boss.

 

 

  Polly, Bates and Cali enjoying the warmth of the heater fan.  Cali and Bates are both one-eyed kids and they are unaware that she is not a dog.  They are the closest dog-cat relationship in our house.

  

Bates aka Freckles joined our family in May 2013.  He was estimated to be 6 or 7 years old at the time.  The rescue saved him from a hoarder that had 17 dogs!  First they took 10 dogs, then he was in the group of 4 additional dogs that were rescued on the second visit.  They did not receive basic care, so he lost his eye and quite a few teeth before we met him.  He did not have any teeth on the top or bottom row from canine to canine.  The vet that removed his eye was interviewed for the local news when they did a story on the 17 dogs.  The rescuers used Dawn dish soap to bathe the dogs to remove the high volume of fleas that they each had on them.  He is a super sweet boy that likes to sit right next to you or toss and turn on the floor on fluffy blankets or on all the dog toys.  He runs in fast sprints all around our yard and really enjoys the snow.  He is terrified of storms and of fires in the fireplace.  He and Cali have a truly special bond, but Polly is his very best friend.  We got them a week apart and they continue to eat out of the same bowl every night.  They both have their own bowls and their own food, but they choose to share.  They start at his dish then finish her food or they start at her dish then finish at his.  They cuddle to sleep whether it is night or day.  He lets her lick his eye and ears.  They share toys and wrestle as long as he feels like it.  Sometimes when he wants attention from her, he will sit in front of her and set his paw on her face or her head.  That is usually enough to get her into wrestling mode.  When he is ready to go outside in the morning, he plants his elbows in your ribcage to wake you up.  If you don’t get up fast enough, he will gallop back and forth across the room to make triple sure you are awake.

 

 

 

Cali joined our family in April 2006.  When we met her, she was an adult cat at Petsmart with a non-functioning neon green eye and a normal eye.  She was being overlooked by families among all the smaller and younger kittens. She came to the rescue pregnant and stayed until they adopted her kittens out.  She joined our home as the only cat but definitely brought her Mothering behavior.  She immediately adopted Tippy as her buddy.  That is not surprising since 3 different vets asked us to make him a hospice dog based on his gentle personality. When Tippy needed his insulin, he would go sit in front of the refrigerator twice daily about an hour before it was time to receive his shot.  Cali would be right there with him and she would rub his face with her face while he was getting his insulin shot.  She has a big heart like that.  She does have a mischievous side where she likes to sit on the stairs in the morning and swat the dogs on their way out for their morning walk.  Every single time they go outside for a walk, Cali sits inside the storm door looking out at them.  Sometimes she bumps noses with them as they come back in, as if she is counting her babies to make sure everyone returned inside safely.  She spends the mornings chasing patches of sun around the house as it comes in from different windows.  She has a kitty condo on both levels of the house so she can escape the dogs if she wants and they give her great views outside.  She is strictly an indoor cat.  She has a huge sense of curiosity and has been to 20 states.   She sat in many hotel windows looking out and spent part of the drive sitting on the center console of our SUV so she could look out of the front windshield.  She joined Klunkers and Libby on two trips across the country, plus has traveled to see her family out of state.  2015 was a tough year for Cali.  She started losing weight and was diagnosed with overactive thyroid.  She received the radioactive iodine treatment.  A month later her non-functioning eye started to swell.  The specialist said she can receive eye drops to make her more comfortable but that they will stop offering relief at some point and the eye would have to come out then.  Since she is already 12, we opted to have the eye (non-functioning) removed now so that she didn’t have to undergo anesthesia and surgery at some time in the future when she is older.  When the doctor removed the eye, they discovered lymphoma behind it.  We are very lucky we did not just choose eye drops! At that point, she began chemo and handled it like a champ.  Even the doctors were amazed at how well she did. There were only a couple of times when we waited an extra week before starting the next round of medicine.  A little patch of her hair thinned but other than that, she is doing great.