Friday, June 19, 2015

New Pets!

Hi again! Oh holy moly, it's been a long time since I've written anything here! Yes, I'm still alive. I'm still making pottery and gardening and all the stuff I do.

I do have a couple new things to share with you. And they're both pets!

This is Ramona!



And this is Oscar!


Ramona is an Australian Cattle Dog, also known as a Blue Heeler. She came to us last Autumn from a family member who couldn't keep her. When we got her, we took her to the vet and found out that she had heart worms. Eeek! Heart worms are scary to treat and both the worms and the treatment have the to potential to kill a dog. So for the first three months that we had her, she wasn't allowed to exercise at all. Like no walkies, no play time with Caleb, no fetch in the backyard, nothing. It was scary (for us) and painful (for her) and frustrating (for all of us).


But then she got better! She still has a couple little health problems that we're learning to manage, specifically food allergies and some arthritis. But she's so much happier now. She loves to play fetch in the backyard. She really loves this big red ball. As a cattle dog, she loves to herd things around (like people and other pets!) so the Jolly Ball is really great for her because she can "herd it" around the backyard.



Our newest pet, Oscar, came to us in the winter. One afternoon I was out playing fetch with the dogs when I heard a kitty crying in the bushes behind our house. And I found this little guy with an owie on his nose standing by some frozen rain water. Poor thing just broke my heart. Over the next few days I gave him fresh water and a little tuna to lure him out of the bushes long enough to take photos.



About a week later on an especially cold night, my husband was out with the dogs for a last potty break very late at night before bed. And the kitty was following him around, crying again. So we trapped him with a dog crate, some tuna, and a string and brought him inside and set him up in our least used bathroom. We didn't really know what we were going to do with this terrified little cat, but we just knew we couldn't leave him outside in the cold.

We thought about taking him to the shelter or setting up a feral cat house outside. But over the next couple weeks he slowly became comfortable with us. And we just fell in love with him. So we checked around to make sure he didn't have a family somewhere and then we decided to keep him.


When we took him to the vet, we learned that he was somewhere between 5 and 7 months old. He was completely healthy, other than a easy to treat parasite. And he was most likely feral. I think he probably got kicked out of his colony, as adolescent male cats often do, as was looking for a new home.

So those are our new pets! And we are so happy to have them with us!