Tag: pets

Incident at Chairnoble

So, Phin has a new routine I’m not thrilled about. He is my blind black cat who is a little badass and Brave Little Toaster. He likes to get on the back of my desk chair and sleep, but lately he’s been sleeping sleeping and subsequently falls off. If he’s lucky, he falls onto the back of my neck, sometimes digging his claws into my head or neck. If he is really asleep, he stays there for a while without waking. If he’s not lucky, the poor guy falls to the floor 😞. However, along with being a badass, he is extremely stubborn, so he just walks around the chair, feels for the arm of the chair, and jumps up and climbs back onto the chair back once more. Rinse and repeat. All day while I’m working.

Now, some might say, Why don’t you come up with something so he won’t fall off? And I say to them, We did. Well, we tried. First, I put my panda hoodie on my chair back, zipped it up, and put Mom’s Steelers pillow in the hood. When he fell, theoretically he would fall onto the pillow, and the hood would keep him from thumping to the floor. Theoretically.

So stubborn that he would lay the wrong direction, with his butt against my neck

That was not the case. He just fell onto the pillow, then trampolined to the floor. I went to the spare room/closet to brainstorm while looking at all the wood and disassembled furniture I kept for such things. I had an idea! I told Adam what I wanted, and he started building. I’m the idea-er, he’s the implementer. The finished product was awesome. Adam used some metal rods from a cart and some wood and his handyman know-how to make a platform that went over the back of the chair. It was an incredible eyesore, but I loved it. I put my hoodie on top, and it made a lovely little, sturdy bed with plenty of room.

I may have written about this before.

That little jerk refused to stay up there. He tried it out, said, Nope, and got down. I put him up there repeatedly whenever he would come to get on me, but he was having none of it.

So, this is where we are now. We feel bad for him every time he falls, but then remember how he snubbed a great thing and…feel bad for him anyway because that’s what it is like to have kids.

The Plight of the Pet Parent

Well, the novelty of my desk drawer has worn off for the cats, so I now have a cushy empty drawer with potting soil sprinkled in it. Oh, why is potting soil in it? Well, Phin (my blind boy) loves greenery and will go to the ends of the earth to find it and eat it, and I just got an African violet yesterday at Lowe’s. He hadn’t bothered it while I was awake, so I thought the leaves didn’t appeal to him. I was wrong. He knocked it off while eating it while I was asleep and it landed in the drawer. When I got up, he went over and got on the shelf and was trying to find it but I had tossed it. Meanwhile, Miss Willow stays on my desk all the time unless I open the window.

Their food and water are on my desk because of the dogs, so they hang around me or Phin lies on his dad. Phin is a little badass. He has always been such a brave little toaster, especially for being blind, and that hasn’t changed with the pups. He cautiously makes his way off the desk and just saunters over to the dogs’ water fountain and drinks out of it. Sometimes he runs into Neville’s legs or feet when Nev is sleeping on the floor, but he just corrects his trajectory a little and keeps going. When the pups sniff him, he has no problem smacking the crap out of their noses. It scares Ollie, which is hilarious, but he keeps on sniffing Phin and jerking back with each smack. I think cats’ smacks are the equivalent of Rocky’s punches the way that the pups react.

For being rather stern dog parents, the boys are huge babies! Adam chooses yelling over training, so he yells at Neville all the time, but when something scares him or I give him medicine or correct him, he runs to Adam and gets on his lap. A 120+ pound Lab crawls on his dad’s lap like a baby.

With Ollie, he gets his feelings hurt very easily (common for the breed), so when he gets in trouble or thinks he is in trouble, he comes over to get a hug and kisses. I may have mentioned it before, but I’ve kissed him on the nose since bringing him home and he loves it. He gets in front of me and nudges me with his nose until I kiss him. If he wants multiple kisses, he keeps nudging my nose. Sometimes he kisses me at the same time, which I do not appreciate. He is just the sweetest little thing. He’s also very floppy and likes being held like a baby even though he’s ~130 pounds. Since he’s so tall, we can only hold his upper body in our arms. He likes to get in front of me on the bed, sit down, and just trust fall into my arms. They are sweet boys but haven’t let me get much sleep!

Another Fear Realized

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this. Ever since keeping cats solely inside (since 1998), I have been afraid that one or more would die here and I would discover them. I always hoped Mom or Adam would be the one to discover them (terrible, I know) and would tell me about it after burying them. That was not the case yesterday morning. Gandalf the Grey (Gandi) was sleeping in Mom’s shower yesterday, and since the pups aren’t allowed in the bathroom, it made sense. Since he hadn’t been on my keyboard tray visiting with me after I got out of bed, I checked on him when I got up to use the bathroom and found that he wasn’t breathing and wasn’t warm.

I woke Adam up and told him that Gandi wasn’t breathing, so he got up and checked and confirmed that he was gone. Just like in the movies and shows, he walked back to me and sadly shook his head without speaking. I could only wail and ask “Why?!” repeatedly. We don’t know what happened. Before going into the bathroom, Gandi had briefly been on the bed with us by Adam, and after I fell asleep, Adam said he peed on the bed while lying there, then went to lay in the bathroom when Adam took the bedclothes off. I didn’t get a chance to make an appointment for him to see why that happened.

He and Theo have been staying out of Mom’s room since I got Ollie. Gandi stayed on the table most of the time near the cat food and water. Theo stays on the fridge. He had been to the vet two or three months prior for a urinary tract infection and received antibiotics.

For the past couple of days, Gandi had been in Mom’s room with me, sleeping on my keyboard tray and purring while I pet and loved on him. I figured he got lonely and said to hell with the dogs. He let me kiss his head and brush him and was being his old sweet self. Now, he’s gone and I don’t know why. He had just turned 10 in July. Both of my babies I got after Mom died are gone, and I’m so sad. I don’t know what I did wrong or how much he suffered or how I missed his cries for help. I just don’t know.

Piper Paws

Piper is gone. She was supposed to be put to sleep last Saturday but we had to reschedule for yesterday. She spent the weekend on my desk. She used the bathroom there on a pee pad and she couldn’t even stand or squat because of her leg. I cried all last week and this week. She was just the sweetest, most loving (to humans) little girl, and I miss her so much.

Her being gone has made me think of Mom, which has made me think of my brother. I don’t know what I’m going to do when it’s Phin’s time. Piper was for me, but she chose Adam, although she loved both of us. When Sprinkles, my other tuxie, was put to sleep (cancer), it was $25. Piper was $108. That just makes me furious. Yes, it was 10 years ago, but there is absolutely no reason for it.

My sweetheart

I’ve been working on my book a lot and I think I accidentally set it to be published on Amazon. I was ordering a proof copy and it popped up that I set it up for publication. It’s not supposed to be released until December! I am hoping I have to approve it or something so I can cancel. The proof wasn’t entirely finished but I wanted to check the formatting and spacing with a physical copy.

My teacher recommended a publishing press (she usually recommends journals) but I’m just not sure. I would love the exposure because I have no following, but I have major RSD. Plus, I would not appreciate edits without my knowledge or approval. Plus, I supposedly get 60% royalties with Amazon, but it’s just not adding up when I set the price. If I price the paperback version at $12 (which is ridiculous), I get $5. I didn’t want to make the price outrageous because that’s not cool, and it costs Amazon only $2.32 to print each book. Very hinky. Capitalism is out of control, or I’m just more aware of it.

My Passel of Abnormals

So, the cats and pups have completely ruined the living room floor, and I was stressing about replacing it but it looks like the subfloor will be the most expensive thing. Mom would have gotten rid of the cats a long time ago, but they’re my kids. The image above is a VR-generated image from The Home Depot of what the living room would look like with the flooring I chose. It’s kind of jarring because it’s a carpeted floor right now, but I like it. The dogs are not going to like sliding all over the place like Bambi on ice, however.

Piper hasn’t used the litter box since Merlin came here in 2015, Phin is blind and used to use the bathroom under the bed in the spare room (which I did not know he was doing) because the litter box was beside the bed and he could smell that he was in the vicinity, so I replaced that carpet with vinyl flooring. He now uses the living room floor since I had moved the litter box into the living room while doing the spare room floor, and he hasn’t stopped even though the litter box is in Adam’s room now.

Gandi hasn’t used the litter box since having a UTI even though he was treated. Piper has started peeing on her pillow she sleeps on. Only the babies use the box; 2 out of 5 😡😡. Because of Phin, I knew I’d be replacing the living room floor but the pups have peed in there and the floor feels like a boy’s face after hitting puberty. I have pee pads and clean the pee up, but the spots I missed are making big bumps. It’s gross. Luckily, vinyl flooring is around $260 for the entire living room, which is ~12′ x 28′, and half of the living room subfloor is fine, I think. I had Adam to look, and I guess the subfloor isn’t too expensive but he is going to need a different saw. I hate it, and Mom would kill me, but I know it’s my fault and I will be fixing it, so 🤷‍♀️.

To top it off, Ollie has started tearing up the living room carpet!! Who does that? He has so many bones and toys, and he goes and picks at the carpet like a methhead. There weren’t even holes or spots in the places he is digging/chewing up. Can I not have any normalcy here?

Come on, kids!

Adam, Get Her That Cat!

Well, it’s a good thing I set my book deadline for November. Just putting it together is so much work! I had it organized by theme, but so many of my chosen poems are from when I was a teen, so I wanted to highlight they are my early works and hopefully show some growth over the years.

I didn’t write for years because so much of it was too painful to think about, let alone write about (everybody dying). The other things — the good stuff like falling in love and finding some happiness — I was enjoying the moments and not writing about them. Admittedly, I am prone to writing during the darker times when I find the motivation to sift through it all.

So, instead of themes, I decided to do a Wonder Years part, poems I wrote when I was a teenager and going through some things, and The Reawakening part, when I started writing again in the last few years. There is some light stuff to go with the darker stuff, so I sub-parted (I don’t think that’s a word) the main parts into The Light and The Dark. Good? Bad? I don’t know. I doubt I will even have an audience. I want to realize my dream because it is my dream, but I am also doing it for Mom.

I am terrible at building an audience and socializing offline and online, so the word-of-mouth is going to be awful. I know Adam will appreciate it because he is super-supportive of whatever crazy ideas I pursue.

Speaking of, things are going better here. Adam subscribes to my blog, and he also knows I do not talk about him behind his back. If I can’t say something about him near him, how is that healthy? He feels the same, but his irritation comes out only when I am fussing at him about something 😒. I guess there’s a reason he fell so hard for a volleyball player 🤣🤣.

He’s been getting the dishes done and the laundry, both big chores because Ollie is not too keen on potty training and he is going through my towels like a public pool. I really dread replacing every single floor in this house, mainly because I have no idea what I’m doing and no one to help. I helped replace a bedroom floor once in a single-wide trailer, but I was on nail duty and just had to hammer the nails in. Having double vision and terrible aim, that was hard enough for me!

Open your eyes, Dad!

I do have some very upsetting news that I am not looking forward to. Piper Paws is going to be put down soon. She has not fared well since we brought Merlin in and her health has gone downhill from there. Somehow, she is 22+ pounds although we never see her eat. She really hurt her back leg a while back, which the vet completely ignored and blamed on her weight, but the day it happened, she was lying on the floor crying and would not walk at all. We just laid there crying at each other.

Pretty Girl

She also has a weird patch on her back that is from me treating a sore on her back and I had shaved a small patch so I could treat the sore. That patch has never been the same. The sore healed up, but the fur doesn’t grow in normally and she is sensitive to touch back there. For that, the (worthless) vet said it was fleas, but none of the cats have fleas and haven’t since living with us because they are all flea-treated indoor cats and this was way before Neville happened, let alone Ollie. We don’t always get a stupid vet but we did for her appointment.

Enjoying the outdoors.

Piper Paws is the cat Mom made Adam promise to get me before Mom died. She is also named after Mom as Mom’s initials are PAWS. I don’t know how I am going to handle losing her. It’s unbearable grief now and she is not gone yet. She has started using the bathroom exclusively on the kitchen table and she can’t walk well because of her (untreated thanks to the vet) leg and her weight. We watch their food, but I cannot put her on a diet food when her siblings are all healthy weights.

She turned 10 years old on my brother’s birthday. Even though she was for me, she is Adam’s cat. I think she is a one-cat-household cat, so I don’t think she has been happy for quite a while. I really failed her when I took Merlin in. Girl can hold a grudge, just like her mother. I am really going to miss her but the poor thing has had a rough life, dealing with cats she doesn’t like and then dogs. At least the pups don’t bother her physically. And now I’ve upset myself. Until next time!

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AuDHD Associations (and Animal Cruelty)

Disclaimer/Trigger warning: Do not read the article I linked if you cannot tolerate descriptions of animal abuse. There are no pictures of the animals, but it gives some details that I wish I had not read.

I have a hard time differentiating and separating. Those might not be the correct words but I don’t know what would. Association, maybe? A component of rigid/black-and-white thinking. I was very fond of my grandfather (Dad’s dad) and he had big teeth with a gap, and a warm smile. My entire life, I’ve noticed that feature and it would make me like that person. Like, I have a soft spot for 50 Cent because I think he looks like my grandfather due to the big teeth. Never mind that they aren’t the same skin color 😂. The same goes for Gary Busey and Chris Rock.

In the same vein, my dad had a deep voice, so I am taken by that as well. James Earl Jones, Sam Elliott (he’s not bad on the eyes, either), Barry White, Morgan Freeman, the deep-voice dudes from The Statler Brothers and The Oak Ridge Boys, etc.

I met a work friend of Mom’s one time at the mall and due to AuDHD, I never could remember her name. However, this lady was decked out in purple from head to toe, so I called her the Grape Lady. Whenever Mom would talk about this friend, I would ask, “the Grape Lady?” and Mom would confirm or deny. I do that with most things because my brain is a bit slow on the uptake with a lot of things. I could not think of the word “vacuum” on more than one occasion and move my arm away from and near my body and say “vroom, vroom” to let my husband know to what I am referring. He is actually very good with these clues 😂😂.

Anyway, this association thing, or whatever it’s called, works negatively as well. My aunt had a little ankle biter that bit my ear one time — no blood, but it did not feel good — and he soured me on all small dogs, so his behavior affected my view of a huge number of dog breeds. It’s not intentional, but it is what it is.

So, to my point. While searching for a puppy, I found a site named Greenfield Puppies. My brother-in-law lives in the same state that kept popping up in my search as closest to me, so I thought he may be close to some of the breeders (I was incorrect). The results included pictures and videos of the puppies, and I could tell many of the breeders were Amish, as mentioned in my previous post.

On Reddit and Facebook, people say reputable breeders offer health guarantees and socialization, which these breeders offered, as well as the purebred puppies being registered. The puppies were going fast site-wide, so I chose a puppy and breeder and googled them. I was looking for something like a social media page that included the pups’ parents, which I had found when doing the same with Goldens. The first result I got was a news article, Lancaster County kennel owner pleads guilty to animal cruelty in 2018 ‘debarking’ case. Same last name, same state and county, same lifestyle/religious(?) affiliation.

Being me, I became immediately distressed and sick to my stomach. I contacted my BIL to see if he could find out more since he goes through breeders, and he only found what I found and said the woman was probably related to the breeders, especially since the Amish are a tight-knit, oft-related group and apparently are very into breeding animals/running mills, which I didn’t know, either. I’m a very sheltered and naïve person in many ways, which is odd since I’m so cynical and a realist for the most part. With animal abuse and cruelty becoming a felony, I became too trusting in people being law-abiding.

Then came the conundrum. Do I shun them (no pun intended) because they are running mills and treating animals poorly or do I rescue a puppy so he doesn’t have to live in that situation any longer? I decided to go with that breeder and wish for the best, which may mark my character but I was really torn and wanted the puppy to have a good life outside of his first three months. Then, the whole 💩storm happened that I wrote in my last post. Now, I am extremely put off by the Amish. It’s not something I am proud of but the research and the experience Adam went through getting our puppy and the way Ozzy has acted since getting here are negatives upon negatives.

After Ozzy got here, he did not know how to enter the house (which I think I mentioned previously). Except for getting in the bed with me, he prefers the floor, which is sad but makes sense since Adam said the puppies were in a barn. Everything is just so new to him and it makes me really sad. The “socialization,” I’m guessing was the breeder’s wife and kids taking turns to feed them but not pay much attention to them. I am very glad he is here but I feel so bad for him for how he was born and briefly grew up.

Neville’s experience was so different. His breeder shared tons of videos and pictures of him playing with his brothers and sisters, fetching, swimming, training, and being loved on. He knew how to sit and have his collar placed. He knew how to walk on a leash. He loves hugging us and sits at our feet. He is a wonderful, amazing, smart dog. I hope he can teach his brother some of that!

I always adopt/rescue and not shop, but I wanted a reliable service dog, and now I am paying the price because I have contributed to the worst type of people (mill runners, not necessarily the Amish) and the only consolation is that I can give Ozzy the best life imaginable since I put all my kids first.

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My Cutest Mistake

Do I have a story to tell, and I was not even in attendance! I take a while to tell stories in writing because I try to explain a lot, so bear with me. Since Neville chose Adam and has as little to do with me as possible, I have been pretty upset. Plus, one day, Adam made me feel exactly like Dad and his second wife made me feel, which cut deep. It was a whole thing, and I could not tell Adam what was wrong because I would just start crying and I finally told him via text. It wasn’t intentional, but it’s how I felt.

Anyway, I started looking for Golden retrievers because they make good service dogs and are very helpful for disabled people. While I was looking at Goldens on the Greenfield Puppies site, I looked through the other breeds and they had Bernese Mountain dogs (BMDs), which have always been my dream dog after I discovered them. Before that, it was rottweilers and Golden retrievers.

Breeders in my state charge a crazy price (probably standard, but crazy to me) for dogs which is why I chose another state fairly close to us. The Goldens and BMDs were about 80% cheaper and AKC registered with health guarantees, the last two things are supposed to be signs of reputable breeders. I’m not too concerned with the AKC thing, but it is a perk.

After weeks of searching, I found a cute little BMD named Kyle who was only $50 more than a Golden and he was about 5 hours away from us. Since we don’t have a car, we tried to find a way to get him because shipping him here would have been $500 in and of itself, which is no bueno. I could rent a car for $65+ gas and that would be much cheaper, obvi. I found lots of puppies, but they were going fast because the prices drop as the puppies get older.

“Kyle” (breeder photo)

So, I called(!!) the breeder and told him I would like to buy Kyle and he said okay and wanted to know when I could get him and I said it would be two weeks. He said that people were calling about the ones left because the price had just decreased so I asked if I could send a deposit. I could tell by multiple videos that a lot of the breeders on this site were Amish. The location includes Amish country and the way the women were dressed was very telling. Fine. No big deal. They have to make money somehow, but that meant no PayPal or Cash App and the like.

The guy said I could mail a check for 70% of the cost of Kyle and I could let him know when it was in the mail. I said I would and I did so through bill pay with my bank because who has paper checks these days?!? Well, we were able to make arrangements to get the pup a week earlier, which was fine with the breeder, and his wife told me via phone to bring cash for what I owed them. I was sleeping when she called, but said okay and hung up. I was not going to be in a car for 5 hours and then try to work, so Adam was going.

Five hours later, Adam gets to the breeder’s, and the guy refuses to give him the pup because he wants the full amount in cash and would not accept the check that arrived that day (I also had screenshots from my bank for Adam to show him in case the check hadn’t made it). He said people were coming who were going to pay more for the dog because the jerk did not mark the dog as sold after we settled on me putting a deposit down. I guess there were words, and the guy went into his house and would not come out. I was livid. Like, ice-cold livid.

I had already seen an atrocious animal abuse/puppy mill case online when searching the breeder’s last name (different first name, but same location and most likely related), so I had soured on the Amish, which I will discuss why in another post. I called the breeder and told him via answering machine (because… Amish) that I had recorded our phone conversations (I had not) and my husband would not leave without getting the police involved. I did not know that Adam had already left; he had terrible cell service there, we found out. Before he left, Adam said he told the guy he would be hearing from our lawyer (we don’t have one).

The breeder called me back a bit later, which I didn’t answer because I’m emotionally stunted and cannot handle confrontation or back up my bravado, but I read the message as he was leaving it (thanks, Apple!) and he said something along the lines of he didn’t want me to not have a puppy or go home without a puppy. I called Adam to tell him to stop driving but couldn’t get through so called through Facebook Messenger (thanks, Facebook!) and he was already talking to the breeder and was going to go back there to get the puppy. He had already made it an hour away from there 🥹🥹🥹.

The breeder tried to act like he had a change of heart and wanted to do the right, honest thing, but Adam said he had expected the full price of the pup in cash and wanted to keep the deposit check as well!

About 7 or 8 hours after that, I got my little boy 🥰🥰. He was a mess because he got car sick several times, so he had to get a bath as soon as he got to his new home. I don’t think he has ever been in a house. Adam said the pups were in a barn in a stable with other animals, and his bath water was so dirty. He didn’t know how to step into the house, either, and is still getting used to going in and out of the house. He didn’t know how to take treats from my fingers/hand. He is learning.

Bathed!

I named him Oswald Hemingway and we call him Oz or Ozzy. Neville is super jealous but also really wants to play with him. They are 8 months apart in age, so we have to watch Nev doesn’t get too rough, and Ozzy definitely cannot keep up with him. Nev does his Phoebe running with him, which is hilarious. I’m at square one with potty training because he was an outside/barn pup (which I did not know), so that is a pain. Neville is much more motivated and eager to learn, but he also had a good breeder who taught him things before we got him.

So that is my very long, exhausting story of how we got our latest member of the family.

After playtime.
Getting comfy.
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