Oh The Joys of Being Owned by a Cat

Our wonderful, affectionate cat known as Mister Kitty has an infection on his face/nose and ear mites. He went to the vet yesterday. Kitty is now on 4 meds twice a day.

Have you ever tried to treat an adult cat with meds?

Ear drops - shaken right back out all over our clothes. I had to wash Dan's bed sheets after the first round. He also had to change his shirt before heading out to class.

Spray on the outside of the nose. So I covered his eyes and did 2 squirts close up on the nose. Kitty went under the bed and began foaming at the mouth. I called the vet. Vet said the spray basically tastes like ass and you probably got some in his mouth so what you have there is a very pissed off cat. Spray it onto a paper towel and dab onto nose. Yes, foaming at the mouth like Menthos and soda. It was quite a sight to behold and NO, he DID NOT want me to wipe any of that off. He wanted to drool it all over the floor across two rooms.

Oral antibiotic liquid - pink - a lovely shade on your clothing if you miss his mouth or he decides to shake his head. So far we're doing decent on not becoming pink.

Ointment for the nose - well since the spray went over SO well, you can imagine how happy he is about us dabbing ointment on his raw nose, which of course he decided to rub really hard on the crate door on his way to the vet and make that nose bleed all over the place. He looked like he'd been in a street fight by the time the vet saw him.

Yesterday after the oral antibiotic and spray/mouth foaming debacle, I tried to apologize to our typically very friendly and happy to be touched Mister Kitty about not knowing about the taste of ass in that spray bottle. Kitty promptly ran behind his litter pan, sat down, and GROWLED at me in no uncertain terms that I was NOT GETTING NEAR HIM AGAIN last night. I have never heard such a sound out of Kitty's mouth before, not even at Crazy Shelly. It was horrifying.

After this morning's ear drops and nose ointment, Mister Kitty promptly ran and hid in his room (yes he has his own room) inside a fleece lined two-tier cat bed/hiding place from which I would later have to extract said unwilling cat in order to continue the medical ministrations.

Today's oral antibiotic went over much better. I scruffed him up by the back of the neck while still inside that hiding space, told him we were doing this to make him feel better and I would like it if he would cooperate, to which his prompt reply was to meow in a very annoying manner. Then I jammed the end of the syringe (sans needle of course) into his mouth and he promptly guzzled that pink stuff down. I promised him tuna as a reward. He politely met me in the hall afterward to claim his tuna prize. Apparently bribery works better than trying to turn him into a towel burrito being prior to medical ministrations.

A the joys of being owned by a cat.

Disclaimer: No humans were scratched or bitten during these encounters. No cats were harmed (unless of course you ask Kitty's opinion on that with regard to the unexpectedly ass-tasting spray). Clothing and bed sheets did not fare as well as the living beings in the room.

On top of this, after coming out of the bathroom where I'd gone for 5 minutes of peace away from the pack, I promptly stepped in a puddle of dog pee, bent over to throw a towel on that to soak it up and then dropped my reading glasses into a previously undiscovered second puddle of dog pee.

Are you laughing at me yet?

Happy Friday!

Welcome to my journey!

Hello there! 

Welcome to my blog.

I am a dog rescuer, mom, and wife.

Some people have been telling me for years that I should start a blog. I guess it's time I finally got down to it.

A little about my background: 

I've had dogs all my life.

In the fall of 2001, when our son was 8 and our two dogs were seniors, I decided to stop in my local shelter to see if they had any small dogs available. I didn't want my son to be without a dog and I didn't know how much longer our senior dogs would be with us. We had talked about what kinds of dogs he liked and he expressed interest in a lap dog, so off I went in search of a suitable match.

Well the shelter didn't have any small dogs, but it did have a flyer on the counter for Petfinder.com. I'd never heard of it and was curious, so I brought the flyer home and checked out the website. It was on that website where I realized there was such a thing as fostering dogs. In addition to shelters, there were rescues run by volunteers who were looking for more people to help them save dogs.

I thought what a neat idea! You can have the dog in your home and see how it gets along with everyone before adopting. Let's give that a try.

Well, we did. We tried it, adopted one of our first 3 fosters, and it's since become a long-term passion of mine to save dogs from shelters. Fast forward to now in 2017 and we've fostered over 300 dogs in the past 16 years. We only kept 8! I think I showed a lot of restraint. Eight out of 300 is a minuscule amount, right? 

This blog will be about my story in rescue, things we've done, things we've accomplished, things we've learned, ​things we've tried, used & liked, ​dogs we've saved, dogs that are available for adoption or in need of rescue, other people we've gotten to know, and more. 

Whether you're an adopter, rescuer, transporter, sponsor, shelter employee, want to know how this whole dog rescue thing works, want to start a rescue but don't have a clue where to begin, or you're just someone who loves reading about dogs, I hope you will enjoy following along on my journey through dog rescue.