Tag Archives: pets

On deciding whether or not to scratch an itch…

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I’m inching closer to the idea of packing a bag and taking a few days away. I haven’t been on a proper vacation in years and there’s part of me that feels like I could be well served by having a stretch of time where I don’t have to be the head cook and bottle washer of all household operations. A few days with a guide and a driver and needing to make very few decisions feels kind of ideal. 

I’ve gone so far as narrowing down dates and destinations, pricing out travel options, and looking at a host of optional day trips and activities. The thing I haven’t done – and the one bit that could readily derail any kind of quality planning – is sorted out what I’ll do with a dog, two cats, and a tortoise while I’m traipsing around interesting new locales. I struggle a bit leaving them for what amounts to a glorified long weekend around the Christmas season… and even then, Jorah is along for the ride with me. 

The fact is, Jorah will be six years old in October and I haven’t spent a night away from him. Given his somewhat neurotic tendencies, I don’t have a real warm fuzzy about how well he’d react to being turned over to a kennel for a week. There’s always the option of hiring a live in sitter for the duration of the trip… an option that triggers a lot of feelings of grave distrust of having unknown people in my personal space unaccompanied. Add in my never resolved guilt that one of the last times I went away I came home just in time to find Hershel sick and dying and race him hopelessly to the emergency vet. It’s not a recipe for making animal care decisions especially easy.

I know there are a lot of my own issues rolled up there. Animals are supposedly very adaptable – likely more so than I am myself. I should probably just make the reservations and force the issue, but I can’t quite bring myself to pull that particular trigger.

Three is enough…

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By now, I suppose everyone who’s interest already knows that I added a 3rd cat to the list of critters living here on the homestead. Ivy is a sweet, approximately one year old calico female who arrived here by way of the Chesapeake Feline Association, who are effectively neighbors to me here on the bank of the Elk River. They’re a small team doing good work and I was happy to be able to be a small part of it. 

As I’m writing this, Ivy has been home with us for about three and a half days now. She’s briefly met Jorah and Anya at the door to her “safe room,” but hasn’t shown much (if any) interest in checking out the rest of the house yet and seems content to hang out in the guest bathroom for the time being. I’m doing my best to remember that time really isn’t a factor here and it takes as long as it takes to get everyone comfortable with this new arrangement.

Aside from a bit more outlay for food and the inevitable increase in vet bills, tending to three cats instead of two doesn’t feel like it’s adding too much workload at this point. I expect it will become even easier once we get everyone integrated and don’t have to maintain separate feeding, watering, and litter operations. I’m not going to speculate on how long that may take.

I’ve often joked that I’ve reached carrying capacity in the past. Now with five furry and scaled mouths to feed, I really mean it. Five is the absolute upper limit… unless I come into a lot of money and can hire staff, of course. Then all bets are off.

In any case, I’m pleased as punch to have a new member of the family settling in… but I’ll be well and truly thrilled when we get past the awkward introductory stage and can all start living together. 

An unexpected moment of peace…

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I’ll admit it. I’ve been letting the stress back up on me. I mostly assumed it was bleeding over from getting this damned government boondoggle through to the finish line next week. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. I like to think I carry it well, but it’s the kind of thing that wears on a guy as things reach their illogical end.

It wasn’t until I sat down last night and put my feet up after dinner that I realized how much lighter my own living room felt. Last night, with Anya returning healthy to the fold, was probably the first real night of peace I’ve enjoyed since Hershel died.

It was the first night in two months not overwhelmingly weighed down in missing my boy or worrying that the new girl was suffering catastrophic injury or that something would go wrong in surgery or during recovery. Then wondering if I’d ever manage to convince Cordy that under the bed is no place to live your life.

The last two months have been a chaotic mess – or at least what passes for a chaotic mess in my world. I hadn’t realized how much of that I was internalizing just to keep the whole thing plugging along. Now I’m just feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that maybe we’ve turned the flank of our current crisis and bought just a little bit of breathing room.

Last night, despite the racket of two cats periodically bouncing off the walls, was the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I couldn’t tell you when. There will be some other bridge that needs burning probably sooner rather than later, but for now I’m just going to go ahead and enjoy this moment of peace I didn’t know I needed.

Slow progress with a scaredy cat…

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For obvious reasons, I haven’t been giving equal time to the two new additions. Where Anya has required multiple daily rounds of medication and came out of her shell fairly quickly, Cordy has remained largely reluctant and uncertain. Technically, she’s largely remained firmly tucked into the cardboard base of their inclined scratching platform.

If the paperwork is to be believed, Cordy went from living in a park to being trapped and hauled in to the shelter and then moved onward to my house all in a span of four or five days. For a three-month-old kitten brain, that’s got to be just about as much new experience as anyone would want to deal with. I’m not at all surprised she was mostly shut down for the first two weeks I had her.

She’s making slow progress – coming out at meal times and grudgingly playing with the business end of a feather wand, if only briefly before beating a hasty retreat back to the safety of her box.

For the last three nights, somewhat unexpectedly, Cordy has emerged from her safe space while I’m checking in with them before “lights out.” She’ll pad cautiously across the room, rub against my leg, and stand still for a few pets from ear to tail before losing her courage and jumping away. This morning, while I was doing a last check before leaving for the office, she did it again.

Even as I’m sitting here typing it out, it doesn’t sound like much… but it’s leaps and bounds of progress for a cat who was more or less shut down for the first two weeks she was here. It’s progress and I’ll take it. I’ll take as much progress as we can muster between now and the first week of April, when Anya’s scheduled for eye surgery. I’m fully expecting that to be a giant step backwards for all of us.

A rare moment of perfect normality…

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I got nothing. Seriously. It was as close to a standard day at the office as one could imagine. I answered some emails. I had a meeting. I ate a lukewarm Italian sausage from the local gut truck. I sent some more emails. And then it was time to come home.

Home, as you all know, is currently slightly more chaotic, given the medications schedule, trying to equalize what animals get to spend time in which rooms, and managing all the other basic household chores. Today, that routine offered nothing substantive to discuss. There’s only so many times I can reasonably subject you fine people to daily tales of the vaguely chaotic new normal that is this extended settling in period. 

Likewise, I know April is going to be filled to overflowing with gripes and complaints about the project I just love to hate and all the various ways it finds to try flopping off the rails. So just now, while things are busy enough, there’s not much more to say that I’ve already said. Not that this situation usually keeps me shut up for long. 

So, tonight is a breather – a mid-week chance to regroup – before launching into Thursday and whatever inevitably batshit crazy way this week decides to end.

Frazzled…

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Time is short, so I’ll say only this: My going-to-the-office day routine is well and truly out of tolerance.

I know this because, in my mad rush to leave the house, I managed to forget my building ID card as well as neglected to feed George. Both of those activities are generally hard baked into my routine. They’re things that happen in a very specific order as I move through the morning. 

This morning, of course, was not standard. If it were, it would go something like this: 1) Wake up (4:45 AM); 2) Take Jorah outside; 3) Feed Jorah; 4) Shower/Dress; 5) Feed George; 6) Fill coffee vessels; 7) Make sure bag contains all work essentials; 8) Read non-fiction for 45 minutes; 9) Depart.

This morning was: 1) Wake up (4:00 AM); 2) Take Jorah outside; 3) Feed Jorah; 4) Feed kittens / fight through giving  three medication); 5) Shower/Dress; 6) Fill coffee vessels; 7) Check weather and traffic report; 8) Fight through giving one additional medication; 9) Depart; 10) Backtrack 10 miles to pick up ID.

These are minor hiccups to be sure, but in a routine that generally flows flawlessly from start to finish, being that far from the mark is downright monumental. It’s safe to say all nerves are just a touch frazzled at the moment. 

Towards business as usual…

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It’s been a long time coming, but over the weekend I finally broke down Maggie’s crate and rejiggered the laundry room / animal services resources center over the weekend. The room, oddly large for just a laundry room, was built to spec by the original owner to use as a place to do watercolor painting. Not being a watercolorist, I pressed it into service as home base for crats, food, litter boxes, and all manner of pet supplies. For a year now, I’d been looking at Maggie’s empty crate taking up a not insignificant bit of the room’s floor space and simply didn’t have the heart to do anything with it.

I was a two dog household for a long time and expected I would be again – sooner or later. Part of my reluctance thus far, has been never expecting to find a dog with as good a temperament and personality of my chocolate lab. Another part is the undeniable fact that Jorah can be a bit temperamental and selective about the dogs he meets. Alighting on the wrong one would throw this fortress of domestic peace and tranquility into abject chaos… and that doesn’t really feel like any way to live. If I’m entirely honest, the simple fact that everything from dinner time, to vet care, to taking them on the road, is simply easier when contending with just one dog also has something to do with my continuing hesitance.

Crates and bowls are tucked safely away ready to be called back into service on short notice, because I’m absolutely not ruling out another dog. It was time, though, to not have the house rigged for something that might not happen for months or years yet. Since the rhythm of the household was clearly in turmoil over the last week, it felt like a good opportunity to get all the “newness” out of the way in one go, so I can drag the world inside these four walls back towards business as usual.

On dogs that go thump in the night…

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I don’t regret anything about my life with dogs. Sure, I wish vet bills were lower and the floor wasn’t constantly covered in shed fur, but on balance, I’d much rather have a house filled with dogs than a house filled with people. Even with that preference, that’s not to say there aren’t moments where I wonder what the hell we’re about.

Sunday morning, at our usual well before dawn wake up time, Maggie took a header while transitioning from the bedroom carpet to the living room wood. She was fully splayed – exactly like something you might see in a cartoon – with one paw slid out in each of the cardinal directions. She tried to get up, fell back down, tried again, and fell again. You’ll never convince me dogs don’t emote. Her face was the perfect picture of embarrassment and feeling sorry for herself. 

I was able to scoot her towards one of the area rugs, where I hoped her scrambling might find some purchase… and also where she would be less likely to tear the hell out of the floor. Look, I’m as big a dog lover as anyone, but that doesn’t mean I want to destroy the house in the process. Fortunately, with the rug giving a bit of extra traction, she slowly managed to get her feet under her. 

Mag’s has had a weak front right ankle for years. I have no idea what caused the original injury, but every so often she pulls up lame and refuses to do more than balance using that paw. She spent most of the rest of the day hobbling around the house. That’s no mean feat when you realize how much of the place is covered with wood, tile, or basically surfaces just made to slide on. 

By last night she was getting around fairly well. This morning was more of the same, so I’m hoping she’s on the mend without needing an unscheduled trip to the vet. 

My girl is going on 13 this year. She’s already far exceeded the average life expectancy of a dog following a Cushing’s diagnosis. Add in the two most recent rounds of violent digestive illness and I’m surprised (and a little impressed) that she’s still getting around at all. I know she’s not indestructible or immortal, but I could have done without yesterday’s reminder of just how elderly she really is.

I’m not sure there’s really a point to this post, aside from telling you to give your critters an extra pat on the head or chin scratch tonight. You’ll be glad you did.

They’re all dog days…

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Wednesday was allegedly “International Dog Day.” I have no idea what duly constituted international body anoints these days, but that’s not the point.

I was happy to see Facebook filled with dogs of all shapes and sizes. For a few minutes it shouted down the rest of the abject asshattery that fills social media, which was nice.

My only real objection to this state of affairs is that I’ve never needed a special day to recognize dogs. Here at Fortress Jeff, every day is a celebration of these stalwart creatures whose ancestors long ago chose to throw their lot in with humanity. Given how many people seem to treat dogs so shabbily, I’m quite sure we got the better part of that bargain.

There’s no day that hasn’t been made better just by having the presence of these fuzzy hoodlum in my home. They’ve paid back every minute spent scrubbing it steam cleaning a hundred times over. I can’t even begrudge them the accumulated veterinary bills.

In a contest between dogs and people for my love and adoration, the dogs are going to win every time. I’m not even sorry about that. In fact, I tend to question the judgement of anyone who has spent time with both people and dogs and doesn’t agree. 

They’re all good dogs…

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I got a note from an old friend that he had to put down his dog a week or so ago. That’s normal cause for sadness, but I felt it particularly because his dog, Smokey, was one of Maggie’s littermates. I’m about as jaded and cynical as they come, but if you think things didn’t get a little “watery” on the homestead for a little while, you’ve completely misread me.

I don’t think I’d seen Smokey in more than a decade. That was just a fact of space and time and not in any way relevant. Smokey was a good dog. They’re all good dogs.

Knowing that he’s gone is an unwelcome reminder of the all too brief time we have with these furry critters who share our homes… and that my sweet, unflappable Mags and I have run out a lot more of our time together than we have left to go.

Give your good doggo a scratch on the head for Smokey tonight. You’ll be glad you did.