Say hello to our newest family member: Finn, a dog, or more accurately a puppy. This picture is from when we first got him: he was about 11 weeks old at the time.
Continue reading An unexpected puppy- FinnAn unexpected puppy- Finn
Category Archives: Critters
The cats, dogs and horses that share our lives
Some of our Critters
Irene bugs me now and then regarding the fact that I don’t post many pictures of our animal family members here on this blog. She is right, and my rationale is thus: I post those pictures mostly on Facebook.
Why Facebook? I guess mainly because I try to use Facebook for short-form posts, and the most common of these for me is some cute pictures of our cats.
Continue reading Some of our CrittersSad goodbye to our ghost cat, Nimbus
Yesterday was our last day with Nimbus. He wasn’t feeling or looking ‘right’ for some time, with obvious signs of abdominal abnormality as well as reduced activity.
Nimbus’ last day
Disruptions in our furry family
My wife and I love our critters, in particular our feline family. It has been the norm during our 27 years together for us to have something like six or seven cats sharing our household. This isn’t ‘by design’, but it seems to work out that way.
For the first time in a while, however, we are down to five cats in our house. And it is a hard change to accept.
Cecil the Lion: hunting is not a ‘sport’
There has been a great deal of coverage lately regarding the killing of a single particular lion in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter. I’m angry, and wish no good will upon the pathetic excuse for a human being who ‘hunted’ this lion- but that isn’t what I want to talk about here.
A bit about Pippin
It all started in August of 2014. Irene thought her Mother really wanted a companion cat, and so she went out and found what she thought to be exactly the kitten her mother desired: a Siamese – Balinese cross kitten, to be exact. The kitten was to spend a day or two in isolation at our house before making the trip over to the island to live.
It didn’t work out that way…
The loss of a friend in a grey and white coat
I lost a dear friend on Wednesday, November 5. We lived under the same roof for over two decades, and the fact that he wore fur and occasionally killed and ate rodents in his youth did nothing to detract from our bond. I’m talking about my cat, Tuxedo.
The Spring
I first met Tuxedo when he was six months old, and I was thirty. Irene and I had been living on our acreage East of Sherwood Park for a couple of years, and decided it was time to add to our furry family. We went to the SPCA in Edmonton, and Irene had already picked out a funny-looking, emaciated female cat who had recently given birth (Sasha). I was still wandering about, and walked past several cat kennels when I felt a tug on my arm. A small grey and white paw was reaching out between the bars and had caught my shirt: I looked in this child-cat’s eyes and couldn’t walk away. I unlocked the bars of the cage and took him in my arms, and that was that. Tuxedo, née Sylvester, was mine, and I was his.
There is some debate in our household regarding whether we adopted Tuxedo in the October of 1994, or April of 1995. Either way, he was born in 1994, and to say we met 20 years ago is sufficiently accurate at this point.
Continue reading The loss of a friend in a grey and white coat
Cat allergies: Elcee gets track marks…
Today we started on the first dose of immunotherapy injections for our cat, Elcee. She’s had problems with strange acne-like skin eruptions on her face and chin for years, but the last three years (Elcee is ten years old) they’ve gotten progressively worse.
During her last episode, the rash got into her ears and around her neck and shoulders: she licked her hair completely off in those areas, and ended up with secondary (bacterial) skin and ear infections. It took weeks of treatment to get that cleared up, and the vet advised that we consider allergy tests. As it turns out, Elcee is allergic to a lot of things…
Parushta and Samira
We adopted two Abyssinian kittens in July of 2011. Samira is the ruddy (reddish-brown) girl, and Parushta is her blue (grey coloured) half-brother:
And Jasmine too…
We knew it was a possibility, perhaps even probable. But that didn’t make losing Jasmine at the end of May any easier.
Irene and I both noticed something wrong as soon as we came back from our week-long cruise. Jasmine looked “puffy” around her chest, and seemed somewhat disinterested and dull. After a few days, she seemed to be having problems breathing. An X-Ray showed fluid and a possible mass in her chest cavity. Fluid was drawn, and ultrasound performed. The mass was quite large, 4 cm by 2 cm, and looked like a tumor. The fluid drawn from the chest, which eased Jasmine’s breathing for only a day or so, was also tested: it confirmed the worse.
