The Thinker, redone as Cat

I take critter pictures all the time, which mostly results in lots of pictures of absolute crap. Occasionally, I get a good one.

I think that Frannie may have been Rodin's model, in a previous life of course.

We have a theory here that cats have multiple names, which sort of name varies from pet to pet.

Frannie's "call name" is Francesca. Her "Family Name" is Frannie or Fan-Fan. Her superhero name is FanToes, and her super hero power is detecting mice in the chimny.

Holy Crap!

So Monday night, after I've been working with King George Animal Rescue League all weekend, I get an e-mail about 10:00 pm (Not a phone call at a reasonable time of the night) saying that my dog might be put down if I don't get to the shelter on Tuesday to pick him up. No one to phone for additional info.


The roommate and I scrambled around on Tuesday, made arrangements to be there at 2:00. When I finally got hold of someone from KGARL, she said that she was the person who normally pulled the dogs for adoption outside the county, but that she was away all day, and she'd try to get someone there by 2:00. She wasn't sure who, but she'd try.


We go there at 2:00 and received a phone call from the woman who was going to meet us there. She was friendly and nice, as were the animal control officers. We paid our money, snagged our dog and ran.


He was a relatively good dog all the way home, he wanted to watch out the front of the car while we drove, but moved when he was told, and occasionally delivered little doggy kisses.


When we got home, we wandered around the backyard for a few minutes, he was calmish, so I let him off the leash. On a note to anyone adopting a dog, never, ever let the dog off the leash, even in an enclosed space, until you and he both know that he lives here now.


The dog next door barked, the heat pump kicked in and a truck backfired out across the back forty, and the dog started running. The yard is covered in leaves, and when we tried to catch him it made a big crunching noise, and he thought that whoever we were, we probably ate dogs.


He ran for two hours. I called KGARL and left a message begging for help. Their response was to send an e-mail to a third party saying I sounded like I needed some assistance. No One responded on the phone, and it was two days before anyone responded by e-mail. I can't tell you how abandoned we felt by the people who had promised to devote their resources to making the dog adoption work.

I called the vet in tears, asking if they had any advice. One of the vet techs, Heather, an angel sent by God, actually came to the house. We tried every trick in the book, and none of them worked. With the Vet's permission, we tranquilized some food. He ate, he calmed, he was caught. (I wonder what that looks like in Latin?) By the time we caught him he had been running for a solid six hours. Inside, he paniced in the crate. It was a long horrible night.

I called in "sick of the dog" to work the next day, as did the roommate. We got an appointment at the vet for that afternoon and hunkered down for the day. He picked a spot in the living room, in front of the bookcase, behind the magazine rack and settled in. He avoided the cats studiously. He ate with an absolutely scary level of dedication. He successfully took care of business outside, which was promising.

We took him to the vet, and they gave him all his shots and did the initial exam. He was Heartworm Negative. He had no internal parasites. It's a tiny miracle, really. They gave us the Stray Discount and we left him there overnight so they could neuter him the next day.

That night, there was sleeping, and a lot of it, since we didn't know how he was going to be when he came home.

When we picked him up from the vet, he was a little drugged, so I decided to let him stay in the bedroom instead of his crate. No noise, no fuss, he put his head under the bed, gave a great sigh of relief and went to sleep. Other than waking me up every two hours to make sure everything was OK, he was FANTASTIC.

I finally got hold of the animal behaviorist from KGARL, who gave me some outstanding advice and support for getting him used to his crate. Unfortunately, one of the pieces of advice was to try him on a "marrow-bone" to see if the activity would help him be calm. He attacked Tabby over the bone. Bone taken away, durable resources will be with-held until we can provde some additional training.

It's been three weeks, all of it non-stop action. The animal behaviorist from KGARL has provided advice and support and has been utterly invaluable. He still doesn't quite get the potty outside thing, but it's coming along. We've been able to transition him to a tether and then to complete freedom in the backyard, and he trots right inside when we come in. He's still good with the cats, and he's learned to sit, lie down and "leave it" when presented with his dinner (so we can get our hands out of the way before the feeding frenzy begins.) He takes treats without trying to remove fingers. He walks loose-leash with a minor amount of prompting, and will cheerfully potty along the route. He won't cheerfully potty in the backyard, but I guess we'll get there.


He had his first bath on Sunday a week ago, and was an angel.

We had a minor setback last Tuesday, when Tabby went to the vet to have a mass removed. Malachi shredded his blankets and urinated on everything. A different animal behaviorist says that he did that thinking that he had lost his pack, and the shredding and urination is a way to help his pack find him again. He tears up his bankets and urinates if left alone in his create for any length of time, but hopefully he'll grow out of it as he gets more secure.

We had a foot of snow and he LOVES to play in it. He rolls and runs and plays with Tabby!!

Now we're mostly caught up, I'll try to stay a little more current.

Tabitha has been very lonely being an only dog, and two months of no dog is more than I can stand, so we've been looking at Petfinder to see what happens. I indicated that I was interested in an Extra-Large Male dog. We usually get Rottweilers, Mastiffs and Great Danes, and I really wanted something fluffy, so we just kept looking. One day, we saw:


Extra-Large, Male and Fluffy. Looks NOTHING like Zachary, except. . . He reminds me of him when we first got him. A little scared and confused, uncertain and afraid.

King George Animal Control is not a no-kill shelter. Mostly in places like that puppies and small dogs get adopted pretty quick, the larger, older dogs are not adopted quickly, sometimes they aren't adopted at all.

I called and spoke to a really terrifc animal control officer (whose name I wish I could remember) who told me that since Mr. Shepard Mix was unneutered, I couldn't adopt him directly from the shelter. He told me to call King George Animal Rescue League, who could "pull" the dog for me and let me adopt from them. I called and left a message, and received a phone call about an hour later from Ms. Victoria Tate. (In my opinion, Ms. Tate deserves an award, a large cash reward. She's fantastic.)

Ms. Victoria told me to fill out an application and encouraged me to come up and meet Mr. Shepard Mix. She told me that bringing Tabby along was great and she sent me pictures, and a glowing recommendation for the dog.

Pictures:





He looks like a dog version of MorGeorge (whose pictures are generally captioned "What?" )

I drove up with Tabitha, and left her in the car. Inside they took me back to the kennel area and let me see him. The noise level was unreal. There are only about a dozen kennels, and every dog in the place was barking it's head off, except for Mr. Mix. He was really nervous, but one of the dog walkers (The two I met were really, really nice and the girl I was working with was so patient and so nice to me and Mr. Mix. Wonderful people.)

We went outside on a leash, no pulling, a little pacing, but I'd put that down to nerves generated by his environment. He let the young lady cut some of the mats off from around his ears, and while fearful, was not snappy or growly. A good sign.

I got Tabitha out of the car and let them meet. There was some posturing, and a little growling, but ten minutes later they were fine. I took him back in and walked him through the room with the cat kennels, where he tried to escape as soon as one of them growled at him. I'm going to take that as a positive sign.

The lady from KGARL called ten seconds after I got up this morning, so I talked to her, enjoyed our conversation, and I have no idea what her name is. My apologies. She wants pictures of the fenced back yard,so I thought you guys might like to see them too:

This is across the back deck to the gate


This is across the back yard from one corner to the other. It's a pretty good size, not huge, but not postage stamp either

This is from the middle of the back down to the front corner

Here's the crate room. Tabby's is the small one on the left, he'll have the Ginormous one on the right. We usually keep memory foam mattresses in them, covered with cheap blankets. I would expect we'll just give him blankets the first day so he doesn't eat the memory foam. Then if that works, he can have a comfy bed for the day.

And lastly, his comfy bed in the bedroom where he will eventually spend his nights.

I really am trying to be more regular with this.

We were on the Story of Pendergast when last we met . . . .


So, Mr Dignified showed up and was cured of what we believe to be Bartonella, a bacterial infection. Minor miracle, seriously.

He had no interest in the other kitties, and no interest in petting or lap time. He didn't play. I have a kitty hammock on the table and he spent most of his time there. I never heard him purr. About two months ago, he started pitching a screaming hissy fit when I put him in the bedroom at night. After three consecutive evenings spent under the bed growling, I decided to let him stay out and about at night. I really started thinking that I'd made a mistake and he was never going to adjust or be happy here.



I talked to the roommate, who reminded me that our goal was not to adopt a lapcat, but to give him a life outside of a crate. In this we have been successful, and if he never decides to be part of the family as a whole, he's still better off with windows and kitty cups instead of most of his time in a crate.

OK. Attitude adjusted.

Fast forward a couple of months. He has become more and more "sociable", sitting out in the living room, separate and aloof, but still, out with the rest of the crew. Sometimes he sits on the couch. (!) He plays with the cat teaser, and has switched over to wet food from dry. I can't comb him, and God help whoever tries to trim his nails, but he greets me at the door, and meows if you talk to him. Go figure.

Here's a more current picture or two. Isn't he beautiful?