Eva Loves Cuddles

What you can't see in the pic above, is that Eva is lying on top of Wash, while tucking herself into my armpit; and Zoe is curled around my back. Jayne is there just looking on.

That one was from tonight... I kicked her out of her "tucked into the armpit" position, which Jayne promptly took up (but he doesn't fit under my arm, he just takes up most of my lap with his head). So she crawled over the back of the couch, laid on top of Jayne, and put her head into the side of my neck. 

Badger also loves cuddles, but, being a cat, he is harder to capture in "cuddle position"; at least while you can still see his head, and not just his gigantic cat ass.

Can you believe that this skinny scraggly thing from seven months ago, is the same cat:

A loss in the family

It's a very bad day here... probably gonna be a bad couple of days...

Somehow, over the past couple months, we went from a three dog household; to a four dog (though one is just a temporary guest. Been meaning to post about her for a couple weeks and just hadn't got round to it. I'll do it in a couple days) and two cat household.

It wasn't intentional on our part, it just sorta happened.

Unfortunately, today we are one less.

This morning, I had to put one of the cats down.

The littlest member of our family, River the tailless wonder... Well, from the beginning, we noticed she had an unhealthy streak of daring to her. She would always be going where she she shouldn't, doing things she shouldn't...

Hell, it's why we named her River. It's probably how she ended up being a tailless wonder. Even the night she showed up, we had to rescue her from predators.

It could be charming, but also irritating, and at times worrisome.

Over the past couple weeks, she developed a very unwise and unhealthy habit of taunting the dogs. Running up to them, then running away; sitting just out of reach behind a locked gate etc...

Well, this morning, she was alternating getting into play fights with Badger (the bigger kitty; and he has got big indeed, swelling to garfieldian proportions over the past couple months), and running down the stairs to taunt the dogs at the gate (we have a gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep the dogs out).

Understand, we're talking about 300lbs+ worth of bully breed dogs, who are used to playing rough with each other (they draw blood, unintentionally, but somewhat regularly).

Now, I knew this was what she was doing, because I could hear it; and had heard her doing it a dozen times before over the past couple weeks.

Then things went south...

I heard her and the dogs start going back and forth at the gate; them sticking their noses through, her batting at their noses or sticking a paw through... Then I herd one of the dogs yelp, and her another one get a nip in at River a second later.

I know what that sounds like; it's happened before, and it's usually no big deal. Generally one of the dogs gets a nip in, then she just runs like the proverbial scalded cat, and hides under the bed or somesuch.

... but instead of running and hiding, for some reason, she fought.

... and dogs being dogs, they all piled into the fray.

At that point, Mel and I were up and running to get down the stairs (we were up in the bedroom), but there was already a three dog, one cat, furball going.

... and things ended up about as you would expect when a 5 pound cat starts a fight with three dogs that collectively weigh over 250lbs.

The dogs broke off the second we got there; and the whole fight lasted maybe 20 seconds from the nip to the end... but it was already too late.

I won't go into painful detail... suffice it to say, I know when it's not a survivable injury, and it wasn't.

At the end, I know she wasn't feeling anything when I put her down.

We're... devastated is inadequate. It's been two hours, and Mel has barely stopped crying. We both feel, just sick. Mel can't even look at the dogs.

It's hard enough to lose one under any circumstances, but like that... And we had to see it happen...

Yeah... it's gonna be a bad couple of days.

One thing I forgot about having a kitten....

Just how much blood is involved.

MY blood that is.

Especially since she's a jumper AND a climber.

...and she likes my shoulders as both a comfy perch, and as a launching platform for leaps to greater heights.

Oh for gods sake, not another one...

So, a few minutes ago, we heard some noise from out in the yard. I'm pretty sure I heard some 'yote chirping and yipping; and there was some obviously distressed wailing.

It's nearly pitch black out tonight, between the new moon, and the smoke from the Washington forest fires (it's been a problem south of us for days; but just finally reached us today), but we went out to check it out (firearms ready of course... This IS north Idaho) ... And still couldn't see a damn thing; but we could certainly hear it.

When we went out to investigate we disturbed a large animal of some kind, and several smaller ones; which jumped and ran away (the large animal running all the way down into the lake); leaving behind a terrified wailing little thing:

Who instantly jumped into Mels arms, and started purring.

Apparently, after the first one, it's gone around stray cat circles that we're a bit of a soft touch for a sob story...

She's a black female, green eyes, unspayed, and as you can see there, she has a fairly distinctive feature: She's got no tail.

It looks like her tailless state is from a non-surgical amputation at about the second tail vertebrae. It's fully healed and grown over, but it was definitely a post birth injury, and not surgical.

She's pure black, and hasn't been declawed; but her claws are clean, not ragged, and seem to have been trimmed at least once.

She's only about a foot long nose to tail root, and if she weighs two pounds I'd be surprised. From her size and state of maturity, I'd call her four to five months old.

She's completely clean, no matting of the fur; no sign of mites, lice, fleas or ticks (or any other visible infection or parasite), and seemingly has no other injuries.

She does have what seems to be a bit of inflammation at the rectum (we're keeping her isolated from the other animals); but her stool seems clean and healthy, but very dry and firm (she may be dehydrated, and she certainly attacked the bowl of water we gave her).

She's also incredibly affectionate, very purry, very curious, and very vocal.

She's housebroken... in fact, she started looking for a litterbox shortly after we brought her into the house; and the second we gave her one, she used it.

Oh, and VERY VERY HUNGRY... but apparently unused to wet food:

As with the last one... who is now a permanent (and very happy) member of our household by the way... clearly, this is a well socialized, well cared for cat, that someone is probably missing. 

Unfortunately, also as with the last one, we haven't seen any posters around, and no-one local posted anything on craigslist or in the pennysaver...

Tomorrow (or later today I guess, given it's now 3am) we'll ask around the neighbors, go to the local vet, put some up notices, check the local free paper and pay paper again, call local animal control etc... 

Funny thing, having a lost and damaged little black cat show up needing our help, right at this time in our lives, and on the eve of the autumnal equinox.

 Well... Another opportunity to pay it forward.

A hard day

Some time this morning, our cat Kimber crawled into our washing machine, settled herself comfortably on some clothes, and she died.

She hadn't been eating well... She had a large benign cyst that grew into her brain case about two years ago. It wasn't growing any more, but it still bothered her. She would sometimes claw and scratch at it, causing her to bleed, and to get minor infections.

It seems that she tore it out this time, and it killed her. I found the remains of the cyst nearby her body.

A few hours later, one of the girls found her...

We lost her littermate Springer about a year ago; now she's gone too, not even 4 years old.








There are some pics of the two of them as kittens.

It was a rough day.

Springer

One of our cats died Saturday.

I wrote a few weeks ago that we would have to put Kimber down soon, and that's still true, though she's doing well enough at the moment that it may not be for another couple months, or at least a few more weeks.

Unfortunately, this was our other cat Springer. She had sudden onset kidney failure. Thursday she was fine, Friday she was hiding from us all day, and Saturday she was gravely ill.

We took her to the emergency animal hospital where they made it clear there was no chance of recovery; and likely there would not have been even if we had got her in there the day before; because there was no clear cause of the kidney failure. The vet said it was likely poisoning, but could have been an unnoticed congenital condition. So, we put her down.

The kids haven't really absorbed it yet.

"Hey, that's MY spot there"

I JUST missed the snap where the cat was sprawled out, asleep, half on her back half on her side; and completely taking up my side of the bed. Cutest thing I've seen in a long time. Unfortnuately she moved by the time I had the camera out.