Missyisms

Rich Dog, Richer Dog

You may have heard, and probably cried when you did, that the late Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her dog. Yep. The dog is richer than us. I've done my best to ignore the story. I have no idea who has been named to scoop out the money for poochie. I have no idea what happens to the money when doggie dies. I'm not sure how the stash will be divided if the pooch marries and then gets divorced. I just don't care.

But here's a story to renew our faith in rich people and dogs.

J.K. Rowling recently purchased a dog from a rescue center, and she did it through the normal channels. The Murray family (Rowling's married name) called and requested to come see the rescue center's dogs and answered their interview questions ("I work at home"...there's an understatement). After picking the greyhound they wanted, Rowling wrote a check. Ah, but not Helmsley-check. When asked to make a £30 donation for the dog, Ms. Rowling wrote a £1,000 check.

Ms. Rowling did it the right way. She gave a dog a home. She gave the rescue center a chunk of money to keep rescuing more dogs. And she let the rescue center publish her picture with the dog and release the story...a quiet way to encourage others to rescue dogs. Good for her!

The ADORABLE Baby Raccoon

I went over to my parent's for dinner tonight and after I pulled over to the curb just past their house, I noticed another car pulling over just before their house. As I gathered my stuff, I watched a man get out of his SUV and start to walk up my parent's lawn. Only he was walking slightly bent over and wasn't heading toward the door. I adjusted the angle of my rear view mirror and saw that he was walking toward a small animal.

At first I thought the animal was a rat...YUCK and bad trouble...but decided it was just a smidge too big, so I thought it might be a young opossum. But then it flicked it's tail and I realized it was a baby raccoon! I grabbed my camera and joined the man and took the picture below. This made the youngster look at me, so I spoke to him and he started walking toward me. I decided this wasn't good...didn't want his mom to smell human on him...so I backed away. This seemed to upset the raccoon and it backed away from me. It was strange, the little guy was waddling around on it's little legs and was shaking, but didn't seem afraid of us. It was as if it knew it was lost, it knew it needed help, and it thought we were the help. The raccoon then walked toward the man and when he also backed away, it decided to hide in the bushes. I felt so bad! It was just adorable and I bet it was soft and cuddly, but it might have scratched us, bit us, or have been carrying a disease. (Considering it's body, not counting the tail, was only 5 to 6 inches long, we did have the size advantage, so it is sort of funny that we backed away.)

We did want to help, so I called the police department's animal control division and they said it was most likely one of two things:

1. A rambunctious youngster that had wondered out of his nest for the first time and was lost.
2. A sickly baby who's mother had tossed it out of the nest. :-(

They said they'd come out to check. If they decided it was number 1 above, they would catch the raccoon and put it in an open crate. This way the little dude was protected from the elements, but if its mother came looking, she could knock over the crate and take her offspring home. If it was number 2 above, they would immediately take the raccoon to an animal shelter.

By this time, the raccoon was in the bushes, lying on it's side and not moving. The man, who's name I never learned, thought it was dieing. I think it was taking a nap. When animal control arrived and started poking in the bushes with a loop on a pole, the little guy woke up and started squawking. He was not happy! Once she caught him and pulled him out of the bushes he was clearly healthy and ticked at being caught.

She put him in a plastic crate and turned it on it's tall end with a towel covering the opening at the top. This would protect it some, but would also allow the mother to rescue it if she came looking. The animal control gal put the crate up against the house, but behind some bushes where it could stay dry and not attract the attention of people walking by. She's coming back tomorrow morning to check on it. If it's still there, she'll take it to an animal rescue shelter where they will nurture it. I hope the mom finds it.

If it wasn't so late, I'd tell you about the raccoon that had babies in my parent's fireplace chimney. And about the baby opossum that got into my house once. But they'll have to wait for another day.

(I only took the two pictures above because I didn't want to scare it any further than it already was. Unfortunately, there's really nothing in either picture to compare its size against. He was small and adorable. Click on the image to go to Zooomr, then click on "All Sizes" for a better view.)

UPDATE on June 28, 2007: My father went outside around 7:15 this morning and the crate was no longer standing on in, but was lying on its side. Unfortunately, the open side was a way from Dad and he didn't want to crawl into the bush to check. He watched for the animal control woman to come back, but she came and went so fast that he missed her. So...we don't really know what happened. We hope the mother found the baby and took him home. I'd like to think that he's safely home now, but grounded for a week!

Missy vs. Reggie (Continued)

Zooomr has finally been up long enough for me to update my Missy vs. Reggie post from the other day with some pictures. They are images of Reggie trying to get on the table in the 3-season room. You'll notice that he's trying to maneuver around the ottoman I put on the table to block him. It seems wrong that I have to move a table to protect a dog, but that's life with a dog. Good grief.

One image is below, the others are here.

Missy vs. Reggie

It rained steadily all day long. Just a constant solid rain; no drizzle, no downpour, just rain, rain, rain. I didn't mind too much, I've been busy working all day. I kept hoping it would stop in the afternoon so the gutters would dry up enough for me to get on the roof and clean them out. It did stop raining late afternoon, but I ended up having to do things other than cleaning the gutters.

Reggie, on the hand, was antsy all day and kept pestering me. The rain didn't seem to bother him, but he just wasn't content to play with his toys or nap. He kept trying to get on the table in the three-season room and I kept having to stop him. Clearly a dog on a tabletop is wrong for just scads of reasons...but he doesn't care. It's a challenge to get up there, the view into the backyard is improved, so up he wants to go.

Sadly, this whole post is completely boring because Zooomr is down (AGAIN) and I can't post any of the pictures I took of Reggie trying to sneak on to the table!

UPDATE: As you can see, I finally added a few shots, but it was two days after the original post. Good grief, Zooomr. I put the blue, cushion/ottoman on the table to block his attempts, but as you can see, he's determined to get up there. The table has now been moved.

Mother's Day

Ain't nothin' like wantin' to go to bed and one's dog is outside, wide awake, barking, and chasing animals that left the yard right before he got there. Sigh.

Happy Mother's Day!

Growing Bud

Almost a year ago I introduced you to Buddy...see how he's grown!

He's a lot bigger than he used to be, but he's still cute, sweet, funny, and smart! (Click either image to enlarge.)

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick

Since he's seems to be completely over the infection he had in January, Reggie had a rabies shot today...and several others. Poor guy.

The first time Reg had a rabies shot, nothing negative happened. The second time Reggie had a rabies shot he had a bad allergic reaction. The third time Reggie had a rabies shot they gave him a shot of anti-histamine at the same time. A short time later a large lump developed where the vets had injected the rabies vaccine. Can you see the downward pattern here?

Ever since then, Reggie doesn't get a rabies shot...nope, he gets three shots. One shot each of rabies vaccine, steroids, and anti-histamine. Poor pincushion-pooch.

We also switched him to the 3-year vaccine so he doesn't have to go through this as often. Three years ago, after his previous shots, he started having health problems four days after the shot, but there was no way of knowing if they were related to the vaccine.

This morning, Reggie had the three shots, plus an exam and a blood test. Now we wait and watch. I'll stay home all day today and a lot over the next few days to watch him. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...

Pet Food Recall

If you have a dog or cat, check out this web page to see if his or her food is being recalled. This is extremely important for your pet's health...do NOT ignore this recall if your pet's food is on the list.

Reggie eats dry food and his brand isn't on the list, so he's ok.

The Day After

Here are some pictures I took the day after the storm. Except near trees, the snow was so deep Reggie had to jump, instead of run, around until we dug some paths. Click any picture for a bigger view over on Zooomr. Enjoy.

I took the picture below as a comparison to the storm we had on Dec. 1, 2006. This snow was a little deeper, but a lot lighter!

Update Bullets

• The weather here is still dangerously cold, but slowly improving. It's actually warmer this evening than it was around noon...by a whopping three degrees...but the "feel like" temperature is zero F and that's worse than it was at noon.
• This morning Reggie and I were late to the vet's because my garage door opener wouldn't even attempt to open the door. And if cold wasn't enough, it started snowing making the morning roads very slick. Nothing like shoveling snow when it is 7 degrees outside! The next few days are supposed to warm up and I think we'll all be happy, happy, happy about that.
• I called to tell a 6-year old happy birthday today and she hung up on me because "It's present time!" LOL. (We talked later, after she opened her presents.)
• Reggie had been showing signs of improvement. He'd been sleeping through the night and not asking to go out as often during the day...it looked like the antibiotics were helping! Yay. But the past few days he's going out a lot again, but not for long because he doesn't like the cold either, and the nightly calls returned. Today we went to the vet's for a re-test. If his two previously off cell counts were normal, we'd know he'd just had an infection and things were back to normal. If his two cell counts were still too high, we'd have done an ultra scan to look for a tumor in the bladder. Well...one cell count was essentially back to normal; and the other was better, but still too high. We talked a long time and decided to do nothing...not even the rabies shot because they've caused their own problems for Reggie in the past. If he continues to wake me up, we're to return in a few days for the ultra scan. Otherwise, we'll re-test in a few weeks. I really would like to sleep through a night (several in a row would be even better) without having to pull on a winter coat, hat, and boots to let Reggie out. I'd like even more for Reg to be better!