Saturday, January 31, 2015

Determination

As I mentioned previously, Brook has recovered from her eye surgery and is back to normal. Her normal is getting into the compost, the garbage and the cat food at every opportunity.  It is funny to watch her act so casual and stop and try to determine if anyone is around. She will tilt her head and listen (as best she can) and then continue. There have been times where I've yelled out, "I'm right here!" and watched her turn around ever so casually and walk the other way as if she wasn't planning to do anything.

Rather than close the door to the living room, it is easier to have an old baby gate in place. This allows the cats to come through and prevents the dogs from going upstairs to the litter box and cat food.  

Brook is especially fond of cat kibbles and tries her best to get through the gate. 

First, she stands and listens.

"Don't hear anything..."

Then when there is nobody telling her to leave it, time to try and squeeze through.


That opening didn't work, so she tries another.


That is as far as she has been able to get. I know that if she pushes, the old flimsy gate will break. Hopefully that won't happen. When we are all in the living room, none of the dogs bother going upstairs. It seems that the forbidden is most desirable.

(PS the light coloured area at the back of Brook's shoulder was shaved for the application of a pain patch following her surgery)

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Got snow?

Our winter weather this year has brought us very little snow. This picture was taken on New Year's Day.



Yesterday there was a blizzard warning with a forecast of 25 cm/10 inches of snow and wind gusts of 90 km per hour/56 miles per hour.  I'm not sure that we received the forecast amount of snow but we sure did have lots of wind and as a result, drifting snow.

As you can imagine, some of the pack thought that was fantastic.

Brook and Molly

It is typical for Trail and Molly to stay outside running around and the others to want inside after a few minutes.  Sometimes the door person is a little slow and needs prompting to open the door.

"Let us IN!"


Being the observant type you are, I know you are wondering where Callie is in all of this.  She is being encouraged to rest since she has been having some problems with her leg.  Initially it seemed like a minor issue and after a couple of days she was fine but it is bothering her again, so no rowdy times in the snow for now.


Saturday, January 24, 2015

An update and a kitten.

We have been doing fine since our last post.  I know that it has been a while but we're still all here and doing fine. Again, there was the struggle with an internet connection. I think that I have found a great solution though - an old laptop and the wifi at the library. A bonus is that there is a shared lobby with an arena and in the lobby there are tables and chairs for those times when the library isn't open. 

Brook has completely recovered from her surgery and is back to getting into mischief again. That in itself is a good indication that she is feeling fine!

 A few weeks ago we were experiencing very cold temperatures with overnight lows around -18C/-4F and windchills making it feel more like -29C/-20F. It was during this that someone at work told me about two little kittens that had been put outside because the people that had them didn't want them any more.  (I believe there is a special place in hell for people like that...) 

The lady that told me about this was going to try and find them with the plan to keep one but she wasn't sure what she was going to do with the other one. (you know where this is going don't ya?!)

His name is now Arthur.


It only took about a day and a half for Arthur to be completely comfortable and very confident around the dogs. Elsie and Alice, the other kitten, welcomed him into our home with only a few hisses the first afternoon then Alice spent some time explaining the dogs.


Yesterday, all the dogs got hooves and Arthur was right there to see what was going on. He settled in and had a few licks of a hoof with Trail.

In case you are wondering, yes, Alice is female and Arthur is male. Both around four to five months of age. Not to worry though, they both were fixed earlier this week.