TheBanyanTree: Today

[Sachet]

Bravo, Pammie!

You make having six pets look so easy!

On Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 1:14 PM Pam James via TheBanyanTree <
thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:

> I can't remember what my life was like before I started being owned by
> 'pets'!  Well, actually, I guess that was another lifetime... I had kids,
> and in between I had a few husbands, so maybe my life wasn't ready for them
> then.  But now!  Oh my, but now...
>
> Slowly, through the years, I started collecting pets.  It began with a
> dog.  ONE dog.  When my last husband moved out, he took his dog and I  kept
> Annie, a neurotic Great Dane who HATED car rides and the vet's office.  She
> ended up with bone cancer and I had the vet's office come here to put her
> down.  She was the dog who taught me what it really means to lose a
> 'pet'... I had thought before I got it, but I had not!
>
> After a few months I reached out to the Great Dane rescue and got another
> dog - his name was Axel, and he was my soul dog!! - he hated for me to
> leave him, and he hated other dogs.  (Then is the chance with rescue
> animals - you have no idea of the trauma that they've lived through!)  So I
> considered getting him his own kitten.  And I vacillated because that meant
> cleaning a litter box, and I'd sworn those off when the last cat I had
> died!  But then my neighbors told me they were going to the pound to look
> at cats, and did I want to go?  There was my sign!  And before we went I'd
> already purchased all the 'stuff' I'd need - including a new litter box!
>
> And I found the sweetest little white ball of fluff that I named Ganache,
> but called 'Nash'.  Walking by all those cages, this teensy face meowed to
> me, and when I picked up its wet little self, it curled into my chest and
> went to sleep.  SCORE!  After a slow get-to-know-you period, Nash and Axel
> bonded and were friends, and we went loads of places together since they
> both loved the car!
>
> We had a few very pleasant months together, and then Axel broke his front
> leg walking outside one morning, and during our trip to the emergency vet
> we found out that he had bone cancer, the same bone cancer that just a few
> weeks before the doctor had told me that he did NOT have - the kind that
> spreads all over and can't be cured that Annie had died from - and so I
> petted him and bawled as they put him to sleep.  (I just could not bear the
> thought of amputating and chemo and all the stress - he hated the vets'! -
> for a few more months.)
>
> And within a few months I lost Nash because that sweet little kitty with
> the heart murmur also had other neurological problems and the vet told me
> that they couldn't be fixed either.   And it was a different vet's office
> because I never went back to the SOB who told me my dog was fine when he
> was not...
>
> I had had the best dog and the best cat, and maybe I've just been trying to
> reach that nirvana again...But within a few weeks of losing Axel, I'd
> reached out to be a mom to another Dane who needed me!  I had a hole and
> love, and I thought I shouldn't waste it!  They showed me a photo of Bo,
> and I jumped at the chance to be his mom.  <sigh> Bo is a moron... A giant
> ball of dumbassery that I can't give back!  We've done classes and
> training, and even a dog whisperer.  He bit the dog whisperer and I've
> never heard from them again.
>
> Meanwhile, this big lug LOVES his mom and doesn't bite everybody.  I
> actually can't figure out who he'll bite because he's very choosy.  I
> thought it was just men, but then he happened onto a couple of women. Both
> were in my home and I was not.  So now I don't trust him with anybody!
> Anyway.
>
> Several months after adopting Bo I was reading the Rescue's Facebook page
> and they had a female Dane who was deaf, and they said that she'd need to
> go to a home with another dog and a fence.  I said, 'well I've got those!',
> and we had two dogs.  Now I tell folks I've got two Danes:  one's deaf and
> the other is dumb!  (I'm not a nice mom sometimes!)
>
> In between, I got another cat.  Well, I got a cat from a friend of a
> friend, and the cat had feline AIDS.  It cannot be around any other cat as
> that disease is contagious to other cats.   I said I'd give it a try, but
> the cat hated our home.  For more than two weeks it hid under a bed in a
> room I closed off just for it.  I gave it space and time but it didn't warm
> to me.  I reached back out to the original owner and told her I didn't
> think it was working.  She pleaded for me to give it another week or so.  I
> did, and I got scratched up trying to get close.  And then the woman
> ghosted me.  Nothing.  And so I had to take this cat to the pound.  I knew
> that they'd put the cat down, but it had no quality of life with me, and I
> had none either.  But no worries!  Guilt got me and I walked out with
> another kitty in its place!  This one I called 'Tiramisu', and shortened it
> to Mee-sue!  Such. A. Sap.
>
> Somewhere in there my son and his girlfriend broke up.  They had gotten a
> little white non-allergenic mixed dude they called 'Everest'.  While he
> moved home, she stayed in the apartment with the dog.  After things calmed
> a bit, she allowed us weekend visitations with Everest, and then she
> realized that he loved us all here, more than being alone during the day
> there.  Here he had Bo to play with and there he had nothing.  So she gave
> him to us.  Then she moved to California and my son moved back into the
> apartment!  Because his job required him to work 12-hour-plus shifts, I
> kept Everest with me still!
>
> Then my neighbors who'd taken me to the pound with them a few years before,
> went to Georgia to visit their family and found a family of kittens under
> the porch.  I got photos, and they asked if I wanted another?!  NO!!!!  But
> these sweet babies needed a mom!!  I said to bring me home the white
> one...  and I named that sweet baby 'Creampuff'.  (Hilarious now since
> there is nothing white about that cat!)
>
> Note to self:  *ALL* kittens are adorable and cute and precious and they
> all grow into annoying cats with bad habits!!!  But I get sucked in
> everytime!!
>
> And because I just have that face, one day I got a call from a friend who
> told me that she had a little Yorkie who needed a home, did I want her?
> Well NO, of course I don't, but yes, certainly, bring her over!!!  This
> little chick hadn't been to a vet in years and years, nor had she ever been
> groomed.  Total neglect.  And, they hadn't trained her to leave the house
> to pee, they just put pads down!  Great!
>
> Everest had been trained to ring the bells to go out, BUT!, if Charlotte
> (that's her name!) was going to pee inside, why couldn't he?  In fact, why
> couldn't he just pee wherever the hell he wanted?!?!?  Asshole.
>
> And now I have six animals.  Two Danes, two yappers, and two cats.  And I
> am their slave.  I no longer have carpeting.  I have a few throw rugs that
> I can toss those in the washer.  I can't leave anything on the counters or
> Bo will get it.  I can't have plants by themselves, they have to be crowded
> onto flat surfaces where there isn't an inch for a cat to jump onto because
> these bastards will chew off limbs!!  They own me.
>
> This morning as I sat teleworking in my 'office' (the room that was once
> the hidden home for the sick cat), Everest started whining.  He starts with
> the smallest little sounds from deep in his throat.  And then those sounds
> get louder and longer and whinier, and eventually they just become barks!
> Wanna know why?
>
> We have routines.  Every morning we get up and I let them all out.  They
> come back in and I feed them, and turn the coffee pot on.  Then we all pile
> into the office (which is actually called 'The Happy Room' because years
> ago my daughter left me with a cat that I didn't want, but she went off
> with some boy and I got stuck and the cat owned the whole room with its
> litter box and food, gated off from whichever dog we had then, but I
> finally made her find it a home and I changed the carpet and repainted the
> room and made it new and fresh and happily mine again and I called it
> "Happy" once, and it stuck!!)  so I can log on and get started.
>
> Eventually I will go get a cup of coffee.  And that involves getting my
> frozen coffee ice cubes from the freezer along with a bag of frozen pumpkin
> treats and a half gallon of vanilla ice cream!  I get the ice cubes to
> start my first cup, and whoever wants one gets a pumpkin treat.  Then I
> have to smoosh four happy pills into a spoonful of ice cream for Bo (it's
> supposed to help his anxiety but I don't really think that there are enough
> pills in the world for that!) and I walk down the hall to the bedroom where
> he went immediately after coming back in from going outside, and I have to
> push them down his throat and make him swallow since he's been spitting the
> blob out lately.  Charlotte will follow me down the hall and back because
> somebody may drop something, and then we race back to the kitchen so
> everybody else can get a tiny taste of ice cream also, and then Misu can
> lick my fingers.
>
> Our routine... everybody has a part to play, and they all play it
> well, including me!  This morning Everest wanted to make sure I didn't
> forget my part!
>
> I started thinking about our routines as I stumbled around this morning,
> and then I thought I should write about it, and then I started - but it's
> turned out to be more about them than the routines.... should I delete it?
> start over?
>
> Or just hit send?
>
> Pam
>
> Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you
> forgotten your password? Go here:
> http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com
>