Spring Is Here. (Finally.)

Well, it's nice to see that all of the snow is gone. I just wanted to share with you what our view looks like every night...


Relaxing. :)

Even some flowers are coming up through our bajillion leaves...




We seem to be overrun with goldfinches. It's like they're taking over the world or something. (Sorry for the small picture.)


Nothing really new to report for Charlie and Henry... Just two new(er) pictures. :)




Here are a couple new pictures of Georgia and Bella. I don't know why Bella always looks so grumpy.





Nothing really new to report with the cats other than we took Cheech to the vet. He had been spraying/peeing randomly in our house and we couldn't take it anymore. We got him to the vet. He doesn't have a UTI. They put him on chicken flavored kitty prozac. He seems to actually be a ton happier. He's more cheerful. And I haven't noticed any spraying. So, hopefully that's for the best. Since moving here he has put his weight back on. So, he's 14.8 pounds now. We had a blood test done on him and he's in perfect health for his age.

That's all for now.

His First Week

Well, Auggie (Festival) has been home for a little over a week now. Maggie went in for her vaccinations on Saturday. Since I noticed that one of Auggie's sutures was still in his eye, we had him tag along. Our vet thinks his incision looks really good. He advised us to rub a little bit of vitamin E oil on it. And when Charlie and Henry go in for their neuterings next month to have Auggie tag along and he'll remove the suture. He wanted it to be in there for a while longer.

Anyway... Here are some pictures of the awesome little guy:


Sleeping on the cat tower. :)




Action shot!


Many thanks to Grandma and Grandpa McKinley for the new toys!

And here's a picture of Maggie because she's so pretty.

Festival (& Maggie)

Since I've mentioned him in my last two posts, you're probably wondering what Festival looks like... Brian and I adopted him today. And he's super sweet. He's walking around like he owns the place now. :)

We renamed him, too. Since he was rescued in August... Brian suggested that we name him Augustus. We'll have Festival as his middle name. We just don't want to be reminded that he was abandoned in pretty poor shape at a festival. But we like knowing that he was rescued in August. So, his name is Augustus "Auggie" Festival McKinley! I still call him Festival, too. It's hard not to.

Are you ready for some pictures of his first day in his forever home?






Sleepin'. :)


Mags loves him. :)

And since she wasn't pictured in my last post:

Pupdate & More!

Puppies:

Well, the puppies went to the vet today. They got their last vaccination. So, they are now donning their new collars with their tags. They had to get their ears plucked, too. (Any dog that's got poodle in them has to have this done routinely. Hair grows so thick in their ears. Wax can turn rancid... Which can start some nasty problems.) In the upcoming pictures Brian is administering their ear drops... There's also some playing, too. :)

Charlie weighed in at 28 pounds.
Henry weighed in at 27 pounds.

Since we're still having problems with potty training and discovered that Henry is a "submissive piddler" we have to have the pups tested for UTI's or anything that could be bothering them.

Their next appointment is May 6th. They'll be going in for the "snippety snip." They'll be 6 months old then. It's the best time for neutering. If you get them neutered before 6 months the lack of testosterone can effect their growth. And if you wait too much longer after 6 months, they can start becoming more aggressive and marking their territory. Needless to say, Brian and I cannot wait. They'll be a little more mellow afterward. :)

Kitties:
The cats are doing really well together. We bought this product called Feliway (look for it on amazon.) Feliway re-creates the pheromone that cats give off as they are rubbing their faces on you (when they're happy.) So, we've been spraying it on their common areas and on areas that they used to scratch on. We've noticed a huge improvement in their behavior. Cognac and Cheech still have their little squabbles, but everything else is going really well.

Maggie has adjusted really well here, too. She kind of declared Cheech her boyfriend... The feelings aren't mutual. :( She keeps trying. She pretty much loves all the other cats. Her and Georgia are cuddle buddies. :)

I know it seems crazy, but Brian and I will most likely be getting another cat. Brian and I love animals. We have such a large house to accommodate them. The new cat (I mentioned in my last post) is named "Festival." When we adopted Maggie the price for adopting 2 cats was the same as adopting one cat. So I asked her if she had any special needs kitties that people wouldn't normally adopt. She told me a little bit about Festival. He was basically abandoned at a festival in August. His foster mom found him and noticed that he was incredibly sick and that he had a fairly serious eye infection. After treating the infection and nursing him back to health he was tested for fe leuk and others. He was negative for all of them. They later discovered that the infection most likely made his cornea burst and his eye was causing him a lot of pain. Last Tuesday he went into surgery to have the entire eye removed. I heard on Thursday that he was doing much better. We meet him this upcoming Saturday and we'll most likely be bringing him home. While I know that I'll never be able to replace Aesop, Festival is also a black and white kitty without sight in his left eye. Knowing how amazing and wonderful Aesop was, I'm not going to turn Festival away.

Also, Brian and I are thinking about re-naming him. We don't want the constant reminder that he was abandoned at a festival. We were thinking maybe Fievel? (Referencing the movie "Fievel Goes West." Yes, I know it's about a mouse... But it's close to Festival.)

Any name suggestions?

Amy & Brian:

Brian and I are doing really well. Since the doctors found out what was wrong with me, I've been doing SO much better. In my last post I mentioned that I was going to the doctor to see if I'd lost any weight. As of February 15th I had lost 11 pounds. Wooooooo! I go back in April to see how much more I've lost. :)

Pictures:


Charlie getting his ear drops.


Eating.


Wrestlin'. :)


Cogs.


Cognac and Georgia. Buddies for life. :)


Cheechers.

And the best photo of the night...


I was trying to take a picture when Charlie came at me at full speed. :)

Mags

So, a few nights ago Brian and I went into Pet's Mart to buy some science diet for the cats and puppies. We decided to look at the cats in the adoption area...

With Aesop's death still so fresh in our minds, we weren't planning on adopting.

...Until with met Maggie. She has no tail. She was basically undesirable to most others. But not to Brian and I. Since the cost of adopting one cat was the same as adopting two, we put in for adoption for another cat, Lizzie. From birth she had a really nasty ear infection causing her head to permanently tilt.

I submitted an adoption application online and I got a call back from an Eileen the next day...

She said we got great reviews from our vets. Upon talking to her about Aesop, Amelia, and Cognac's struggles with blindness she told me that it was just so refreshing to talk to someone like me. She told me that I lived up to my name since Amy means beloved or to love. On my list of references she called my Mom. She didn't even ask my Mom anything. Eileen told her that she had raised a wonderful daughter.

While talking to Eileen she told me that Maggie had been in foster care for a year. It seemed that no one wanted her because she didn't have a tail. Shame on them. Brian and I don't really think of it as a mutation or a defect. We think of it more as a rarity. Eileen informed me that Lizzie had been adopted. She asked me if I had any other cats in mind since the price was the same... I asked, "Do you have any kitties with special needs?" She informed me of a cat dubbed "Festival." He was abandoned at a festival in the area and is really sick. She said he had an eye infection so bad that it caused him to be blind in one eye. I told Eileen that Aesop was blind in one eye and that we already had experience with it. She put our names down for Festival. However, he isn't out of the woods yet. He has a little ways to go. But if he passes a fe leuk test and makes a full recovery, he'll most likely be ours, too.

But for now, meet Maggie...










She loves our huge windows.

Update & Pupdate

Where to begin...

I've recently had some testing and things aren't going that great. I had to have a stomach emptying test about 3 weeks ago. The test showed that when given a "normal" sized meal my stomach takes just over 4 hours to even start emptying. yay.

Last week I had to be sedated for an upper GI scope. That was a trip... The doctor, an animated man with what could have been a fake southern accent, told me that I need to eat maybe 4 small meals a day and to stay away from fried foods, fatty foods, and roughage. (I already do.) While I was out he took some biopsies of a few things he didn't like and I should be getting the test results in the next couple days. He also said that my stomach was inflamed. (Mainly from my stomach taking too long to empty and stomach acid just sitting there.) He's also testing me for a bacteria that could be present and causing some inflammation. I also have some stress induced gastritis. (This is something I've had since childhood that flares up from time to time.)

I also learned that I'm hilarious under sedation. For instance, while I was waking up I was telling Brian the recipe for egg salad. I also tried IM'ing my Mom as soon as I got home saying, "my tum ibflamed."

I go to see my family doctor today to talk. And hopefully I've lost weight. I've dramatically changed my caloric intake and I've been exercising when I get the chance.

The puppies are doing really well. They have learned how to come, sit, lay down, and roll over. They are incredibly smart. I absolutely adore them. They are up to about 20 pounds each now. (They should be about 55-60 pounds as adults.) We've almost got potty training down. Henry alerts us when he has to go... Charlie doesn't. :/ But all in all they are doing well. They are just big puffy balls of cuteness.

Here are some recent pictures:



Georgia sleeping.



Cheech sleeping.



Cognac sleeping. (Notice a pattern here?)



Here is Bella fake sleeping.



A while back we babysat Natilee for a night. She loves those blocks. (Brian picked them out because he personally loved them growing up.)



Natilee again.

And now... PUPPIES.



Charlie.



Charlie again. (He's very photogenic. It's harder to get pictures of Henry since he's all black.)



They had just gotten back from the groomer... All puffed up. :)



"Mmmmm.... rawhide..."

He Was Perfect

I'm sad to announce that Aesop did not make it. It's so frustrating. He died on January 18th 2011. That morning when he came upstairs from using the litterbox I noticed he was really out of breath. Worried, I called the vet and made an appointment for 11:00 a.m. We got him to Dr. Hart and they did a chest x-ray. The x-ray showed that Aesop had at least two good sized tumors sitting on top of his heart pressing down on it. They could have been causing his heart murmur. Also the tumors were pushing up on his trachea.

We were told that we could have taken him home that day and that he could live a little longer, but he was likely to have a stroke, a heart attack, or suffocate. We put him down to prevent him from suffering. It would have broken my heart if Aesop had a stroke and had to wait 8 hours before we came home.

It's been one week. It has been so hard. In a few weeks I'll post a "Remembering Aesop" blog with pictures including the last picture that I took of him - Just like I did when Amelia passed on. Right now it's far too difficult to look at pictures.

Aesop was such a huge part of my daily routine. He was my shadow. If I turned around he was always there.

It also pains me that we had to put him down the day before he was to start treatment for leukemia. I plan on writing a letter in the near future to our past vet that told us we could do nothing for Aesop and Amelia. I'll explain to him why he will no longer be getting our money.

My heart is broken and I know that in time I will heal. Having two cute, cuddly puppies has helped somewhat. And even though we have 4 other cats, it seems like the house is so empty.

He was absolutely perfect. I miss him. In our final moments with him I told him that I was so proud of him and that he made it so far. He did and I am proud. There will never be another Aesop.
9/7/09 - 1/18/11 (16 months)