Chris & Joy's Critterweb » Calvin

Happy 9th birthday, Simon!

Chris — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:32:27 +0000

Today was Simon’s birthday, or at least it’s the day we celebrate it. Since Simon was a rescue that we adopted while living in Tucson, AZ, we kind of had to estimate by the age he was when we got him. We can’t believe he is actually NINE!

There was vanilla ice cream, and cheetos, two of Simon’s favorite things…

… though there was also no shortage of volunteers offering to help him finish the ice cream.

It being the first birthday party Paddy has attended, he had some etiquette issues involving others’ ice cream and had to have a leash.

Cricket was proud of her party outfit, which she got from Wag!…

Winter chose to show up fashionably late and missed the ice cream.

Olive isn’t much for crowds and watched from a distance.

Calvin didn’t have time to pick out an outfit so he made his own.

After the ice cream, everyone headed out to the park to play soccer.

Simon got to play first, it being HIS birthday…

…but Calvin couldn’t resist jumping in…

… and like many good parties (and sporting events) it kind of ended in a drunken brawl.

Medical supervision

Chris — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:08:45 +0000

This is Agatha. She came into the shelter so terribly matted she had to be sedated and shaved down. She didn’t recover well from the sedation so she spent Friday night at our house with blankets and a Snuggle-safe, while her body temperature came back up and she slowly came back around.

The boys were happy to help supervise her recovery.

Brotherly love

Chris — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:00:27 +0000

Simon loves his little brother… sometimes.

Dances with bees

Chris — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:54:51 +0000

This past weekend was a long weekend for us; Joy had Friday off so I took the day off as well. We’ve both been having trouble sleeping lately so we spent a lot of the weekend hanging out around the house. It’s been an unintentional tradition of sorts to spend long weekends at the vet’s and so we were a bit wary…

Cricket was the first to throw her hat in the ring; she erupted with a case of ‘gurgle-gut’ on Thursday evening, an affliction that involves losing her appetite, noises coming from her innards that can be heard from a mile away, and nasty colitis-y diarrhea. No dice, Cricket, that’s why they make Pepto Bismol.

Next there was Lindsy’s collapsing back legs, brought on by her pacing incessantly for hours outside. But after resting a while she was once again able to walk, more or less. Her health situation is getting pretty bad but she still seems mostly happy.

No, our bet for “who is getting rushed to the vet?” would have been either Calvin or Paddy, both of whom got to spend a lot of time in the yard and encountered bees for the first time in their lives. Paddy was particularly drawn to the carpenter bees, enormous bumblebees that mocked him by hovering just in front of his face. Calvin didn’t discriminate. He attacked anything that flew low enough. We joked that his Indian name would be “Dances With Bees” but by Sunday had changed that to “Stung Forty Times.” He is one stubborn little dude.

We did get through the weekend without an emergency bill. And think that Calvin only got stung once.

Isn’t it the second one you actually react to, if you are allergic?

Sunny Saturday

Chris — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:20:37 +0000

Well, it’s raining again today but yesterday was pretty nice… if a bit chilly. We had a vet appointment in the morning to get Paddy’s DHLPP booster and then bundled up a bit to sit out in the sun with the critters. Calvin is now allowed out with supervision (at least until we get the tree scrunchies installed on the cherry tree) and Winter didn’t get photographed much because she was off stalking birds. Olive didn’t make it into the photo gallery at all, because I figured we already have a bazillion pictures of her sitting watching for moles… but then again,we did take yet another picture of Simon upside down. Honest, the cat is not paraplegic, he does walk sometimes. Paddy is on a leash only because we are being very slow and careful about introducing him to being outside with the cats (blame that, again, on Arthur) but he is doing really good. Lindsy is having a harder and harder time getting around and it shows in these pictures, sadly.

Anyway, here are a few highlights and the full album can be found in the gallery. There’s even a few rare pics of the critterweb humans.

Simon appreciating the chilly day from the comfort of a lap.

The mini roses all survived the winter and are getting leaves already.

Cricket also subscribes to the ’sunbathing is better on a lap’ ideal.

Last year’s parsley, still going strong.

Unbeknown to her, the huntress (Winter is on far right of pic) is also the hunted.

A photo op goes awry.

Lindsy, Chris, Simon, and Paddy

When I was taking this, I wondered if Joy was having a creepy sensation of being spied on?

Calvin had a great time outside.

There are 21 more pictures in the full album.

Cozy.

Chris — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:44:11 +0000

Calvin under a blanket. He had his surgery Thursday and came through fine, though why they had to shave so much hair off is beyond me. He looks like a baboon from behind right now. No wonder he’s taking his naps under a blanket, he must be feeling pretty drafty back there.

Smitten with our kitten

Chris — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:21:19 +0000

Guess who weighs eight pounds now? this picture was taken at our vet’s a few weeks ago, when he was there for a booster vaccine. The vet felt he was younger than the age originally estimated at the shelter, so that puts him at about five months or so now. He already is bigger than Winter.

Calvin is doing great, he is such a character and he really makes life interesting around here. He knows how to give a “high five” for treats and is wicked-smart. Thursday he goes in for his neuter and the house is going to be so empty without him around overnight.

And the Critterweb Inn is now officially full

Chris — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:08:58 +0000

Since the rest of the week is going to be pretty grueling, schedule-wise, I’ll go ahead and introduce the newest member of the family that I have been hinting about for days now:

This is Paddy. We adopted him from the shelter a week ago and things are going well so far. He is about five or six months old and is going to be a pretty big boy. Yeah, we were going to wait until Lindsy passed, but he had the personality traits we were looking for and he needed a home. He’s not had any accidents in the house, is doing fine with the cats, initially pestered Lindsy something fierce but has eased off on that, and he even managed to charm his grammy.

We have been kind of keeping quiet about his presence since what I’ll call the Arthur Nightmare (and prior disasters) while we made sure things were going to work out, but we got outed within five minutes of Joy’s mom coming over this weeked. Paddy made a noise in his crate… “What was that?” “Uhhhh…nothing?” “Are you guys hiding a new granddog from me?” And so the cat, or rather large red dog, was out of the bag. He’s still learning not to jump on new people but conducted himself very well with her.

Forty six pounds or not, he is a puppy, so there’s lots of work ahead.The big difference between him and his predecessor is that there really is two way communication going on, and he wants to do right. Arthur was like having some sort of alien in the house, he really was the most frustrating dog I’ve ever dealt with. Paddy can be a bit stubborn, typical for his age, but he’s also gentle and responsive.

Cricket showing her evil side

Having a bigger dog around the house will make us feel a bit safer (Lindsy was great when she was young but can’t hear the door now) and will be good to have on hikes. We picked him for his personality rather than looks, but also think he’s absolutely beautiful.

Calvin and Paddy, the day we brought him home to cat-test him

Simon and Paddy

Paddy just came over and signed this post himself–> H][=p[=[]

Fifteen

Chris — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:02:40 +0000

Lindsy turned fifteen this past month. The picture above is of her eating the last of the Pfeffernusse Christmas cookies from Trader Joe’s – we bought her a doggie cupcake from a local petshop but it was hard as a rock. She loves Pfeffernusse so that was probably a better ‘birthday cake’ for her.

She’s not doing real great these days. There have been several incidents where she couldn’t stand up, and she’s losing control of her bladder sometimes as well. She spends most of her time in a confused fog and it’s really sad to see that. She’s covered in huge lipomas and papillomas that keep getting infected and bleeding. Her appetite isn’t what it used to be, and we have World War Three with her over her ProIn pill (for the incontinence) every day. But she does still eat, and enjoys her bedtime cookie… I think we may be coming up on a hard decision soon, but we aren’t there just yet.

It just occurred to me that since we usually count our rescued animals’ birthdays from the date we adopted them, that Cricket had a birthday in January. Which one, is anyone’s guess. When we adopted her five years ago, our vet said she was at least ten — so I guess that makes her fifteen, as well. She’s doing pretty good, she got past that last bad spell and though her eyes are filming over now, overall she’s pretty spry, bad heart and all.

Simon will be nine this year… Olive will turn thirteen… how did everyone get so old?

Lindsy at a park in Garland, TX six years ago.

You know it’s time to clean your refrigerator when…

Chris — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:50:14 +0000

…things start coming to life in there.