Well, Gracie and Hugo couldn't wait so they started their Halloween party a bit early. Be sure to stop by and join the fun. The decorations are great and the food looks yummy. Well, some of it looks sort of scary, but close your eyes and it should go down easy. See you there.
But before you go, we hope you will take a moment to stop by these two blogs if you haven't already and leave a kind comment.
We are sad it's been confirmed Olli is the black and white kitty that was recently killed by a car. His family at Luna Luzie and Olli. miss him very much.
And The~Kool~ Kitty~ Krew.said good-bye to Skeeter today, as she was helped to the bridge.
Thank you, KC, for the 2 graphics of Olli and Skeeter posted above.
Andy, Skeeter's boyfriend, made a memory button for anyone who wants to post it on their blog. So feel free to grab this graphic.
Hi, Merci here.Well, I didn't exactly meet a rhino, but I thought you might like to see something different today. So we have a video of a hungry baby rhino having breakfast. Or lunch. Or maybe a snack. Buddy and Sam are drooling at the sight of food.
Stephen Fry hand feeds the baby at a heavily guarded rhino reserve in Kenya. This little one is fed six pints of milk, five times a day.
Every home needs a Harvey. We sure could use one! And Harvey needs a home. At least he does in this video.
This is Thinkbox's second TV ad. It stars the engaging Harvey and it's designed to show, in a fun way, the power of TV advertising to affect a human's decisions.
Charges against 26 year old Carl Boyer, the man accused of beating Dan Palmer to death after he intervened when Boyer's dogs were being abused, have been upgraded to Second Degree Murder.
No, the title is not a joke. We never heard of myotonia congenita, or fainting goat syndrome, in cats. It's rare in dogs and cats.
The kittens can walk but cannot run or jump - and we assume they can not play. At the slightest sound, they fall over in a rigid paralysis which lasts about a minute.
The cuties in this video are Charlie and Spike (black and white). Sadly, Spike died today from respiratory failure.
We are incensed that YouTube comments had to be disabled for this video because of insensitive comments. That is one thing we dislike about many web sites, the quality of a number of the comments. The ability to be nasty seems to outweigh common sense for too many. This makes us even prouder of the pet blogging community, which is known for uplifting and supporting one another.
Percy: This is me from our Zazzle store. I was sound asleep on the desk at the time and Jan thought I looked so cute and innocent.
Sunday, we posted on 5 dogs that belonged to a woman in hospice. Her daughter took 3 of the dogs to the shelter and was to return with the other 2. You can read the story here. We updated the post to say we had been told the 3 dogs had been adopted, and like you, we have been concerned about what happened to the other 2.
This evening (we're writing this Tuesday) we received more direct information - a copy of an email from Elizabeth at the shelter. "All of these dogs went out to rescue or on a transport to Weatherford. All three of them are safe and the other two dogs have not come in as of yet." We hope this means the other two are safe and have found a home without having to go through the shelter. We'll keep you posted if we hear any more on them.
“Hair Ye! Hair Ye Contest! featuring the giveaway of two Hoover WindTunnel Pet Hair Vacuums ends on Halloween (Sunday) at Daily Kibble.
We have been asked to feature a contest. We're going to enter it too. We already entered. Maybe if we can win Jan a Hoover Pet Vacuum she'll stop complaining about pet hair through the house.
Percy: Wait, what did Jan mean by she'll stop complaining when we start doing the vacuuming around here? We thought a "pet vacuum" is for humans. I did NOT volunteer!
No purchase is necessary. All you have to do is register. Be sure to read the contest rules and also complete giveaway details because, although there is only one entry per person by email address, you can become eligible for an additional entry on Facebook. We're sorry but the drawing is only open to residents of the 50 United States and D.C. Click for contest registration page.
Mazzy is ADORABLE. Just look at her with that tennis ball in her mouth! She has all the funny characteristics Boxers have, plus she is wonderful with all adults, sweet with kids, knows sit, come, stay, where's your bone, no, and more. She is housetrained, micro-chipped, spayed and has been with the same owner since she was a tiny puppy! Mazzy's one and only issue is she can be territorial around other dogs and cats. Mazzy lives in a home with a very docile dobie right now and even though they go on walks together as if they were the best of friends when it comes to a toy or food or attention Mazzy is the aplha girl and she gets very territorial. This can be solved with consistent training but her owner regrets terribly that he isn't in a position right now to give Mazzy the training she needs. He has sadly come to the conclusion that Mazzy belongs in a home where she can be the Queen of the house and he is willing to donate a training package to whomever will love his wonderful Mazzy and give her a fabulous home!!! You can email me at p.alexander1022@gmail.com and let me know a little bit about yourself and your situation and I can put you in touch with Mazzy’s owner if you are the right person for this girl! She definitely needs to be in a home with no other dogs or cats….at least until she has had some training!!
PS - Mazzy is in Austin but most likely transportation could be arranged.
Buddy: It's my turn to introduce our post today. We have a bit of variety, including a fun video.
We are very sad to learn Dan Palmer, the man who was in critical condition after being beaten for trying to stop a neighbor from abusing his dogs, has died. We send lots of purrs and tail wags to his family. We hope his killer(s) receive a sentence according to the severity of the crime. You can read the story here.
Even though this link only applies to Georgia residents, we live in Georgia so we are posting it in case any of you do too. We don't have a clinic or a vet who does low cost spay/neuter around in this area. http://www.atlantahumane.org/suv/
For those of you who read our howl for help with a blogger problem yesterday (Blogger on Booze) and missed the update, we're re-posting it in case any of you run into the same problem. By then, we will have forgotten the solution.
Update: @electrobutter on Twitter suggested we resize photos to 150 (smaller than the 180 needed) for the sidebar. Now this is not the way it is supposed to work. In fact, it is bass-ackwards. But it worked! We tried it on two photos and both of them resized themselves UP to fit properly. Didn't matter whether we unchecked the "resize to 215" box. Tomorrow it might go psycho again but for tonight it worked.
We don't have anything to add to the sidebar today but we assume we'll still have to continue to manually size the photos down for the widget maker to size them up. (We're really considering turning to the bottle after the last few days. Anyone know a good place to buy niptini in quantity at a reduced rate?) The rest of the blog is working. The background is where it should be. (It rode up over the weekend and the pretty hummingbirds disappeared.) It seems to be loading properly again. We all have our paws crossed it doesn't turn into psycho blog again.
If you click on either of the Thanksgiving designs in our sidebar, you can check out those designs on cards and t-shirts in our Zazzle store. $5 Off Dark Apparel This Week Only! October 25, 2010 at 12:01 am PT through October 31, 2010 at 11:59 am PT. Use Code: OCTSHIRTSALE at checkout.
We want to encourage you, no matter where you live, to join the Iams Home 4 Holidays blog hop this week. According to PetCareBEev, Iams Home 4 the Holidays is a global event, so anybody who wants to write about pet adoption for the Iams Home 4 the Holidays campaign is welcome to join in! So please write a post - it doesn't have to be elaborate - on how pet adoption has affected your life, either as an adopter or an observer. Then follow the instructions here. Your participation in the blog hop will earn a shelter in need 100 bowls of food.
And after reading all that, we think you deserve a smile break. This is Jesse performing useful dog tricks. We can't let Jan see this one.
Yes, we believe blogger is on booze! We are so frustrated after another 3 days of the same problem we had with the new blogger templates a few months ago. You remember that. We battled for two horrible weeks before dumping the new template. We are so disgusted with trying to figure out what blogger is drinking we are about ready to throw in the towel.
We have redone and redone the template from scratch, even trying a different one. But after 2 or 3 days of having a problem loading the blog (that seems to have finally resolved) and trying everything to fix a problem we have no control over, we are fed up. (Well, not actually fed up. If any of you have any tasty tidbits, we can certainly find room.)
But could someone explain to us why blogger INSISTS on "downsizing" any photo we try to add to the sidebar to 215 when the photos are supposed to be 180 to fit? We switched from the new editor to the old and now it wants to resize to 205 instead of 215, but that is still way too big and would throw our sidebar down in the gutter. The sidebar is a major part of a blog and we need to be able to post to it.
We even had Jan resize the photos we wanted to add to 180 in PSE and after letting us do one correctly, blogger UPsized the next one so it had to be deleted. There is nowehere in the template to fix this. There is no tech support. We put in a request for help on the forum but don't really expect a response. We can't find blogger on twitter or on Facebook so we can't satisfy our frustration by punching blogger in the nose over the net.
We can't keep spending our computer time playing mind games with a psycho blog. Helllllllllp!
Update: @electrobutter on Twitter suggested we resize photos to 150 (smaller than the 180 needed) for the sidebar. Now this is not the way it is supposed to work. In fact, it is bass-ackwards. But it worked! We tried it on two photos and both of them resized themselves UP to fit properly. Didn't matter whether we unchecked the "resize to 215" box. Tomorrow it might go psycho again but for tonight it worked. Blogger, please fix what is broken - for all of us. Many bloggers are terrified to try your new templates because of all the problems such as this one they read about others having.
And now to lower our blood pressure, as well as entertain you, we would like to share General Buonaparte's Army of Animals video as they have a shootout with ED on Le Western Front. If you are acquainted with the General on Facebook, you will understand the title of this video - Le Good, Le Bad and Le Deranged. (Just so you don't misunderstand, we love the General.)
Have a good day and if you have come by the blog while we were lumbering around Design, you weren't imagining things. The blog really did keep changing designs and colors.
Iams Home 4 the Holidays kicked off their 2010 campaign with big expectations - save the lives of 1.5 million orphaned pets (1.3 were adopted last year) AND donate 5 million bowls of food to animal shelters in need!
Iams is also aiming to give 5 million meals to homeless animals. One way all of you can help donate a meal to a pet is to follow their Adoption Angel's stories on Facebook.com/Iams and “LIKE” photos, videos and posts. For every like they receive, Iams will donate a meal to a homeless animal.
This week we are participating in the Iams Home 4 Holidays Blog Hop. For this post, Iams will contribute 100 bowls of food to an IH4H shelter in need. So we didn't have to beg or blackmail to persuade Jan to let us use the computer long enough to do a post on how pet adoption has affected our lives —either as an adopter or an observer.
As to how our lives have been affected by pet adoption, in 2008 we wrote about Merci and Rusty and how they came to live here. We can't imagine the Funny Farm without little Merci or big Rusty. If you want, you can read the 2008 post here and our 2009 post here.
But since Jan used to photograph county shelter animals for the newspaper, she has had the most experience with adoptions - or lack of them - so we're going to let her tell you about how shelter adoptions have affected her.
Jan: I loved taking photos of shelter animals. They were basically sweet, scared, wanting to please, confused as to why they were there, and wanting to get out of there and go home. Unfortunately, most of them didn't leave the shelter for a new home. And that is the part I hated. I could remember each animal I photographed as an individual and it was so hard to mark an X above their photos in the previous week's ad on my next trip to the shelter and come home to delete their photos from my computer.
We all want to read sweet and uplifting stories on shelter adoptions but the reality is that those terrified, adorable cats and dogs that want so desperately to live but are not adopted are killed. If you love animals, you can not spend any time at a kill shelter and not be affected by the large number of animals that die there each year.
Just as I started to type this I received an email indicative of how too many animals end up at the shelter. The original email was dated Friday so these dogs don't have much time. Jerry, because of her age, has virtually no chance at adoption.
While the mother is in hospice dying from cancer the daughter dropped off the mother's dogs today at the shelter: She brought in 3 of the 5 & will bring in the other 2 later today. Per Elizabeth at the shelter these dogs are TERRIFIED! They have 3 days to find homes before being Euth'd.
Jerry is a spayed female, utd on shots, 14 yrs old , deaf, good with other dogs, kids, and people, very sweet.
Hershey is a neutered male Lab, utd on shots, 4 yrs old, good with other dogs, kids, and people, very sweet.
Lovey is a spayed female Australian Cattle Dog, utd on shots, 5 yrs old, good with other dogs, kids, and people, very sweet.
If you can save these sweet souls who are so terrified and confused please email or call the shelter directly (contact info below) or email.
And just in case anyone can help save any of these dogs, this is their contact information.
Elizabeth Ann Brown
City of San Antonio
Animal Care Services Department
O: 210-207-6655
C: 210-508-8953
Email: Elizabeth.Brown@sanantonio.gov
Update Sunday: All 3 dogs are safe. Lovely will be joining Jerry in her new home. Hershey is settling in at his new home. No word on the other 2 dogs.
You're undoubtedly wondering about the 6 Adopt A Shelter Pet photographs in this post. A few months ago I took some photos of shelter animals in their cages/runs and used them as designs in our Zazzle store to promote shelter adoptions. The animals in these photos are a symbol of why I advocate adoptions and why I support programs that help publicize shelter animals, such as IH4H. I never asked whether any of those in the photos were adopted because after 28 months of asking, I can pretty much tell you it is unlikely any of these beautiful, healthy, adoptable animals made it out of the shelter alive.
And so I use their photos to encourage folks to save another life and adopt a shelter pet.
PS from Funny Farmers - As we finish this on Saturday, another email arrives. This dog is not yet in a shelter. Can you help - adoption or foster! We assume this beautiful dog is in the Los Angeles area as the original message was from Marie Atake of Forte Animal Rescue.
Missy was adopted from us three years ago. We just received a call that her adopter had a heart attack and suddenly passed away yesterday. He was ill, but was getting better. His daughter has been here from TX to take care of him while he was getting better. They did a routine x-ray, and while she stepped out to have a yogurt, he had a heart attack and died. She was in tears and it crushed my heart...
Missy was doted and is a real sweetheart. She's gentle with people of all ages and shapes, other dogs and any creatures. Missy needs TLC right away. Please contact us even if you can just foster her until her forever home is found! She's about 7 years old now. She's little; she's just a Malti-Poo who doesn't do any harm to anyone...
We have only a few days while the late adopter's daughter is in town. Please get back to us ASAP. If you cannot help, please spread the word. I'm desperate for Missy's sake.
Sunday UPDATE: Missy has been adopted . She will now live with a couple who had to put down their very elderly and sick Malti-Poo/Bichon about a month ago. After much heart break, they heard Missy’s story and felt it was meant to be to have her join their family.
The blog hop will last thought this week. If you would like to join and have 100 bowls of food donated to a shelter in need, click here for instructions.
Sam We have a couple of quick items for you today to make you smile.
But before we get to them, we'd like to send out get well wishes to a friend who is very active in assisting with dog rescue and transport. He had a scary heart procedure done and we're glad the old grouch (his words) will be able to continue his mission of helping The Orphans, as he calls the homeless and unwanted animals.. If you don't know Mark Crider, here's a news video from 2009.
He does a lot to help to help pets, including facing down those who ignore the Texas laws against leaving a dog living on the end of a chain without shelter, food or water. We're glad he is still with us and wish him a speedy and complete recovery. We'd all take our ten gallon hats off to you, Mark, but we don't own any. We hope you'll settle for some purrs and tail wags.
If we can find enough change in our typing chair from Jan's pockets, we're thinking of getting her one of these cell phones for Christmas. The email said you have to be old as dirt to understand it but since Jan more than qualifies, we think she'd like one.
We like this LOL from I has a HotDog. And it's true. We drive Jan nuts trying to figure out what we've done.
We suddenly have use of the computer for a few minutes and we can't think of anything pet related to post, so we're just going to give your humans a lift to start their weekend. We hope they enjoy it.
We like this lady's spunk and courage, even though she didn't win.
Cameron Our first story today is from a forwarded email we received from one dog rescuer in Texas and written by another.
We hear so much negative that I wanted to give a positive post. In January Robert at PVAC (we believe this to be Palm Valley Animal Center) reached out for help in placing Nevada a Dogo Argentino. PVAC policy is that no bully breeds are adopted back into the valley. Dogo rescue helped find a foster placement for her with a related rescue Boxers R Us in Holland Michigan. With that complete all we needed was transport for the 1600+ mile drive. Again through friends of friends of friends in rescue we got a trucker doing a drive from Ann Arbor Michigan to Edinburg Tx.... And Nevada was off to start a new life.
I have gotten many updates but I had to share last nights. Nevada is a bonafide HERO. She was adopted by a young couple with children and chi-chis. Last night in the early morning hours their home was broken into. Nevada sensing the danger to the family of the intruder coming in through the kitchen window took a serious BITE out of crime. The police told the couple there is no telling what could or would have happened without Nevada's presence there. Just thought you would all enjoy a positive update of what happens when we all work together. Nancy C
We decided to include a bonus today. Must have something to do with being old because we don't get it but Jan thought it was hilarious and said when she starts doing this, it will be time to retire from the computer.
Our second story is also a positive one - basically. This is a recent story by a vet on the fact that Massachesetts was the first state to criminalize devocalization of cats and dogs this year. We have written on this subject before and would like to see it become a crime in every state. The negative part of the story is that anyone would ever consider such surgery for a healthy animal. Shane on those who took the "easy way out" and had such horrible surgery performed on animals for their own convenience. Anyone who does not want to hear a dog bark or a cat meow should not have one because just as babies are going to cry animals are going to vocalize.
Excerpts from the story (emphasis ours) - Devocalization, also known as debarking, is surgery that either cuts or removes an animal’s vocal cords. The primary target is dogs, but less frequently, cats are ‘de-meowed’ as well.
Many veterinarians today refuse to perform the surgery for non-therapeutic reasons, because the result is strictly for the convenience of the pet owner, breeder or other caregiver. It provides absolutely no benefit to the animal and is widely considered inhumane, similar to canine ear cropping and tail docking and declawing of cats. Devocalization is no longer taught in many veterinary medical schools.
Those still in favor of the procedure claim it can mean the difference between a vocal dog or cat staying with his family or being surrendered to a shelter. However, there is no evidence to support the theory that pets are given up by their owners for being ‘too noisy.’
However, according to Beth Birnbaum of the Coalition to Protect and Rescue Pets -- a non-profit, all volunteer organization that was instrumental in getting the Massachusetts law passed -- it is not individual dog owners who want their pets devocalized.
It is dog breeders, sled dog racers, show dog exhibitors and people who collect dogs for profit or hobby. Coalition volunteers have been involved with hundreds of devocalized dogs and cats, and all but a handful of the procedures were arranged by breeders. One animal was devocalized at the request of a hoarder.
We applaud Massachusetts for stepping forward to protect dogs and cats from unnecessary pain and suffering through convenience devocalization. You can read the rest of this story by Dr. Becker here.
And there is an abandoned pit bull in need of a home in the Los Angeles area. This dog was rescued from traffic and appears to have been abused. The Good Samaritan who helped rescue him is trying to find him a happy home where he can receive love and attention. You can read his story here.
We had another post planned but one of us kitty's knocked Jan's glasses off the desk during the night and she stepped on them first thing this morning. So we're all in the doghouse because they were very expensive, irreplaceable reading glasses. She special ordered them at the Dollar Tree.
Okay, we're fibbing. She can pick up another pair tomorrow for a dollar. She has other pairs around the house but not one pair is the right strength to use for the computer. They are either too weak or too strong and her eyes are really bothering her. So we're sneaking on here while she's doing laundry.
Every shelter in the nation should do the same as this shelter has done - destroy every vestige of the barbaric gas chamber! Fayette County, Ohio's shelter is under new management, but it took the threat of a lawsuit for changes to be made. You can read the story here. We applaud this shelter for doing the right thing and trying to upgrade its service to the animals as well as to the community.
Don't forget to vote daily for one of the 3 shelters. Every vote helps to decided how much total litter will be divided between them and what % of it each will receive. Bookmark this link and vote.
Today is Merry Monday, we have a fun video for your humans on this first workday of a new week - at least for most of them. Some are on a different schedule. These are anesthesiologists singing "Waking Up is Hard to Do." They call themselves the Laryngospasms. Listen to the words.
And we'd like to add this for our Texas friends. :)
Texas Declares War on the USA
President Barack Obama was in the Oval Office when his telephone rang.
"Hello, President Obama " a heavily accented southern voice said. "This is Archie, down here at the Joes Crab Shack, Houston Texas , I am callin' to tell yal that we are officially declaring war on ya!"
"Well Archie," Barack replied, "This is indeed important news ! How big is your army ?"
"Right now," said Archie, after a moments calculation "there is myself, my cousin Harold , my next-door-neighbor Randy, and the whole dart team from Hooters. That makes eight!"
Barack paused. "I must tell you Archie that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."
"Wow," said Archie. "I'll have ta call ya back!"
Sure enough, the next day, Archie called again. " Mr. Obama , the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!"
"And what equipment would that be Archie?" Barack asked.
"Well sir, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Harry 's farm tractor."
President Obama sighed. "I must tell you Archie, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also I've increased my army to one and a half million since we last spoke."
"Lord above", said Archie, "I'll be getting back to ya."
Sure enough, Archie rang again the next day.. " President Obama , the war is still on! We have managed to git ourselves airborne! We up an' modified Harolds's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Legion have joined us as well!"
Barack was silent for a minute then cleared his throat. "I must tell you Archie that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!"
"Oh Lord," said Archie, "l'll have at call you back."
Sure enough, Archie called again the next day. " President Obama ! I am sorry to have to tell you that we have had to call off this here war."
"I'm sorry to hear that" said Barack . "Why the sudden change of heart?"
Well, sir," said Archie, "we've all sat ourselves down and had a long chat over a few beers, and come to realize that there's just no way we can feed two million prisoners."
If you missed yesterday's post on Puffy Paws Kitty Haven, click here. They really need some adopters.
Thank you for the nice comments on the changes to our blog. Some of you may remember the fiasco of several months ago when we tried the new Blogger templates in draft. Never again! We finally got up the nerve to try again, keeping it as simple as possible. We ran into some of the same problems and some new ones. but we worked on it today and they appear to be ironed out. We don't want to be hung up while the blog loads any more than we want our readers to be. If you run into any problems, please let us know. We might not be able to fix them, but we can try.
Today, we would like to tell you about a cat rescue that can use a bit of help Not only does it cost a lot of time, work and money to run the place, but they need to adopt out a number of the feline residents. We're going to let the co-founder tell you about their rescue but first we have a video to share.
Ever heard of a family living with 400 cats in a residential home? The Kingston family does in Englewood Florida.
Rick & Chris Kingston founded Puffy Paws Kitty Haven - A Hospice for Special Need Kitties. Known as The World's Greatest Cathouse They are a hospice for unwanted kitties, they specialize in taking care of special needs kitties that would have been euthanized elsewhere, simply because someone would have deemed them to be unadoptable.
They care for kitties with feline leukemia & FIV, blind kitties, feral cats, epileptic kitties, kitties with only one eye, 20 years old kitties, kitties that do not use their cat litter box, kitties with thyroid conditions and more. They are reaching out to Cat Lovers all over the World to create awareness about their plight in trying to save these Special Need Kitties from being destroyed.
Hi, The Funny farmers said I should introduce today's post. We don't want you to forget what we look like but we haven't had time to do an introduction lately. Jan's has just been so selfish with sharing computer time for a while.
This story is from 2009 but one worth telling. Animals have an amazing ability to recover from trauma and live normal lives, as Andre has done.
A sweet-natured, jet-black Alsatian-Rottweiler mix, Andre survived a nightmare in the woods near his home in Wasilla, Alaska, last May. He went for a walk on his own and stepped into an illegal hunting trap, which snapped around his left front and back legs. Hopelessly snared and desperate, Andre did what he had to do to stay alive—he chewed through both paws to free himself. A hiker followed a trail of blood and found Andre beneath an overturned camper trailer, hiding, frightened, near death.
That’s when the Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue squad took over. Andre, who was found wearing a collar, was never claimed by his owner, even though media coverage of the plucky pup rivaled that of fellow-Wasillan Sarah Palin, who was picked to run for Vice President around the same time. Rescue staffers kept Andre and nursed him back to health, to the point where he could hop around on his two right legs. But he could only stay upright for a few hops before having to lie down.
With Andre's resiliance and some human ingenuity, Andre was chasing tennis balls again. You can read the rest of the story here.
This week's auction to help us Funny Farmers ends Sunday 10/17 at midnight EDT. Check it out. Lots of interesting items, including a couple of Cat Butts. (You'll have to visit the auction page to find out what they are.) Furriends of the CB Auctions.
You might remember the story of a cat so many worked so hard to rescue back in July. If you have forgotten or haven't heard the story, you can read it here. Our friend Carolyn from All C.A.T.S. called the shelter to pull the cat and was told the cat was being picked up that afternoon but there was a white cat on the euthanize list. Carolyn picked her up the next day and named her Sparkles after Sparkle the Designer Cat who worked tirelessly to rescue the other cat.
This is a short update on Sparkles from her September newsletter. When she can Carolyn plans to post some photos.
A couple of weeks ago, I took in a white cat and her 16-week-old kittens. I had homes waiting for the kittens but was worried about the mother’s reaction to them being gone. No problem. She immediately started cleaning and caring for Pawla (a kitten, not one of Sparkles') as though she was her own. We named the white cat Sparkles after another wonderful cat who helped bring us together.
Sparkles was saved from a shelter that was going to put her down. But, after speaking with the man at the shelter, he held Sparkles for one extra day to give us time to get there. I didn't know about her kittens until I was ready to take Sparkles and leave and Sparkles kept going to the cage that held the kittens. When I asked the man about the kittens, he said they belonged to the white cat but were old enough to be kept there, hoping for another home. There was no way I was going to leave them there. It cost a lot of money, $60 for each of them; but I had to do it. They all have very good homes now and Sparkles is happy with Pawla, who now spends her days with Sparkles and her nights with Lucy (a dog).She is a very happy little cat. She should be, as we all love her very much.
And we'd also like to give you an update on Carolyn from her October newsletter.She's had some escapades and injuries over the years but we assume this one has got to be the worst.
I'm sure most of you remember Prissy. She is our very old Chihuahua. She is now losing her sight and hearing and only allowed out in the yard only when someone can be there with her. Well, that isn't good enough anymore. Now, she will have to be on a leash!
I had let her out and was sitting on the porch watching her. UPS came to deliver a package, and for not more than 30 seconds I took my eyes off her. When I looked back for her, she was across the road in the pasture with the cattle. To my horror, a bull was charging toward her. Prissy weighs about 3 lbs., the bull at least 1,200 lbs. I screamed her name and she stopped-- but she didn't turn around to come back. The fence is electrified and I knew I would get shocked, but I couldn't worry about that. Crawling under, my hair got tangled in the barbed wire. Grabbing that strand with both hands, I tore it out. Getting to my feet, I ran for Prissy. Scooping her up, we headed back for the fence. Just as I shove her under, the bull hits me, knocking me into the wire and even more shocks. The barbs catch my clothes, skin and even more hair. The stupidest thought passes through my mind, "You are going to be bald when this is over."
The UPS guy grabs Prissy and shouts at the bull. From my point of vision, I believe the bull took his shout as encouragement. It turned and trampled me as I tried to crawl under the fence. The UPS guy grabbed my arm and pulled me under the fence, getting a good jolt of electricity in the process. "My Lord, how did you stand getting electrocuted for that long?" he asked. Then he got a good look at me. "Don't move, I'm getting help," he said. I tried to tell him to put Prissy into the house, but I realized I couldn’t speak. I was spitting blood and teeth. I tried to point to the house but couldn’t raise my arm. "O.K., I'm hurt," I thought—but didn’t feel it yet. "Maybe it's not too bad." Wrong!
My cousin Terry arrived just before the ambulance. He took care of getting the dogs back where they belong and calling my son. Barry is so used to my escapades and assumes it’s a small thing. I heard Terry yelling over the phone at him, "There’s blood everywhere!”I looked down. Sure enough, blood everywhere and no shirt. I am still not feeling pain, just tiredness as though I needed to sleep for a long time. Then I heard the EMT telling me to stay calm and stay awake. "O.K., just give me a shirt," I thought. I heard Barry asking, “How is she?" as he comes around the ambulance. Then, I head him say, "Oh, Lord." Must be worse than I thought. So, why am I not hurting? I would regret that thought later. Even today, I don't know the order in which I received the injuries. The ones to my head must have been the first ones. My mouth is all cut inside from the breaking of my teeth. I have a concussion, separated ribs, bruised hip, broken wrist and collarbone. But, the most important thing, Prissy is safe. She will be walked on a leash from now on.
Barry says the same about me. Actually, I believe what he said was I need a keeper. I am improving improved and am told I will heal completely.
NOTE FROM PAT: Carolyn suffered a broken wrist and femur, severe concussion, contusions over 90% of her body and many cuts and scrapes. She also has burns from the electrified fence. Her recovery has been slow, and much extra labor required since she literally can do nothing to help care for the animals. A special donation to help with the extra cost would be VERY MUCH appreciated!!
Carolyn has improved since the newsletter was written but she won't heal overnight, so we're posting this to suggest if any of you would like to donate a few dollars to help with All C.A.T.S'. extra expenses during this time, it would definitely be appreciated. You can make a donation here.
Oh, on a happier note, the UPS guy will be adopting a puppy from Carolyn.
This is a grim reminder of why we all need to keep our pet vaccinations up to date. It doesn't have to be your pet that bites another animal or a human. A bite by another animal, in this case a coyote, can mean the difference between life and death for your pet because if you can't afford the expensive quarantine, your pet will have to be euthanized. So keep the date marked on your calendar. That way, if the reminder from your vet's office is lost in the mail, you will still know he or she is due for a booster.
We just had a similar case locally but we don't know what choice the pet owner made. You can read the news story here.
For those of you who use Blogger, we thought we would post this from The Real Blogger Status blog, in case any of you get an urge to change your blog name or email address and your Google account no longer recognizes you.
We would like to refer you to Life With Dogs' post today on Oliver Alert. It is traumatic to lose a pet and never know what happened to it. Oliver is still missing, but his disappearance is helping many other lost and found pets to be reunited with their family.
We hope you haven't forgotten what we look like. Jan is still hogging the computer and we only get crumbs. But we have some posts coming up whenever we can sneak some extra time to blog.
Unfortunately, this is just one example of animal abuse escalating into human abuse. We hope Dan Palmer will survive and be okay and the scum that beat him for asking them to stop beating the dogs will go to jail for a long time! And, please, may they never, never, never have access to any animal again!
LONDON, Ont. - All Dan Palmer wanted to do was stop the dogs from being beaten.
Instead, Palmer was beaten and is clinging to life in critical condition at London Health Sciences Centre's Victoria Hospital. You can read the rest of the story here.
If you haven't voted yet, we hope you will take a moment to vote for our friend Bob. Voting is easy. Just click here, fill in email address and captcha.
We just read that our area will be getting a Petsense retail store in the near future. We don't know whether that's an economical and good thing, since we've never heard of Petsense before. But we see it will have an adoption center that will work with the local shelter and rescues. That should be a good thing. What is really needed, though, is a change of mind-set for those who are blind to the fact that animals are not trash to be chained and/or ignored or thrown away.
First, we would like to ask you to take a moment to vote for our friend Bob from Peggy's Place. Voting is easy. Just click here, fill in email address, and prove you're a person and not a robot by typing the letters you see. Go ahead. We'll won't introduce the main feature until you get back.
Raven Woods Animal Sanctuary in Roseland, LA has been ordered to reduce their number by 15 dogs per month or Animal Control will confiscate and kill 15 dogs per month. They are desperate to find adopters, fosters and no-kill shelters that can help. Because the reality is that 15 dogs a month will not be adopted or fostered unless some nice humans step forward and help these animals.
We have a Merry Monday video for you today that will bring back memories of your human's childhood. Buddy said he wants to meet these folks and ask if he can take us Funny Farmers for a spin in their red wagon. We all declined. And if these folks have any sense, they'll decline too. We've all had experience with Buddy and his driving skills. And Merci still has nightmares about them, starting from his first Driving Lesson.
If the video disappears or doesn't play, you can watch it here.
We were notified today we won a can of Clean + Green in the Creek Cats' giveaway.Jan likes this product and we can't buy it locally, so she's very happy about this.
And we won the Taylor CatSSSSS' caption contest. This is the photo of Sam from the contest. You can read our caption and see what we won here. We can't wait to read it.
We're all hoping this means Murphy and his law have packed up and moved out last night. Jan is busy checking cupboards, closets, drawers, crawling the floor, and just generally trying to make sure he didn't leave any code behind.
We almost forgot. Actually, we did forget until after we hit "publish," so we're updating already. The Furriends of CB auction for us ended last night and a new one has started. We'd like to thank all of you who have participated - including those who would have but were unable to. ML and Gracie do a great job with the auctions!
We weren't able to post the past few days because t's been crazy around here. When Murphy ('s Law) moved in, he brought all his friends with him.
You already know about our water leak. Friday, the plumber and two helpers dug a hole between the water meter and the house but the leak wasn't there. It was somewhere between the water meter and the far corner of the house. That pipe ran under our dog pen, which would have to be dismantled for them to dig up the back yard. Thankfully, they ran new line under the house instead. Saturday Jan celebrated by washing the car before it gets too cold and we dogs each got a bath too.
And remember the horrible smelling bag of Purina dog food? Jan was afraid to replace it with the same product so she paid more to replace it with Purina ONE. She finally decided Wal-mart must be leaving their pet food sit in a hot, humid environment, and we really needed to switch to a less expensive food, so she went to Ingles and carried home a bag of Purina Dog Chow. Imagine her surprise when she opened the bag the other night and was assailed with the same sickening odor.
She had nothing else to feed us so she ended up walking two blocks to Ingles and carrying home a 20 pound bag of a more expensive dog food in the dark. It was hours before she could breathe without smelling the dog food. She has been unable to get the odor out of the ice chest she stored a plastic bag of the first batch in while waiting to be able to send a sample to Purina for testing. Now she is having to throw out the plastic container she's used for dog food for years because she shoveled a couple of scoops of it out of habit and several days after disinfecting it, it was still smelling up the kitchen.
Two different smelly Purina products from two different stores within two months. Jan is just leaping for joy at her good fortune. (We hope you know we're being facetious.)
Jan contacted Purina with an angry message on their site and since Jan isn't sure whether she can get her money back at Ingles - not to mention she doesn't feel like carrying a 20 pound bag back - Purina has offered to refund the purchase price. And we can't throw it out yet because they want a sample of this food for testing also.
We have also been having computer hassles. Can't uninstall one program or update another. Something about an invalid or wrong Drive E. Don't ask us about Drive E. We think the computer is hallucinating.
This is only a sample of what has been going on since the first of the month. Jan has been so busy she hasn't even had a chance to put the cleaning supplies back under the sink from a week ago when the landlord was here looking for the water leak. She's been spending so many hours at the computer trying to find, fix, contact ....
Basically, we're fine. Just super busy. And we should be back to posting regularly in a day or two.
Murphy's Law is visiting and won't leave so we don't have a post prepared for today. But we do have just a quick reminder that Dr. Tweety's (the Fab 5) dad is having surgery today. Please remember him and his concerned family. We're sending them our best purrs and tail wags.
Artemisia, Scylla, Socks & Fenris are having a giveaway on their blog. A can of Clean + Green, one of our favorite products. For our entry we choose to write a post telling them "why you love your fur sibling that isn't your species." Well, that's an easy one. Take it away, Percy.
Percy: I love my canine sister Merci because she saved my life when I was a tiny kitten. I don't know what happened to my mother and baby siblings but I ended up all alone under a bush locked behind a fence on mill property. Merci heard my cries for help and told Jan there was a kitten in there but Jan didn't believe her. She claims I sounded like a bird - in fact, she first named me Birdie - and she tried to get Merci to move on. But Merci wouldn't move or stop whimpering. And then I crawled out from under the bush. I was Merci's first kitten rescue. And Jan changed my name to Perseverance because I persevered.
We hope you are remembering to vote daily for the WBCL GiveLitter giveaway. It ends November 8 and the amount of litter each shelter receives will depend on the number of votes. So bookmark this somewhere you won't forget to vote daily. GiveLitter.com.
Yesterday Samantha and Clementine posted a photo tribute to Mr. Tigger. He has been missing for a year. We continue to hope someone has taken him in and one of these days he will be back home with his family. It is so hard to have a furry disappear. There is no closure, no resolution, but always a hope mixed with fear. Wherever you are, Mr. Tigger, you are missed.
As to our ongoing water "crisis," this plumber and his helper couldn't find a leak either. He has to put in a request for whomever/whatever to come out to mark the gas, etc lines before they can dig. So it will evidently be another 2 days or so before they come back. Kind of feels like watching a house burn down while the fire department searches for the keys to their engine. Nowhere near that drastic, of course. All this just leaves us with a helpless feeling as the water rolls - well, actually we have no idea where the water is rolling. That's the biggest problem.
Our friend Perry from Noir's Nook passed away yesterday. We are sad for his family. If you haven't already, please stop by and leave them a comforting word.
Every human has hardships and down times of one kind or another, so today we'd like our post to uplift and encourage your humans - mom, dad, Food Dude or Food Lady, The Big Thing or whatever your pet name for him or her is.
We received an email that sent us off looking for the "rest of the story." And we found it. A video of an amazing young woman named Jessica Cox. In case you haven't heard of her, we're not going to give away why she's so amazing. Watch the video and see for yourself why she's a motivational speaker.
We've had some wonderful news. All our financial problems have been resolved with one email.
I am Mrs Stella Ethan, a Christian. I have picked you for an inheritance, Everything is available. Please contact me for more details. Private contact email: stella.ethan@live.co.uk
Regards,
Stella Ethan.
We just have to share our good fortune with our fellow furry bloggesrs. Perhaps if you all send her an email, she can find an inheritance for you too.
And now that we've all had our laugh for the day ... (Yes, this is an actual email we received. We don't have enough imagination to make it up.)
Our landlord finally found a plumber willing to take his money, so as you read this, the plumber should be busy crawling under and digging down to find our leak. Our biggest regret is that no one will let us woofies do the digging . We would gladly accept the landlord's money to do something we love. And we've got references. We've been practicing in the back yard.
Today we'd like to share a video of Tamara Thayne from Dogs Deserve Better, who chained herself to a doghouse on the capitol steps for 35 days in an ongoing attempt to get the Pennsylvania law changed regarding dogs who live their lives on the end of a chain. This woman has been dedicated and courageous in her fight to free chained dogs from a life of loneliness, extreme weather, boredom, abandonment, untreated health issues, and often dehydration/starvation.
Is there some way you can help with Operation Fido Freedom? Yes, if you live in Pennsylvania, you can encourage your Senator or Representative to vote for SB1435 to limit chaining.
Dogs do deserve better than a life sentence on a chain. You can read more here. You can follow @tamirathayne on Twitter. And/or you can Like "Operation Fido's Freedom's page on Facebook.
On a personal note, water is still merrily running ... somewhere. Two city employees came out yesterday and they couldn't find any signs of a water leak under the lawn either. The good news is that Jan learned we have "only" lost 6000+ gallons of water since 9/22 instead of hundreds of thousands of gallons (that does happen but she was reading the numbers wrong - how was she to know since nothing matched?), so she splurged and took a shower this morning. She offered each of us one but we all turned her down. It's still a bad leak and the landlord is trying to get hold of a plumber, but Jan's breathing better today. And she never intends to stick her hand down that meter hole again. She wouldn't even put the cover back on after seeing that black widow spider coming at her yesterday. And the guys said they've also found snakes in those holes.
Oh, we almost forgot to include this. We are excited to win a can of Clean+Green in Sol's The Messy Mancat Monday Giveaway. We love their product and can't buy it in this area. The Taylor CatSSSSS and Brian also won a can.
Missouri has more puppy mills than any other state. You have undoubtedly already heard about or seen the horrible conditions these animals live under. Missourians for the Protection of Dogs has made a commercial to help spread the word about Proposition B so the laws can be reformed. .
We mentioned our water leak the other day so we'll give an update. Jan has been sick with worry since Sunday morning - to the point she emailed the city and asked them to please send someone out today to turn off our water because she won't be able to pay the bill even with an "average" and "taking it off the rent." She also asked how they got the number 72. That's all they give you, two numbers. It's a whole lot easier to find the correct numbers when they match or are close. This time they were all over the place. And yesterday Jan emailed all the numbers she's been seeing the past few days, asking where among them the 72 came from.
The city is sending someone out to take a reading and explain the numbers to her. So perhaps it isn't as bad as Jan has feared. Bad enough! But hopefully nowhere near the damages she's been expecting. See, something happened this morning to give her a clue she might have been reading the numbers wrong.
One good thing, she has not stuck her hands back in the hole since our landlord told her he killed two black widow spiders in there Saturday morning. She used a crowbar to "clean" the face of the meter yesterday and this morning she was going to wipe it off properly, but first she stopped to look. No webs to brush aside today, no spiders.
But she knelt there for a couple of minutes and then the largest black widow she's seen started coming toward her. She didn't know they moved that fast. When she stood up, she could see the fine web spun across the top of the hole. Scared her so bad she didn't even put the cover back where it belonged. So, please, if you cut across our lawn today, don't step in the water meter hole. It's deep and you could break a leg.
Have a purring and tail wagging day. And if you live in Missouri, we hope you will vote Yes on Prop B.
Cyndi found an ottoman coffee table she has decided she just can't live without. The one she likes has storage space where we could store a mountain of cat and dog treats and toys. That would save Jan from having to dole them out, but she's not very agreeable to us taking over our own treat disbursement. She says we'd eat them all at one sitting and get sick. Buddy and Sam say they'll agree to the ottoman coffee table only if Jan actually buys us a mountain of treats.
For those of you who haven't heard, now that summer is over, we have a swimming pool. We know it's here. Our water consumption says we're filling it; however, we can't locate it.
See, Jan has been tightening our collars. No, that's not right. She's been tightening her belt - even though we've never seen her wear one. So when she read our utility bill Friday, she turned kind of red in the face. We use 1000 or less gallons of water per billing cycle but we were billed for 4 thousand. She grabbed a crowbar and a magnifying glass and went outside. We watched from a window as she lifted the heavy cover and wiped the dirt off the meter with her hand. The bill reading was 072 on 9/20 and unless she was blind it was actually 060 on October 1.
She emailed the city, asking if they would send someone to do a visual reading, but she kept getting the feeling something wasn't right, so she grabbed her reading glasses this time, the crowbar, a magnifying glass and a paper towel to clean the dial better. The correct reading was 080. She called our landlord.
He came Saturday morning with his dad who is a (retired?) plumber. They checked everywhere for leaks - in the house, under the house, walked the property. They flushed the toilet, ran water down drains. Nothing was leaking but the dial was spinning much faster than Friday. And it had gone from 080 to 450 (460 by the time they left). Hopefully, our landlord will be able to get a plumber out here soon to dig up the lawn between the house and the meter because the water bill is climbing. at a rapid rate. The city manager and the billing department will work with Jan to reduce the bill when the leak is fixed but at this rate it will still be higher than we can pay. The landlord said he'll help too. But nothing can be worked out until the leak is fixed and the amount of the damages is known.
Oh, and our landlord informed Jan he killed two -- yes, 2 black widow spiders in the same hole Jan was sticking her hands yesterday. She noticed the spider webs but there are so many spider webs around the yard she didn't pay attention. We have concluded she must have a guardian angel.
Jan locked us dogs in the bedroom so the men could walk in and out without worrying about one of us slipping out the door. Unfortunately, when the men arrived, Jan went to unlock the back gate and they left the front screen door open behind them. Jan ran around trying to find all of us cats. Cotton was sleeping in her new crinkle tunnel and Cameron was on top of the fridge. Rusty, who likes to run out the back door was missing, but after a good while he showed up at the food bowl and Cyndi was found hiding behind the fridge. Jan called Percy, slipped inside the bedroom to check, crawled around the floor, checked in, on, under ....
Percy was gone.
As soon as they men left, she did another sweep of the house and headed down the street with a jar of cat food. Not a sign of him anywhere. She had no idea of which direction he might have gone, so she came home to plan. She turned on the computer, sat down, turned around and there was Percy strolling across the floor toward her.
Jan is lying down "resting her eyes" as we type this for Sunday's post. We don't know why she's so exhausted. She hasn't done any work today.
We did a recent post asking you to vote for Tamar's Cat Hammock in a competition. Voting was a bit confusing. It ended Friday and winners have been chosen. Tamar's Cat Hammock was not the Readers' Choice Award but she did win the Judges' Choice Award. Congratulations, Tamar! You can read details here.
Hi, I'm Percy. The Funny Farmers' blog has gone yellow for the day because today is LiveStrong Day and yellow is the recognized symbol for the fight against cancer.
We join with our friends Milo and Alfie in dedicating our blog post today to Vic of Zoolatry who is currently battling cancer, and to all who have won their battle, who are currently waging the cancer war, as well as to those who have bravely fought and lost the battle. We have lost many human and furry friends over the years and have cried many a tear in their memory.
There are many bloggers joining together on this day. Samantha, Clementine and Maverick have put together a slideshow of pet blogging participants.
Support those with cancer. Visit the official LiveStrong site here..
You've probably already noticed that Gracie and KC of the CB are holding an auction for us Funny Farmers. Gracie's mom made the special, lovely header graphic. If you notice, there are 9 dogs and cats in the picture. All bloggersl hate to remove a name from a signature and a furry from a header and when we looked at the original, we so missed Crystal. So Gracie kindly added him so we could be together for this temporary header. Thank you, Gracie.
We're kind of excited here because yesterday Jan's brother came by to install a new video card and a DVI cable for our computer monitor. We haven't had a video card since May and graphics have been a big problem. Even viewing many of your blogs has been a hassle for us. The onboard video can't support this monitor or Photoshop Elements. We hope we're now "in business" for the coming holiday season. Thank you, Mr. Doug!
Well, we woofies have to go walk Jan now so we'll all wish you a purring and tail wagging day.
Hi, Merci here.Well, I didn't exactly meet a rhino, but I thought you might like to see something different today. So we have a video of a hungry baby rhino having breakfast. Or lunch. Or maybe a snack. Buddy and Sam are drooling at the sight of food.
We are very sad to learn Dan Palmer, the man who was in critical condition after being beaten for trying to stop a neighbor from abusing his dogs, has died. We send lots of purrs and tail wags to his family. We hope his killer(s) receive a sentence according to the severity of the crime. You can read the story here.
We have a couple of quick items for you today to make you smile. 
Our first story today is from a forwarded email we received from one dog rescuer in Texas and written by another. 
I'm introducing the post today.
Today it's my turn to introduce our post.
Hi, The Funny farmers said I should introduce today's post. We don't want you to forget what we look like but we haven't had time to do an introduction lately. Jan's has just been so selfish with sharing computer time for a while. 
