pets

Thursday Morning Announcements

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

Lots to do today as usual, but wanted to post a few things before getting down to the nitty gritty. First off, many thanks to all of my lovely friends for your encouragement the past couple days. I wasn’t trying to be reactionary about the stupid blonde thing, just vent some righteous indignation. The world at large has no idea what it’s like to be a natural blonde, and I am here to educate. Consider yourself schooled.

Next topic of business, my beloved sister is trying to win a prize. EVERYONE LOVES A PRIZE RIGHT?! Her French bulldog, Rocky, has been entered in the Bissell MVP (Most Valuable Pet) photo contest, and I am encouraging everyone to vote for him. Had I known about said contest I would have assuredly entered my own brilliant dog MAX, but alas, you will have to settle for the younger cousin. BUT JUST LOOK AT THIS FACE:

Yes he really is THAT CUTE. Please cast your vote for Rocky and make my sister one proud dog momma.. BUT QUICK! B/c the deadline is Tuesday April 8th. Click HERE to vote for Rocky. Click HERE to check out his Dogster Page and revel in more of his cuteness. My personal favorite is the pic of him in the hat and tie. Why YES, insanity does run in our family.

Speaking of insanity, my husband nearly went crazy this morning. WHY?? Well, over a sticker. This one, he found on our front door:

Now my husband is normally a WAY OBSERVANT man, but for some unknown reason he had not noticed this brightly-colored, highly festive, not to mention adorably cute sticker planted right on our front door. For the past TWO WEEKS. Greeting him each time he came home, or left, or stood in front of the house on the front porch. He came in from walking Max this morning with a CRAZED look in his eye, and he questioned me. Of course I told him, No, some crazed Barack Obama supporter did not sneak up on our porch in the middle of the night to plant that on our window. Not like when that crazed crackhead crept up and stole his bike a few years ago (on John’s BIRTHDAY of all days). No, it was me. I put it up there. Not only b/c it is clever and witty and GREEN, but b/c We must, after all, show our support for the future President of the United States, RIGHT??! Once he heard it was me, he was fine. He too is a supporter. BUT he is totally AGAINST FORCED PROPAGANDA. As of course, am I.

OBAMA 2008

How to Catch a Runaway Hamster

~ thedailydish ~ 11 Comments

Monday night we made the new hamster purchase. And since my husband had not only caved but had CAVED, said purchase actually involved 2 brand new hamsters. He’d decided the best way to quell fighting between the girls over the hamster issue was to allow each of them to get one. Good idea, right? YES and NO. Sure, they were not fighting, except perhaps over whose hamster was superior. But now our younger daughter had full-out 24 hr access to her magical new friend. So by yesterday morning he had of course disappeared. You see, our younger daughter used to do this with dearly departed Hammie, she would take him out of his cage and bring him into the family room to watch TV with her. But a 4 yr old doesn’t understand that a hamster could care less about TV. So while she’d become engrossed with Arthur, or Cyberchase, or Clifford the Big Red Dog, the hamster – instead of sitting quietly beside her on the couch as she was imagining – was beating feet to the nearest hidey hole. We lost Hammie so many times I actually lost track. Fortunately Hammie’s golden fur worked greatly to our advantage each time he went on “vacation.” But as they were fresh out of fluffy golden hamsters at Petsmart, this new guy Cutie is a Black Bear – meaning all BLACK. He is was IS ADORABLE, but his soft black fur blends in just perfectly with our dark wood floors. Meaning we have no hope in hell of ever finding him.

We have been employing all of the usual tactics, and I have additionally read up on How to Catch a Runaway Hamster. We have secured and sealed off the room, we have left food out to entice him, we have left his bed and igloo out to entice him, we have done everything to entice him. But now that he’s tasted freedom, do you really think he’s coming back?  Fat chance.

For the Love of Pets.

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments



Here at the palatial West Philly estate, there has been much recent discussion on the subject of PETS. Specifically, whether or not our soon-to-be 8 year old can have a new hamster for her upcoming birthday. As you can see from the photo, her dearly departed Hammie was the cutest cuddliest lil puffball on the face of the planet. HARD TO TOP. But I am game to try. My husband, however, is slightly less inclined. Mostly he doesn’t want to deal with 2 screaming daughters fighting over who gets to hold the new hamster, who gets to play with the new hamster, but never of course the ever-important WHO GETS TO FEED/WATER/AND CLEAN THE CAGE of the new hamster. And yet, he’ll give in. And I’ll clean the cage. Who are we kidding?

As a child I had a LOT of pets, and would regularly take in new ones. Like when my perverted 6th grade teacher had us raise mice, then told us he was going to feed them to his pet snake. The 2 mice I brought home quickly reproduced into 100, and my mommy soon shipped them all off to the Great Pet Store in the Sky (really the pet store down the street, but you know they got fed to the whole department of exotics, so what’s the difference.) BUT I was not thwarted. My parents, the big-hearted mushballs, would inevitably give in to my begging on the condition that I first learn all there was about whatever animal I wanted before bringing it home. I therefore spent many hours glued to HAMSTERS or GERBILS or RABBITS or [insert name]. I must have read every “How To” pet book in our library. I just couldn’t get enough. And Now as a grown-up, I am still the same way. Reading pet books geared towards 9 yr olds and adopting every stray that steps on my path. I’ve even managed to marry a man who works at a vet school, who constantly forwards me emails about Free horses and puppies and MORE. And whether nature or nurture, or more likely both, we have passed this fascination onto our equally animal-obsessed offspring. B/c in this house, we simply live and breathe pets.

When you take an animal into your home, it typically isn’t too long before they make themselves an inextricable part of the family. Even if they are snarly and/or slovenly, as in the case of our former 3rd hand macaw. Somehow these captivating creatures work their way into your heart and they become a part of you. I know there are people out there who hate animals, those sick bastards, but being on the opposite end of extremes, I just cannot imagine my life without them. I spend the bulk of each day with a crazy ass bird perched on my shoulder, I cannot get her off. And yet, I adore her. We talk, and smooch, and preen each other like a couple of loons. We live with a dog so large people refer to him as livestock, and yet I refer to him as my 3rd child. YES, having such close physical presence of shedding, squawking, smelly animals DOES WEAR THIN AT TIMES, but more often than not it simply soothes my soul. A steady loving constant in an otherwise chaotic world.

And just because a pet dies, doesn’t mean they leave you. Not really. My husband plans on taxidermy-ing our dog when he passes. But I don’t really mean THAT, more like As any close friend, the times you’ve shared remain in your heart. If you ever need reminding of this, read Dog Heaven. AND for Heaven’s sake, bring tissues.

This is my old cat Sammy. YES he does looked thrilled, doesn’t he? What a patient soul. He lived to the ripe old age of 18, and up until the end people never could believe just how ancient he was. He was just SO PERKY. Sammy had been a stray with the unfortunate luck of being hit by a car and brought to a local vet for mending. His car accident had left his one lip hanging perpetually open, displaying a whole lotta gum and an enormous protruding fang. People always found his appearance comical at first, but his winning personality won him a legion of adoring fans. One of the funniest stories about Sammy revolves around his relationship with my other cat at the time, Nectar. Although Sammy was a neutered male and Nectar a spayed female, Sammy was always trying unsuccessfully to GET IT ON. YES I told you he was one perky cat. As you can imagine, Nectar was NOT APPRECIATIVE of these untoward advances. They were pals, sure, but enough was enough. Soon I was calling the vet to see what I could do about the weird little situation, growing uglier by the day. Before bringing Sammy in, he advised me to check and make sure Sammy was indeed neutered. This would be accomplished by AND I QUOTE: “Squeezing them.” Yep. I am no fading violet, but the idea of having to give my cat’s empty nutsack a tweeking really didn’t appeal to me. at all.

But ask any pet owner and you will hear a million such bizarro stories, all done strictly for the love of a pet. People do not treat other human beings this good. And it’s a sin. But it’s the truth. Like the recent weeks I spent syringe-feeding our rabbit Prudence. Or the THOUSANDS we spent saving our dog last New Years after we discovered he’d swallowed a golf ball. Which of course we proudly display since it’s worth far more than most of what we own.

My husband and I were talking yesterday – and for the life of me I cannot remember exactly how we got onto this topic – but we started talking about what we would do if we were starving. He said that I would do whatever it took to eat, which I believe to be true to a certain extent. But I told him that in no uncertain terms would I ever kill and eat our dog. Now I know this whole thing must sound odd, in oh so many ways, but it just brings home my point. If I were literally dying from lack of food, there are things I just could not bring myself to do. I could not cannibalize my own family – including my pets. Though I did not give birth to them, I’ve raised them very much like my own children. In the case of our dog, from age 7 weeks to now 7 years. When we he was a tiny puppy, we lived in a 2nd floor apartment. Our older daughter was then only a year old, and while housebreaking I used to have to carry both of them upstairs/downstairs simultaneously, one in each arm. It was truly a PAIN IN THE ASS, but I did it. Why? B/c of love, pure and simple.

Dear Prudence

~ thedailydish ~ 4 Comments

It’s a bit hard for me to believe it’s 2008. With the jumble of the holidays and all of the travel, by the time we got home it was already here. I came down New Year’s Day with a terrible respiratory cold, which started out as a runny nose and quickly degenerated into total head congestion, sore throat, burning sinuses and complete malaise. Oh, the malaise…. From fine to wretched in 6 hours flat. And if you can imagine all of that coming on top of the vertigo I’d already been fighting for 2-plus weeks beforehand, you can see why 2008 is just catching up to me now. Fortunately, Sunday I felt my real self beginning to break free of the chrysalis of plague, and by yesterday I was finally feeling normal again. Not wanting to crawl into a ball and sleep. BREATHING in_and_out of my nose! Dizziness, almost gone. So I’ve been trying like mad to catch up on a whole slew of things – basically life – that had to be put on hold while I was down for the count. And unfortunately, one of those things is our little rabbit, Prudence.

For those of you who don’t know me in “real life,” our family has a whole slew of pets, and I can pretty fairly be described as zookeeper. Well, last week being so sick, most of the animal tending fell to my husband and older daughter, with me doing some minor tasks, like letting some of the pets sleep on/with me. I was holding and petting Pru while watching TV on Tuesday and Wednesday and she seemed fine. Thursday I noticed she seemed a little off and wasn’t eating. Friday she didn’t eat, and by bedtime that night, she’d begun acting really weird. Normally feisty and playful, Prudence was listless to the point of being almost unresponsive. When she moved in her cage at all, she shook, palsy-like. First thing Saturday morn we took her to the ER at my husband’s work. Apparently Prudence had been ill for some time, but the vet said that rabbits have an uncanny ability to mask sickness until it’s almost too late. Definitely something to share with other rabbit owners. They diagnosed Pru as being severely dehydrated and kept her over the weekend for blood work and further testing. Yesterday afternoon we finally got to bring her home, though we could have kept her at the hospital for an ultrasound and additional diagnostics. Please don’t get me wrong when I say that in a perfect world I would like for my rabbit to be able to have an ultrasound, but in my world (replete with 1 paycheck for 2 adults, 2 human children and a barn full of other animals), rabbit ultrasounds are at the bottom of the financial priority list.

Having said that, I am so happy to be holding a most alive! and sweet Prudence! The only difficulty is that we (first my husband, and now me) have to administer liquid antibiotics for the next 19 days via a thin mouth syringe, not too hard actually, but the real kicker is the liquid feedings via large syringe. Ho boy. Let me tell you, if it comes down to this, I think it will be a miracle if my bunny gets enough food/liquid to maintain life function. The food itself isn’t revolting, in fact, quite the opposite. The powdered “herbivore critical care diet” has the most pleasant smell – like a cross between fresh hay and anise. And we mix it with vanilla protein shake, similar to what they give patients in hospital for calorie-rich consumption. But it’s just so HARD to get her to eat it. First we have to lay a bath towel down on the floor, then wrap her up in it like a bunny burrito. Then you have to cradle her football-like in one arm, whilst maneuvering the syringe into her (most unwilling) mouth and then squirting it in. The feedings go in drips and drabs, with most of the food being wiped off her face. And trust me, you have to wipe it off because if you don’t it will congeal and then harden cement like on her fur. Then there’s NO getting it off.

You can just SEE how much this rabbit loves this process. And me, well doing this 2-3 times a day is reaaaallly fun.

Home again home again jiggety jig

~ thedailydish ~ 1 Comment

Returned from Atlanta last night, about 1 am. It was a LONG trip. 13-1/2 hrs there and another 13 back, and it rained both ways. I don’t mind driving, but 800 miles in a torrential downpour is a test of wills. I made a point of renting audio books from the library to pass the time. We listened to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory on the first leg and a Wrinkle in Time on the 2nd. I enjoyed both greatly, but Wrinkle seemed to terrify as much entertain my older daughter and had her asking questions a little too perplexing for a road trip. Is it possible to condense a rudimentary explanation of Evil into a 5-minute potty break at a rest stop?? Note to self: throbbing disembodied brains not for 7-year-olds.

Christmas itself was lovely. We got way too many presents, my mom & I cooked and we all feasted merrily.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing. We hit the wine cellar, did a little mindless shopping, ate out a few times. Explored my parents’ property. Watched TV (my parents have CABLE!!) and I especially loved the holiday Dirty Jobs marathon. We also watched a bunch of episodes of Arrested Development from my sister’s box set (*Annyong*) – that show is absolutely hysterical. I got a new board game called EAT IT! which is a lot like trivial pursuit for snack food junkies. My mom, the eternal gambler, staked a $5 Starbucks card for the winner, which turned out to be my sister, Queen of Cookies. We played quite a few games, which we haven’t done as a family in a long time, and it was really fun.

Today we did just what you want to do after spending a day and a half in the car. We drove to Bucks County & back, returning the rented minivan and picking up our beloved pets.

Don’t I look thrilled? I think I may have carbuncles. Fortunately, we do have a whole host of new CDs to listen to. I have to say the best of new order is awesome. I must be old.

Unfortunately, we spotted this poor creature by the side of the road:


You might be able to swing this into a joke about Santa’s sleigh or some such nonsense, but I will not. I took it simply as one more reason to get the hell out of the car.

For the rest of the photos, click HERE.