I'm the one with the broken heart

Yesterday was the most heartbreaking day we've had at our house for a very long time. We had to have our dog Fred put to sleep. Freddie was approximately 11 years old and had been with us for 10 years. We got him through the Ohio Basset Rescue after the death of our first basset hound and we loved him from the very first day. Fred hadn't felt good for the last couple of weeks, had lost a considerable amount of weight and was obviously in pain. We took him to the vet last week and he gave him a cortisone shot and some pain pills, thinking he had arthritis in his spine, not uncommon in older bassets. When he continued to fail, they did bloodwork and after it didn't show anything significant, did an x-ray where they found a softball sized tumor in his bladder. This explained the repeated urinary tract/lack of control problems that were also thought to be age-related. According to Doc Franks, this type of tumor is always cancerous and would grow back if removed. At Fred's age, surgery really wasn't an even an option. We decided that he had suffered plenty and silly as it may sound to some, he had a look in his eyes that seemed to say that he'd had enough. We will miss our Freddie desperately and certainly wish we'd had more time with him. Many of you know about all of the kittens we've "fostered" at our house over the past couple of years - of all of us and our cats, Fred was always their favorite and he seemed to always have a cat in his dog bed with him. Our cat Lottie especially loved to be close to him. All of you who have a dog - maybe you'll take them for a walk in memory of Fred and make it all about them, letting them sniff as much as they want.
Laurie

THERE'S A NEW MAN IN MY LIFE

This is Tony and I love him. You might remember that this summer a stray cat showed up on our porch, very pregnant and nearly starved. We fed her and made her a bed on the porch, but she left. She came back the next morning, no longer pregnant. Knowing she had kittens somewhere, we started feeding her canned food morning and night, with dry in between and almost six weeks to the day, she brought the kittens to our house. We had the mother and all of the babies fixed and had them vaccinated, eventually finding homes for two kittens. Three of the babies were taken to the Humane Society when they had an opening in their kitten surrender list. This little tiger was a bit of a social misfit, not fitting in with the other kittens, very dependent on his mother despite being the biggest of the litter, and we decided to keep him. The mother was with us until last Thursday when my name came up on the adult cat surrender list at our Humane Society. Before you think I'm cruel for taking her there, let me tell you about the cat facilities at our H.S. They are a no-kill shelter with two huge cat rooms with windows, perches and cubbies all over. They have an outdoor area, approximately 15 x 20 feet that is enclosed by all-around fencing accessible via a "doggy door" where the cats can spend as much time as they want. There are kitty hammocks and perches outdoors as well. It is a very nice facility. We would have considered keeping the mommy but she and our cat Sophie did not get along - at all. We had brought the mommy inside to live with us and they got into it at least once a day. She and Lottie tolerated each other, but there was still a lot of hissing between them. We tried everything we could to find her a home without success. I hope she will find her forever home through them, but even if she lives out the rest of her life at the H.S., she will be taken care of and live comfortably.

We now have a full house with three cats and a basset hound. The whole mother cat/kitten process was fascinating and we had a lot of fun with the kittens, but I'm glad things are finally getting back to normal.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We ended up going to watch the Columbus Bluejackets play the Calgary Flames (hockey) on Saturday night and the Jackets won! It was a great time. I did some baking today and we went to the Veterans Day parade. Did it rain on our parade? No, but it did snow. We were bundled up with winter gear and blankets though, so we weren't too uncomfortable. There were 26 WWII veterans and they were each in a convertible (brrrr) and were each a "Grand Marshall" - lots of other veterans and current servicemen too, so it was a very nice salute to them all.

Have a great week!

Laurie