Needed to share. happy holidays!

Merrill

When we broke for lunch I took him back to my apartment and hid him for some time before I got hit with a pet deposit. I took him over to my mother’s house to show him off and the first thing he did was bite my sister on the end of her nose while standing on her chest. She hated him after that and it set the stage for the kind of cat he became.

Bogie (Merrill will certainly understand why I chose that name for him) turned out to be a one owner cat for some time. Whenever anyone would come to my apartment he would hiss at them and swat them. No one would believe me when I would tell them how sweet he could be when he would climb up on my chest and sleep while purring the whole time.

As he has aged he’s gotten only slightly better with strangers – now he hisses and leaves. Bogie has to endure 1 other cat (another rescue named Lauren), 3 dogs (pitbull, border collie mix & white long haired chihuahua), 2 kids and my wife. He has lived with Lauren for several years and is fine with her – he even cleans her. He tolerates the dogs but does sometimes play with the chihuahua – it’s hilarious to watch him swat her hard and she just keeps on bouncing around him. He loves my wife and does okay with my son but better with my daughter.

Bogie just turned 15 in October and is still going strong. He plays like a kitten but he definitely sets the rules on who is allowed to pet him or be close to him at any given moment. He still loves me more than anyone and I love that cranky old man. I could go on about rescuing Lauren or my pitbull but that’s enough from me

The first was the puppy I saved one year as a kid on a water skiing trip to the Colorado River. The puppy was swimming in the river by the floating bar and I plucked her out. No one claimed her in the two weeks we were there. Very cute Spuds MacKenzie looking puppy complete with one black ear. My dad said I could keep it and my mother reluctantly agreed. I named her Schiada after my favorite boat. The dog continued to have a death wish, however – jumped the fence and got hit by a car (broken leg), ate snail poison pellets (pumped stomach), got bit by a snake (large vet bill) and so on until she finally did herself in. I think we must have saved that dog at least 10 times. When I say “we”, I mean my parents who easily could have let the crazy animal go since she cost them a fortune.

Next, there was a tortoise. We found him in the street and he had been hit by a car and his shell was cracked. Nursed him back to health and dubbed him “Speedy.” Speedy lived happily in the yard for years. One day, he just disappeared (ran away from home, apparently).

My first horse in a long series was an Appaloosa. A fantastic animal that was my best friend for years. I put my heart and soul into training that horse and we had a great run in the rodeo/gymkhana circuit in CA. He was so well trained, that when he started to go blind, no one noticed. It happened pretty quickly, but not until he was fully blind, and ran through a short obstacle, did I realize something was wrong. We really were in disbelief when the vet told us the next day. Cataracts were the culprit and the vet recommended we put him down. Here is where the heroic efforts come in. My dad talked to several equine experts and there was one veterinarian doing experimental equine cataract surgery and he was in SoCal. So, my horse became one of the first to get cataract surgery – back in 1975. He got cloudy vision back and a couple more good years of life. As an adult, I am honestly hard pressed today to say I would even consider doing this, but my parents are pretty special people.

The latest was what I thought was a lizard swimming in our pool. Turned out to be a baby rat. I fished it out of the pool and let it dry out and head back to wherever home was. Even a rat deserves a second chance.

Last Halloween a stray cat came to our door. This was two weeks after a brush fire had forced us out of our home for 2 days. We started to feed him as he was very friendly and in need of a home. On November 14th another brush fire forced us to evacuate. As we were loading our cars, we saw the cat by the side of our house. For a second or two my wife and I thought we had the opportunity to take him with us, but he got freaked and took off. We both thought that was the last we had seen of him. Two days later, while I was moving back into our house, I heard a sound outside and to my surprise it was our friend. For the next month, my wife and I were not sure what to do with him, as we were scheduled to take a 3 week vacation in South America beginning in mid December. We tried to get friends to adopt him, but had no takers. We already had 3 cats of our own, but felt we did not have the time nor energy to bring in a new member and then leave for 3 weeks. It would of been unfair burden for our cat sitter. Two days before we were due to fly down to Argentina, it began to rain heavily. That morning our friend was sitting in the rain looking into our enclosed patio where our cats are allowed to roam and sleep. I decided to make an executive decision. I sealed off the patio from our 3 cats and then let the stray into the patio area. I figured our 3 girls could suffer as house cats for the duration of our holiday, while the stray male would have the safety of the enclosed patio. Our cat sitter was given instructions to take care of all 4 cats and keep them separate until we got back (we cartainly had no clue how healthy he was). We also told her that if the stray male wanted to be released to let him out. For the next 3 weeks, my wife and I enjoyed our South America trip, but everyday we wondered out loud about if the stray male would still be at our home when we returned. We got home at around noon on a Sunday and sure enough our boy, Pip, was there in the patio. At 1 PM we phoned our vet and made an appointment to take him in. At 10 AM the next day we were at the vet with Pip and found out he needed to be neutered. That afternoon we got word that his blood test were negative for feline diseases. The next day he got neutered and was back at our home the following afternoon.

Pip has been with us for over a year now. Many of our friends agreed that he hit the jackpot when he stopped by our house last Halloween. He is now a big fat house cat, surrounded by 3 females who just love him and two humans who feel that he is the silver lining that came out of two evacuations due to fire.

Once when we went out back, we immediately noticed a baby bird had fallen out of the nest. (Lucky for the baby birdie, our puppy had been inside most of the day!). We couldn’t just leave it there. We had heard you shouldn’t touch a baby bird or the mother will reject it (does anyone know if that’s actually true?), plus we wanted to be sanitary, so my husband put on a glove and placed the baby bird back in the nest. After we backed away, the parents came back. The baby bird survived and flew away a few weeks later! It was such a small thing, but it mattered to us.