Tag: animals

  • Chip at work
  • Hypoallergenic Cats

    Using “proprietary genetic technologies,” Allerca has produced a line of hypoallergenic cats. These genetically selected/modified cats (the process is not clearly described) produce a variant of the Fel d 1 glycoprotein, the protein normally associated with feline allergies. Allerca claims this makes the GD cats hypoallergenic.

    There are only a few catches:

    • You can’t select the color of your cat.
    • The cats are available for the low, low cost of only $3,950.
    • The wait is two years or more, though for a minor expedite fee of $1,950 you can reduce your wait to “a few months.”
    • There is a processing and shipping fee of of $995.

    Although our cat Nemo was $6,940 cheaper than Allerca’s GD cats, she didn’t come with all shots, a microchip, and a cat carrier. See what money can get you?

    Oh, one more item — all Allerca cats are either spayed or neutered. I wonder why that might be…

  • Feed me!

    The three swallow chicks above our entry have become five. Anybody have a dragonfly for these grumpy-looking chicks to eat?

  • Swallow chicks

    The swallows are back this year in the nest over our front entryway. They enlarged the nest, making the walls a little taller. Just this week, bird poop appeared on the mat I had placed under the nest, announcing the arrival of three little chicks.

    When I climbed a ladder to get a closer look, two continued snoozing, while one was hoping for a bug. Sorry, can’t help you there…

  • Welcome home, Neptune

    Jamison has a new pet, or should I say, we have a new family member. After supper I took Jamison to the pet store where we adopted Neptune, a long-haired hamster. Jamison has been wanting a hamster for a while. Today he set up the cage with bedding, food and water, hoping that we would agree.

    Now that Neptune is home, it’s time to have some fun. This looks like a good start. Stay tuned…

  • Worth two in the bush?

    This morning I drove Melissa to school. She needed to arrive early for a field trip to the Oregon Coast. On her way out the door, she grabbed her lunch, her book bag, and then her shoes off the front porch. As I backed out of the driveway, she settled in and started putting on her shoes. Her toe discovered something soft and grayish-brown in the tip of the first shoe. She jerked the shoe away, held it in my direction, and asked what I saw. She had reason to be concerned. Recently, her mother found a dead field mouse generously deposited in her shoe by our insane cat (sorry, “insane cat” is redundant in all circumstances). I looked in the shoe and saw a small bird. I couldn’t yet tell whether it was alive. A couple of pokes showed that the bird was indeed alive, and now burrowed farther in the shoe’s toe.

    Melissa unlaced her shoe and lifted its tongue. Now we could see a little more of the bird. I put my finger alongside the bird, and prodded it out. Not only was the bird alive, but it looked alert, unharmed, and quite young. It apparently ended up on our front porch, saw a cat, and took refuge in Melissa’s right shoe.

    We took the bird in the school to find Melissa’s science teacher. Maybe she would know what to do with a young bird. After not finding her, but being found by virtually every seventh-grade girl who was told the story of finding a bird in the shoe on the way to school, Melissa had to go in and sit down. I had the bird and needed a box to hold it on the way home. The kindergarten room yielded a box, and the discovery that the bird could fly, though apparently not too well.

    The bird serenaded me the whole way home, sounding healthier with each mile. The Audubon Society’s answering machine provided helpful information:

    • The mother, having a lousy sense of smell, would not reject the baby bird after it had been handled by humans.
    • It’s normal for baby birds to spend two or more days on the ground while learning to fly.
    • The Audubon Society would not take in a healthy bird unless we knew for sure it was an orphan.
    • Setting the bird free was the best thing we could do for it.

    After taking the bird home, showing it to Jamison, and taking its picture, I retrieved the ladder to look up in the gutter where we’ve been seeing some birds come and go. I didn’t find a nest, but did see an area where a nest might be, and set the open box nearby, where the bird’s parents would be able to find it and care for it.

    Before I could even get down the ladder, my new friend flew from the box, across the yard, and perched in a tree. Clearly, I had been sandbagged the whole way to and from school by this little creature. It was soon joined in the tree by a black-capped chickadee and a house finch (which I think it is). Its prospects look good.

    Melissa will be pleased to hear that this bird need not be memorialized by anything more than the new whitish stains in the bottom of her right shoe.

  • Veggin’

    Nemo veggin'

    After a week of showing up with an increasingly sore throat, I’m going on vacation this weekend. We’ll be veggin’, like Nemo in the picture.

    With luck, we’ll have snow to enjoy. Otherwise, we’ll be able to drive to Crater Lake and catch some sights.

    Have a great weekend!

    Update: Corrected a redundancy. It was a long week… The weekend was wonderful, though. It snowed Sunday afternoon and evening. Got about 4-5 inches. Might post a picture or two later.

  • Saving Nemo

    Yesterday, my calico cat, Nemo, had a 9-cm chunk of fur and skin bitten from her right, rear flank. The muscle layer was showing through the wound. After a close shave (in more ways than one), several hours in the after-hours vet clinic, and 13 staples, she appears to be well on her way to mending.

    Nemo has pain meds and antibiotics to help her feel better and get better. She is also wearing a clear, conical “e-collar” to keep her from licking the stapled wound with her sandpaper tongue, potentially injuring both her tongue and wound. Unfortunately, she can neither eat nor drink while wearing the e-collar; the cone extends too far beyond the tip of her nose. So, for the last 24 hours, I have periodically removed the e-collar and watched her while she eats and drinks. Then the collar goes back on. I also get to give her a warm compress to keep the drain from clogging. So far, she’s let me hold a warm washcloth to her side while she eats. I wonder how many more days she’ll let me do that.

    According to the discharge instructions, Nemo should be feeling pretty good in a couple of weeks. Until then, I’m going to be spending a lot of time with her.

    The things we do for our pets…

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