A Gimp Trifecta…
Never fails…. ever. The moment we think we can go away without a care… something happens with one of the animals that makes us paranoid. This weekend it was all of them… Let me start at the beginning….
We have a house guest and she is getting to know the animals. We warned her about Albert’s eating disorder and she is good about keeping temptation away from his prying eyes. The little runt cat is obsessed with food. He eats PLENTY, and really fast and it is not uncommon for him to eat so fast that he immediately pukes it up. Which is an ordeal unto itself because the other animals immediately try to eat it. Yes. Gross. So when the hell of the puking starts the referee hat kicks in and we play Keep Away while trying to clean up the traveling mess. Those of you with cats know that they move around and puke in multiple spots. It is lovely. But this feeds into Albert’s bigger obsession, eating anything that is on the counter. This includes bags of chips, bread, crackers, pens, napkins, paper of any kind. And apparently COFFEE. WHO KNEW????
Let me set the scene for you. Hubby and I retire for the evening and the daily routine usually goes like this. Just about to doze off, in that twilight haze of just about to go under…. and then…. out in the main part of the house….
Rustle rustle rustle…. sound of something hitting the floor…. something being batted across the floor… scurrying…. nails scurrying around a turn at top speed…. rustle rustle rustle. My eyes pop open. An expletive laden muttering from one of us “Dammit WTF does he have now?” “What does it sound like? What was on the counter? Do we care about it? Is it the mail? Was there anything important? Should we get up?”
Inevitably one of us does. Albert scurries into a dark corner and we see whatever it is on the floor, possibly in shreds. Clean up, possibly lock something behind the doors of a cabinet or into the refrigerator, and back to bed. Just about to doze off, again in that twilight haze of just about to go under…. and then…. out in the main part of the house…. AGAIN… rustle rustle rustle…. sound of something hitting the floor…. rustle rustle rustle…. rustle rustle rustle…. rustle rustle rustle…. rustle rustle rustle….
UGH!!!!!! WTF IS THAT???? This time hubby gets up… walks out there… and all I hear is …
“Oh no…. oh that is NOT good…. oh no…. geezus that is not good….”
Of course I get up now too and idiot cat has DESTROYED House Guest’s BAG OF COFFEE! It is all over the floor… bite marks all over the bag… and if you do not know this… IT COULD KILL HIM!!!
Caffeine and animals DO NOT MIX. Hence no chocolate… same thing.
So we clean that up and now I am ULTRA paranoid about Albert dropping dead of heart failure all night long. Needless to say I was WIDE awake and had a pretty sleepless night………… waiting……………………… So we got that going on….
Meanwhile back at the ranch…
Oscar runs every morning with Hubby. They go to a local park where Oscar can run and wear himself out off leash, it is a beautiful thing. Friday morning he ran to his heart’s content and by that night we THOUGHT we saw what appeared to be a slight limp. Bah… probably just stiff from laying around all night.
Saturday morning….
Yeah. DEFINITE limp. NO JOKE. Could not even put weight on his front right leg. He was hobbling around very pronounced and of course, being the freak about his feet that he is, would not let us really get in there to look to see what was going on. He will not let anyone cut his nails and we have tried a lot. Even Butzer cannot cut his nails. Hubby was convinced he broke a toe. I thought it was just a sprain or a pulled muscle because all day, ALL DAY…. I was all over him every time he crashed out. I felt all over his entire leg starting at his shoulder and down to his toes. Never once did he flinch so there was no obvious point of his pain. I felt every toe, ligament, muscle…. nothing obvious at all. Then we started to look at his nails. Maybe he jammed one up into a toe??? Not noticeable if that was it. It is so frustrating to not be able to figure it out. It MUST hurt him because as you know, dogs are resilient. They never show discomfort unless it is bad.
I obsessed all day of course. I watched his gate, his limp, how he held his foot, where he bore his weight. We discussed taking him up to Butzer but it was OF COURSE Saturday, weekend hours at the vet are almost twice as expensive and what would they do? Xray him and not see anything, then what? Like I said, I felt his leg and foot all day long. There was nothing out of the ordinary. So we played the waiting game.
So we got that going on…..
Then there is Jimi, my almost 15 year old tabby who suddenly acquired a squint in one eye. Jimi is a mess most of the time anyway, with his putrid breath and his pooping around the house, his ears require daily cleaning and it is not uncommon for him to scratch himself in the eye and cause irritation. So he is winking at me Saturday morning and I get a soft tissue and go attend to the goop oozing out of it. It is pretty heavy but once I clean it out he was doing ok most of the day. By Saturday night his eye looked red so I cleaned it out again with some water and a tissue. And again we play the waiting game.
And now we have that going on…
Well it is Monday morning and all seems to have righted itself again. The dog is not limping nearly as much, Jimi’s eye looks a bit better, Albert is still alive and kickin’. We narrowly averted spending a small fortune for three animals on weekend hours at the vet, and everyone seems to be improving.
Let’s just try to hold a steady improvement in all areas through the weekend so that we can go to Spring Training with a clear conscience??? Can we??? Huh?? Please????
Ommmmmmmmm…….. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm……..
Breatheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…………………………………………….
Saving Cody 