Yearly Update?

It has been ten months since I wrote something here.  Not sure where all that time went.  It really does fly when you get older.  Can’t imagine what it is like in dog or cat years.  Yikes!

To catch up: Casey did not manage to lose much weight after I put her on the last diet.  We tried walking but it was so buggy that staying in the woods long was less then enjoyable.   Casey was also having problems with energy and stamina.  There was one morning I thought I would have to pick her up and carry her back to the Jeep.  She made it, but it was a long slow process.

No matter what I did she seemed to be gaining weight and becoming more and more lethargic.  When I went back to work in the fall I called a holistic vet.  I really did love our old vet and they were very very good to Casey, but it was hard to schedule appointments and it really was not cost-effective for her to have to come all the way here. 

The first vet visit was very traumatic for both of us.  Casey’s blood pressure sky rocketed and they couldn’t do a full exam because they thought she was going to have a heart attack.  Instead we had to schedule an appointment with Tufts .  A very good clinic, but a very expensive one also.

One thousand dollars later we learned Casey has a stage one heart murmur and hypothyroidism.  That explains almost everything about the poor baby girl.   She was put on a strict diet and has to take a pill 2x a day for the rest of her life.  It made her a brand new beagle.  She is almost at her correct weight, has a ton of energy, and her attitude has gotten 99% better.   Simply amazing.

As for the cat trio.  They are all still going strong.  Ashes still has bouts of bloody urine, but has become very cuddly.  Sometimes sleeping in the bed with me.  Moose’s internal clock is off by an hour and he has been waking my every morning at 3:00 a.m.  Hopefully turning the clocks in the spring will cure that.  Jordan is still clawing apart the woodwork all over the house.  We have tried everything and we can still hear her in the middle of the night and see the damage in the morning.

Indy bird is still naked most of the time.  She has a smaller cage in my room (office) but doesn’t come out even if I open the door.  Crazy bird.

Not much else to update.   At least on this blog.  I have been writing more on my personal blog, Ramblinann if you want to pop over there.  I will make a conscious effort to keep writing here too.  After all my pets are my kids now.

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It’s A Bird’s Life

I think the saying is “It’s A Dog’s Life”, but in my house that isn’t true.   It’s my quaker Indy that gets special treatment at this time of the year.

We are making the transition between having the pellet stove on to heat the whole house and not.  With the cost of heating, even pellets have gone up dramatically, we need to conserve as much as possible.

Because quakers are technically tropical birds Indy doesn’t do well when it is cold.  What feathers she has get all puffy and she tries to roll into a small ball to conserve body heat.  It is not good.  Indy’s big cage is out in the dining room where right now it is chilly.  Her little cage is in here with me where I can close the door and put the electric baseboard on.  She gets to be cage free, but usually lounges in her tent.  That is unless the birds outside are busy taunting her.  Then she has to be on the top of her cage yelling at them.

Meanwhile my underprivileged Casey has to sleep under the covers with us. While Moose, Ashes, and Jordan, have the crate (which was bought for Casey), Casey’s memory foam bed, or me to sleep on.  Did I mention they all have beautiful fur coats and are underprivileged?

          

         

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