I've had a lot of pets of the course of my life. We also had a white boxer for several years, too! I told the Universe (well, I told my husband and the Universe was listening) that now that we had a fenced in yard, we should get another dog.
The next week someone was giving away a litter of 8 week old white boxers outside the PetSmart where I worked at the time. It was love at first sight for my girl with the one brown ear. She was HUGE, taller than your average female. Delivery people were always on edge even though she was amazingly friendly.
She passed away a few years ago of an aggressive form of cancer called Hemangiosarcoma, a fairly rare type of cancer. We didn't even know she had it. The tumor had developed on her kidney where no one could see it.
One day she had trouble urinating. We rushed her to an emergency vet who told us it was cancer and there was nothing we could do. We had to put her down right then because she was in pain. We woke up that morning with a healthy, happy dog, so we thought, and by that evening she was gone.
In 2019 we decided to get another dog. This has been the only dog we've ever officially adopted through a shelter. We went to get a different dog from the website, but when we arrived we were told they "couldn't find" that particular dog. Personally, I think he was probably being treated for heartworms and was in no condition to be seen.
So they brought us out another dog and I sat down on the grass beside him. He immediately crawled into my lap and kissed me and I said "We'll take him!" The lady handed me a pen to sign the adoption papers, then she casually told me he had heartworms.
We adopted him anyway and went through the heartworm treatment that lasted 90 days. He had to stay in a crate for the whole 90 days. He wasn't allowed to walk too much or ever run or get excited in anyway. Which was very hard for a 1-ish year old dog who had so much energy.
But we made it through the heartworm treatment with huge success and there's minimal damage to his heart.
In November, while walking him, my husband noticed a large lump on his leg. We took him into the vet where they told us it was probably a lipoma, a fat deposit. We had it removed. The vet called us right after the surgery to give us the bad news. This was no lipoma. In fact, she'd never seen anything quite like it before and she sent it off to be biopsied.
Hemangiosarcoma.
Initially, the prognosis was that he had about 172 more days to live, which is the average after that diagnosis. We were devastated. But after many rounds of further tests, we discovered that the cancer STARTED in the leg. We caught it early. He has tumors nowhere else in his body. So we decided to do radiation and chemotherapy to give him the best chance possible.
He and I are staying in a hotel this month, because his radiation treatments are everyday Monday through Friday for 4 weeks. He seems to be handling it well, and he's in good spirits. If this gives us even one more day with him (as long as he's not in pain) it's worth every penny.
I don't know the odds of having two dogs with this type of cancer, but it feels pretty unfair, if I'm being honest. But I'm done crying. This time around we have Time, with a capital T. I bake him his favorite cookies. We go on long long walks, his favorite thing to do. I'm determined to make every minute he has left as happy as possible.
He's so friendly and full of life that he doesn't even know he's sick. He even loves the people at the vet we see every day, despite the treatments they give him. He's a gift from the Universe and I tell myself that another family might not have the money or the ability to treat him for this and give him the best chance he'll ever have at living as long as possible.
So yeah, it really fucking sucks, that my 5 year old boy won't get the 10 extra years we were counting on, but we are in a position financially and logistically to treat him and maybe that's why he came to us instead of someone else. It's a heartbreaking responsibility, but ultimately it's not about us, it's about him.
He is our family member, one of our children, and we'll do whatever we need to do.
I am so sorry this troll enjoys spreading her misery to everyone else. I am sending you prayers and I would be doing (and have done!) the exact same for my babies. Enjoy every day with your boy - I am so glad you have each other XO
I don't have any animals in my life. I have never really been in a 'settled' position, and therefore it hasn't felt fair to any animal. Growing up, my brother had a couple of mice, but other than that, we let in to our home the neighbours' marmalade cats, who were big personalities (which is not generally the way I feel about most cats). Slim and Garfield.
As a kid, I had only had bad experiences with dogs - barking at me, being aggressive, and so it came as a shock to me when I fell in love with my brother's big black Lab, Levi. I had moved to Vegas, and was staying with my eldest brother initially. Levi had the habit a lot of dogs have, where he thought he was still the size of a puppy and would come perch on my lap. What a goof. Later, when I'd moved into an apartment with my other brother, our neighbours below would invite us over to watch Lost every week, and I would be exposed to their rambunctuous twosome - a couple of wily mutts.
Could it be that I actually LIKED dogs?
I had various encounters with affable pups over the years, but it was in China (ironically, given the reputation of the natives and their treatment of animals) where my love of dogs really exploded. It really either goes one of two ways there - people are horrifically cruel to animals, or they love them. Street dogs were commonly seen in packs (usually a Pekinese or two, and some mutts) trotting off on adventures, and being fed scraps from the local street-sellers. Wealthier Chinese might have a Golden Retriever, and it would be trained to do all kinds of tricks. Leashes were not common, but I don't recall any negative interactions with dogs in China, those with an owner, or from those living on the street. They were very much part of the furniture.
One day I was walking down the street in Xiangyang, when a lovely Golden trotted over to me, stopped and held out its paw. I could not see an owner around, but I shook his paw, told him good day, and continued on my way. In Dalian, we had a couple of street dogs my husband named Boff and Eggbeard, who were friendly with the watermelon seller outside of our apartment. We would see him hoist Eggbeard on his lap and scratch his belly, lovingly, while feeding him scraps.
The apartment complex we are currently living in, in Minnesota, doesn't allow animals. I see many for sale on FaceBook, and I'd love a Blue Heeler, or an Aussie Shepherd (mini Aussies are very popular here) or maybe a Beagle... perhaps even a scamp of a mutt with one ear up and one ear down. It blows my mind how loyal dogs are, and how loving they can be to we humans.
While I'm not a fan of Boxers - a neighbor had one and the dog was CRAZY - I can relate to your story. My wife and I have four dogs, a lab and heeler we got from our local Humane Society and two Border Collie mixes we picked up by the beach. (Yes, Texas has beaches, about 400 miles of them.) The lab puppy had been brought in as a stray and was infested with worms. I think the Border Collies had been put out by somebody. They were well-behaved but not house-trained. They are our main source of entertainment. Before them we had two chow mixes that came from the Humane Society and a Golden we bought at a pet shop (that has since closed.) Our male chow mix was "the best of dogs," (the title of the book I wrote about him,) Sadly we lost him after he first came down with a rare blood disease then after we got that whipped, he came down with a cancer in his chest. We lost him in September, got another puppy, the lab, two weeks later than a month later learned that the Golden had a tumor on her right shoulder. We lost her in December. We lost the female chow mix the following year. They've been gone for more than eight years now but we still miss them terribly even though the four we have now bring us joy. We also had three cats, a stray who followed my wife's neighbor home before we were married - he gave her to my wife - and two that my wife brought home from out cat-loving friend as kittens. The first cat had a tumor develop under her chin, one was killed by something and the third was well into his teens when we lost him.
My niece, a physical therapist, gave us cups with the message on the side - "Pets are the best therapists." It's true.
By the way, when you lose Hope, go to the shelter and adopt another one. She'd want you to.
The closest to Austin is probably around Port Aransas. Corpus is on the Gulf but I don't know about beaches in the immediate area. Padre Island is south of Corpus and goes all the way nearly to Brownsville. Galveston is another resort town. The water is often brown but it's a neat place. Our favorite place to eat there is Benno's, a Cajun seafood place. Benno died a year or so ago but his former daughter-in-law runs it (she ran it before.) The Original Mexican Cafe is also in Galveston. I haven't been there since Harvey hit it, but Rockport was a nice little resort town. It's not on the Gulf itself but on the backwaters behind the barrier islands. It's not on the beach, in fact it's far from it, but Big Bend National Park is one of the neatest places on the face of the earth. It's probably a day's drive from Austin but it's worth it. There is a lodge but it's a good place to camp, both in the campground and out in the desert at remote sites. Austin is on the ege of the Hill Country. A popular pastime is tubing on one of the rivers. Garner State Park is a good place for tubing but there are camps along the Frio River below there (if they haven't all been washed away by flooding.) Lake Travis is popular but there are lakes all over Texas.
By the way, my alcoholic ex-wife didn't pass away. She rallied and the kids put her in a nursing home. I understand the doctors are giving her six months. Her liver is shot. (She's not in Texas.)
I always wanted a boxer when I was married. With the ex we always had Dobermans, which were all great dogs, even with my girls. But if I’m being honest, I never really connected with them. When I became single I got a cat. Giada is now 17 and still running around like a kitten at times and while I never did get a boxer, I did have a Toy Fox Terrier that my ex and I got just before our split who was with me for nearly 15 years. RIP Sophie. I got my first “own” dog which was an Australian cattle dog, also known as a Heeler, which was my first rescue. She unfortunately became ill at 3 and after asking my vet, “what would you do if it was your dog?” ...I put her down because the chances of recovery were not in her favor and the cost of the treatment was something I couldn’t afford being fairly recently single. RIP Parker. I always wanted another heeler because she was such a sweet and loyal dog, but they’re typically not easy to come by. Nearly 10 years after losing Parker, my daughter (who had found Parker - in Parker, Az at the river) found ANOTHER heeler running around in a parking lot in the snow at her work. She took her home, had her checked for a chip (didn’t have one) and then was subsequently brought to her new home with me. Her name is Denver, and yep my daughter lives in Denver. I’ve had her about 5 years now. I also have a dog that my (same) daughter decided to get while she was in college in a houseful of college students who were never home, and dogs “weren’t allowed”. I got the call “mom, can you take Indy?” So I also have Indy (I’ll let you use your imagination for where THAT name came from) who is going to be 10 this year. My daughter thought she was going to get someplace where she could have Indy back, but after a few years, I said nope. She can have visitation, but can’t take her back lol So I now have my house of fur babies, Denver, Indy and Giada. My same daughter recently adopted another rescue who was left in a box on the side of the highway in Mexico. Harry (yes, named after Potter) is living in Denver and I keep joking that I’m going to call her landlord and complain that her dog is being disruptive so he gets kicked out and can come live with grandma!
The only thing standing between me becoming a meshuganah cat lady with tails and paws and bowls everywhere is my husband and his severe allergies. That said, I'm halfway there anyway.
It started with a Craigslist post. Let's skip over what I was doing on Craigslist this late night about six years ago.
Someone posted that there was an abandoned newborn kitten in their yard. Could anyone help? I quickly scanned the internet for kitten rescue guidelines and directions to the kitten.
I found the baby in a blanket - still alive - eyes yet opened - and warm to the touch. Dozens of kittens later, I knew this was a promising sign, but at this point, I didn't know that newborn kittens are basically cold blooded and would need heat to keep them alive. I bought kitten formula and doll sized bottles. I gave the kitten a Dawn flea bath and de-flead him. Clean, warm, and fed, I tucked him into a box and hid him in the guest bathroom.
Newborn kittens need to eat every two hours. So, for the next few days, I slept little and took Mr. Mestoffeles with me everywhere. Once, at lunch with a friend, I heard him mew from my handbag. My friend's fork was midway to her mouth when I removed the kitten and the bottle and began feeding the little guy like it was a perfectly normal thing to do in a posh Main Street restaurant, although the ladies who lunch barely registered our existence, nevermind that of the non-human suckling.
And this isn't even the most disconcerting part of the story: The entirety of Mr M's residence in my house was completely unknown to my husband.
It remains so. Unless he's in the Write Club under a nom de plume. If so, surprise!
My closest friend reassured me that "I needed this," and "what he doesn't know can't hurt him" to which I answered, "Can't he use the same argument about a girlfriend?"
"No," my friend, an Ivy League educated lawyer reassured me. "There is no moral equivalence between rescuing a cat and cheating on your spouse."
All I knew was that I still felt like it was cheating and that it wasn't the cat who was being rescued. It was me.
The slowest breakup you will ever know, is how I recently heard the relationship between a mother and sons described. That recognition pierced through me with the same familiarity as the Excalibur released itself to Arthur. I gasped at the shock of this pain being articulated. My boys, whose simple unconditional love for me morphed into teenage rage and disregard without warning, whose flight into my arms every afternoon was recast into "don't touch me" when I tried to kiss them goodbye at the bus years before... it was a series of breakups so quiet they barely registered on the Richter scale...but my mother's heart was constantly repairing itself, never quiet growing protective callouses, having an abundance of love outpouring with no conduit, no receptacle.
Until the kitten.
Kittens - abandoned bottle babies - bond with their caregiver, who becomes their mother. If this sounds pathetic, I assure you it is not. It is unimaginably sweet. Eventually, when I had become an official kitten rescuer working for animal control, receiving kitten deliveries at all hours, my husband would be in on it (not thrilled but tolerant), yet, even he (who, we learned, did not develop so much as a sniffle until they turned three months old) was charmed by the adorable devotion and playful cuteness of the parade of kittens in the house.
When Mr. M 12 weeks old, he was adopted by a loving family. After that, I hooked up with a local rescue and for the next three years, my home was the alternative to euthanasia for many "kitten refugees." As hard is it was to let all of them go, the pictures their adoptive families sent always made me smile.
Except there was one who never left. She was returned to me by her adopters. This was the most gorgeous cat I'd ever fostered. She is a long haired, white, hererochromatic Turkish Angora. She's also psychotic. She can be loving one minute and try to rip your nose off the next.
My fear was that if she went back into the system, she would be adopted for her beauty and returned for her violence until she was possibly destroyed.
My husband agreed to let me keep her. It is not an ideal situation. She lives in a modified dog house in the backyard and is a free range cat. Please don't judge. This works for us. She has no interest in coming inside or leaving the yard for long. It isn't the ideal situation, but she isn't the ideal pet. The important thing is that she is alive and unalone.
The same can be said for me - I know this as well as I know anything - as I sit on the stoop, gently scratch that favorite spot under her neck, and hear the reassuring purr that sounds, to us both, like home.
Growing up, we had fish. Low maintenance. My father, to this day, wants a dog. He had animals growing up. Trained a ton of dogs and just has this natural pull that animals sense. It’s incredible to watch him interact with them. He hates cats, but they want his attention.
However, the person who probably prevented this pet-having is my mother. She doesn’t hate animals, but she doesn’t want them. My parents had a dog before they had me. Mom liked the dog, but I think once the dog got jealous of me being in the house - she was turned off.
She put me first, as she should, and didn’t consider having a pet again. She knew she’d end up doing a majority of the work and didn’t want that. It was a responsibility that she opted out of.
As of right now, where I live, we can’t have animals. So, for us, it’s a not a possibility for us. It’s not for not wanting. I think my fiancé would love another small dog, but it’s just not possible right now.
I have two. A German Shepard and a pit bull. They are ying and Yang to each other. They are our protectors, our friends, our companions. My pit bull is ten years old and is showing his age, it’s awful watching something you love get old. He has been with my husband and I our entire relationship. I adore him, he just gets us. The German doesn’t quite understand us like our pit bull does. I love how constant dogs are. No matter the day, they are happy to see you. We are so lucky to have them.
Funny to have this same basic topic on 2 Subs I read within a day of each other. I have cats, currently two, and although they are fun and loving most of the time, I can’t wait until they’re gone and I can be free of pet care. Western society’s obsession with dogs, and the copious amounts of money spent on them, makes me sick to my stomach. To me the dog thing is an indicator of many things wrong with our society, including the total focus on individual.
I've had a lot of pets of the course of my life. We also had a white boxer for several years, too! I told the Universe (well, I told my husband and the Universe was listening) that now that we had a fenced in yard, we should get another dog.
The next week someone was giving away a litter of 8 week old white boxers outside the PetSmart where I worked at the time. It was love at first sight for my girl with the one brown ear. She was HUGE, taller than your average female. Delivery people were always on edge even though she was amazingly friendly.
She passed away a few years ago of an aggressive form of cancer called Hemangiosarcoma, a fairly rare type of cancer. We didn't even know she had it. The tumor had developed on her kidney where no one could see it.
One day she had trouble urinating. We rushed her to an emergency vet who told us it was cancer and there was nothing we could do. We had to put her down right then because she was in pain. We woke up that morning with a healthy, happy dog, so we thought, and by that evening she was gone.
In 2019 we decided to get another dog. This has been the only dog we've ever officially adopted through a shelter. We went to get a different dog from the website, but when we arrived we were told they "couldn't find" that particular dog. Personally, I think he was probably being treated for heartworms and was in no condition to be seen.
So they brought us out another dog and I sat down on the grass beside him. He immediately crawled into my lap and kissed me and I said "We'll take him!" The lady handed me a pen to sign the adoption papers, then she casually told me he had heartworms.
We adopted him anyway and went through the heartworm treatment that lasted 90 days. He had to stay in a crate for the whole 90 days. He wasn't allowed to walk too much or ever run or get excited in anyway. Which was very hard for a 1-ish year old dog who had so much energy.
But we made it through the heartworm treatment with huge success and there's minimal damage to his heart.
In November, while walking him, my husband noticed a large lump on his leg. We took him into the vet where they told us it was probably a lipoma, a fat deposit. We had it removed. The vet called us right after the surgery to give us the bad news. This was no lipoma. In fact, she'd never seen anything quite like it before and she sent it off to be biopsied.
Hemangiosarcoma.
Initially, the prognosis was that he had about 172 more days to live, which is the average after that diagnosis. We were devastated. But after many rounds of further tests, we discovered that the cancer STARTED in the leg. We caught it early. He has tumors nowhere else in his body. So we decided to do radiation and chemotherapy to give him the best chance possible.
He and I are staying in a hotel this month, because his radiation treatments are everyday Monday through Friday for 4 weeks. He seems to be handling it well, and he's in good spirits. If this gives us even one more day with him (as long as he's not in pain) it's worth every penny.
I don't know the odds of having two dogs with this type of cancer, but it feels pretty unfair, if I'm being honest. But I'm done crying. This time around we have Time, with a capital T. I bake him his favorite cookies. We go on long long walks, his favorite thing to do. I'm determined to make every minute he has left as happy as possible.
He's so friendly and full of life that he doesn't even know he's sick. He even loves the people at the vet we see every day, despite the treatments they give him. He's a gift from the Universe and I tell myself that another family might not have the money or the ability to treat him for this and give him the best chance he'll ever have at living as long as possible.
So yeah, it really fucking sucks, that my 5 year old boy won't get the 10 extra years we were counting on, but we are in a position financially and logistically to treat him and maybe that's why he came to us instead of someone else. It's a heartbreaking responsibility, but ultimately it's not about us, it's about him.
He is our family member, one of our children, and we'll do whatever we need to do.
Sending prayers. You are giving them love and care for their too short time in this world which is hard, but beautiful.
Thanks. He deserves every minute I can give him.
I so relate to this! I'm sorry for your loss.
All I can say is I hope you donate as much money to charity and/or volunteer your time, as you spend keeping one dog alive.
And all I can say is GO FUCK YOURSELF.
No I can say more: No wonder you're a single mom.
I am so sorry this troll enjoys spreading her misery to everyone else. I am sending you prayers and I would be doing (and have done!) the exact same for my babies. Enjoy every day with your boy - I am so glad you have each other XO
I don't have any animals in my life. I have never really been in a 'settled' position, and therefore it hasn't felt fair to any animal. Growing up, my brother had a couple of mice, but other than that, we let in to our home the neighbours' marmalade cats, who were big personalities (which is not generally the way I feel about most cats). Slim and Garfield.
As a kid, I had only had bad experiences with dogs - barking at me, being aggressive, and so it came as a shock to me when I fell in love with my brother's big black Lab, Levi. I had moved to Vegas, and was staying with my eldest brother initially. Levi had the habit a lot of dogs have, where he thought he was still the size of a puppy and would come perch on my lap. What a goof. Later, when I'd moved into an apartment with my other brother, our neighbours below would invite us over to watch Lost every week, and I would be exposed to their rambunctuous twosome - a couple of wily mutts.
Could it be that I actually LIKED dogs?
I had various encounters with affable pups over the years, but it was in China (ironically, given the reputation of the natives and their treatment of animals) where my love of dogs really exploded. It really either goes one of two ways there - people are horrifically cruel to animals, or they love them. Street dogs were commonly seen in packs (usually a Pekinese or two, and some mutts) trotting off on adventures, and being fed scraps from the local street-sellers. Wealthier Chinese might have a Golden Retriever, and it would be trained to do all kinds of tricks. Leashes were not common, but I don't recall any negative interactions with dogs in China, those with an owner, or from those living on the street. They were very much part of the furniture.
One day I was walking down the street in Xiangyang, when a lovely Golden trotted over to me, stopped and held out its paw. I could not see an owner around, but I shook his paw, told him good day, and continued on my way. In Dalian, we had a couple of street dogs my husband named Boff and Eggbeard, who were friendly with the watermelon seller outside of our apartment. We would see him hoist Eggbeard on his lap and scratch his belly, lovingly, while feeding him scraps.
The apartment complex we are currently living in, in Minnesota, doesn't allow animals. I see many for sale on FaceBook, and I'd love a Blue Heeler, or an Aussie Shepherd (mini Aussies are very popular here) or maybe a Beagle... perhaps even a scamp of a mutt with one ear up and one ear down. It blows my mind how loyal dogs are, and how loving they can be to we humans.
While I'm not a fan of Boxers - a neighbor had one and the dog was CRAZY - I can relate to your story. My wife and I have four dogs, a lab and heeler we got from our local Humane Society and two Border Collie mixes we picked up by the beach. (Yes, Texas has beaches, about 400 miles of them.) The lab puppy had been brought in as a stray and was infested with worms. I think the Border Collies had been put out by somebody. They were well-behaved but not house-trained. They are our main source of entertainment. Before them we had two chow mixes that came from the Humane Society and a Golden we bought at a pet shop (that has since closed.) Our male chow mix was "the best of dogs," (the title of the book I wrote about him,) Sadly we lost him after he first came down with a rare blood disease then after we got that whipped, he came down with a cancer in his chest. We lost him in September, got another puppy, the lab, two weeks later than a month later learned that the Golden had a tumor on her right shoulder. We lost her in December. We lost the female chow mix the following year. They've been gone for more than eight years now but we still miss them terribly even though the four we have now bring us joy. We also had three cats, a stray who followed my wife's neighbor home before we were married - he gave her to my wife - and two that my wife brought home from out cat-loving friend as kittens. The first cat had a tumor develop under her chin, one was killed by something and the third was well into his teens when we lost him.
My niece, a physical therapist, gave us cups with the message on the side - "Pets are the best therapists." It's true.
By the way, when you lose Hope, go to the shelter and adopt another one. She'd want you to.
I am so looking forward to exploring the Texas beaches!
The closest to Austin is probably around Port Aransas. Corpus is on the Gulf but I don't know about beaches in the immediate area. Padre Island is south of Corpus and goes all the way nearly to Brownsville. Galveston is another resort town. The water is often brown but it's a neat place. Our favorite place to eat there is Benno's, a Cajun seafood place. Benno died a year or so ago but his former daughter-in-law runs it (she ran it before.) The Original Mexican Cafe is also in Galveston. I haven't been there since Harvey hit it, but Rockport was a nice little resort town. It's not on the Gulf itself but on the backwaters behind the barrier islands. It's not on the beach, in fact it's far from it, but Big Bend National Park is one of the neatest places on the face of the earth. It's probably a day's drive from Austin but it's worth it. There is a lodge but it's a good place to camp, both in the campground and out in the desert at remote sites. Austin is on the ege of the Hill Country. A popular pastime is tubing on one of the rivers. Garner State Park is a good place for tubing but there are camps along the Frio River below there (if they haven't all been washed away by flooding.) Lake Travis is popular but there are lakes all over Texas.
By the way, my alcoholic ex-wife didn't pass away. She rallied and the kids put her in a nursing home. I understand the doctors are giving her six months. Her liver is shot. (She's not in Texas.)
I always wanted a boxer when I was married. With the ex we always had Dobermans, which were all great dogs, even with my girls. But if I’m being honest, I never really connected with them. When I became single I got a cat. Giada is now 17 and still running around like a kitten at times and while I never did get a boxer, I did have a Toy Fox Terrier that my ex and I got just before our split who was with me for nearly 15 years. RIP Sophie. I got my first “own” dog which was an Australian cattle dog, also known as a Heeler, which was my first rescue. She unfortunately became ill at 3 and after asking my vet, “what would you do if it was your dog?” ...I put her down because the chances of recovery were not in her favor and the cost of the treatment was something I couldn’t afford being fairly recently single. RIP Parker. I always wanted another heeler because she was such a sweet and loyal dog, but they’re typically not easy to come by. Nearly 10 years after losing Parker, my daughter (who had found Parker - in Parker, Az at the river) found ANOTHER heeler running around in a parking lot in the snow at her work. She took her home, had her checked for a chip (didn’t have one) and then was subsequently brought to her new home with me. Her name is Denver, and yep my daughter lives in Denver. I’ve had her about 5 years now. I also have a dog that my (same) daughter decided to get while she was in college in a houseful of college students who were never home, and dogs “weren’t allowed”. I got the call “mom, can you take Indy?” So I also have Indy (I’ll let you use your imagination for where THAT name came from) who is going to be 10 this year. My daughter thought she was going to get someplace where she could have Indy back, but after a few years, I said nope. She can have visitation, but can’t take her back lol So I now have my house of fur babies, Denver, Indy and Giada. My same daughter recently adopted another rescue who was left in a box on the side of the highway in Mexico. Harry (yes, named after Potter) is living in Denver and I keep joking that I’m going to call her landlord and complain that her dog is being disruptive so he gets kicked out and can come live with grandma!
The only thing standing between me becoming a meshuganah cat lady with tails and paws and bowls everywhere is my husband and his severe allergies. That said, I'm halfway there anyway.
It started with a Craigslist post. Let's skip over what I was doing on Craigslist this late night about six years ago.
Someone posted that there was an abandoned newborn kitten in their yard. Could anyone help? I quickly scanned the internet for kitten rescue guidelines and directions to the kitten.
I found the baby in a blanket - still alive - eyes yet opened - and warm to the touch. Dozens of kittens later, I knew this was a promising sign, but at this point, I didn't know that newborn kittens are basically cold blooded and would need heat to keep them alive. I bought kitten formula and doll sized bottles. I gave the kitten a Dawn flea bath and de-flead him. Clean, warm, and fed, I tucked him into a box and hid him in the guest bathroom.
Newborn kittens need to eat every two hours. So, for the next few days, I slept little and took Mr. Mestoffeles with me everywhere. Once, at lunch with a friend, I heard him mew from my handbag. My friend's fork was midway to her mouth when I removed the kitten and the bottle and began feeding the little guy like it was a perfectly normal thing to do in a posh Main Street restaurant, although the ladies who lunch barely registered our existence, nevermind that of the non-human suckling.
And this isn't even the most disconcerting part of the story: The entirety of Mr M's residence in my house was completely unknown to my husband.
It remains so. Unless he's in the Write Club under a nom de plume. If so, surprise!
My closest friend reassured me that "I needed this," and "what he doesn't know can't hurt him" to which I answered, "Can't he use the same argument about a girlfriend?"
"No," my friend, an Ivy League educated lawyer reassured me. "There is no moral equivalence between rescuing a cat and cheating on your spouse."
All I knew was that I still felt like it was cheating and that it wasn't the cat who was being rescued. It was me.
The slowest breakup you will ever know, is how I recently heard the relationship between a mother and sons described. That recognition pierced through me with the same familiarity as the Excalibur released itself to Arthur. I gasped at the shock of this pain being articulated. My boys, whose simple unconditional love for me morphed into teenage rage and disregard without warning, whose flight into my arms every afternoon was recast into "don't touch me" when I tried to kiss them goodbye at the bus years before... it was a series of breakups so quiet they barely registered on the Richter scale...but my mother's heart was constantly repairing itself, never quiet growing protective callouses, having an abundance of love outpouring with no conduit, no receptacle.
Until the kitten.
Kittens - abandoned bottle babies - bond with their caregiver, who becomes their mother. If this sounds pathetic, I assure you it is not. It is unimaginably sweet. Eventually, when I had become an official kitten rescuer working for animal control, receiving kitten deliveries at all hours, my husband would be in on it (not thrilled but tolerant), yet, even he (who, we learned, did not develop so much as a sniffle until they turned three months old) was charmed by the adorable devotion and playful cuteness of the parade of kittens in the house.
When Mr. M 12 weeks old, he was adopted by a loving family. After that, I hooked up with a local rescue and for the next three years, my home was the alternative to euthanasia for many "kitten refugees." As hard is it was to let all of them go, the pictures their adoptive families sent always made me smile.
Except there was one who never left. She was returned to me by her adopters. This was the most gorgeous cat I'd ever fostered. She is a long haired, white, hererochromatic Turkish Angora. She's also psychotic. She can be loving one minute and try to rip your nose off the next.
My fear was that if she went back into the system, she would be adopted for her beauty and returned for her violence until she was possibly destroyed.
My husband agreed to let me keep her. It is not an ideal situation. She lives in a modified dog house in the backyard and is a free range cat. Please don't judge. This works for us. She has no interest in coming inside or leaving the yard for long. It isn't the ideal situation, but she isn't the ideal pet. The important thing is that she is alive and unalone.
The same can be said for me - I know this as well as I know anything - as I sit on the stoop, gently scratch that favorite spot under her neck, and hear the reassuring purr that sounds, to us both, like home.
Growing up, we had fish. Low maintenance. My father, to this day, wants a dog. He had animals growing up. Trained a ton of dogs and just has this natural pull that animals sense. It’s incredible to watch him interact with them. He hates cats, but they want his attention.
However, the person who probably prevented this pet-having is my mother. She doesn’t hate animals, but she doesn’t want them. My parents had a dog before they had me. Mom liked the dog, but I think once the dog got jealous of me being in the house - she was turned off.
She put me first, as she should, and didn’t consider having a pet again. She knew she’d end up doing a majority of the work and didn’t want that. It was a responsibility that she opted out of.
As of right now, where I live, we can’t have animals. So, for us, it’s a not a possibility for us. It’s not for not wanting. I think my fiancé would love another small dog, but it’s just not possible right now.
I have two. A German Shepard and a pit bull. They are ying and Yang to each other. They are our protectors, our friends, our companions. My pit bull is ten years old and is showing his age, it’s awful watching something you love get old. He has been with my husband and I our entire relationship. I adore him, he just gets us. The German doesn’t quite understand us like our pit bull does. I love how constant dogs are. No matter the day, they are happy to see you. We are so lucky to have them.
Funny to have this same basic topic on 2 Subs I read within a day of each other. I have cats, currently two, and although they are fun and loving most of the time, I can’t wait until they’re gone and I can be free of pet care. Western society’s obsession with dogs, and the copious amounts of money spent on them, makes me sick to my stomach. To me the dog thing is an indicator of many things wrong with our society, including the total focus on individual.