Why? Because I did it AGAIN! For the third AND the fourth time!!!!! After forgetting Brandy’s and Foster’s gotcha days, you’d think I’d pay more attention, right? But noooooo. I forgot about the fourteenth birthday of Grizzley AND Georgia’s gotcha day. Yup, I suck.
This one is for Grizzley.
My friend Lefty used to live in a basement apartment 14 years ago and he “had” a cat. She wasn’t really his cat, who strayed into his basement window one day and made herself comfortable. She came and went as she pleased and one day gave birth to a litter of four in Lefty’s apartment. I know, it was a time when I was ignorant of pet overpopulation problem.
I went over to pick a kitty to bring home, and there were one huge off-white colored kitty, big gray kitty, smaller black kitty and a teeny orange kitty. I was struck by the orange one because he was sitting all by himself and looked so sad. I picked the orange one, and Lefty and Nick told me I’d better not because he’s the runt and mostly likely not survive. So I went ahead and picked the gray one as well, and that’s my Grizzley. The orange kitty was my Thanta, who passed 3 years ago. I will blog about him later sometime.
So I took them home one day. Grizzley, as I mentioned before, is a big framed cat and was extremely athletic and exceptionally smart. The only place I forbade them to go was the kitchen counter, so he used to jump up on top of the refrigerator to see what I was doing whenever I was doing something in the kitchen. He was so nosy he usually had to see everything I did. Whenever I cleaned the kitty litter, he would jump up on top of my back, since I would bend my back to scoop it, to keep on eye on what I was doing with his bathroom. Then one day, something happened while I was at work. I don’t know what happened exactly, but it resulted in two femur head surgeries, one on each side, to relieve the pain. Ever since then he stopped being athletic.
Grizzley’s absolute favorite pastime is to make himself comfortable around my neck and shoulder area and knead on my hair – he could do this for hours if left alone. He likes opening doors; cabinet, closet, any door, just to open it. His favorite snack is the soft part of a bagel. He is the only one who bothers me when I eat, trying to pull my hand holding the forkful of food away from my mouth to his every single time. It would be kind of funny actually, arm wrestling with Grizzley for every single bite, if I’m not in a hurry, which is really a rare occurrence. He doesn’t like dogs getting unruly and he always shows them he’s the boss whenever Brandy, Foster or Georgia looks like to him as out of order. Brooklyn, of course, he’s very afraid of, since she almost killed him once, and he vanishes to somewhere whenever I take Brooklyn out of the room.
Despite Grizzley’s latest struggle, no matter it’s cancer or just IBS, he still rules his domain and doesn’t seem to be wiling to lower the level of his grumpiness or pushy behavior. He turned fourteen last Saturday, and I’m cautiously optimistic that he still have a few more years left in him. Please say a little prayer for him on account of his belated birthday.
Happy Birthday, Griz! Love ya!
Grizzley has been doing well on 5mg prednisone once a day. As Dr. L instructed, I tried once every other day before I ran out of pills, but he promptly started throwing up a little everyday. So I tried once every day and a half, but let’s face it. I’m getting old and the gray matter inside my skull doesn’t process this “once every day and a half” concept very well; one dose in the morning, then the next day in the evening, and then skip a day, and the one in the morning, etc. You get my drift. So back to once a day, and he seems to be doing fine again. And I will refrain from talking about how Sheila, my vet’s receptionist, screwed us up this time getting the scribe renewed.
Georgia has been doing well, and I dare say she’s the happiest one among my bunch. She doesn’t care if it’s hot, humid, muggy, wet, rainy, or pouring. She keeps on hopping around pees and poops with joy, chasing bugs, making splashes in the mud puddles. She’s been getting a little used to noises from outside our property, too – I hate to admit, but it might have to do with the fact that the neighbor is so loud so often.
Brooklyn, of course, is miserable. She’s miserable in the hot and humid summer of NY. She pees only once a day, or twice if motivated because she hates to get her precious paws wet. She poops once maybe 3 or 4 days. Being a winter dog, she doesn’t know what to do outside when it’s scorching. The weather has been simply weird for this time of the year and wasn’t THAT bad, but as I pointed out in earlier entries, Brooklyn is a diva. Everything has to be JUST so for her to lead a normal dog’s life. So yeah, it sucks for her this time of the year and all this rain we are getting isn’t helping either.]
Brandy is doing OK; not great, not bad, but just OK. We finished amoxicillin, and she’s not that much better. But her diarrhea is being controlled to just soft stool most of the time. She is gaining her weight back it seems – I’m not sure, but I can’t feel her bones as easily as before when I was worried sick. I’m still trying to find a time to talk to the vet – I called the vet’s office a few times and either Lorraine or Sheila has been answering, so I just hung up because I know the chances are very slim to get to talk to Dr. L.
Foster is, well, he’s Foster. It took me a little over 40 minutes to clip his nails just last night including 5-10 minute break I took since I was sweating profusely trying to clip his nails sitting inside his crate with him. Afterwards he lied down on his side the rest of the night pretending he died from nail clipping.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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