and today i have mostly been...

[Welly]

Nice work on the rescue and kind gesture towards the animal I'm sure you're generosity will be rewarded times over in return

[steve_earwig]

Until he eats the furniture No, he's really good, I thought there'd be a punch-up with Scooter, a cat or two torn to shreds or maybe he'd just water the furniture but nothing, he even seems mildly afraid of the cats (especially Teatime but Scooter's afraid of him too). He's still spending most of his time outside, only coming inside to whine, bark and have a top up with food, then he rushes out again to watch the world go by on the terrace.

[highlander]

My parents previously have always had one dog and multiple cats. The dogs and cats always got on well enough; most of the squabbling came between the cats.

The last dog they had (a black Scottish Terrier named Dougal, after the dog from the Magic Roundabout) only had one cat friend (a ginger long-hair Persian named Smeagol, after the hobbit-like creature that became Gollum in the Lord of the Rings). Dougal was a year old when Mum brought Smeagol home, absolutely tiny. The dog stuck his nose straight in the kitten's face for a good sniff. The kitten looked the dog straight in the eye, put his claws into either side of the dog's face, and sunk his teeth into his nose.

They were friends for life from that moment, once the relationship had been defined. The dog would chase the cat around the garden and then up into a corner between the shed and next-door's garden wall, and the cat would then turn it about and chase the dog right back out again.

Ollie will settle down and trust your cats through time, I'm sure of it. And he'll end up spending a lot more time indoors, once he's convinced he's not going to be neglected or abused in there.

How's Teatime doing these days?

[steve_earwig]

Indeed, he's only been here 3 days so it's early days.

Teatime is fine ta, just getting a bit fat. The operation seems to have had the desired effect, he hasn't come in dripping blood for weeks. Now he just circulates between my bed, t'wfe's bed, my lap and the kitchen ("somebody's in the kitchen!"). I was brushing him earlier, the big softy

[Welly]

Note to self:

NEVER consume Chicken Fajita's with many peppers, onions and salsa on a Sunday evening.

That is all.

[lozz]

12743618_585321544959025_2681911794645938135_n.jpg

*

[trufflehunt]

12743618_585321544959025_2681911794645938135_n.jpg

*

[Doggy]

+1

[Welly]

Well yesterday....

Went to that Nottingham for a meeting which went well and surprisingly quicker than expected so what's a chap to do when he's 1 hour from home and his meeting has finished at 3pm? that's right f*ck off home

......except, and in true reflection of my sort of luck, there was an accident on the M1 Southbound at Loughborough. It was a full engine-off and people getting out of their cars kinda wait and streams of Ambulances/Fire/Police bezzing up the hard shoulder.

Eventually the traffic started moving and I saw that someone a few cars ahead had obviously gotten desperate in their car and urinated into a sandwich bag and left it on the carriageway oozing its yellow contents over the tarmac (classy) it got me thinking if it was a man or a woman? the latter being the more skilled I concluded.

The accident wasn't that far from where I had to wait so lucky I didn't get caught up in it; there was a Zafira on its roof and an old KA which had been cut open so pretty nasty I hope everyone was ok. Was one of those days with Sun/Rain changing places every 20 mins and strong winds.

Eventually got home at 18:30 but in one piece which is the important bit.

[Doggy]

Bad luck on your early finish, main thing is you didn't get caught up in the collision.
Your trip to Nottingham didn't work out much better than my traffic light camera rape episode.
Thought they'd got Sherwood Forest under control.

[steve_earwig]

This morning Mary-Jane was PTS.

After the surgery on her teeth it all healed up nicely but she still wouldn't eat. The problem was, as Mirela suspected, MJ had a tumour in her gum which caused the pocket, after the surgery it just kept growing.

Up until last Thursday/Friday she was still moving about, walking in the garden or lying in the sun on the terrace and we were giving her everything we could think of to try and get her to eat but at the end of last week all she could manage was a little milk. She stopped having the strength to wash herself and started to smell, which I though was maybe because she was dirty. She'd always been such a clean cat though, so this must have been bad for her. She wouldn't let me near her mouth so I suspected things must be getting pretty bad there and I decided Saturday that things had gone on long enough.

She was on my lap purring yesterday evening and last night she slept on my bed.

When she was anaesthetized this morning we had a proper look at her mouth, her fur on the right side of her face was falling out and the smell was her cheek putrefying.

I guess really we should have done this a while back, but all the tests we had done on her, at the vet's here and at the veterinary faculty in Zagreb said she should be fine, she just lost her apatite. And you always hope things will be ok, don't you?

I usually feel guilty at this point but I think we did everything we could for her and gave her every chance. She used to be such a little piggy and I used to get upset when she'd barge Billie out of the way to steal her food but I realised that one day she'd be gone and I'd give her all the food she could possibly want to have her back.

MJ wandered into my house in Donja Reka in 2005, her DOB was estimated as 2002 so she was maybe 14? Possibly more, not too bad for a pussy cat, especially in Croatia.

[Welly]

Oh no not another loss, sorry to hear this. As ever though no-one can criticise you for not doing your best there.

I hope this will be the end of your woes for a good while.

[steve_earwig]

Me too, the trouble is we still have a lot of animals and none of them are getting any younger - Billie's 12, Srećko's 11 and Mary Dog's 9. It's a sad fact, if you have pets then tragedies are inevitable. Unless you get a tortoise or a parrot or something.

Or a rock.

[Doggy]

Sorry to hear about MJ, Steve.
I know it's inevitable, but it doesn't make it any easier when the time comes.

[steve_earwig]

I suppose we just have to remember that the fun & friendship we get from them outweighs the heartbreak when they go.

Anyway, because I'd weighed M-J while she was healthy last year and confirmed my suspicions straight away, rather than only really being able to tell when it got dramatic, I've decided to weigh our animals and keep an eye on them.

26/04/16
Billie 4.3
Srećko 6.2
Teatime 5
Charlie 3.5
Camilla 2.25
Mary 42
Scooter 18.2
Ollie 28.65

All the cats I weighed at home using a spring balance or bathroom scales so they're not as accurate as the scales at the vet's, where I weighed the dogs, but it must be somewhere near.

Note Ollie now weighs 28.65Kg, he's getting there


He became Captain Nutzov Thursday Mirela would have done him as a matter of course when he arrived with her but he was too poorly to start off with, however there's a bitch on heat up the road here and he managed to escape the other day and rushed across the road following her scent. I wasn't keen but it's the responsible thing to do.


Oh yes, Mirela did some digging on the records for his microchip, his official DOB is 23-06-2009, so he's almost 7, and his original name was Floki which is just a dog name like Fido, Mirela reckons he was probably named this by the animal shelter who fitted the chip.

Mirela was here earlier today, giving the cat's their rabies shots and a worming pill (standard practice). They were all ok apart from Srećko, she managed to inject him ok but when it came to the worming pill he went mental, managing to escape outside. He reappeared just as Mirela was leaving but when we tried to give him the pill again he protested by peeing over us, I think he was saving it specially

Srećko & Teatime on the front lawn


Camilla and, erm...

"Who? No, I haven't seen Charlie all day."