Critters!

I've written nine straight posts in a row about political or heavy social topics. It's time to take a break and do something a little bit lighter. So how about our pets?

Today, Ginger, the dean of our brood, had to go to the vet. She cut me up a little bit when I put her into the cat carrier, and cried all the way there and all the way back. Turns out the poor little beast has an infection and needs a course of antibiotics, and she came home shaped like her nickname, "Pumpkin," because the vet pumped her up full of a liquid to jump-start her bladder. Poor little creature! She's a complete 'fraidy-cat; she runs and hides from everything and fights like a little lion whenever something is tried with her (like giving her medication, which we have to do for the next week).

The creature that has been around our family the second-longest is Sassafras. She's become the super-bully of the group, and is jealous of any creature but her getting affection or attention. She's very cute and earns all kinds of praise and love everywhere she goes. She will sleep all day unless I play with her, so I try and find time to do that so she can get sleep at night. She also acts like she's constantly hungry. She distinguished herself by eating nearly an entire loaf of banana bread recently; to the right is the bread, pre-Sassafras.

Sassafras and Karma have been fast friends since the day we brought Karma home from the rescue. Karma got her name because the night we met her, we learned that the woman who runs the dog rescue got her a few hours before she was to be euthanized by a shelter, and as she was running the dog out to meet us at her kennel in Madisonville, she flipped her truck and both she and the dog were nearly killed -- but she escaped with a few scratches and bruises and the dog without any injury at all. So this dog must have had some good Karma. We just got Karma a harness because she loves going for walks so much that she strains at the leash, and after about a hundred yards the poor beast would wheeze like an asthmatic. So today was her first day walking with the harness and she breathed easy and, I think, got more tired by the end of it because I didn't give her any chance to stop and catch her breath.

Finally, there's Jordan the Pest, who eats more than her share of the food (although for the next week, she and Ginger get fed different food) and is either fearless or lacks the intelligence to fear things. Jordan is talkative, playful, and she and Ginger wrestle all the time, which is quite amusing.

I'll try and get some pictures of the dogs and the cats interacting with each other. Ginger tries to ignore the dogs, but they often chase her around the house. When the cats wrestle, Sassafras comes by to referee. In calmer moments, Jordan has been seen grooming the dogs' ears. I don't know what we did to pass the time before we had these animals, but they sure are fun and I can't imagine not having them now.