Weasley is his name!

Today's post is all about our cat, Weasley.  My daughter adopted him from the humane society and decided to call him Weasley.  His name comes from the red headed Weasley family in the Harry Potter Books because he's a red cat.

Weasley is our property watch dog.  Any other cat, besides our own, that sets foot on our property is quickly chased off by him.  Sometimes this involves some loud noises and fur flying but usually the other cat rapidly vacates the property.

Ever since he was a little kitten, Weasley loved the outdoors.  We didn't intend for him to be an outdoor cat but it was in his blood and he insisted we let him fulfill his need of the great outdoors.  If not he will meow and howl until you go insane.  One of his greatest pleasures is to find a patch of sunshine and sleep in it.  This started at a very young age.

Baby Weasley lying in the windowsill soaking up the sun.

Weasley has been perhaps the slowest of our animals to warm up to newcomers.  He grew up with Zeke, so they get along fine.  Zeke gets along with everyone!  Bella arrived in our home when Weasley was still a kitten, so they got along pretty well, except when she decided to chase him around or wrestle with him.

Bella kicking Weasley's butt!

It took about a year for Weasley to accept Beans, our second dog, into the family.  I think it might have had something to do with Beans chasing Weasley every chance he got.  He didn't like that Weasley would try to slink past him.  Beans does not like slinking cats!  That means the chase is on!  He's slowly adapted to the twins, Monkey and Daisy.  As long as they don't mess with him, he's ok.  Monkey tries to strong arm him sometimes and amazingly Weasley does put up with it but I think it's because Monkey is about twice his weight and a bully.

 Weasley does come in to eat, drink and nap.  The wetter and cooler it is outdoors the more we see him inside.  When he's inside he loves to find a comfy nap spot, preferably away from the evil twins...Daisy and Monkey.

This backpack looks like a good place to hide and take a nap.

This box in front of the fire is nice and warm!

There's nothing like a nice cozy dog bed for a good napping spot.

Ahhhhh!  Nothing like a nice cool floor in the summer time!  Cooling my tummy!

This was taken just a couple months ago.  He can relax on the chair while guarding the yard.

Another kitten picture just because it's so cute!

Weasley is a much loved member of our family and my daughter's first fur baby of her own.  I guess that makes him my first grandchild!

Happy Halloween Pets!

Since Halloween is tomorrow I thought I would share some of our Halloween pet and pumpkin pictures we've taken over the last few years.  My daughter, Kristen carved the pumpkins.  I hope you enjoy them and have a Happy Halloween!

Beans and Zeke posing with a kitty pumpkin design from last year.  They don't look too happy about that.

Weasley is posing with this years Pomeranian pumpkin.  

Bella was our best posing kitty.  Unfortunately she disappeared last summer.  We miss her and her great poses terribly.

Here's another picture of Bella posing a couple years ago.  This is the picture that started our pets posing with pumpkins yearly event.

Baby Daisy posing last year by our pumpkin.  This is her usual happy picture face.

The Twins Daisy and Monkey

My youngest daughter graduated from college in June 2012.  She wanted a kitten for a graduation gift.  Since she's living with us, that wasn't an option.  We already had two cats and two dogs.  My husband doesn't say much but one thing he says a lot is "NO more cats!".
Well those words didn't stop us from visiting the local Humane Society occasionally, like we always do.  After a couple months of talking about kittens, I think my husband had resigned himself to the fact that we were going to end up with one.  He didn't say anything either way but you know he knew it was going to happen.
One day, on a visit to the Humane Society, the office area was overflowing with kittens.  There were two that caught our eye.  They were brother and sister.    The silver tabby was the one we really wanted, the little female, but how can we leave her brother behind.  He was a darker tabby.  We couldn't possibly take one and not the other.  We had noticed the price was quite high for a kitten and I'm sure it was because of their longer fur.  There was no way I was going to pay that price two times for two kittens, so we were going to go with the silver one.   We went up to the desk to ask about them.   Guess what?  It was two for one kitten day!  We could buy them both for the one price!  So we said, okay!  We filled out the paperwork, got the talk and paid.  Then as they go to get the kittens out of their cage, I notice one of the volunteers is a little afraid to grab them out and put them in the carrier.  They call over another guy who reaches in a grabs a very disgruntled kitty out.  As this is going on we find out that they are feral kittens!!!  Uh oh...what have we gotten ourselves into???
They give us advice on how to socialize them and introduce them into our household.  We're thinking, how hard can this be?  They're just adorable little kittens that want to be held and loved right?
We get them home, after  I call my hubby and warn him of our purchase.  I want him to have time to stew over it before he gets home from work. hehe  As he later tells friends "I tell them no more cats and they bring home two!"  He's a good guy so he goes with the flow.
We take a couple days to decide what to name them.  After many suggestions I finally decide on the name Monkey for the little male, the dark tabby and my daughter names the silver female, Daisy.
We get the babies home and decide the best thing to do is put them in the bathroom for a few days.  We'll take them out a few times a day and hold them, so they get used to us.  So we set up the bathroom.  Keep in mind that we only have a one bathroom home.  So keeping kittens in there, with all of their extras, like a litter box, toys, sleeping tent, food and water, made getting ready for the day in the morning a little interesting.  Nothing like stepping on litter, that was flung all over the floor, in your bare feet!  Ouch!
After a few days, they graduated to an area in the living room that we had fenced in with a doggy fence.  Over a period of a few more days we enlarged their area more and more.  They were very playful and little Monkey was the first to really start coming out of his shell.
Monkey has grown into a real lovebug.  When I say grown I mean really grown.  At his first Vet. appt. he weighted only 5 pounds.  Now he's over 17 pounds, after just a year.  Daisy is still quite fearful.  She likes to play and get pets, but only when she decides.  If you approach her when she's not receptive she'll either run off or cringe away from you.  She does like treats and the opening of the treat drawer will definitely draw her attention.  She has not grown as large as her brother.
 Monkey absolutely loves anyone and anything.  He follows the dogs around as well as people.  He wants to be one of the gang.  He's also a bit of a bully when it comes to food.  You pour out food for another cat and he's right there pushing them out of the way to get to it. The funny thing is, if there hadn't been that 2 for one kitten sale, we were going to buy only Daisy.  We would've missed out on this wonderful, loving cat and would've only had this disgruntled female cat.  We got lucky!
Here are some pictures of our twinsies!

Here's baby Monkey in his sock Monkey bed. 

Baby Daisy, sleeping in an odd place, as usual!

Both babies in their kitty bed.

Monkey loved this monkey toy.  He would carry it all over the place and it was nearly as big as him.

A larger Monkey, eating with his brother Weasley.  He's eyeing Weasley's food cause it might be better than his.

A grumpy Daisy face.

Monkey trying out a leash.  We're keeping them indoor cats.  We do let him out on the porch now without the leash and he stays pretty close.

The babies are now full sized cats.  They still like to cuddle together.  Daisy still looks grumpy when we bug her, as you can see here. lol

Our life is full of Beans!

Our second pound puppy arrived a few years back. I had been thinking of getting a second dog to keep our Pomeranian, Zeke company.  We'd been making visits to the Humane Society but not necessarily to bring home another dog.  One such day I said to my daughters as we arrived at the local shelter "We're only bringing home another dog if we find a female black pomeranian."  We entered the small dog room and there was a male black pom mix.  He looked kind of dejected.  Not like the other very happy, overly excitable pom mix puppy.  This black pom was 3.5 years old and named Prince.  We decided, as he quietly watched us with his big dark eyes, that he was going to be the next member of our household.  We made the arrangements for the meet and greet between him and our other dog, for the next day.

I was a little worried as we arrived the following day because Zeke hadn't been around many other dogs and I didn't know how he'd react to this new guy.  To our amazement, they seemed to take to each other fairly well and so we went home with another little dog.  

After much thought, our daughters decided on the name Beans.  Don't ask me why, we just didn't think the name Prince fit him and Beans did.

It took a few days before Zeke and Beans seemed to bond.  Zeke is definitely my guy, so he gets a little jealous if anyone invades his space by me.  They wrestled a bit but seemed to get along pretty well.

Beans fit right in with our routine.  If someone is taking a nap or sleeping in, Beans is right there with them.  He loves car rides and seems to get along with most everyone.  They warned us that he didn't like cats and we do have cats, but he never seemed violent towards them.  More like he regards them as something to chase.  Especially if they are slinking past him.  There's something about a slinking cat that really gets his attention!

Beans is not a beggar, at least not like Zeke.  He'll lie patiently on the floor at dinnertime, waiting for any scrap that Dad might throw his way.

Beans is usually a little love but he can get snarly or snappy on certain occasions.  One of these occasions is when he's sleeping.  He's fine if you want to pet him, but if you try to move him you're going to get snapped at.  I know.  He likes to go to bed early with my husband and sleep on my side of the bed.  When I come to bed he doesn't want to move and lets me know.  Luckily my husband, whom Beans adores, can just pull him over to his side without any fuss as Beans gives me the evil eye.  He also doesn't like being poked and prodded at the vet.  He doesn't like us to cut any mats off of him, so we make sure we let the groomer deal with that.

Beans can spot a pill a mile away.  We try to hide it in food and he'll eat around it.  I have to cut it into several extremely small pieces and hide it in wet food, while I continue to give him more food at the same time.  He'll be so busy trying to finish his food, so he gets more that he'll eat those small pieces.

Beans also thinks he can take on any dog no matter what size.  He gets along great with Zeke but he wants to rip apart the big dogs across the street.

Another thing with Beans is he's not that smart.  He will sit on command and he's pretty good at catching treats when you toss him one but any other tricks just seem beyond his comprehension.  I really think he's probably smarter than all of us.  He knows that all he has to do is sit there while Zeke does every trick in the book and then if he raises his paw half an inch off the floor we'll give him a treat too.  After all we can't give Zeke a treat and not Beans.  Right?  He's also trained us that if we want a good nights rest we'd better have a bowl of water and food in our room, since they sleep in there with us.  If not, around midnight, he'll make an obnoxious growling noise that gets louder and more persistent until you can't ignore it.  All because he needs a midnight snack.  Yes, I know we should train them better but we're lazy.
Another thing that Beans has done is train my husband to walk them when he tells him to.  My hubby used to walk them at about 9:30 pm.  One day Beans decided they needed to start walking at 8:30.  He would bark and jump up until hubby gave in and took them out.  Before long the walk barking started at 8 and then 7:30, 7 and now sometimes even before 6 pm.  I say to my husband, why don't you wait until you're ready and he'll say "I'm sure Beans needs to poop, so I have to take him now."  You can tell who's trained who...

Ever since we brought him home he's done something that I think maybe he learned from his previous owner.  When someone comes home he runs as fast as he can to get a toy, preferably a soft material squeaky toy.  Then he'll come running with it in his mouth squeaking it nonstop.  He'll just run past you back and forth squeaking the toy.  It's so funny if  you look in the window as you're on the porch, unlocking the door you will see Beans dart off as fast as he can to find a toy.  If he can't find it in one direction he'll run past and look in the other.

He might be a grumpy little guy, but we love our Beans.  He makes us smile and he's been a wonderful addition to our family.  We can't imagine life without him.  Here's a few photos of our little guy.

This is shortly after he joined our family.  He's put on some weight, since then, due to too many treats and midnight snacks!

Beans and Zeke having fun in the snow.

Happy Brothers!

As you noticed, we don't have too many pictures of Beans on his own because Zeke always wants to be the star of the show. 

My Buddy Zeke

In the fall of 2005 my daughter and I started visiting the Humane Society regularly in search of the perfect  dog.  My large retriever mix, Sugar had died several months before and we were ready for a new dog in our lives.  This time we decided we would try to find a small lap type dog.  We spent several weeks looking at all of the homeless dogs.  It was kind of heartbreaking but none of them really seemed like the dog I wanted.   Finally one afternoon, after searching through the small dog room without any success, we decided to go into the large dog kennel just to look.  My daughter immediately called me over to a cage where two small dogs were housed together.  One was a cute pug looking dog, that said it wasn't available and the other was a cute little rust colored guy that was labeled as a Pomeranian.  The minute we set eyes on this guy we knew he was the one.  I immediately grabbed his slip, before the other family lurking nearby could and took it to the desk.  Several dollars later, he was not a cheap pound puppy, he was officially ours.  We weren't able to take him home for a couple days because he needed to be neutered.

This adorable little approximately 6 month old guy became known as Zeke.  My husband named him that.  I'm not quite sure why the name he chose was Zeke but we went with it.

 Here's a picture of Zeke shortly after we got him home.  He's in his new bed and chewing on a nummy treat, one of many, many treats he now insists on multiple times a day.
Zeke soon became a beloved member of our family and Mommy's little buddy.  He got along with our cats and was friendly towards everyone!
 He is very smart and quickly learned multiple tricks, that my daughters taught him.  Sit, lie down, roll over, dance, shake, high-five, speak and how to wrap everyone, especially Dad, around his little claw.
Zeke also learned to do a move that we call squiggle.  He'll lie on his tummy with his back paws straight out behind him and then he'll kind of do pushups with his front paws.  This means that he wants to play with whomever he's squiggling at.  Unfortunately, most animals, that he squiggles at, do not like it.  They either run away in terror or look at him wondering what the heck he's doing.

A couple things Zeke does not like are car rides and me leaving the house.  The minute I get my going out of the house shoes on and grab my purse he's whining and barking.  Sometimes he'll pick up toys or his bed and whip my legs with them.  Sometimes another animal gets in the way and gets whipped with said bed or toy.  When I come home, whether I've been gone for hours or just a couple minutes, he'll be so excited you'd think he'd hadn't seen me for days.  It does make me feel good that he misses me.

As I've said before, Zeke loves treats!  When we walk through the house, him usually leading the way, he'll stop in front of the treat drawer and look longingly at it.  If I make homemade soup and have  ham bones in it I'll give him a little one and as soon as he's done with it he'll run back to the kitchen and drop it on the floor hoping he can trade the old one for a brand new one.

He is not perfect.  He begs at the table, only from my husband because he can't say no.  *sigh*  He jumps on visitors legs when they come and go and of course he barks as only a small dog can.

I can easily overlook any imperfections he has because he's my sweetie.  He's always there for me.  I don't want to think of him getting older or worse, so I try my best not to.  I will enjoy every minute I have with him, even when he goes into a barking fit while I'm trying to watch my favorite show, or talk on the phone or take a recliner nap.  Or when he runs in soaking wet from his walk with Dad and jumps up onto my lap to show me how wet he is.  Those are the things that make me smile and love him all the more.

Zeke loves lying in the sun!

Taking a rest with his kitty friend, Weasley.

Looking sharp after a trip to the groomer!

Going to the Veterinarian's office.

I've had multiple cats and dogs over the years.  I've been a good pet owner making sure they're always up to date on all of their vaccinations and spayed or neutered.  Some of my pets have been easy to take to the Vet's and some of them not so easy.  Here's a run down on some of the little guys and how they do on that dreaded Vet visit.

Zeke is one of my pound puppies.  He's always a good boy at the Vet's and usually endures what they do to him rather well.  He really doesn't like the temperature taking but I can't say as I blame him there!  The one thing he does do is bark.  He's a small, barky dog and once we're in the office he barks at the women behind the desk and any dogs that come in.  Once we're taken back into the exam room he barks at any shadows he sees pass on the other side of the door.  Kind of an embarrassing headache but at least he doesn't bite.

On the other hand there's Beans.  He's another small dog pound puppy.  He's a loveable little guy unless you mess with him when he doesn't want to be messed with, like at the Vet's office.  He's my only pet that has ever drawn blood and it was the Vet's.  The problem with Beans is he doesn't give any warning.  He's just standing there looking cute and innocent while the Dr. examines his mouth, ears and so on and then all of the sudden there's a growl and a whomp at once!  They usually take him to the back room and muzzle him.  He also has the tendency to want to take on any animal in the waiting room, especially the really big dogs.
Bean's has just about outdone any other animal in the cost department because he had to have a whole lot of teeth extracted.  That is not cheap!!!  I'm sure the Vet was laughing to himself as he pulled all of those teeth and  thought "You won't be biting me anymore!"  I was not laughing when I heard how much it was going to cost.  *sigh*

Most of my cats are pretty good because we put them in their little cardboard carriers and we're on our way.  We might hear a little mournful howling and meowing all of the way but at least they're not trying to attack other animals.

I've had a couple cats that some how seem to know, days in advance, that it's shot time.  Little Skooter would disappear and not show up until after I'd cancelled her appointment because she was a "No Show".  I think I cancelled her appointments more than any other pet.  I don't know how she knew it but she just did.

Now my big red cat Weasley has turned into a Skooter.  He is our only current indoor/outdoor cat.  He shows up when he's hungry or decides he wants to nap inside on a rainy day.  You can never really know what time of day that will happen, especially on a sunny day.  Unfortunately his last appointment was a sunny day.  We planned carefully and decided that if he came in in the morning for his food we'd just keep him inside until his afternoon appointment and ignore his persistent and increasingly louder meows and howls to go outside.  So we did, only to have the Vet's office call and cancel his appointment 20 minutes before we left the house!!!  I did remain civil, but it was hard!

Another reason I cringe, when we take our pets to the Vet is I never know what I might get a lecture about.  I take that back.  I do know what it will be about.  It will be about an overweight cat.  Our adorable little Bella kitty was a little overweight and my daughter and I had to listen to a lengthy lecture about it.  It didn't help that we are both overweight as well and thought we were being judged because of it.  Now I'm not saying that we were, but sometimes those that are overweight have that mentality.
So today when we had to take our little, well not so little, 1 year old cat Monkey in, we were shaking in our shoes.  Monkey is very overweight.  He is a food bully.  If any other cat wants food Monkey is there watching.  I can glance away for a minute and look back and he's eating the food and the other cat is no where to be found.  Our little chubby cat, Bella disappeared and never returned a few months ago.  My husband thinks Monkey may have eaten her.  I really don't think so, but he is large.  My sister calls him beach ball.  So today we waited to hear the overweight cat lecture...and we didn't get it!  Phew!  Yes, the Dr. did give us a couple helpful hints on weight loss, which we are implementing but Monkey is such a love that they couldn't help but laugh at how cute he is.  Phew, again!!!

So anyways, Vet day is always a surprise one way or another.  When we have to take some of them I feel my anxiety level go up a few notches because I have no clue what's going to happen.  I don't know what I'm going to see because I've seen some yucky stuff coming out of my pets at the Vet's that  I won't go into because I'm trying to erase that from my memory.   I can't always blame my anxiety on the pet.  Sometimes it's the office and the price of what needs to be done to my little four legged friends.  That price is enough to send some into a coma.  I've been close a couple of times.

But overall I thank God for Vets!  They keep my little furbabies happy and healthy.  Well, maybe not so happy in Monkey's case as he searches the house for his food bowl that's safely stored until feeding time.

This is a picture of our sweet,chunky Monkey a year ago when he was a baby.