Hero's First Arena Turn Out

Today was the day I'd both been looking forward to and dreading; This was the day I had planned to let Hero loose in the indoor riding arena to really see her progress. 

It's a scary thing to do because since her ligament injury she has had very little change to walk around, let alone run. Horses with a lot of energy can do stupid things, injuring themselves with a wrong turn or twist, and if she re-injures that ligament she's toast... I'd hate to retire her at seven years old!

So here is the video of her strutting her stuff in the indoor. She only bolted a few times up and down the long side of the arena, and each time she did some fancy turns and stops that made my stomach do flips, but she didn't re-injure herself and she managed to wear herself out after a few short minutes.

What a good day!

Hero's Day Out

Yesterday was a good day, despite some difficult twists and turns. The biggest highlight of my day, and probably my week, was that I got to sit on the back of my horse, Hero, who is recovering from a bad ligament strain (possibly even a tear; we're not sure.)

This Sunday will mark the tenth consecutive week that Hero has spent in a box stall. She originally had an abscessed hoof, and unfortunately the ligament injury was compensatory for that. Poor Hero. The first week or two was really rough. She wouldn't stand on her abscessed hoof and she couldn't stand on her injured leg, so she literally spent more than a week standing on two legs, only setting the tips of her toes down to balance occasionally. She already has leg issues, as she as malnourished as a foal, and her front legs are two different lengths, her right foot being somewhat clubby. The vet, and my own trainer whom I really look up to, told me that she'd be a good school horse but she'd probably never excel at anything. Before her injury, however, she was working on second level movements in dressage including half pass and she was really starting to collect, and she had jumped 3'9" with beautiful form and ease... psh... That's excelling in my book!

I kept a pressure wrap on her leg for more than eight weeks straight, changing it several times a week and dealing with poor Hero's irritated antics (kicking, biting, shoving, head waggling..) because the poor thing is so bored in that stall. She is used to being turned out 24/7, and she took her playing in the field very seriously before this. For the first month, I kept her in her stall in the middle of the barn and she was outright MEAN to anybody or any horse that came by. She would lunge through the opening by the grain bin and try to bite, she would spin and kick if you came into the stall... it was scary. She has been one of the most sweet, albeit expressive horses I've ever known, and this is where she started to make her opinion very clear.

After a month or so I moved her to the very last stall in the barn so that she could see her friends in the field and so they could stick their heads over the gate to visit when they come up for water. There was an instant change in Hero. She became friendly again and stopped some of the neurotic behaviour she'd had before I moved her.

So, flash forward to this week: Hero's pressure wrap has been off for more than a week now and she has been working in hand at both the walk and trot soundly. At one point the other day I went to introduce her to a new friend that she'd be recovering with in the small paddock eventually. When she saw him, she pulled free from me and bolted around the muddy paddock for five minutes, galloping, twisting, spinning and kicking up... all the while this was happening I kept having flashes of her leg, ballooned up, and myself signing her over to a retirement home. Blech. I finally caught her, thanks to a fantastic student who ran out with a bucket of grain, and shoved her in a stall for a few hours while I taught, trying not to think about what she'd just done to her leg.

When I came back to her after teaching, her leg was fine, and she was asking for more! So I gave her a few more days of relaxed hand walking and trotting and then I came to yesterday when I decided I would finally sit on her again.

She has been antsy and slightly unpredictable, since she's such a bored horse, but as my butt sat on her back she immediately put on her game face and went to work. It was amazing! She obviously remembers that working in the arena is her job and it doesn't matter if she's been cooped up for months, if she's doing her job, she does it right. What a fantastic work ethic! I rode her for almost ten minutes, just walking her in large figures while asking her to soften and stretch down so her back muscles would get a good work out. It was fantastic.

I'm hoping this is the start to her coming back into real work. For now I'll be hand walking her 3-4 times a week and riding her bareback another 2-3 times a week. Hopefully after she builds some muscle she'll be ready to go back to work! Before her injury, Hero was a fantastic dressage horse and a very promising jumper. When she was jumping 3'-3'9" with me it was with very little effort, but she really never had the forward drive of a competitive jumper. I always assumed it would come with time, but maybe this is a sign that she shouldn't jump. My plan for now is to keep babying her until the end of February, when I'll make the decision to keep her on as a school horse or to sell her to someone who will use her more lightly to prevent further injury, something I don't particularly want to think about.

Still, that's a decision for down the road. Yesterday was a huge triumph for both of us, and I'm so happy to see that she's ready and willing to go back to work. Horses are really amazing creatures...

Woolies and their Woes (part one: A Farewell)

I'm not sure how many readers follow my social networking accounts as well, but I'm sure some of you have heard that poor Gertrude didn't make it this past week.

Gertrude, her first week with us.

On Wednesday of last week I got up extra early to check on Gert. When I found her she was lying down, panting and grinding her teeth as if in pain. I knew it was time. The sparkle was gone from her eye and she looked at me with a very sad and calm expression that I hoped I would never see on such a spunky creature. I knelt beside her and scratched her cheek, and while she took some comfort from it, it was obviously through the kind of thick haze of lethargy that clouds someone on death's door. I tried to get her to stand, to nibble some alfalfa, to sniff a dandelion (which had been the only thing she would eat with appetite the day before)... she was only interested in letting the inevitable run it's course. I tried giving her a final dose of Banamine to ease whatever pain she was in and quickly found that she didn't even have the strength to swallow. The paste sat on her tongue where I knew it would do at least a little bit of good as it absorbed through her mouth.

As I walked to the house I dialed the vet and scheduled him to come out to the farm to help her on her way. Gertrude was definitely a pet sheep and as such she deserved to go quickly and quietly with the aid of the "big pink syringe".

I trudged up the stairs to our bedroom and flopped down beside Jeremy, who was still dozing, and told him that she wasn't going to make it. It was a sad realization, but it wasn't surprising to me. This poor ewe had been battling illness for more than eight weeks. I rolled over on the bed and propped myself up on my elbows so I could see her from the window.

After a minute I saw her shudder and her back legs spasm and I sprang from the bed. I don't even remember traveling from the house to the field. I can't even tell you if I used the gate or hopped the fence. Before I knew what was happening, I was kneeling beside her again, just as she gave a deep sigh and was gone. It was hard to watch the residual electrical impulses from her brain wrack her body after that. I knew she was gone. Her heart had stopped, as had her breathing, and her pupils had relaxed, but each time she twitched there was this unreasonable hope in my heart that she had decided to continue her fight. As her body finally settled I realized that more than anything, I was left intensely inspired by her determination to keep going as long as she did. Eight grueling weeks spent battling mysterious illness and bizarre symptoms, fighting what we're nearly sure was a genetic predisposition to white muscle disease as the damage to her heart and diaphragm slowly weakened her - She could be a poster child for the Icelandic sheep: Strong, Independent, Persistent and ultimately Stubborn.

 We left her body in the field to try to keep Brighid as calm as possible while we made preparations to pick up a new companion for her. It's funny how, despite being incredibly sad, one's brain can make the smooth transition from one crisis to another. Brighid was going to realize sooner or later that she was alone and it wasn't going to be pretty. She spent the early afternoon snuggled up with some chickens near Gertrude's body. It was such a sad thing to see. Poor Brighid had already lost her mother earlier this year to grass tetany, and now she had lost her best friend.

Finally we removed Gertrude's body and buried her beside Ingrid's at a friend's house down the road. Of course the spot we picked to dig was clay and rocks which we had to chuckle about; nothing with Gertrude was ever easy.

We put away the poultry for the night and got in the station wagon, bound for Olivet to pick up a new companion (or two) for Brighid...

Gertrude

My dear sweet Gertrude appears to be in a slow and bumping downward spiral. I think that I have finally figured out what it is that has been causing all of her symptoms. It was staring me in the face the whole time.

White Muscle Disease.

The white muscle disease can affect any skeletal or cardiac muscles, and in severe cases can cause damage in the heart and diaphragm. The symptoms of these complications?

• Persistent Fever
• Edema (presenting at first like bottlejaw)
• Irregular and raised respiratory and heart rates
• "Grunty" sound in the throat when breathing/eating (likely due to edema)
  (This also showed up in Gert as "mumblebaas" as my brother put it. Mumbled bleating)
• Frothy white or clear nasal discharge
• Stiffness of gait

Of course all of these can be caused by any number of bacterial or viral infections, but after three courses of antibiotics and administering two weeks of anti-inflammatories (despite the recommended max being five days), there has been little change in Gertrude's overall condition. It was with the help of a couple vets as well as Gertrude's breeder and another sheepy friend of hers that I was able to come to the conclusion. It's a difficult conclusion to face, too, because if it is her heart there is little chance at recovery. My vet has said that it is possible the WMD affected her diaphragm more than her heart and that if this is the case she will likely strengthen over time, though never completely recovering.

We do have a day here and there where she appears to be 100%. Her edema will clear up, she'll head out to the back pasture to graze and glean windfall apples, and her bleat will sound normal. This doesn't seem to last for more than a day or two. Three at most. And then she deteriorates again... swollen face, not bothering to go out for grass, etc. She has been eating, which is what has kept my hope up, but yesterday there was a change.

I had run out of their previous grain and was switching them to a new bag - the same stuff they'd been eating, but a different batch. When I poured their grain into their feed pans, the two sheep came running - Gertrude even managed a lumbering gait, herself. They stuck their snuffley faces into the pan and immediately Gertrude pulled her face back out. She is just disinterested. It's almost like she was expecting something else and was disappointed. Brighid was confused by Gert's lack of enthusiasm and munched less enthusiastically (I think she likes the tussle for grain).

This morning, even stranger, she was that way for her hay, too. If I throw her some new hay she gets super excited, lumbers over and shoves her face into the green leaves. Within a few seconds though she pulls her head back out and appears to lose interest. I had thought that maybe she had lost interest because she had been stung by a bee while foraging for apples, but it seems like after almost 24 hours she should be comfortable enough to eat again.

I'm kind of stumped for now. As in many cases with failing livestock, it's become a waiting game. I have been out in the barn every few hours to cheer her on as she eats a bit. If I hand feed her the grain or the hay she seems to have renewed interest. She'll munch from my hand for a minute or two and then trundle over to the hay bin and eat there for a minute or two on her own before lying down again. All I can hope is that when I leave the barn each time she continues to eat on and off, and it's not just with my encouragement that she takes food. Through all of this, she has always had appetite. This change makes me think we may be nearing the end...

If she gets much worse, I will have the vet out to help her along on her way. My hesitation is not only that she still has a glint of determination in her eye, but that she is the only companion for my other sheep, Brighid. Brighid lost her mother earlier this year - I don't know how she would take losing her only other companion. I do intend to get at least one other sheep, but I was hoping to wait until November to do that.

So yes. Waiting to see whether the downward spiral continues, or whether Gertrude can get herself turned around... I'll keep you all posted.

Sheep and The Stresses of Summer

Sheep.

I had to choose sheep as my first venture into livestock. Of course then we're hit with the hottest summer we've had in years and I, a lowly newb of a shepherdess, am so over my head it's not even funny.

In case you haven't heard, Gertrude is not doing well. She had what we believed to be white muscle disease and over the past ten days had made a fantastic recovery. Then yesterday morning I went out to find her with the very beginnings of bottlejaw, which is a sign of severe anemia. The strange thing is I had just wormed her, and I'd been treating her with all sorts of supplements and vitamins. The bottlejaw showed up much faster than I'd ever heard of, materializing into a massive lump within just hours. By the afternoon heat, Gertrude was lying flat, still in good spirits, but very, very lethargic. The evening showed a bit of improvement, as she was up again, and walking around the field.

Then this morning she was flat again, this time in the cool morning air. Her ears were lower than usual, and her eyelids, in a sort of drunken lethargic stare. I gave her a bit of vitamin B and started the phone calls. There are so many vets in this area that don't treat sheep it's ridiculous! I finally found one who would be able to see her, but their mobile unit was in the shop for the day so they asked me to bring her in. Yeesh. Have I mentioned I love my station wagon?

We brought them into the vet and within a few minutes the doctor seemed a bit stumped. When he heard that she had a miscarriage earlier this year he began to suspect perhaps Gertrude had only miscarried one of twins and that she might have a mummified fetus internally.

Out came the ultrasound and after an interesting struggle, all the while with Brighid trying to stand on top of Gertrude to protect her, we were able to see that Gertrude has a massive amount of fluid in her abdomen, which is connected to the bottlejaw. What the vet unfortunately could not see was anything indicative of a mummified fetus. Of course this didn't rule out the possibility. As with all ultrasounds, it just meant there just wasn't a mummified fetus on the screen. 

Basically we're giving her antibiotics and anti-inflammatories in the hopes of getting her through the hot weekend. She did have a fairly high parasite load of worms that are not covered by the Levasol and Safegard that I had given her, so we treated both little ladies with IM Ivermectin. I can only hope that those treatments, combined with increasing her vitamins B and E, her protein, her trace minerals, her selenium and her grain we can get ahead of whatever it is that she is suffering from. What a day.

So if you'll excuse me, I intend to finish the rest of my grouchy, grumbley day in my pajamas, on the couch, watching Dr. Who on DVD... eating junk food.

Saying Goodbye to Ingrid

Sorry for the dead air, folks. I've been in a bit of a funk the past two days (as you can imagine, I'm sure) but this morning brought about a fresh spring rain and some time to spend indoors.

Saying goodbye to Ingrid has been tough for me. We're still in our first year of keeping sheep, and there have been a lot of trials. There's a little part of me that can't help but feel like I'm just no good at it, between Gertrude's stillbirth and Ingrid's bottlejaw and sudden death, but at the same time I'm fully aware that they're difficult animals to keep. I'm keeping my chin up, and I'm not quitting sheep yet.

In case you missed the previous post, I woke Tuesday morning to discover our oldest sheep, Ingrid (I believe she was close to nine years old) on the brink of death. She was laying splayed flat, legs rigid and forward, twitching and barely conscious. Laura, from Queso Cabeza, had warned me that grass tetany was a possibility in sheep and that it made them twitchy and sensitive. Grass tetany is basically a metabolic disease that stems from the ewe having severely depleted magnesium. The way to treat/prevent it is simply to dose them with milk of magnesia. Unfortunately in some cases the disease can progress quickly, often leading to death within 90 minutes of the first presentation of symptoms. Ingrid's bottle jaw (anemia caused by barberpole worms) earlier this year had stressed her system, and between that and her being six and a half weeks out from lambing and lactating, it isn't terribly surprising that it was she that was affected.

Gosh. I'm feeling ranty.

Farming is so intensely about learning. I think that's the first lesson for anyone who decides to undertake it, either as a hobby, lifestyle or career. If you're unable to learn quickly, and to accept that mistakes often result in emotionally and morally crushing blows, you may want to start slow. It could be the death of an animal, the failing of a crop, the collapsing of a structure...

As first generation farmers, we do so many things requiring a HUGE variety of skills that in this day, raised on modern technology and "conventional" education, are not provided to us readily.

These are skills that used to be ingrained in the very fabric of humanity - passed down through communities, down through families. Survival skills, the ability to adapt quickly, and to improvise - the best resource for all of this these days is the internet, rather than spending time observing and learning from someone nearby. Even then, you have to be willing to just dive right in and get your hands dirty. Unfortunately, the consequences to being undereducated, even just a little bit, can be pretty severe.

I guess what I'm getting at is that despite improvements to farming through modern technology, there are a lot of new hurdles on other levels for new farmers. This spring has taught me to be a better observer of my animals, and to accept that crop failure due to cruddy weather is something I just can't do anything about. The best thing I can do for my farming future is try to obtain the skills that would've been more easily provided to me as a young farmer 100 years ago (Okay, okay. probably not as a woman!) I can research, stay informed, improvise when necessary and above all continue to forge ahead, no matter how discouraged I feel when I roll out of bed in the morning.

We buried Ingrid on a friend's farm, way out back. It was satisfying to bury her in a lush, grassy field. Our friend asked us to put some sort of marker where we buried her, so they wouldn't accidentally dig her up at some point in the near future. I tend to lean toward opposing the marking of graves - I have some fairly strong ideas about mourning and the whole cemetery thing - but I transplanted a willow whip to her grave, feeling intensely sentimental about this skittish ewe that taught me so much in her short time with me.

A sad day.

Just to let you know, Ingrid died this morning from grass tetany. It's a quick-to-kill metabolic condition caused by magnesium deficiency. Brighid has already decided the bottle of goat milk is an OK substitute for her mum's milk, but she's very stressed to not have Ingrid there. Gertrude is a good sport tho and is taking care of her.

We still don't have a new modem but I'll be posting more when we do.

Puppy Toes and Winter Woes

Well, Michigan pulled a u-turn yesterday and warmed up to a bizarre and misty 39°. It was like the world around me was tossing and turning in it's wintery nap. Birds were singing songs reserved for spring, melted snow was pouring off the house and the horses were sweaty and hot after just minimal work. I'll admit there was a part of me that reveled in pretending it was early spring, despite knowing that today's high would plummet back into the teens.



With the strange weather came lots and lots of ice. The puppies love to play in the snow every morning and it never occurred to me that the snow would be icy when I took them out. We played for a while in the drippy, slushy, icy mess and then headed back up to the house. When Jeremy got up, he too took the dogs out but quickly returned. Basil had cut herself on (what we think was) the ice and was bleeding pretty badly. When we got her in the house and settled down, I found she had sliced into the pad on the back of her leg where the dew claw is. It was cut cleanly, and after a trip to the local drug store I managed to get it cleaned and bandaged. The location was a tough one, and I'm sure there was no way a vet could have stitched it so we settled for a soak in betadine and an application of EMT.



At first, we put the E-collar on her but it was obvious that she was pretty depressed by it and after a series of sighs and puppy-dog-eyes I took the collar off on a trial run. She quickly began to nibble on her bandage so I had to put it back on. Poor babe.


In the middle of the night, however, she discovered a way to get the collar off and I found her this morning, happily tromping around the house, bandage completely untouched. She hasn't touched it yet, so we're thinking that unless we have to leave her for any reason we will let her be collar free.

According to some reading I've done, an injury like this should heal in a week and a half. After only a night of healing time though it had a nice healthy scab across the wound and was looking very un-irritated. Until she heals, however, she is on leash arrest, and for a collie/german shepherd this is a huge bummer.

It wasn't until after we got Basil all bandaged up and the floor scrubbed that I realized there were new bloody paw prints appearing all over the kitchen floor! The source? Poor Connor. He has one toenail that he split and had to have partially removed a few years ago, and he had torn it off again. That darned ice! I soaked his foot in betadine and it had stopped bleeding in a matter of minutes. I can't believe my puppies are so well behaved. I administered a quick, harsh word when he licked it the first time, and he hasn't touched it since.

A disjointed post containing sheepy garbage disposals, a quick recipe, a dog injury and a rotten pumpkin

Gertrude really enjoys table scraps more than either of the other sheep. She is the first to the fence to see what kinds of goodies I am bringing whenever she hears me come out of the house, and the other day, after the thaw, I clipped the remaining broccoli greens left from my failed late-season planting and decided to see if she liked them. Of course she did! I also shared a slightly wilty stalk of brussel sprouts which she was first to devour, though after she started in on it, Ingrid butted her out of the way and decided it was her stalk an no one else's. It's fun to see what the sheep like and dislike. I wish I still had a few winter squash to share with them, but I'm sure they'll get plenty of garden seconds come spring and summer!

--

I figured as a quick post, I'd share the recipe for a spread I made yesterday morning for our toast. I decided early on that I wanted to use up some of the chèvre I had left over from the other night's dinner. I dumped some of the cheese, a splash of local "natural" (unhomogenized) milk and a dollop of local blackberry/pecan jam into the food processor. After altering with a bit of extra jam I had, I flipped the switch and tada! I had created a fabulous breakfast spread. I like things sweet so I think if I'd made it just for myself I would've added a bit of honey to sweeten it, but still- it was such an easy way to make such a rich food that I couldn't help but share it. I was also considering adding zante raisins (often called dried currants - a total misnomer) but my dear husband has not warmed to the idea of using raisins in most dishes, so I decided to hold off... this time.

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Our poor Basil was three-legged-lame yesterday for no apparent reason. I think she got tossed around while playing with Connor and my mom's dog Abbie and managed to twist her hock (rear ankle). It took me ages to find where she had hurt herself, but finally I was able to locate a small spot of fluid and heat on the front of her joint. My experience with dogs (and horses... and vet calls, even) is that for soft tissue injuries you're almost always told to just keep the animal calm and quiet, while possibly supplementing with something anti-inflammatory. We simply restricted Basil to only going outside by herself, and she spent much of the day lying in Connor's bed sulking while Connor and Abbie enjoyed their romping. This morning, however, she is much better and the fluid and heat are gone from the joint so I'm pretty sure it was just a mild sprain (and my puppy might be a big wuss).

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Here's a random shot of an angry little pumpkin I found rotting out in the field where I tossed it after the wedding. I couldn't help but laugh at his disgruntled little expression, and the grey green color was so disgusting I just had to share it.

Mystery Scours

It's really too bad that since bringing home the sheep my digital camera battery has had no charge and I haven't been able to locate the charger... Every photo I've posted in the last few months has been taken with my phone, and so now that we are into winter my phone is pretty freaked out by the contrast between the snow and pretty much anything else around.
I spent a quite a bit of yesterday morning with the sheep.

Ingrid (pictured here, left) can be quite flighty, especially after I've recently had to handle her for anything, so I try to spend some time convincing her I'm not Voldemort-incarnate on a regular basis. She's yet to be convinced...

Yesterday I noticed one of the sheep was leaving me little mini sheep pies instead of sheep pellets, if you catch my drift. In the world of sheep this is referred to as scours, and can only mean bad news. Scours is a general catchall term for loose stool in ruminants and can indicate all sorts of things including viral or bacterial infection, or high parasite infection, or basically anything to upset the carefully balanced flora in their rumen (the first chamber of their crazy complex stomach). I'm starting to feel more comfortable with my little mini-flock though and I didn't panic (an amazing new habit I'm trying to start). I quietly ushered them into their holding stall, where there is a particularly nice corner I can use to catch and examine them and one by one I checked for signs of scours (or bloat - I'm paranoid).

The ram always resists the most actively (Run away! Run away!), Gertrude is always indignant (Ew. The human is touching me... you owe me a damned treat!) and Ingrid is, within seconds, predictably collapsed on the ground, dramatically awaiting her demise (Oh my god, I am caught! Kill me quickly!)

After checking them all and finding no signs of loose stool on anybody I decided I'd be the paranoid shepherdess and I set up camp for a while on the stump of a tree I felled earlier this year. I cut this log to a perfect height and angle specifically for sheep watching, and it's really come in handy since I can perch quietly and they quickly forget me there. After about fifteen minutes I had seen everybody relieve themselves at least once and everything looked normal. I'm going to chock it up to the fact that they got a bit more alfalfa than usual in the morning when my dear hubby mistook course alfalfa hay for grass mix. Everybody's eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, baaing, running and has a decent Famacha score, so I'm fairly content that it's nothing to worry about.

It's difficult to keep a level head when this kind of thing happens, after everyone livestock-oriented that I meet seems to say "You have sheep? Whew! Good luck with that!" or "Sheep are the one creature on earth constantly trying to DIE."... Haha. If that is the case, panicking surely isn't going to help, so I'm doing my best to breathe and take all things "sheepy" relaxed and easy.

Separation Anxiety

When we think of separation anxiety in pets, the first species to come to mind is definitely the canine... Dogs suffer through our absence in many ways, from chewing, to pacing, to ulcerating their stomachs! I had no idea that cats could have separation anxiety to the degree of a dog. Don't tell Harrison I just compared him to a canine, please... I value my life.

This past week we traveled to New Hampshire to visit my parents in Keene. We were packing and getting ready a few days in advance when I noticed Harrison acting strangely. He wasn't eating well, and he was constantly hiding under chairs and tables. I was mildly concerned, but he seemed okay otherwise so I put it out of my mind. It wasn't until just minutes before we were going to leave, at 7pm (planning to drive over night) that Jeremy began to pack up Basil's dog crate. The metal bars make a terrible scraping and clanking sound every time you collapse it, and within seconds Harrison was tearing around the house, landing finally in the broom cupboard in the kitchen, yowling and shaking. Oh boy. We (I, really) debated a while and finally decided to take him to the emergency vet in Plymouth.

The vet (Named DuFramboise which was awesome... hehe. Raspberry.) was SUPER helpful. I love when vets acknowledge that I know a thing or two about animal diagnostics. She went over some possible things, including a newer developed diagnosis of a nonspecific urinary tract irritation that they're finding more and more in cats (male, altered usually). She did a rectal, a urine check and a bladder check. This was literally two weeks after Harrison's trip to the vet for a colon impaction that we got to release using an enema. I figured it was a recurrance.

The vet couldn't find anything wrong with him, and after mentioning in passing that we were packing to leave, a very knowing look crossed her face. She said that separation anxiety is common in cats, though not commonly diagnosed. She wasn't surprised, based on Harrison's history of being abandoned in the snow as a kitten (living in a groundhog hole, eating a racoon carcus! Poor dear!)

Long story short, we toted our adorable little kitty to New Hampshire with us, and he enjoyed the car ride! He and Basil are very close, and they sat together the whole way. Apparently our cat is more unique than we ever dreamed! Yeesh... This is in addition to the walking-on-hind-legs thing that he does, the comes-when-he's-called-even-if-he's-sleeping thing, and various other non kitty things... We're convinced he's an alien cat and we're part of his bizarre social experiment.

Hazey Crisp Morning

The air was crisp and cool the other morning, and I snapped a quick shot, while I was at the horse farm, of the bizarre post-apocalypticesque sun as it broke through the low laying clouds. We've had the strangest weather this fall and while it's really to my advantage as a late season gardener, it's kind of making me nervous. I have to wonder if this is an indication of what is to come in weather. Global warming seems to be doin' it's thing...
Michigan is known for dropping twenty degrees over night (60's to 40's, or even 30's in 12 hours) to start off the winter season. So far we've had at least one drop like that, but then a week later we were back in the 60's. The forcase for now looks like 60-62 daytime highs for the rest of the week, and sunny. If we had a smidge more rain I'd be a happy (albeit skeptical) camper, but I guess I should just enjoy this while we've got it. I'll be eating my words in a month when we're frozen solid!
I pulled my horses blankets off after the bit of freezing rain we'd had while I was out of town this weekend and they were all happy to lose the bulk so that they could go roll and run around like maniacs. Of course after pulling their blankets on they all refused to be caught for their lessons and caused quite a stir while I ran around with treats trying to calm them down. They really can be a tricky bunch. They're all mares, 5 arabian, 2 half arabian, and their intelligence makes them a real challange when they work together!
The winter is always a financially trying time for us since I am a professional riding instructor and my DH is a professional comic book artist/creator. My income really depends on the weather so if we have a mild winter, everybody gets to eat well. If we have a rough winter it's ramen noodles and straight grass hay! Of course our animals eat better than we do most winters, but that's a fact I've come to embrace.

On a final note, we had a scare this morning when our kitty, Harrison, started hacking like he had fluid in his lungs. He has a grade 3 heart murmur and so fluid is a big deal. After the vet visit however it turns out he has severe hair balls, one of which was stuck in his colon. Yikes! He wasn't fussed at all by the vet visit, as usual. He's the most laid back kitty I know, and this trip we brought Basil with him so that hopefully Harrison's calm could maybe rub off on Basil a bit for a friendly visit to the vet. Ah well... maybe next time

Harrison kept trying to get Basil to play with him, but Basil was far too preoccupied by her nerves.

Geriatric kitty woes.

The hard thing about have a seriously geriatric cat is that some times they have such severe ups and downs that you end up with whiplash.
My nineteen year old kitty, Cleo, lost at least a third of her body weight this past week. She's such an independent cat I didn't notice at first. When I did notice, I gave her subcutaneous fluids and as much high end cat food as she'd eat. Then, yesterday morning, I noticed as she lay flat out on the floor that there was a lump on her abdomen. At first I thought it might be a distended bowel or something but now I'm pretty sure it's a tumor. I obviously can't tell of it's cancerous or not, though it sprang into being very quickly. The dilemma I'm having is that she has some really seriously issues with going to the vet. She gets very stressed (hyperventilating, gagging, drooling, etc) and she gets super vicious. She's never been to the vet without inflicting wounds on at least one person; the last time it was me, and two serious bites. Because of her taste for human flesh she must be muzzled and "bagged" and sometimes sedated in order to be handled for anything more than a palpation.
I made the decision yesterday to hold off the visit to the vet as she was in a sort of limbo. If she gets better I'll take her for tests, and if she gets worse I'll take her for euthanasia.
This morning she seems better. She is sleeping in a normal upright position, eating and drinking and she even meowed at the door of her room to come out, albeit only once.





For now I think it's the waiting game. She's always been a peculiar cat when it came to health issues. Why should this be any different?

Update: Cleo passed away September 24th, 2010 on her 20th birthday. She was so willing and resigned at the vet that I can't help but feel like she was definitely ready. She was my kitty for twenty years and she'll always have a special place in my heart. As she slipped from this world she reminded me of one thing... she's always been a little wench. Just before dying she launched herself up off the table and tried to bite me - something she has been trying to do her whole life. I couldn't help but laugh to know that even to the end she was ornery and mean.