Sleep Sequence

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.

~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

 

Frrt.

Now, I'll be the first person to speak out against buying pets on impulse; an animal deserves careful planning and money put aside for its care before it comes home.  However, I want to tell you about the little weasel that made me eat those wise words two years ago...

It started out innocently enough: a friend and I were having a girly day shopping at the mall. I was buying scented tea lights, of all things (although those who know me know that candles are a bit of a worrisome addiction for me; visiting my apartment is akin to attending a seance).  Thus happily laden down with bags of fruity-smelling wax, we were wandering the mall when we happened upon a pet store. Despite knowing about the many evils of pet stores (especially ones in malls that sell puppies), the 2 year old in me can't resist going in to oogle the animals.  We made our way through the store uneventfully, until a musky whiff made me turn and exclaim: "Oh! They must have ferrets!"

Indeed they did; a tall cage full of hanging furniture and two snoozing ferrets. One was a half grown white knee sock, and the other just a tiny ball of brown and black fluff.  They were curled around each other slumbering in complete bliss.  I've always been interested in ferrets, but never enough to ask a pet store employee to let me hold one.  That day was a different story, and momentarily I was holding the smaller of the two nestled in both hands.  The tiny thing woke up, blinked blearily at me, sneezed, stretched, and promptly fell back asleep. The helpful sales girl informed me he was a boy, and only 3 months old.  For a weasel, he was almost unbearably cute. A little crowd had gathered around us to pet him; everyone likes baby animals. Some 18 year old d-bag with his arm slung around his girlfriend pushed in close and proclaimed loudly: "S'cute, eh babe? I could get that if I wanted, I could buy that right now. You want one-a those?" While I was proud that he could string a sentence together, I worried about the fate of any ferret with someone who didn't seem capable of pulling his pants up over his ass or putting his hat on straight.  I held the little critter until they swaggered out (the idea of ownership quickly forgotten in the midst of shopping sounds and shiny objects) and then tried to return the still sleeping furball to its cage. In his sleep, the ferret had curled his little fists around the lapel of my coat, and when I tried to lift him back, he hung on tight.  Something bubbled up in my heart just then, and I didn't give him back.

I couldn't.

We bought the bare essentials (my friend thoughtfully helped me out) and headed home with a little cardboard carrier poked with air holes. We set up my foster guinea pig cage and I hopped on the internet to learn as much about ferrets as I could. After the fact, I know, but I was a quick study.

He slept a lot. He sneezed a lot. He had coccidia (ew).  I had the wrong bedding in his cage and too few litter boxes.  Eventually I got everything set to rights, and man, all I have to say is:

Best.
Pet.
EVER.

Ferrets are fearless, curious, and always up for an adventure.  Kirby (as he was quickly named) will chase the cats through the apartment and pester them until I have to go to the rescue. "Saving" a wailing 15 pound cat from a 2 pound ferret shows just how tenacious they can be.  Kirby lives to play and explore and steal (mostly my underpants, which he then stashes under Nik's dresser).  In the summer the dogs, the ferret, and I all go around the block together, much to the amusement of our neighborhood.

We have had a couple of types of cages for Kirby, but eventually upgraded to the ultimate weasel dreamhome: The Ferret Nation.

Kirby has not snuggled with me since the week I bought him; he's been too busy! He has to rearrange his cage furniture and wrestle with Bruin and run down the block and chase Nik's ankles and make Stubcat cry and sneak off to poop in the corner and and and...

...you can see how he has to prioritize.

You can find videos of Kirby on my YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/brindlepants) that will help you appreciate the brattiness, the badness, and the absolute sweetness of owning a ferret.

At the end of the day, after I've caught him peeing beside his litter box, or pulled him off a screaming cat, or had to dig through a whole cupboardful of pots and pans to retrieve him, Kirby sleeps as if he's in a coma.

There IS rest for the wicked, after all.

Dog Days of Summer

We shaved Bruin for the summer and found a TON of great markings underneath...hurray for summer haircuts!

Before...

And after! Brindle-riffic! Brin...tastic?

 

The Black & White Effect

So things are different now. For one, I have successfully become a Veterinary Technician. School is done and I've been talking it easy for a bit and spending lots of time with my four-legged buddies. The next big challenge is finding a fer-god's-sakes JOB as a vet tech, before all my new found knowledge trickles out of my gray matter and disperses like so much fluff into the atmosphere. I'm certain I wake up slightly dumber each day I have off (kind of like that book Flowers for Algernon), so I'd better blow the dust off my resume and suck in my gut to squeeze back into my "interview" dress pants. Hopefully the interviews are short or I may pass out from the sheer effort of compression.  Job hunting is a nerve-wracking business (especially in one whose nerves are so easily wracked), but I look forward to beginning my career.  Lots to think about. Lots to do.

This last year also saw the loss of our poor little Panda kitty. I awoke one morning to find she had passed away lying by the couch. The vet thinks she may have had some kind of congenital heart condition that finally overtook her.   Whatever it was...we miss her.

On the day she passed away, I had a big test at school, and despite the grief of losing our shy girl so young, I made the trek to V-Building and set myself up in an exam room to study (our vet school building houses a mock vet clinic, complete with a surgical suite and patient exam rooms).  The particular exam room I chose was housing one of our school cats (we spay, neuter and treat animals from the Quebec SPCA in our teaching hospital) who didn't fit into a proper cage because he was so big.  The many-toed Dimitri was depressed and neurotically pulling all the hair out of his tail so he had been moved into an exam room in the hopes that more space would cheer him up and encourage him to eat.  As soon as I put my things done in the room he claimed my coat as his own personal bed. Black and white cats aren't really favorite, but he was a nice big boy and friendly enough.

The studying wasn't going well, as can be expected, and I was pretty sniffly while looking at platelet abnormalities but thinking about Panda.  Dimitri soon tired of shedding on my coat and wandered over to me, where he did THIS:

(I kid you not, this is a photo from my shitty cell phone from that day)

That night he was firmly tucked under the covers of our bed. We'd agreed to take him for the week before his neuter, so he could relax and hopefully stop plucking his nearly bald tail.  I may not have been a big black and white cat fan, but any feline that presses his forehead against mine when I'm sad deserves a spot on the bed, don't you think?

As the week progressed, I was glad to receive the news that the big lug would be going to a home at a riding stable where we would be loved by all the kids who came for lessons and live in the heated tack room with another of our school cats as a friend. Woo hoo! Good news for the big boy!
His neuter came and went, and a few days post surgery he came back home with the sniffles and a bald tail.  He was being a sad sack in his cage again, and the first thing he did upon returning to our apartment was to dig under the covers of our bed and make himself a cave.  I found him an hour later, and we had a lovely nap with him tucked securely in my armpit.

We only had to wait for the other cat going to the stable to be neutered, and finish Dimitri's post-surgical pain medications, and the big tuxedo would be home free...or so we thought.

Being pilled or overhandled made him wheeze/choke/honk for over a minute once released.  The vets at school were concerned, and we brought him in for x-rays.  Cloudy lungs and observation of his goose impression brought about a tentative diagnosis of asthma.  Dusty horses + dusty hay = no dice for Dimitri living at a barn.  The veterinarian brought me into her office and kindly let me know that a cat with asthma was not a good adoptable candidate, and he would not be going to the stable, or back to the shelter either.  She said we would all have to try our best to find him a home within the program, or consider euthanasia.  She had a point. It is hard enough to find homes for healthy cats in this overpopulated feline world.  We decided to do a three week heavy duty course of medications over the Christmas break of two type of antibiotics and an anti-parasitic just in case there was some other type of illness going on that we could knock out of him.  This sweet cuddly boy deserved a chance, on that we all agreed.

It was a long three weeks of thrice-a-day medication.  Nik and I often got more Panacur on the walls or on ourselves than into the cat, but despite an entire pharmacy being shoved down his throat, Dimitri remained friends with us.  He also made a romantic conquest of our Stubcat...

I was delighted when a classmate agreed to adopt him, although they needed some time for home renovations to finish before he could go home.  Dimitri would finally get a forever home in one more month.

Then another month rolled by.

And another.

Nearly 8 months later, that damn cat has his own collar and tag with my phone number on it. He sits on the edge of the tub while I shower (his blobby silhouette looks like Norman Bates's mother through the shower curtain) and he spends his days plotting to steal my seat every time I get up.

He wails for food constantly despite being the size of a small orca whale.

And those toes! Ewwwww!

And yet everyday he runs to me mewing to rub his big face against mine.

...I guess I'm a black and white cat fan after all.

Holy crap, It's BACK!
(Well, almost back...give me a minute or two to come up with some comedic gold here...)

The Brindle Blog is back online. Meet new friends, read about old friends, and witness my new dedication to being an active internet blogger.  You know, unlike my current online status of cruising through Facebook in my underpants with popcorn in my cleavage. If I'm going to be open-mouth breathing in my computer chair, the least I can do is try to entertain you.

Tell your friends. Why, you ask?

Well, obviously because...

 

Word.