Have You Ever Said This...?

Have you ever said...No More Animals In The House!?

I must have said this time and time again...so what happens? I start looking for a small dog for my mom. I don't particularly care for small dogs. They seem to be more difficult to train and keep on track (just my opinion).

No problem finding a dog for my mom right! Well, there was this fenced area in the yard with 3 puppies...I asked what was up with them and the owner said; those puppies were from her friend who thought she could breed and sell them. It turns out she is not a good breeder and didn't have the puppies advertised or sold. The puppies were then dropped off with her and she was trying to sell two of them, but the third one was larger than the standard for the breed. Hmmm, which one do you think I was holding? Yep, the one that was too large. Of course I had to ask what she was doing with him! Her response was IF she could find the right home for him, she would just give him up.

She is what I would call the ideal breeder...all the bitches were living in the house and the studs had plenty of room in custom built kennels that were clean. All the puppies were whelped in the house and cared for in the house with separate pens for outdoor play. Her requirements for people are that the don't get to go home with a puppy on the first visit and you don't have to call before you show up. I like that you can see they keep the kennels in pristine condition at all times. If you have to have an appointment, they probably cleaned just before you got there. This particular breeder also showed that she was responsible by taking in the puppies that her friend had bred. Her friend had purchased one of the breeders females and bred it to one of her studs. Thus the resulting litter that ended up with this breeder.

Any way, as I held this young pup I wondered how he would fare with my Koda. Knowing my retriever had been missing Snickers (he passed about a year ago), I thought maybe since Koda is still young he might like someone else to play with. I checked with the breeder to see how she felt about living on a farm...the Humane Society frowns on me. She said it would be fine if she could speak with my vet. I gave her my vet clinic and she was excited as it is the same clinic as hers.

Time to get on with this story...I took Kenai home. For those of you without children...Koda and Kenai are the main characters of "Brother Bear". By the way, mom did not get a dog.

I should mention...Kenai is a King Charles Cavalier (most people think he is some sort of Cocker Spaniel).

Nothing against the Humane Society; I understand that they need to be careful about who they let adopt from them, but not all farm owners keep their animals outside.

Kenai and Koda spend 95% of their lives in the house...winter is too cold and summer is too hot, they like the temperature controlled house AND sleeping in bed with us.

That means we have 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house full time and whatever stray cats show up in the barn get to stay and get fed.

I had been looking for a home for my indoor cats for a while...no one wants to help me clean the litter box, the hair is out of control and Kenai loves to torture them...which means that Koda has learned from the young one to play "chase the kitty". My daughter's boyfriend's mother (what a mouthful) was looking for a smaller pet for her youngest child. Teach him responsibility (supervised of course) and give him something to cuddle of his own. She loved the fact that the cats were used to staying indoors, were "taken care of" and trained. Tada! They had a new home.

Now, down to the two dogs, right? Nope! I seemed to forget that every spring/summer there are many babies that seem to need us.

If you look very closely, there is a towel with a tiny kitten head sticking out.

This poor kitty's leg looked like Swiss cheese. It finally let us pick it up about a week after I noticed it was injured. We have 2 barns...the milking barn and the horse barn. The horse barn has all very friendly cats and the milking barn has all feral cats. This kitten learned to be scared of humans from its mother. They day we caught him the vet happened to be on the property. While examining the kitten my daughter asked the vet what the "white" thing was. The vet grabbed a tweezers and pulled out a long white worm. Poor kitty! Needless to say we had a new "pet" for the house.

Sadly, the kitten only made it with us for 3 days.

We are sorry he didn't make it, but I am certain we will have other visitors from time to time. I guess I should never say "never". So the house has too many hairballs and never seems clean, I guess it is best to count my blessings and be happy we have the ability to help those in need.