Happy Holidays From the Woof & Meow Gang

Why is Boogie looking so happy?  Is it because she wants everyone to see how white is her belly?  Or  how long are her claws?  Mais non, my friends . . .

Boogie is happy because she wants you to see how all four critters are sharing the sunshine!  When it's cold and Mom won't turn on the furnace, here's how the gang stays warm.  And no, it's not because of the empty box of Burnett's vodka.

Due to the fact that Poonie is LOATHE to get too close to anyone, he's at the veeerrrrrryyyy edge of the sunshine.  "Hey," says Boogie.  "More for me, you idiot."

Holly and Boo don't have issues--as you can see, Boo is getting as much on his belly as possible.  Holly is finished with her heartworm treatments and is feeling great!

Look!  Can you spot Petey the Elf? 

Best holiday wishes to all!  Peace on earth, good will to animals (oh, and people, too).

Love, Holly & BooBoo & Boogie & Poonie

Face Off!!!!!

Boo:  "Oh good grief!  I thought I was safe cuz Poonie can't jump on the table.  Now here's this creepy little kid with glittering blue eyes who just keeps staring at me.  He never moves.  Just stares.  I'm doomed."

Poonie:  "What a moron." 

We Are Sending Our Vet's Kids To College

Due to the tremendous amount of time the human has been spending tending to the needs of her husband and human and animal friends, she hasn't been able to assist me with my blog.  However, Holly appears to be on the road to heartworm recovery, the husband's shoulder is repairing itself, and I survived the horror of being shoved in a cat carrier and getting drugged at the vet where they yanked out my teeth and stuck something plastic up my butt!  Not to mention getting stabbed with needles and being told that I weigh 13 pounds.  I swore I would NEVER AGAIN be thrust into the carrier, but darn if she didn't do it a week later.  And I got another shot, horror of horrors!!!  (Note from the human: we decided that in order to keep all my fingers we wouldn't attempt to give Poonie antibiotics in pill form, so the shot he received was a whopping dose of germkiller juice).

OK.  Now on to the silliness that is Boogie.  Guess what she thought she was going to be for Halloween?

A PENGUIN!  How pathetic is THAT?!

Yes, yes, yes.  He has great big yellow eyes.  So what?

This is Holly on drugs.  You can't simply tell a Chihuahua to calm down when they're on heartworm treatment--even when she actually had a near-death experience she didn't learn from it so the vet put her on downers.  And would you look at that belly?  This dog needs a girdle, stat!

As you can see, I was NOT a happy camper when I came home from the vet.  This is me, under the bed in the guest room. 

I'm ok now and back to ruling the roost around here.  Don't I look imperious?  Am I not THE most handsome, most wonderful cat in the whole wide world?  Thank you, I KNEW you'd agree!

Squashy Face Lands In A Minefield

I know you've all been waiting anxiously to hear about my recovery, and I'm happy to say I've never been better.  Apparently having your teeth cleaned and two teeth pulled does more than eliminate bad breath--I can now actually chew my food and digest it properly!  I haven't hurled since I got home from that hellhole of a vet's office (of course, there's a downside: she can leave me alone now and believe I won't be leaving little surprises all over the floor.  Guess she hasn't heard of "paw down the throat"--can't have her thinking she can just take off WHENEVER).

I felt sure that Boo would get a major beating when she found him sitting in the middle of the pool table, surrounded by various breakable and rare items, but instead, SHE TAKES HIS PICTURE!  Jeez, this little s**thead is untouchable!  I mean, that's part of a rare pair of California pottery Indonesian dancer figurines and part of her damn precious stickpin collection. 

Yup, for sure, the paw goes down my throat the very next time she leaves the house. 

Poonie Goes To The Vet

(This post is by Poonie's human due to his, um, somewhat incapacitated state).

This is what happens when you hiss and growl at the vet.

Note: not only are Poonie's eyes glazed and his tongue hanging out of his head, but he is BEING HELD by the vet tech.  NO ONE holds Poonie.

Drugs are good (well, at least in his case).

The Geese Next Door . . . R.I.P.

Coyotes got 'em. 

OK, What's With This Dog Getting All The Attention On MY Blog???

What's the freaking deal, folks?  Here I have this blog dedicated to the Most Wonderful Cat in the World and all you can talk about is this big fat worm-ridden DOG?! 

So apparently no one knows (or cares) that "she" left me alone again, but I managed to throw up seven times while she was gone.  She had even gone to the trouble of crushing up a huge bowl of Iams, but I showed HER!

In my anguish over being ignored I have even tried to be extra-sweet--I just came into her office where she's sitting at the computer and STOOD UP AND PUT MY PAWS UP ON HER LEG.  This is MAJOR for me, everyone, just MAJOR!  And what happens?  She says, "Poonie, I know you're just doing that to get some food," and pushes me down. 

If I had claws, they'd be sunk deep into her thunder thighs as we speak. 

Begrudgingly, I must say that Holly is doing better after the blood clot incident, so much better that she was taken to an art festival yesterday where she rode around in a baby stroller and charmed the pants off everyone who saw her.  Had it been me in that stroller, of course, I would have hissed and growled at all those horrible little children who kept saying things like, "Look Mommy, it's a baby doggie in da stwohla" and "Daddy, can I pet the puppy, pweese?" 

I heard through the grapevine, however, that one of the reasons Holly was so agreeable to all that disgusting attention was because she was completely zoned out on doggie Oxycodone or Oxycontin or something.  I'm sure you could have set off an atomic bomb under her buggy and she would have gone, "Oh.  Was that an atomic bomb?  Far out."

Anyway, she's getting better and the vet says the first couple weeks of the treatment are the worst sooooo hopefully we'll be getting back to MY fascinating exploits soon.

Why I Haven't Been Blogging

I took Holly with me when I went out of town last Sunday and as usual she wouldn't eat her regular dog food so I was giving her scraps of whatever I was eating plus wrapping her antibiotics in lunch meat and by early Wednesday a.m. she was barfing all over the hotel room. We got home Wednesday mid-day and were both resting on my bed when I felt this thump--I thought the cat had jumped up on the bed so looked down and saw very quickly that he wasn't there but that Holly was laying very very very still. Like dead still.  I just came unglued--she was totally unresponsive to my yelling and shaking and hysterical crying--her eyes were open, she didn't appear to be breathing and I was screaming her name and it was absolutely horrible. Then after what seemed like an eternity I saw her breathing shallowly and her eyes started to focus slightly. I bundled her up in a blanket--and then saw she'd peed the bed, the blanket and subsequently, me--and raced to the vet. By the time the vet saw her she was pretty much back to normal, but after doing some blood tests and eliminating a seizure from either low blood sugar (the vomiting) or pancreatitis, he figured she'd passed a blood clot due to the heartworms. He gave her a shot of heparin, told me to buy her some coated aspirin and suggested I stop the antibiotics since she'd stopped the coughing.


The next day she starts back to coughing so I restarted the pills. He wanted to see her last night so we went down there at 8pm (he'd been off that day but came in to see her--he's a super great vet BTW) and gave her a few EXTREMELY LOW DOSAGE dog equivalent of Oxycontin to help with the bronchitis pain and help keep her calm. My dog, the pill popper.

This heartworm thing is just scaring me to death.  I kept screaming at her, "I'M NOT READY FOR YOU TO DIE, HOLLY!" but unfortunately that's just going to happen one of these days. The vet did say that dying from a blood clot isn't a bad way to go since you basically just boom, stop breathing.

Holly's Doing Great So Far, and Poonie's An A-hole

I think our small but mighty band of "fans" are aware of this, but so far Holly is doing well with the heartworm medication--the vet said the meds are in the process of killing the little buggers, then they start floating around her bloodstream and eventually get excreted or something (eww).  Since they're in the bloodstream, that's why the animal shouldn't get excited--their heart starts pumping faster and the heartworm corpses could bunch up and cause a clot.

So of course it's pointless to say to her, "Holly, mellow out RIGHT NOW or you're going to die!"

That obviously translates to "OK, Holly, show me how fast you can twirl!"  So she starts twirling and I'm yelling at her to stop and Boogie thinks SHE'S being yelled at so she pees all over the kitchen floor, Poonie decides it's time to throw up, and Boo just looks at everyone and thinks, "What a bunch of morons.  I need a snack.  Mom, get me a snack."

Poonie's fur is getting so matted since he's decided in his old age that he doesn't need to groom himself any longer, going for the "let it be" look as it were.  Today I decided that I'd try to brush him.  WHAT A JOKE!  Thank god no one was filming me--I'm crouched down and scuttling through the house behind the damn cat who refused to let me touch him with the brush and occasionally turns around, hisses, growls and takes a swipe at the brush.  I think that's pretty funny since he has no claws, right up until he takes a bite out of my hand.  Claws, no.  Teeth, ohhhhh yeah.

Well, he's in for it.  Next week I'm going to throw a towel over him, grab his dirty hide and throw him in a cat carrier.  Then I'm going to dump him off at the vet and let THEM deal with him.

He will undoubtedly be traumatized for the rest of his life.  Eh.

Happy Halloween from BOO!

Mwha ha ha ha ha!  I am zee mad scienteest cat! 

What We Do On A Sunny Day

We're a lively crew here at Chez Poonie.  Here's me, enjoying a little naptime in the sunshine. 

As you can plainly see, I get along JUST FINE with Squashy Face, just as long as he knows who's supposed to get the bulk of the sun.

This is one of those "ahhhhhhh" shots.

The dogs are relegated to the side of the room with no sunshine.  I think that's fair since THEY get to go outside. 

Boogie decided to do a "cute".

And here's Little Miss Heartworm, upside down as usual and begging for that belly rub.

Speaking of heartworms, by the time Blogger decides to post this entry (in about 3-4 days) she will have started her heartworm eradication regimen.  First off is x-rays and tests to determine the extent of the infestation, which hopefully won't be too bad.  She's had a dose of her regularly scheduled Heartgard since we detected the infection so hopefully that has kept the numbers down, and after her bad reaction to the rabies shot, she has bounced back to her usual happy self.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I Don't Feel So Good

That rabies shot she got yesterday?  Bad reaction.  Everyone forgot to give her Benadryl beforehand and after I got home from taking the niece to the airport and let the dogs in the house, I started to notice that Holly was definitely not her usual happy self.  Her ears were hot, her butt was swollen and tender and all she wanted to do was snuggle into pillows and lie there, miserable.

The vet said to give her half a Benadryl, which I did, and while she feels a little better this morning, she is not about to get out from under the covers and face the world.

I know they say it's awful when an animal is hurting because they can't tell you what's wrong, but if expressions could talk (and they do), this one says "Leave me the freak alone, Mom.  I feel like s**t."

Note:  This post still doesn't show up as the latest published post on any "followers" sites.  Why does this happen????

Heartworm Update #2

Got a call from Dr. Tracy yesterday.  Heartgard has agreed to cover the cost of the treatment!  While we would have had no hesitation paying for it ourselves, I sort of feel vindicated since I was NOT lax about her meds (well, there was that one month but I've beaten myself up enough over that). 

Holly got her last shot (in the butt) today so Dr. Dean said we'll start the treatment in a week.  That's good, since she's been coughing and I HATE THAT.

Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well with my sweet little doggie.

She ALWAYS Gets All The Attention!!

Life is so unfair.  Here I am, really trying hard to be NICE these days, and the damn dog still gets all the attention.  Of course, there's no way in h*ll I'd let them carry me around with a sticker on my head and Mardi Gras beads around my neck, but that's just me.

They went into New Orleans on Saturday with the visiting niece--went to the Blues & BBQ Fest and then into the French Quarter for libations (Pat O'Brien's Hurricanes) and apparently the rediculous sticker and beads were courtesy of a bunch of drunks belonging to a walking club.  A walking club in New Orleans is just an excuse to meet up with a bunch of humans and walk from one bar to another.  The idea of actually walking for EXERCISE makes everyone laugh so much they nearly choke on their cocktails.

All I know is--they didn't get home until 8 pm and dinner was VERY late.  No more Mr. Nice Guy, humans.  I'm back to hissing, growling and pooping outside the box.

Heartworm Update:  Holly should be starting treatment this week.  Due to a bad reaction to her annuals last year, this year they're being spaced a week apart and they need to get through them before starting the heartworm treatment (tomorrow is the final shot).  Holly has been coughing now and then but is still the happy little doggy she's always been.  I've heard from several people regarding the treatment with mostly positive comments, although Cousin Gwen said her dog got diabetes from it so will have to check on that. 

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive and kind!  Your thoughts mean alot to me! 

--Chris

Heartworms

I took Holly and Boo to the vet yesterday for their annual checkups.  I was doing ok right up until the tech showed me the results of Holly's heartworm test.  Positive.  Can I tell you that I am EXTREMELY upset about this since I have been giving her Heartgard on a regular basis all her life?  I checked my calendar, and there was one month when I went 5 weeks instead of 4 but the vet said that since the medicine really only needs to be given every 6 weeks we were still within the "comfort zone". 

I feel like crying and hitting something, someone, anything.  I KNOW there's treatment for this and the vet said that every dog they've treated has come through successfully, but do you know how UNFAIR this is?  I know several people who don't give their dogs Heartgard--hell, my own mother didn't give it to Boogie for years and she's ok, so far.  The fact that it's expensive doesn't fly with me--if you can't afford to keep your dog healthy and protected, you don't deserve to HAVE a dog.

We are notifying the makers of Heartgard since they do guarantee the product and if you can prove you've given the medication as per instructions, they will (probably very grudgingly) pay for the treatment.  Which at my vet comes to a grand total of $585. 

My vet also said that they're finding that, for some unknown reason as of yet, dogs in the Mississippi Delta region (that's central--we're in southern Mississippi) are not responding to certain meds, as well as Heartgard, so that is under research.

Please pray for my darling Holly.  I will be positive about this and I KNOW she'll get through it.  There's just this little nagging bit of guilt that keeps saying, "You let her go over 4 weeks.  How do you know that's not how she got it?"  Ah, jeeeeeeez.

Another Encounter of the Emu Kind

After hearing about Anna M's meet-up with grumpy llamas and an emu or two, we remembered when one of the local emus came for a visit.  I'll let Poonie tell it:

Here comes Dinner, just a-walkin' down the road.  It's an escapee from the Emu Farm!

He ran headlong into our woods.  Come back, Dinner, come back!

"Huh?" said Dinner.  "Wut's that there car doin' here?  Ah cain't drahve."  Dinner might look tasty, but there's not alot going on upstairs . . .

"Uh oh," said Dinner.  "John Q approacheth.  Better hightail it outta here.  He's pretty slow, and I can always kick him in the 'nads."

Dinner was eventually corralled after leading our local lawmen on a wild chase.  Hopefully there weren't any banks being robbed or Southern women deflowered while this was going on. 

But man, wouldn't this have made a goose dinner look like just a snack?  Yum-ME!

Evil Mom Strikes Again!

The human gets kind of giddy around this time of year--she goes to Walmart and Target and sees all the wonderful pet costumes and hopes, yet again, that her charges are finally going to ENJOY getting dressed up and having their pictures taken. That's a fat one.

Look at how overjoyed Boo looks with his festive Halloween collar. He's obviously thinking he would love to put a claw right through her eyeball.

And Holly was thinking, "Well, that's a relief--HE gets to look stupid this time."

"Rats!"

"Hey, what about Boogie? She's gotta go through this too!"

"No way Hosita--I'm too big for that cat collar."

"Gaaaaack!!!"



I just looooove a good floor show.


Happy October!!

Boo Mysteriously Turns Into Puppet, Finds Job With Punch and Judy

Heh heh heh.

She Left Me Alone For 3-1/2 Days and I Am NOT HAPPY!

I should have known something was up when SHE put the giant bowl of Iams AND the giant bowl of water on the floor. Boo had disappeared earlier that morning, but I thought that was just a present--NOW I know SHE had taken him to the vet for boarding. Then the next thing I knew, the dogs were jumping all over the place, SHE shooed them out the door, and that was it. Silence. Continuous silence for three and a half days.

I wandered around the house, crying piteously, but no one answered. I even tried to jump on the counters but my old legs just don't give me enough OOMPH (although I did manage to bring down a small bowl as I fell). I missed my nightly bowl of yummy chicken Fancy Feast. So, after the first day of no one here, I decided to get pissed (or, for me, MORE pissed than usual).

Yes, it's true and I'm not ashamed. I pooped on the rug at the back door. Where SHE'd walk.

It was all for naught, unfortunately. Apparently SHE was expecting me to throw up while SHE was gone and while that didn't happen, SHE was still on the lookout and saw the poop before SHE stepped in it. Damn.

The dogs ran in with HER and while SHE was out getting the luggage, Boogie managed to eat a mouthful of the Iams. Then like an idiot, when SHE came in, Boogie started groveling and pretty much let HER know she'd done something wrong. Like if she were able to speak, she would have been screaming "YES, I DID IT! I ATE THE CAT FOOD! WHIP ME!!!!!"

I have no idea why my readers have ANY sympathy for this nut job of a dog.

Tried to let HER know how displeased I was with the abandonment by hissing at HER whenever she petted me, but she just laughed and said, "Oh Poonie, I know you missed me. Stop that hissing you silly cat!"

So I stopped hissing. Because you know, like, I really DID miss HER. Sort of.

What The Camera Revealed

Is it time to get over the damn goat yet? Can we PLEASE get back to me????

Having said that, I am graciously giving up the stage JUST FOR TODAY to another member of this household. Of course I could go on and on about how wonderful I am, but what I'm more than excited about is PROOF POSITIVE that Boogie is possessed, which doesn't exactly excuse her stupidity but at least explains it:She used to be the kind of dog who saw someone aiming a camera at her and immediately ran out of the room, obviously thinking like that bunch of airhead indiginists who believe that if you have your picture taken, you lose your soul. Well HA HA HA!! IT'S TRUE! Eyes that glow green in the flash can only mean one thing--the God of Stupid has one more disciple!

And lord, that is one BIG honkin' nose!!!!!!!!

Gracie

Mom's dear goat passed away today.
She was great friends with Pafare, Mom's Arabian mare.
Now the three of them are together once again.

Wow

Yeah. Wow. . .

Why You Should Never Believe Anything A Human Tells You

The human showed me a photograph today. She shoved it in my face after she'd blown her stack, as she put it, ONE FREAKIN' TIME TOO MANY! (I'm not sure why she got so mad, since I didn't intentionally break one of her precious figurines--it was a dog, for pete's sake--nor did I intentionally drag a very small piece of poopy into the family room. I certainly didn't know it had stuck to my rear end, for god's sake, and when she stepped on it, she WAS wearing flip-flops. Jeez.)

So she was yelling and screaming as she stomped into her office but after she'd been there awhile I heard her chuckling and I figured she'd calmed down and got over it. A bit later, she comes out and says, "See this? I took it yesterday in Pearl River. And don't think they wouldn't take you because you're old and stringy. Mr. McCroc said marinating old cats in Worcestershire sauce softens them right up."

OH MY GOD!! I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT! I could not BELIEVE this woman who says she loves "her babies" would even consider turning one of us into a catburger! Click on the photo to read the horrendous menu.

Then just when I thought I might actually have to start being nice to everyone in order to avoid being turned into a menu item, Boo walks up and says, "By the way Poonie, that sign? Before she doctored it up on the computer, it was a sign for a yard sale. Ha ha."

My usual "Death To Humans" really just doesn't begin to express how I feel right now . . .

**********

Of All The NERVE!

I think everyone would agree that any cat who has (#1) his own blog, and (#2) a rabid following in Nebraska, well, that cat must be pretty darn special, right? But noooooooo--it appears that there is a communal blog for BLACK CATS ONLY and it was actually suggested that Boo (yes, Boo) hook up with what I will now refer to as "his own kind." I mean, look at him. He sits in the sink, for pete's sake. And you know WHY he sits in the sink? Pathetically, in the hope that the human will come by and turn on the faucet ever so slightly so he can play with the droplets. Yes, I realize that it sounds pretty stupid but he LIVES for this!
Apparently no one at the black cat blog does any vetting prior to inclusion. If it were ME, I'd be out there interviewing housemates and humans to get the really dirty stuff heh heh heh. But then there'd be the problem of spreading the truth via the news outlets since we all know the media is totally human-centric (except of course when an animal does something rediculous like ride a surfboard or get stuck in a drainpipe). The one exception is the obviously animal friendly FOX News--how could they not be with a commentator named Karl ROVER?!

BTW, Animal Planet doesn't count due to the fact that their number one show is The Dog Whisperer and the only time you see a cat on that show is when some out-of-control dog is trying to kill it and all Cesar does is go "Chuh! Chuh!" and then says to the totally obsequious owners, "Chew see, he ees alrady unly biting thuh cat, not keeling eet." So then they go "Oooooo, you are wonderful, Mr. Milan" and the show ends, leaving the cat to lie there and go, "Hey, what about ME? I'm bleeding to death here!"

Well, yes, I do tend to get carried away when I've been slighted. However, I will not give in to hurt feelings--I've already demanded that the human find either a Mean Cat blog or an Active Senior Cat blog, where I will surely gain more admirers once they realize that I AM . . . . The Most Wonderful Cat In The World!

Cee-A-Tee Photography

Just to let you know: most cats won't sit still long enough to have their picture taken. Note that I said MOST--as you know, I'm more than happy to let the human snap away. Just one of many reasons why I'm The Most Wonderful Cat in the World.

Here is Boo jumping off the washing machine while the human is yelling, "Dammit Boo, stay still so I can take your picture."

(BTW, in real life our names do not include obscenities, i.e., Dammit Boo, F**k You Poonie, or G.D. It Boogie, although it would seem so considering we're referred to this way much of the time and usually in a very loud and quite unseemly manner).

Now we're getting closer but Squashy Face still refuses to acquiesce. I rather like the bouncing eyeball effect.

Success at last! You almost can't see the human's left hand gripping his neck in what is called a "stranglehold." I almost felt sorry for the little guy.
(Oh, I just crack myself up when I say stuff like that).

This is Boo saying, "Hey, I can look distinguished just like you, Poonie." Oh, c'mon, you moron--how distinguished can ANYONE look with a herd of plastic horses arranged behind you, hmmmm? He obviously forgot Rule #17--Never flop down in front of toys while she has a camera in her hand.

Finally, an amazingly good photo--he's still, he looks halfway intelligent, his eyes aren't bugging out of his head . . .

OK, enough of this Boo business. This is how THE MASTER does it, boys and girls, cats and kittens, dee-oh-gees and pee-uppies. It just doesn't get any better than this:

* * * * * * * * * *