Handsome kitty times 2! You know you love the kitty pics, now!

My dog loves to be picked up and carried around. I know it doesn’t look like it in the picture; trust me, he loves being picked up. He just hates to have his picture taken.

This is great because my daughter loves to carry him around, so it’s a symbiotic relationship. I remember the fox terrier I had growing up absolutely hated to be carried around, so I tell my daughter all the time how lucky she is to have a dog that actually likes to be carried around.

But this is why I’m glad I have a small dog- if I had a big dog, she’d probably want to ride it around like an elephant all the time.

If you think about it, spring is the best time to rescue a dog. In the winter, you’ll be standing outside for lengthy periods of time working on house training your dog in the miserable cold. In the summer, it’s so dry that you don’t get to teach your dog that pooping in the rain is okay, really! Autumn is a good time to get a dog, except it’s when school starts, so things are usually so busy.

Yes, spring is the best time to rescue a dog. And you could be just in time to rescue a dog from being euthanized- Heard County, Georgia Animal Control has several beautiful dogs who only have until tomorrow. Heard County is not too far outside Atlanta, so it’s not terribly far from just about anywhere in the south. Would you consider rescuing a dog? Just look at that puppy’s face, he needs you!

As the owner of another mean kitty, I love this video!

My good friend Kat Coble had to make the hard decision to euthanize her dog this weekend. She writes about her complete heartbreak:

“Aren’t you pretty?” she said. I immediately lost it and found myself
in this stranger’s arms as she held me and comforted me and told me of
all the dogs she’d “put down” (I cannot stand that phrase). She just
held me and let me cry. Which is good, because when the doctor
sheepishly said “I’m so very sorry” and carried Casey back, my first
impulse was to scream and throw myself between the dog and the door to
his death. Thanks to the strange lady who held me, I only screamed
inside and my dog was able to die in dignity instead of confusion.

I am so sorry for your loss, Kat. I know you will see him again someday. Go give Kat some hugs today. She needs them.

This morning my daughter was running around looking for peroxide. When I asked her what she needed it for, she told me Spike had pooped on her bed and she wanted to clean it up. Where she got the idea that peroxide was a good cat poop cleaner-upper, I don’t know.

I told her to strip the sheets and bring the mattress pad out so I could take it outside to air. Then I got on Google to make sure the advice I know about why cats poop on the bed was the same as the internet’s advice.

Because, you know, when in doubt, ask Dr. Internet.

It was the same. I went in and looked at the cat boxes and found there was not much litter in the boxes at all. "Ah ha!" I thought, "The cat boxes are low on litter. I’ll get some more litter and see if that keeps him from pooping on beds." Really, when I think of it, it makes sense- Spike is a fastidious cat and my daughter is the box scooper. I think he’s letting her know in his own way that the box is low on litter. Wouldn’t life be a lot easier if cats could talk?

Of course, if he keeps doing it after I’ve fixed the litter boxes, it’s off to the vet for Spike.

When I came back, I started surfing around the links about cat litter and found some disturbing news. Cat litter is bentonite clay, which is strip mined. I always assumed cat litter was some byproduct of some other thing, but it’s not. It’s mined specifically, and strip mined at that, which is a process that’s not good for the environment.

I started looking around for what kind of cat litter is a good alternative, but I’m coming up a little bare. An alternative people are suggesting is "Swheat" but I’ve seen a lot of people say it tends to clump into concrete cat pee and wheat messes at the bottom of the box, and besides that, have you seen the price of wheat lately? No thanks.

There’s Yesterday’s News, which I used a long time ago and my cats despised, so that’s out. I saw some corn cat litters, but the price of corn is way up, too. I think the best idea I have seen is what Melinda at Elements in Time is doing- she’s using her backyard soil as cat litter. My own hard clay soil may not be appropriate, but it’s got me thinking about the top soil bags you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot.

For now, I think we’ll be sticking to the litter we’ve been using, but I definitely think this warrants some looking into.

Now it’s your turn, Animal Shak-ers: Do you use an environmentally friendly cat litter that both works well and isn’t horribly expensive? What about the top soil idea? Can you see any problems with it?

Klinde’s meezer has her own blog. She’s been missing her mommy ever since Klinde went back to work after being sick for a very long time. Aww, poor kitty!

Go over and read the adventures of Scout! Bonus: Scout spells better than my kitties.

Momologue on the reason she spayed her dog:

Beyond the irritation of scrubbing splotches off fabric, Ellie needed
to be fixed for the obvious reason – so she wouldn’t bear any
illegitimate pups.

Even with her elegant stance, noble muzzle
and royal disposition she was a love child herself. She’s what the
common folk would call a mutt.

The Fates were kind to her the
day she wandered onto my block off a busy street. Her timing was
perfect - she had avoided death by speeding cars and caught me outside
saying goodbye to a visiting friend.

Jimmy told me later the
only reason he ‘let me’ keep her is because she looked like a miniature
version of our older, now deceased dog, Rieker. (Truth be told, Jimmy
was goo-goo-ga-ga over her after the first thirty minutes. He just
tried to hide it.)

Because Ellie wasn’t a purebred, her puppies
would be unwanted. Finding responsible owners who’d keep them loved,
sheltered, and fed with regular health checkups would be impossible.
Most of the fluff balls would be assured to suffer cruelty and die
homeless.

I love, love, love my dog, but he is also a mutt (sorry, Rathuahua! You are a mutt!) so he got the snip just a short time after he came to live with us. He seemed mad at us for a couple of days after the great neutering, but he got over it. Go on over to Momologue to read the rest of the spay story- it’s funny and touching all at once.

Photo: Momologue

"It’s not your cats, Ivy," my mom said, "It’s all cats. I just don’t trust them."

I had to laugh at the thought of not trusting cats. What are we not trusting them about? I mean, I don’t trust my cats not to throw giant parties while I’m gone. I suspect the second I leave, they’re on the phone with all the other cats in the neighborhood, arranging a big blowout, catnip and all.

Maybe she’s afraid they’re little terrorists in fur coats. My cat doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel (of course, he doesn’t have a lapel and that’s part of the problem) so it’s possible he’s not very patriotic. And you know, if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Perhaps she thinks my cats are secretly plotting to kill her in her sleep. No matter how much I try to convince her that cats are not dumb and they like having people wait on them hand and foot, she still suspects they’re going to kill her in her sleep. Well, okay. Whatever.

Or maybe she doesn’t trust them not to become rogue photographers, just taking pictures of business signs all willy-nilly. Then they might get arrested, and she doesn’t want to have to raise the bail to spring them from the pokey. I can see that.

Maybe I need to re-evaluate the trust I have in my cats. Hmm.

[Photo: Jeffraham Prestonian, rogue photographer]

Every day, thousands of healthy, adoptable dogs are euthanized in animal shelters across the United States. Does that make you mad? It makes me mad, too. But Houndsgood makes a very good point in (his? her? I’m not sure) post about where the real blame for all these dogs dying should be placed. Not the shelters, all of us:

So, what can we do to stop the death?  It is not always as simple as getting rid of that “one big bad person” at animal control.
That big bad person is US. And that is who we have the most immediate control over.

• If citizens of an area spayed and neutered their dogs and cats,
  they wouldn’t be wandering away from home so much to be called in as a
  stray or nuisance.
• If citizens of an area spayed and neutered their dogs, the puppy
  they give away for free to a family that in turn got “too big” wouldn’t
  end up dumped at the shelter
• If citizens of an area spayed and neutered their dogs, a puppy
  wouldn’t take the spot in someone’s home away from an equally as sweet
  and even purebred (nothing wrong with mutts, but some folks are looking
  for a specific type) dog or pup sitting at the shelter in desperate
  need.
• If citizens of an area spayed and neutered their dogs and cats,
  they wouldn’t have bit the child for walking between them and a female
  in heat, even if the female was a football field away.
• If citizens of an area always kept a collar and an id on their dog,
  a neighbor or other Good Samaritan may have approached the dog and
  called the owners before the dog was taken to the pound
• If citizens of an area microchipped their dogs and cats, they would have a ticket home.
• If citizens of an area let their dogs live in the house with the
  family, they would be less likely to be bored and dig under the fence.
• If citizens in the area changed their mindset that their dog “would
  surely find a home because he’s a good dog” at the shelter, they may
  rethink their decision to dump their dog. They may make extra effort to
  check with other family and friends who adore the dog, or perhaps get a
  courtesy listing with a local rescue to find the dog a good home.

I’m quoting a little bit more of the post than I normally do, because this is so important and so affecting. Besides, there’s a LOT more at the original post, which you must go see. But basically, the  point is this. Every last one of us needs to be doing our part to keep animals out of shelters. Make sure your animal is spayed or neutered. Keep tags and a collar on them. Do your part and then go above and beyond by using some of the tips in Houndsgood’s post. If you’re mad about euthanization, do something about it.

[Photo: Clay, the wonder puppy- available at Rutherford County TN animal shelter]