Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Same Old, Same Old

Nothing new to report around here. Keeping busy with kids, harvesting the tomatoes and green peppers from the garden, canning the tomatoes...

We went to the store on Sat in the big town and the grocery store had excellent-looking white corn on sale 4/$1 so I caved and bought another crate-- 48 ears. We ate some for dinner, made fresh corn fritters for another dinner and I need to can the rest today. On Sunday, the same grocery store had ads in the paper and the corn is now on sale for 6/$1!! agh! I just might get one more crate of corn...

We had Maisie the dog spayed last week. Poor girl. She gave me such a pitiful look with those brown eyes of hers when I picked her up from the vets in the evening. A couple of days easing into her favorite chair and taking it easy and now she's back to her old self again. We take her in tomorrow morning to remove the stitches and get a rabies shot for her.

The vet is nice; holistic and homeopathic. We found them online and they are not too far for us to drive, we have to leave an hour before the appointment to get there on time. A very hippie sort of house converted into a vet's office. My kind of place. When you go in, there's peace signs and pictures of animals on the walls; an old church pew painted sky blue; an owl puzzle glued together and hung on the wall. Probably not the most sterile of places, but it looks clean and the vet assistant was very nice and easy for me to lip-read and understand. We went through a spay/neuter organization that helps low-income people to get their pets fixed and they were on the list of participating vets. I think we will keep them as our permanent vet for our other animals, I felt very at ease there and so did Maisie.

We took her to another vet previously, and the entire time, Maisie growled. It got to the point that the vet felt the need to muzzle her. It was kind of funny to see her in a muzzle, her tongue working around the edges trying to figure out how to get it off, and at the same time, I was a little disturbed that she was so nervous being there and the vet and his assistant didn't seem to try and calm her or ease her fears. At the vets where she was spayed, she didn't growl once, and only barked when the cat sleeping on the fax machine moved and caught her attention. Big difference in behavior and I'm going to follow her cue and continue to take Maisie there.

We can learn a lot from animal behavior. I have had cats that didn't like a certain person, and I pooh-poohed it and later, I found that person to be not the kind of person I should be friends with. People that my cats adore have usually turned out to be great friends for me, including my husband. The first time I brought him home, I opened the door where my cats were and they ran out and Tiko immediately did the cat thing between Andrew's legs and purred loudly. Tiga held back a little bit, sizing Andrew up and sniffing his hands and legs before deciding he was OK. Tiko and Tiga were great big Tabby cats, my first on-my-own-away-from-home cats. I miss those big fellas! I'll always have a place in my heart for a Tabby cat.

The day is going fast, so I need to get going and do what needs to be done. See ya next Month! :o)

3 comments:

Stephanie D said...

You're right--we should pay more attention to our pets. My last dog didn't like the groomer very well, but since she'd had a bad experience at the previous groomer's, I just chalked it up to the whole bath and trim thing.

The second time I took my present dog there, I warned them she was a rescue and not at ease yet among lots of people. The gal had her completely bathed and trimmed in an hour and a half and called me saying to come get my dog and not bring her back, because she was running around pooping everywhere and had been snapping at them.

I thought Tandi was ill, so took her to the vet right away, but he said she was just terrified. I should have paid attention to my first dog.

I found a new groomer, who also boards dogs, and Tandi loves it there. Lauri lets the dogs roam around the shop and covered patio and fenced area outside, and if the dog she's currently grooming starts to get anxious, she puts that one down and works on another one so none of them get stressed out. The first time I boarded Tandi there, Lauri was even considering taking Tandi home with her at night if Tandi got too stressed.

My groomer's a definite keeper!

Johnna Sutton said...

crazy cat/corn lady :)

jenny said...

Stephanie-- I wonder what it was that made your dogs scared? I'm glad you found a great groomer for your dog. I think part of the reason Maisie didn't like the other vet was she could hear lots of other dogs barking, howling, and whining. I couldn't hear them, but Andrew said there was one dog in particular that just kep whining/howling. I would imagine in dog-speak that it scared Maisie. The hippie vet we now go to is small and quiet and much more like a home than a vet office, so that's a big step to putting anyone or any animal at ease.

Johnna-- LOL!! :o)