Dear friends, 

This month, I thought I would tell you a little bit about my family.  I got this idea after I had to run away into a closet and laugh hysterically into my paws, after I heard one of our clients talking to my Mom.  (Yes, I DO eavesdrop through the exam room doors.  A lot.  It is a good way to hear many interesting things.)  Anyway, this client was telling my Mom that she was just SURE that all of my Mom's pets were perfect specimens of their breed and in perfect health, "because their owner was a vet."  Well, do you know that I thought that I was going to DIE LAUGHING????  Amd you know how when you laugh hard enough you start making those unattractive *snerk* piggy noises in your nose? Well, I was loud enough that Mom heard me and came looking for me. And sure enough, she joined me in the closet a few minutes later! 

So.  Here is the straight scoop, from your friend Lizzie.  And you know that I would not lie to you.   Veterinarians probably have the funniest and sickliest looking animals in the whole world, because they are mostly such softies.  This is the truth, my friends.  Any time a pet that needs a home comes into any of their hospitals, if one cannot be found, you can pretty well bet your last dog biscuit that the vet will eventually take that pet home "just for awhile."  Well, I would like to tell you about our family's "awhiles."

This is Emmett.  He was found at a cat breeder's house in Peoria.  A senior lady was breeding Persian cats in her house, and somehow taking care of all those cats got away from her.  When her house was raided because of all the bad smells, there were more cats in there than I have bones in my entire body!  Some were living two or more to a cage the size of a breadbox and our poor kitty-boy had been living with a dead cat.  Some nice cat rescue people took all the cats and quickly found homes for the baby kitties and all the young cats.  But no one wanted Emmett, because he was over six years old and he had fleas and ringworm and really bad diarrhea and eye problems and a sinus problem that no one could fix, and he was shaved bald because of the ringworm so he looked kinda like a demented owl when my Mom first saw him.   

(I think he still looks that way, but don't tell my Mom I said so, OK?).  Anyway, Mom saw him and felt bad for him but really didn't want him, but she petted him and he grabbed her hand very gently with his paw when she took her hand away.  And he stared at her.  And since I guess he knew that staring at my Mom with big sad eyes usually gets you whatever you want, he went home with her "for awhile."  Well, Mom went right to work on him.  She cleaned him up and we were all surprised to find out that he wasn't really dark brown, he was a gray tiger Persian.  And she took care of his eyes, and put medicine in them four times a day, and they got better.  And she put him on a raw diet and his diarrhea got all better.  And she got some herbs for him and put them in his food and his sinus infection that was so bad got better.  And she did acupuncture on him, because he was too weak to even jump up on a chair at first, and this made him stronger and helped his immune system.  That was almost three years of "awhile" ago.  Emmett still has to have his face washed every day and eye medicine a lot but otherwise he is pretty healthy.  I can tell you that he certainly packs a mean punch when you make him mad!  But he is a good cat and he never sticks his claws in me even when I push my nose under his tail to say hi.  But he does smack me sometimes.  Mom says I deserve it.

And this is my friend Hebert.  He was rescued from a puppy mill in Wisconsin.  Now, you know how cold it gets in Wisconsin in the winter, right?  Well, poor Hebert was living outside all year round!  He smelled really bad when we got him almost two years ago, because puppy mill dogs have to eat very bad food and no one takes care of them at all.  We couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from, until we looked in his mouth.  When we first looked at his teeth, I almost barfed!  That was because you couldn't even SEE any teeth, just what looked like greeny-brown pudding in his mouth.  Mom called it "advanced periodontal disease" but I just called it dis-gust-ing!  I don't think a three year old dog should have teeth like that, do you? 

Anyway, Herbert had to have 14 of his teeth pulled and the ones that are left are all yellow and crooked.  And he is missing all of his front teeth, so he looks funny when he smiles (Don't tell him that - he thinks he has a lovely smile.)  They don't treat dogs very nice in the puppy mills so a lot of them are real scaredy-cats and Hebert was....ummmm......what did Mom call him? Sy- something......sy-kotic, maybe.  Anyway, it was a word that means he acts like a goofball when you pick him up.  He either gets all bug-eyed and stiff, and he breaths really fast and pees all over, or he fights like a crazy dog and screams and screams until you put him down.  That's how afraid he is that someone is going to hurt him when they touch him.  He got a lot better after "awhile" but it took a really long time before Mom could even pick him up. We fixed Hebert's diet and we got him digestive enzymes and he got herbs to help him not be so afraid and our groomer Caroline made him look nice and she even told him he was beautiful and gave him a fancy bandanna!

I have a BIG friend, too, who has been living with us "for awhile."  His name is Canuke and he looks a lot like Emmett, only bigger.  And of course he is a dog and not a cat, but you see what I mean?  Same round head?  Same smooshed-in face?  Same dumb look in his eyes?  Canuke was a little luckier than Hebert because although he was a breeding dog he was not a puppy mill dog.  (If you want to read more about puppy mills, you can go to this column of my Mom's from last year, but I will warn you that it may make you lose your breakfast, it is so sad what those places do to dogs.)  Anyway.  Where was I?  Canuke's breeder took really good care of him and fed him a really good raw diet while he was a breeding dog, but then he got older and wasn't used for breeding anymore so he lived in a small kennel just big enough to stand up in, a lot of the time.  She had been trying to find a home for him at all the dog shows, but no one wanted a dog who weighed over 100 pounds and who ate three pounds of a raw diet everyday and was six years old.    

Mom saw a picture of him at one of those shows in 2007 and you know that eye thing I told you about that she is a sucker for?  Well, his big sad eyes got to her and she remembered them for almost a year and she finally called the breeder the spring after our Sofia died.  The breeder still had him, so Mom and me went to visit him.  He was big and dopey and clumsy, and he had a lot of big sores and calluses all over him and his underside was all infected and awful looking and some of his big sores and calluses were infected, too.  We did some lab work on him to find out what kind of an infection it was and he took some antibiotics and probiotics for a month.  And Mom made an herbal ointment to rub on his sores three times a day and he got laser treatments and then he took a lot of herbs and other medicines in his food and also vitamins and joint support and we did some chiropractic and some infrasonic therapy on him too.  The sores took a really long time to heal up and now he has some bald spots where most other dogs would have fur.  He is a pretty good dog, and he is really nice, even though he drools kind of a lot and I don't think he is as smart as me at all.  He doesn't even like being bad!

OK, we are down to the last dog and he isn't even here yet.  But he will be coming to live with us soon. There is a dog group that I want you all to know about and remember, because it is the BESTEST dog rescue group ever.  It is called Colonel Potter Cairn Rescue Network and it is where my Thibideaux, who died last year, came from.  You remember Tibby - he was the middle-aged Cairn that Mom adopted two years ago and he was my best friend EVER until he died of bad liver cancer.  Now, I like Hebert a lot but Tibby and I really hit it off and we were closer to the same age so we liked the same 80's music while Hebert is young enough to listen to that bob-yo-head stuff.....you get my drift, I am sure.  And now I am old enough that I really like my Mom and Canuke best, and Hebert is kinda lonely, so Mom and I were looking at the Col. Potter website and remembering Tibby and thinking that Hebert needed a friend, and we were maybe going to keep Vincenzo - you know, the Italian greyhound mix that we were all trying to find a home for - but I really don't like Vincenzo because he tries to boss me around and besides, we found a lady who really wanted him so he got a really good home.  Where was I?  Oh, yeah - we were at the Col.  Potter website and we read about Magic.  You can read about Magic, too, if you click here. 

I have to say that I had to bury my head in Mom's scrubs and cry a little when I found out about his poor leg.  Mom sounded kinda stuffy, too, and she promised me that we could respond to the person at Col. Potter who thought that he would be a good fit for us.  I think that the lady who is fostering Magic (his house name is Jack) must be a very special lady, don't you?  I mean, she has been taking care of him and getting him better and taking pictures and videos of him to show the progress he is making, now that he is up and walking again. (I sure hope he never has to go through an airport metal detector, with all those plates and screws and stuff he has inside him....)  And she is just one of all the special people at Col. Potter who take care of Cairns who need medical care and homes and food and a temporary place to live until they find a "forever" home.  All of this costs a lot of money and the people at Col. Potter are always glad to get donations for any of the Cairns they are taking care of.  If you go to their website like I did, (I tell you, these little paws are really getting good at dancin' over the keyboard!) you can see the "special needs dogs" who need medical care and you can be an official Angel and help a special dog get better so that they can find a home like Jack is going to have with us.  So we filled out some forms and we talked to some nice people at Col. Potter and we talked to Jack's foster Mom for a long time and I listened very hard to make sure that this is a good idea.  Because adopting a new family member is a REALLY BIG DEAL and you should NEVER do it unless you are SURE that it will work for everyone who lives in the house, right?  I went around to Emmett and he said OK but to tell Jack that sticking a nose under a cat's tail is NOT a polite way to say hello, no matter what dogs think about this, it just isn't right...... and I asked Hebert and he is very excited and says he will share his toys..... and I asked Canuke and he said he will do his best to not scare Jack, because we found out that Jack might be a little nervous about big dogs at first.  I think that I will tell Jack as soon as I meet him that Canuke might look big but his brain is really very small, so I think that should calm Jack down, don't you?  And I, of course, will make sure that Jack knows that I am Queen and that all must bow to me. 

So my dears, next month, I will tell you all how this works out and what our household is like.  Until then, please remember to take your heartworm medicine and be careful about those fleas and ticks.  Make sure that your people do the 5 minute check-over on you that I told you about last month, because we are still seeing lots of dogs and cats with icky skin and ear and feet problems, OK? 

Your friend,

LIZZIE