Endings and Beginnings

This is going to be a tough update. 

I know that many of you are smitten by our two wonderful dogs, Maisy and Willa, which is why I've been procrastinating in writing this. The short version is that about a month ago we were stunned to find out during a routine veterinary visit that Willa has a very serious and untreatable heart condition. Thankfully, she is asymptomatic right now (truly, you wouldn't even know she is sick). The good news is that, after reviewing her ECG, the cardiologist believes she may have as much as a year with us. This is pretty miraculous as we were first told she probably had only a few weeks at most.

Our sweet Willa (AKA Wilda Beans AKA Beans because she is full of beans). 

  
Then, only two days after Willa's diagnosis, Maisy came down with what seemed to be an eye infection. After a week of back and forth to the vet and a consultation with a veterinary neurologist it was determined that she has stopped making tears in her right eye. We have ruled out all causes except a brain tumor, which is likely aggressive. We do not know how much longer she is expected to live.

Our wonderful pack matriarch Maisy Joonbug (AKA Maisy J, AKA Joonbug, AKA The Bug, AKA Joonbuggeous Maximus because, come on, she's the best dog on the planet).

As you can imagine, we are totally devastated. To lose one of our beloved dogs is awful but two find out we are losing both, and within a span of only nine days... it's just been a lot to process. Instead of wallowing in grief we are trying to stay positive. Both dogs have been officially retired: no more consults with my clients' crazy dogs (no offense to any of you with crazy dogs). We just want them to enjoy whatever time they have left.

Of course, Will is much too young to understand what is going on. It breaks my heart to know he will not have any memories of either of them. Harper understands that the dogs are sick and that there isn't anything we can do to make them better, so we are just going to love them and give them a good life and then they will pass away someday soon. I don't think she'll be able to fully understand the entirety of that until the time comes.

In other, happier news, we have a new member of the family. Our remaining foster kitten, Princess GiGi Kerfuffle VonKitten (working name), has officially joined our family. To be clear, I was absolutely not keeping one of those kittens, until she suddenly became super sweet and fit right in with the other pets and charmed her way into everyone's heart (especially Harper's). Then, on Sunday morning, as I was packing her up to show her at another Adopt-A-Pet, Brad asked if I had considered just keeping her. I think maybe our defenses were down after all the bad news around here lately but that was all it took. You should have seen the look on Harper's face when we told her.

The newest Booker: Princess GiGi Kerfuffle VonKitten (working name)  

So there it is. We have a new member of the pack and, in a short time, our pack will be changing again. And life goes on. 
    

Charicatures

Harper has been busy working on family portraits today. I think they're fantastic. 

Daddy Is Marrying Mommy

7.1.2015

H. Booker

Crayon on Paper

Mommy Kissing Daddy

7.1.2015

H. Booker

Crayon on Paper

Harper Looks At The Animals At The Zoo 

7.1.2015

H. Booker

Crayon on Paper

Will Making A Funny Face

7.1.2015

H. Booker

Crayon on Paper

The semblance is uncanny and I'm especially pleased that everyone looks vaguely irritated. She's obviously going through a realist phase. Kudos to our little Rembrandt!

Nana's Birthday 2015

Today is Brad's mother's birthday. Harper wanted to make her a special video, so here it is!

Happy birthday, Ann! We love you!  

Debut

Getting good photos of sixteen-day-old, dark colored kittens is nearly impossible, but video is a little better medium. So here they are, Gigi and Gandalf, for all you kittenphiles out there (you know who you are!).

They are just beginning to resemble kittens and not something from the rodent family. Gigi is the tortoise shell and Gandalf is the little black hurricane. 

Isn't Gandalf's recovery remarkable? You'd never know that she was on death's doorstep just four days ago. Her survival is unbelievable and the closest thing I've ever seen to miraculous. She has proven to be quite a fighter and is secretly my favorite (don't tell Gigi).

Milestones this week include sitting up (a little), using their tails as a rudder, and starting to groom themselves. Let me assure you, you haven't seen cute until you've witnessed a sixteen-day-old kitten try to groom herself. And their tiny kitten purrs are one of the sweetest things in life. 

Hopefully there will be much more to come!

*Edit

Several of you saw this post and asked me, "But where is the other kitten? I thought there were three." I posted the following on my Facebook page on June 2nd, but neglected to post it here because, frankly, I didn't want such a sad post archived. But since some of you only see the blog and don't visit Facebook often, I'll copy what I wrote there, in the interest of reducing confusion...

June 2, 2015

"Today our little kittens turn two weeks old. I was hoping to have good news to report but, as it sometimes goes with such fragile little lives, I am sad to say we had a rough week.

Gandalf crashed on Sunday only to make a miraculous recovery, the likes of which I have truly never seen before. But her long-term prognosis remains guarded. And then, after struggling nearly since birth, little Geiger passed away shortly after 9:30 this evening. I petted her gently and solemnly wrapped her tiny body in a white linen napkin.

Tomorrow I will take the kids to pick out something beautiful to plant over her grave. And tomorrow night, after Bradley gets home, we will bury Geiger in our garden. In the meantime, I continue to nurse the remaining two kittens around the clock, marking each new day they survive as a little victory. With each week that passes they grow stronger and their chances of surviving increases exponentially.

I hope to have happier news next week. Thank you for all your love and support."  

Genes N' Things

Having two "pound puppies" and a background in biology, I have always been curious about my dogs' heritage. Although my dogs look very much like "Pit Bulls", I knew the likelihood of them being purebred was very low. To further add to the mystery, dogs are unique in that very subtle differences to their DNA can result in a great variation of phenotype. As a result, without a DNA test a guess as to any dog's particular heritage is simply that: a guess. (As my friend Larry says, "They're all AKC; All Kinds of Canine.) So when the online canine DNA tests went on sale, of course I ordered one immediately.  

I decided to test Willa (AKA Willa Beans, AKA Wilda Beans, AKA Beans) because, although she looks very much like a "Pit Bull" type dog, I had some indications she may be a little more exotic.

When she was an older pup (I adopted her from San Luis Obispo Animal Services when she was seven months old) she was pretty wrinkly, so much so that people constantly asked if she was a Shar Pei mix. Shar Pei's are not the most common breed, so I doubted it, but you never know. Then, when she was three years old and after two unnecessary gastrointestinal surgeries she was (finally) diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease, which is not uncommon to Shar Pei's, so it seemed to lend some credence to that theory. Plus, her brother looked very Boxery, so I thought Boxer may be in the mix, too. 

I was dying to know what other breeds she may be hiding. Australian Shepherd? Bichon Frise? Husky? Corgi? The possibilities were tantalizing! So three weeks ago I sent off a sample of her genetic material and waited.

Last night I logged in to my account to discover the results had been analysed (!) and (drumroll here)... Willa is 75% purebred American Staffordshire Terrier. 

Talk about anticlimactic. 

But I held out hope for that other 25%, so I turned to the page on her mixed-breed ancestry which revealed (once again with the drumroll while I quote from the results here)... "Willa's ancestry was mixed beyond the three generations we test for."

Translation: she is too much of a mutt to tell. Their best guess based on genetic markers? American Staffordshire Terrier.

Are you kidding me?

I purchased a DNA test to determine the ancestry of a dog I knew was a "Pit Bull" mix only to find out that that, to the best of scientific determination, she's a "Pit Bull" mix. 

Least satisfying test results ever.

It's a good thing she's such a good dog, otherwise I'd be disappointed.

  

One Week Old!

We have some foster kittens staying with us temporarily. I know it seems like an oxymoron to have the words "foster" and "temporarily" in the same sentence but I keep having to remind Harper we aren't keeping them. 

Other than needing to be fed every couple of hours they've fit right in to our routine. You can tell you've fostered a lot of animals when the resident dogs and cat don't even bat an eyelash when you enter the house with a carrier full of screaming kittens. We have named them GiGi (the tortoise shell), Gandalf the Gray (for the gray tips of his hair) and Geiger (because you have to count everything with that kitten. Stupid finicky kitten.) 

Harper and Will, on the other hand, are besides themselves with excitement. Will has figured out how to climb on top of the washing machine so he can mew at them through the bars of the carrier, which drives me absolutely crazy. Harper just perpetually begs me to hold them.

Today is the one week milestone. Today we say farewell (and good riddance) to feeding every two hours. They are actually starting to cuten up, too. Instead of skinny little hairy slugs they look much more like fat marginally bigger hairy slugs. Their ears are starting to perk up and their eyes are just starting to open. They are pushing up a little on their legs and, impressively, can climb up the face of the carrier to get a better shrieking vantage. Go kittens! 

So let me know now which one/s you'll love forever. If all goes well they'll be looking for forever homes come mid-July. And who can resist a kitten, anyway? 

   

Bangs N' Thangs

Harper opted for super short bangs this hair cut. I think they're adorable; very Audrey Hepburn or Mia Farrow circa 1968. 

 And Will has strong opinions about his look, too.   

Happy Friday everyone!