Crazy Cat Trapper

I am really beginning to think that this stuff can ONLY happen to us.

Seriously we have the weirdest pet stuff ever happen around this home.

Remember our dog Nikki and when she got dog napped?

Or how about my suicidal dog Charlie?

Oh, and don't forget about my crazy hamster breeding farm that I was running for a while.

So here is the latest epic story in our household about our crazy pets.

We have this cat Duke.  He is seriously the coolest cat ever.  We got him last May (on the day of the LOST series finale to be exact.  He was ALMOST named Sawyer).  Since he has grown up with the beagle and the kids, he is really friendly.  He wrestles with the dog and he lets the kiddos tug and pull on him all the time and he never scratches them one bit.

Below is a video of Duke and Charlie playing together.  This may be the ONLY pet video with Sarah McLachlan music playing in the background that is NOT advertising for abused animals.

I've always found that we have less cat allergies, and just happier cats all around if we let them go in and out.  I know by doing this I take a chance at loosing them, but I've always put a collar on them and hoped for the best.  All the neighbors know Duke and love him too because he is such a sweetheart.

Anyhow, Duke always runs out of the house at night and usually comes back in the mornings and sleeps all day here.  He has repeated this routine for over a year now.  He is NOT neutered, despite all the warnings from Bob Barker about the pet population.  I know, I know, I'm a BAD pet parent and I should have had it done FOREVER ago, but at first I was considering getting a female and having kittens with them (something my sister Ginger got stuck in my head to do), and then life happened and I never got around to doing it.

Saturday night he runs out of the house, and that is the last I see of him for a while.  Halloween came and went and I still hadn't seen him, but we had been busy.  By Tuesday night none of us could place the last time we saw him, so I started to completely and totally panic worry a little.

By Wednesday morning I'm pretty certain he is gone because he would have certainly been home.  My kids are now worried as well.  I post a Craigslist ad for him, and then I register him on the OKC animal shelter website.

Thursday morning after tossing and turning worrying about him I make posters and go put them all around our neighborhood.  At this point I just pray because I've done all that I can do to try and find him.

Thursday night I get a message on my cell phone from a guy that said he found a break away collar that looks like it belongs to a cat or small dog with Dukes name and my number on it.  This is JUST what I was afraid of.

I immediately call him and he proceeds to tell me he was weed-eating his back yard and when he hit the chain link fence the collar just flung up into the air.  I asked him where he was located so we could come and look for Duke in that area.

He says "we are just south of you."

Wait a second.  The collar didn't have my address on it.  I didn't tell this guy where I lived.  How did he know he was south of me? Is what I should have been thinking, but in my mind I just dismissed it.

Then he asks "What does your cat look like?"

I proceed to tell him Dukes description (which my husband continually now makes fun of me for because I said "he is brown and black tabby/tiger striped and has a cute face".  He can't get over the fact I said "he has a cute face.")

He says "well, I think I may have your cat."

I'm almost in tears so happy now.  He then proceeds to tell me that they trap feral cats and that on Sunday they saw him in their garden and then Sunday night he was eating out of their back patio food that they leave out for the cats in the neighborhood.  He then tells me that on Monday he trapped Duke (since he was without a collar), and then Tuesday took him down to the humane society and had him neutered and gave him all his shots.  He goes on and on about feline leukemia and all the other diseases in this area and how we were lucky that Duke didn't have any diseases.  Then after finding the collar today he gave me a call because it could possibly be our cat).

I can see Jamin getting upset that this guy is giving me a lecture on the phone.  He seemed nice to me and I really wasn't thinking because I was so excited to find Duke.  He told me to come over and check it out to see if it was him.

I got off the phone and Jamin said "he is lying to you."  I said "huh?"  Jamin said "he didn't JUST find his collar.  I guarantee you something is fishy here."

I started thinking about the conversation and all the odd pieces that just didn't add up.  How did he know where I lived?  Then it dawned on me.  He saw my signs.  That is the ONLY way that he would know.

We arrive at their house and they are very nice people.  His wife is super sweet, he is a bit odd but seems nice.  They take us to the room and open the door.   There is my sweet Duke lying on their bed.  I started to cry.

The guy starts talking again and tells us that Duke has been eating out of their yard since last Wednesday.  Wait, I thought you said Sunday?  On Saturday the last time I saw Duke he had on his collar.  So if he has been seeing Duke for a while, he MUST have saw his collar.  He also says "you are lucky that he wasn't diseased after being out for a year and a half."  I explained that even though he wasn't neutered he did have all his immunizations.

Wait.  I never told him how old Duke was.  That was on MY SIGN.  This guy WAS lying to me.

Oh well, they were sweet.  They gave me my cat back.  I'm sure he realized that we cared about him after he saw all the signs.  We offered to pay for the shots and him being neutered, but they declined.  Said they were just happy that they found his home.

Thankfully I wanted Duke neutered.  Thankfully he wasn't a show cat that I was planning to breed or anything....

Oh well.  He MAY have been lying to me.  Maybe he wanted my cat, all in all Duke is home and we are happy and thankful he is here.

Unfortunately Duke will now be an indoor cat, because I can't risk him heading back over to crazy cat trappers home for some more free food.  He is not too happy about this.  He keeps giving me the stink eye every time I pass him standing at the door.

Oh, also I think I figured out where my old cat Scout may have disappeared to...

Lifesaver

Yesterday my hubby and I were having a mellow afternoon, just playing games and, relaxing in front of a fire.  A scream broke through the silence of our home from upstairs.  It was that kind of scream where you know that someone is hurt.

Hubby and I ran quickly up the stairs to see what was going on.  My son was screaming hanging onto the ladder of his bed, with the cat hanging off of him.

I guess what had happened is that the dog had scared the cat onto the top of my sons loft bed.  This happens quite often in our house, the dog goes running after the cat, the cat runs and hides from the dog up high- no big deal, well, usually.

My son decided that he would "rescue" the cat from the bed by taking her down the ladder (while the dog happened to be in the room still).  The cat was still freaked and clawed onto the first thing that she could reach, which happened to be my son.

So there they both are, hanging, clawing, crying.

We pull the cats claw out of my son's belly and look at his tummy, we give him hugs and kisses, and explain that there is no need to "rescue" the cat.  We explain the cat is perfectly capable of defending herself from the suicidal beagle.

We go back downstairs to continue in our relaxing afternoon.  My son is still sobbing in tears.  He keeps pulling up his shirt to look at his "massive gaping wound" that he has.

The melodrama doesn't stop there.  He looks over at my husband and between sobs says "Thank you Dad for saving my life."

And here it is, the horrific wound that caused all the drama.

The Wedding Day

So this past weekend was my brother in law's wedding. Now, normally you expect wedding days to be a little bit complicated and have some issues, but nothing major usually happens.

Unless you are part of our family.

My morning started out with my sister in law, her kids, my kids, and our hubby's sitting around the breakfast area by our arcadia door. All of a sudden a duck flew into our back yard. What are the chances? One in a million if you are anyone else on the planet, but if you are the family that owns a beagle chances are pretty high that the duck will wind up in your yard.

Of course the dog started howling at the duck. The duck laid down flat on the ground like it was dead. Finally we were taking bets on wether the duck was dead or just playing dead. I brought the beagle in the house and I went out to go poke the duck to see if it was alive. I got about 10 feet from it and it started flapping. Me, being scared of birds screamed and ran back into the house.

About half an hour later the duck was still in the yard, but I needed to let the dog out. So, there we are and all of a sudden WHACK. The duck hits the arcadia door with a HUGE thud. All the kids and girls scream, my sister in law dumps her coffee everywhere because of the fright.

So, this should have been an omen to me as to how my day was going to go.

Here is a short list of the other wacky events that happened that day:

My daughter took her diaper off like ten times today. She ended up peeing on the kitchen floor.

The dog (our beagle) was vomiting all over the house.

The family members that were decorating the church accidentally locked themselves out of the room that had all the tables in it for the wedding.

We forgot the sash to the brides dress at home and had to stall the wedding while I came back home to get the sash.

The AC in the sanctuary got turned off to avoid the candles from blowing out: caused PROFUSE sweating.

The dog (the beagle, of course) comes downstairs eating a dirty diaper.

My niece poops her pants.

My other dog (the normally well behaved one) jumps up and grabs a chicken leg out of my sister in law's hand and eats it.

Now for the icing on the cake, the part of the story you have all been waiting for.

My son floods the church during the reception. Yes, let me repeat that again, MY SON FLOODED THE CHURCH.

Let me tell you one of the worst possible noises in the world that someone can hear is the sound of GUSHING water where there should be NO gushing water.

Come to find out my son was in the handicap stall in the church. In that stall they have the toilet and a sink attached to the wall. In the next stall over is my nephew. I don't know what happens to my son when these two get together but trouble just seems to find them, and my son absolutely looses his mind. Typical boy, he decides to stand on the sink and peek over into the next stall to be funny and irritate his cousin.

This causes the pipe in the wall to break, the sink to fall off the wall and hundreds of gallons of water to begin gushing out of the pipe. I don't ever think I'll forget the look of terror on my pastors face while this event unfolded. I'm certain at this point we are going to have to find another church to start attending (ok not really, our pastor is a SUPER cool guy and we have an AWESOME church).

This is the point in time where I melt down. The shear embarrassment of the entire situation just broke me down. Luckily the water got shut off, and the men did an excellent job of cleaning up the water disaster, and a plumber came out and fixed the pipe before service tomorrow. It COULD have been much worse.

I swear to you that this is the complete truth about my day. I can't possibly make this stuff up. I have witnesses that can account that this is my "normal" life.

One day of drama in our household is equivalent of what some people only get in a lifetime.

Charlie Suicide Attempt #6

So, my beagle, Charlie had yet ANOTHER suicide attempt the other day.

If you haven't read about the other five you can get a recap here.

The hubby was painting the girls room and had the window slightly open to let out the fumes. He noticed the dog sniffing around the window area and closed it enough that he thought the dog couldn't get out of.

He was wrong.

About two minutes later our dog Charlie had jumped out the window and was walking around on the three foot landing outside our daughters window sniffing the gutters, inches away from a 9 foot decent to death.

My husband calmly called him over within arms reach, grabbed his collar and pulled him in, once again saving our dog from death.

It could only happen to me

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I win hands down when it comes to crazy pet and animal stories. From my Shih-Tzu being dognapped to my suicidal Beagle, from frog orgies in my kids swimming pool to dying guinea pigs, I have the strangest pet stories of them all.

Our cat Scout has gone missing again, I decided to take a long detour through our neighborhood to scan for him. While I was doing this two dogs come running out in front of my car. I slam on the breaks to avoid hitting them. Rather than scurry on their way, these dogs just stand there and stare at me as if to say "you shall not pass." I honk the horn, nudge the van forward a bit, but nothing. They won't budge an inch.

You HAVE to be kidding me right?

So I get out of my car and the smaller of the dogs (a little ugly pug that looks like the dog from Men In Black) barks and barks at me, will barely let me out of the van door. I try and shew them away, but they just are hell bent on not letting me go anywhere. I see collars, but no tags on these dogs.

This standoff continues for about 5 minutes. I'm at the point I'm about ready to just run over the dang dogs, and I'm starting to envision horrific scenes from Cujo where they poor lady is stuck in her sweltering car for days trapped by this rabid dog. The kids get out and try and move them out of the way while I get the van a little forward, but while doing this the little one bites my son. It's not a massive bite, a teeny little puncture wound no bigger than a pin prick, but it does draw a little blood. I quickly get the kids back in the car. I begin nudging forward and the dogs move a bit, the kids look out the window to make sure I'm not hitting them. As soon as I'm FINALLY clear of these dogs I FLOOR it. The dogs CHASE MY CAR through the rest of the neighborhood and around the corner.

I swear I've never seen anything like this in my life.

A quick call to hubby and the doctor (luckily my son doesn't need a rabies shot), then a call to animal control while in the middle of Eyemart (getting yet ANOTHER pair of glasses for my son) gets some stares from a few individuals. Can't you just see me now? The two year old pulling glasses off the racks and hiding under chairs with me on the phone to the doctor saying "Yes, I think my son needs a rabies shot." While the lady at the counter is repairing my sons glasses (oh and the oldest is crying because they can't repair her sunglasses for her).

I just look at them as I leave and say out loud "Welcome to my three ring circus."

Our Suicidal Dog

My husband and I have come to the conclusion that our dog must be suicidal. He has almost died on us a handful of times, and we keep saving him. Maybe we doomed him the minute we named him "Charlie" (after the character Charlie on Lost). We are his Desmond, no matter what we do, or how many times we try and save him, he is going to die.

It all started when we first adopted him. He dug a hole under the porch of his old home, and crawled under there to die. It took hours for him to come out so we could adopt him. We get him home to find out he has Parvo. After a week of this dog trying to die we nurse him back to health with Pedialyte and chicken broth, along with antibiotics.

A few months later, he decides to steal food from our larger alpha dog. She of course tries to bite his head off, leaving his eyeball bulging out of the socket. (That has been fixed, popped right back in at the vet's office that night). I still have nightmares about witnessing this horrific event.

About three days before we leave to Paris, he comes in the house bloody and swollen (the dog seriously looked MESSED up see photo to my left). We have no clue what he did to himself, but we nurse him back to health with antibiotics and aspirin. Our dog lives to see yet another day. We are still debating if he got his head caught under the fence or if the big dog attacked him again. We just can't be sure.

About a month ago he gets himself caught on my staircase in a noose. If I would have gone downstairs 30 seconds later I would have had a dead dog hanging from my stairs (talk about having to go to therapy after seeing something like that...). Anyhow, he noosed himself around the stairs and actually let go of his bowels and bladder he was that close to death. My stairs now have claw marks dug into the wood where he tried to claw his way up them to save himself.

Two weeks ago he somehow got a hold of an ant bait and ate all the poison out of it. Luckily he survived that one. The "counter" went back (zero days since last Charlie suicide attempt).

I have NO clue what it is with this dog. I guess we just keep trying to save his life and live out the doggie version of the movie "Final Destination". He cheated death but it keeps coming for him? Sounds like a feature film to me...

Dognapped!

Ok, so I only thought that dogs got stolen in Disney movies and in episodes of Seinfield, but I was wrong.

We have a Shitsu (Nikki) who is about 16 years old. She doesn't do much but sleep, eat and occasionally go pee outside (if she hasn't all ready peed on my living room floor). This morning I let her out to pee, five minutes later I check on her and she is still sniffing around. I check on her because she somehow ALWAYS manages to find her way out of our yard. She is a dog version of Houdini.

I go tend to the kids, and a few moments later look out and she is gone. I walk up and down the street, because she is so old she could not have gone anywhere that quickly. She is not on our block. The neighbors behind us have no fence, so she could have got into their subdivision which is different than ours and you can only get there by driving. So, I pack up the kids who are still in their pajamas, and barefoot. I also have one of the neighbor kids with me. We all head out to drive around in search for Nikki. She has a number on her tag so I notify Jamin that if someone calls to call me and let me know.

I search all around and can't find her anywhere. My phone rings Jamin informs me that someone found her and took her to the vet because "she had an infection with her eye and they were afraid that she was not well taken care of and she needed medical attention."

At this point I was livid. Why on earth would someone take the liberty of taking her to the vet without calling the number on the tag first? Especially if it was not a life threatening issue.

I head to the vet, steaming. I find this guy walking around the parking lot of the "pet resort" (not kidding) they took her to on his cell phone, but Nikki is no where in sight. I get out of the car, and ask where my dog is. He then informs me that he is calling his fiance to find out where the dog is. Hello? I thought she was at the vet? He then hands me her collar. This is getting stranger and stranger. By then, I'm really peeved. Anyone that knows me, knows I have a hot temper. At this point I SHOULD have kept my mouth shut, but I just absolutely cannot. I say to him "I'm curious as to why you would bring her to the vet rather than just call the number that was on her tag." and he could see I was visibly angry with him. He then said "lady, I'm just trying to do the right thing and help. I don't appreciate you getting hostile with me." We exchanged a few more words, then he got back on his phone. Still, no Nikki. I turn around to tell the kids in the car to be quiet and when I look again, the guy is gone. I then see him peeling out of the parking lot five seconds later.

I go inside the vet, thinking she is inside. She isn't there. I call Jamin and he answers and I told him the guy left. Jamin said yes, the guy just called him. He had called Jamin and lit into him. He then proceeded to call me a B*&%^ to my husband. That was NOT the right thing to do. Jamin lit into him. The guy then physically threatened Jamin over the phone. Jamin then explained to him calmly that he was calling the police due to the physical threat and the fact that they had taken our dog.

During this time I called the Pet Palace (ok, pet RESORT). What actually happened. The lady brought in Nikki NOT with the intention of getting her medical attention, but to get her groomed. She had planned on KEEPING MY DOG! They told her they couldn't groom her not knowing her shot record, and she would have to go to the vet. They transferred me to the vet, the vet said they told the lady Nikki's age and that was it, she then left with the dog. I told the vet she had a tag and they were flabbergasted they said "She had a tag?" they couldn't believe that the lady brought her in if she had a tag on. They were as confused as I was.

In the meantime Jamin calls me back and said the lady (not her husband) would meet me at the parking lot of a local grocery store to give me the dog back. Jamin wasn't about to let that guy near me. So I head up there and get my dog back.

This lady had every intention of keeping my dog, until we threatened to call the police, because she assumed she was not taken care of because she hadn't had a haircut in some time and assumed that we were poor owners.

This HAS to be one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me!