Sunday, July 31, 2005 , evening

Bad Cats!

Congratulations to “Mary Beth”, who was the winner of the first ever Blog Pound book giveaway!  Assuming Mary Beth responds to my email telling her that she won, I’ll be sending her a copy of Bad Cats by Jim Edgar.  It’s a small, silly book, full of candid photos of cats (photos are submitted by proud cat owners).  The author, Jim Edgar, then takes the photos and captions them, giving voice to the cat in the image.  He also assigns the cat a hobby or distinguishing personality feature, for example, “Enjoys collecting Charlie Parker on vinyl”, or “Insulted when gently prodded with wooden spoon”.  Edgar doesn’t even own a cat (he’s allergic), but he manages to capture the true personality of each cat featured and his captions are hilarious.  If you want a preview, check out his website, My Cat Hates You.  I especially love this entry, which never fails to make me giggle:  Mack.  I also know I’ll be purchasing the Bad Cats Calendar in hopes of finding out more about the beer and Ambien party in the litterbox.

I’ve added a new book giveaway for the month of August, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.  I’ll review it before the contest closes, but in the interim, go ahead and enter!  Really!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/31 at 09:45 PM
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Friday, July 29, 2005 , evening

Slippery slope

I know I’m sliding down the hill of old age, because I actually laughed at a Sunshine Club comic strip :grrr:

image

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/29 at 09:52 PM
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Things to think about

Occasionally when I’m feeling morbid (or when my mind is wandering, like when I’m in the shower), I’ll give thought to what would happen to all our pets if something unexpected happened to both of us.  We don’t have any sort of “will” concerning the pets, and with only Nancy’s family down here, there really isn’t anyone we’d expect to be able to care for all the dogs, cats, and birds under our roof.  It bothers me to think of the pets ending up in a shelter, separated, yet I’m not sure what other options we have.  Best Friends used to have a care program where you could arrange to have your pets go to them, but I think they were overwhelmed and no longer even mention it on their website.  I know there are other “lifetime care” programs out there, though, and I’ve wanted to check them out, and then I was reminded of the pitfalls of such a thing when this horror story came to my inbox this week: Authorities Remove 223 Cats from Wild Cat Ranch Pet Retirement Center.  In summary, a couple in Texas were running a “cat retirement home”, charging anything from $1500 per month and up to care for the cats of people who were hospitalized or who had passed away and had bequeathed the cats to the “cat ranch” in their wills.  These were caring owners who worried for their pet’s well-being, and who, in some cases, shelled out in the vicinity of $20000 for “lifetime care” for their pet.  You know that amount represented the entire life-savings of some of these people, yet they were willing to set it aside so their cat wouldn’t end up in a shelter, or worse.  For most of these cats, they ended up “or worse”.  From photos available at the link I posted, the “cat ranch” is a stinky hell-hole of overflowing litterboxes, bug-laden food dishes, and stagnant water.  Many of the cats were found with untreated infections and illness, and the FIV and FLV cats weren’t kept separated from the healthy cats.  It’s a disgusting, horrible mess, and it’s beyond my imagination how someone could take money to care for an animal, then just neglect it.  We were given $200 as a “thank you” for taking in Chelsea and Jackson, and we were thrilled to have the money.  If we’d been running a “cat retirement home”, apparently we could have expected a cheque for about $20000 to care for 13 year old Chelsea and 7 year old Jackson.  With that kind of money, I’d be buying them gold-plated soft paws! 

So, this story was certainly a reminder that we have decisions to make and things to plan and that we’re going to need to be diligent about it.  My “dream” is to one day own a piece of land like this one on this page (#1402706, 21.35 acres), and to be able to leave it to a place like Best Friends in exchange for having them care for any pets I leave behind.  I think that’s a reasonable trade-off, and I’d hope that one day they’d turn the land into an extension of their sanctuary, or perhaps, even an extension of their pet cemetary.  I really need to figure out how to make something like this happen, because I think I’d sleep a lot easier knowing that the pets would be okay in any given situation.

Anyway, sorry if that was a tad morbid, but it is something all pet owners should think of occasionally.  There’s a book called When Your Pet Outlives You: Protecting Animal Companions After You Die at Amazon.com, and perhaps it’s time I buy it and give it a read.

On a lighter-yet-related note, I keep Sweet Pea’s ashes up on my desk.  On top of her little box, I’ve put her collar, her tag, and the little chewed up fabric end of a toy she really loved, called Kitty Tease Deluxe.  A few minutes ago I pulled the box down to dust it off, and noticed that the little toy is missing—I think Frank swiped it during one of his “top o’ the desk” sojourns (the kind that Nancy-mom doesn’t allow, because she’s mean).  I just thought it was sort of funny… I put it up there because I was sad, and Frank ran off with it because it makes him happy.  I think Sweet Pea would be okay with that.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/29 at 08:42 PM
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005 , late evening

Kitty cocktail

I don’t know if this information is accurate, but the good folks at the North Shore Animal League offer this recipe as a way for you to earn your cat’s everlasting love and admiration (or maybe, just a little less indifference).  Here’s a recipe for “Cantaloupe Cocktail”:

1/2 cup fresh, ripe cantaloupe, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon honey, optional
catnip

Combine the cantaloupe with the yogurt. Drizzle the honey on top, if desired, and sprinkle with catnip.

Somebody please try it and let me know if your cat does indeed love it.  I don’t have any cantaloupe in the house right now (or any plain yogurt, for that matter), but I’ll certainly add them to my shopping list.  I think the secret ingredient might just be the catnip.  Today I received two new Little Pink Sock catnip toys in the mail, and Frank was so enamoured of them that he was rubbing himself all over their plastic bag, before I even opened them.  Catnip makes him silly

:lol:

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/27 at 10:25 PM
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Veterinary Ophthalmologist

We went to the “eye vet” today for Phoenix’s recheck, and it was good news—her infection is gone, and her eyes are looking great.  Oh sure, she’s still blind in one of them, but that doesn’t seem to slow her down at all.  Since she started on the cyclosporine drops I haven’t had to remove all kinds of gunky discharge from her eyes on a daily basis, and her eyes haven’t been itchy.  She’ll still need that surgery to remove her ingrown eyelashes, but the vet says it isn’t urgent, and we’re planning to delay it until September or so.  Our regular veterinary ophthalmologist is Dr. Michael Brinkmann, so we were quite surprised today when a big, strapping young red-headed guy (sort of the red-headed equivalent of Eric Gagne) walked into the exam room and introduced himself as Dr. Wiens.  I’m quite sure he’s barely out of high school, but he had the white coat, so I figured he was legit.  He said he was working with Dr. Brinkmann, so did an exam of Phoenix, asked us questions, etc.  I couldn’t help but notice that he had an accent, but it was subtle, so I asked him where he was from.  He answered “Canada”, so I said “me too” (although Nancy was the one wearing the “Canada” t-shirt), and then I asked him what part of Canada he was from.  He answered “Alberta”, and I unfortunately did a completely involuntary eyeroll, combined with a sneer/scowl.  I don’t think he had much of a sense of humour, either, as I told him I was from the “good Liberal part of Canada” and he had no reaction.  It’s probably not good to piss off the vet, but I couldn’t help it—he was from Alberta!

I’ll expect a smackdown from Expat Chick at any moment.

:gulp:

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/27 at 12:23 AM
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Monday, July 25, 2005 , late at night

I could use a little Effexor right about now

It doesn’t even have to be Effexor—I just would love to have an anti-depressant in my body that feels like it’s working :ahhh:  I’ve been so stressed and tense and uptight for the last week or so, and I wish I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.  If the Milnacipran is going to start working, well, any day now would be a good time for it to kick in.  I remember the good ol’ days when I’d watch “Animal Cops” and feel relaxed/inspired, but tonight I watched it and it just made me really really sad, then it made me really, really angry, neither of which are any fun at all.  Let me interrupt this whine for a Public Service Announcement:  People!  Vaccinate your pet, microchip your pet, spay/neuter your pet!  That’s all I ask!  Quit pissing me off!  (sorry, had to get that out)

I’m pleased to announce that my tweezer-jabbed eye has completely healed, just in time for my eye to be available to closely examine the horrible laceration on my finger.  I was using a little pocket “Leatherman” tool and whoops, that baby’s sharp.  I sliced really deeply into my finger, but as the blood was streaming out of it, all I could worry about was finding something to catch the blood so I wouldn’t drip on the sofa.  I ended up with two sofa drips and two carpet drips, and my “Spot Shot” testimonial is that it really does remove blood stains.  This adventure happened while I was trying to hookup our TiVo unit, again, after three dissatifying months with the cable company’s own DVR unit.  I hate the DVR because it’s so user-unfriendly compared to TiVo, but I love the HD feed that comes from it, so I decided to compromise and split the incoming signal between TiVo and the HD-DVR.  We’ll watch “regular” stuff on the TiVo, and keep the DVR for taping shows which require HD quality (like movies on cable, sporting events, etc.).  When TiVo finally releases an HD recorder which is compatible with cable (it’s supposed to happen early next year), the unit we rent from the cable company will be history.

So, I’m hooking all that stuff up, and it’s pretty straight-forward but not without incident.  A month or so ago, I got tired of “renting” equipment from Cox Cable, so called and asked if I could buy the equipment.  I was told by the nice young man in the tech department, Yes, I could certainly buy my own equipment as long as it was the same manufacturer and model number as what I rented.  I verified the model numbers with him, and bought two units on eBay—a digital converter box, and an HD-DVR box.  I would hook these up and return the ones we rent for $20 every month, and my new purchases would have paid for themselves in less than 6 months.  So, I hook everything up, call the cable company to activate the boxes, and—Nope, I CAN’T buy my own equipment.  The boxes I’ve purchased really aren’t compatible with our local cable system because they were programmed for other cities.  The tech guy even started to lecture me about how the boxes must have been STOLEN because no cable company sells equipment, they all rent it.  He then put me on hold (ran off to call the sheriff, no doubt), and then came back a few minutes later to apologize because it turns out that most other cities do sell their equipment to customers.  He says Las Vegas doesn’t do it, because rental fees “are the only way (we) make money”.  Uh huh.  Our monthly cable bill for Internet access, digital cable, and some premium movie channels is closing in on $200, so cry me a river about how you don’t make any money :P This entire experience is starting to make satellite look more enticing, especially something like grey market satellite service.  It would cost about $1000 (Canadian) to set up (buy the DVR HD receiver, the dish, pay all the activation costs, etc.), and then service would run $20 and up per month.  However, for that $20, we’d actually get real Canadian television - free hockey, free CFL, free “real” news, all the nuts at CITY-TV, etc.  You can do it for even less (as low as $500 to get started), but then you don’t get the HD receiver, and I know that hockey looks a lot better in HD.  Anyway, something to think about.  Just think—we could be sitting in our livingroom in Las Vegas watching “Leafs TV” 24/7.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a little note about the pets here, as it’s been a few days since I posted.  Everyone is well, and Eli’s still hoping the thunderstorms will stick to the areas east of us (as am I).  Tomorrow Phoenix goes to the eye doctor for a recheck of her infection, but we can see how much it’s improved since she’s been on her new meds.  I give two big thumbs up to vets who specialize, because our experiences with them have been fabulous.  Of course, we love our “regular” vets too, but we can’t expect them to know everything, and being able to go to eye and avian specialists has been such a privilege.  There’s a new veterinary dermatologist in town now, and perhaps Phoenix will make a trip to see her as well, once we’ve got her other problems under control.  We still definitely want her to have surgery to remove those turned-in eyelashes, but we may try to put it off for a couple of months as she’s not in great discomfort from it, and it will let us clear up some other medical odds and ends first.  Keno and Pepe both need to go back to the Dr. Kolmstetter, the avian doctor, and then we’ll prioritize everyone else after that.

One of the very noticable side-effects of my anti-depressant fog is that I’ve got a degree of cognitive dysfunction and am having trouble spelling.  So, my apologies for my errors, and let’s hope that if I’ve messed anything up badly, it becomes a Google Whack.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/25 at 11:09 PM
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Thursday, July 21, 2005 , late evening

You know you’re having a bad day, when…

You know you’re having a bad day when you poke yourself in the eye with a pair of tweezers!  Yes, I did that!  I didn’t deliberately “poke”, it was more stupid than that—I dropped the tweezers while tidying up my eyebrows and the pointed end fell into my eye.  That’s so stupid it’s embarrassing.  I should be forced to go through life wearing a hardhat and goggles.  Luckily I didn’t do much damage (as evidenced by the fact I’m here, on the computer), but my eye definitely feels scratched and irritated.

Other than that, it wasn’t a horrible day, even though we had a few hours of thunderstorms this evening.  Eli’s currently downstairs, doped out on Xanax, but her tolerance and resistance is incredible.  She’s still awake and still able to move around, and absolutely refuses to go to sleep.  I’ve got lots of stuff I should be doing downstairs (i.e. housework), so if I get stuck down there with her this weekend, at least I won’t be bored.  We’ve got thunderstorms in the forecast until next Wednesday.

I’m doing better with my Milnacipran now that I’m almost through the initlal two-week phase—today I felt a substantial lessening of the nausea, headache, and dizziness I’ve been coping with.  I still honestly feel that my misery was a combination of adjusting to the Milnacipran while ridding my body of Effexor XR, as that Effexor really needs to be tapered slowly to avoid side-effects.  I don’t know if the Milnacipran will turn out to be the “miracle drug” that’s been promised, but I’m hoping for good things.

One last thing—I’m still running my “win a book” contest, and so far there are only 4 entries, so ENTER MY CONTEST, PEOPLE!  Sheesh.  It’s not just for cat lovers, it’s for cat haters, too!  And don’t forget you can enter Flippy’s contest as well.  Even I don’t know what she’s giving away, but I can guarantee that she’s not going to offer to clean your house.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/21 at 10:27 PM
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005 , early afternoon

Drs. Foster & Smith: I think I love you

Here’s a company to love: Drs. Foster & Smith.  Here are just some of the great customer service experiences I’ve had with them:

- I ordered frozen fish food and paid for overnight delivery via FedEx.  When the order arrived, the food was thawed but still cold, so I wrote and asked if it was safe to refreeze it.  They replied that it was safe as long as the food was still cold, but just in case, they were reshipping the order at their own expense and packing it with extra ice.

- I ordered some tap water neutralizer from them, and when it arrived, some of the liquid had leaked out because the cap was loose.  It was just a small amount, but I wrote and nicely suggested they do a better job of sealing the caps on liquids.  They sent a replacement bottle of tap water neutralizer at their own expense, even though I told them I wasn’t upset about the small amount of leakage in my original order.

- Phoenix is severely allergic to corn, but we wanted to give her a supplement from the Foster & Smith website which contained “vegetable proteins”.  I wrote to ask if “vegetable proteins” included corn, and while their agent didn’t know, she went to the trouble of contacting the manufacturer to find out.  She then sent me a follow-up email to let me know that the product was corn-free.

So, great work, Dr. Foster and Dr. Smith.  Again, you’re not the least expensive website on the Internet, but you’re always truthworthy and reliable.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/20 at 02:06 PM
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EntirelyPets.com: you’re going down

My cats just love their Panic Mouse toy (I’ve posted video of them playing with it before, and it’s still a household favourite).  Unfortunately, they broke the string on the original Panic Mouse wand, and the replacement wand I ordered from Amazon.com just didn’t meet their high expectations.  I guess the original wand with its long string was a bit of a strangulation hazard, so the Panic Mouse company made a new wand of firmer plastic.  My cats tried it and didn’t like it, so I set out to look for some of the original “string with fuzzy ball” replacement tips.

I was able to find a great selection of Panic Mouse replacement parts at EntirelyPets.com, and happily ordered two different types of wand—the original with a fuzzy ball on the end, and a newer wand with a mylar ball on the end.  When my order arrived, EntirelyPets had sent me the original wand as ordered, but then sent one of the firmer plastic wands that I’d already tried and didn’t like.  They didn’t send the mylar wand, despite the fact it was listed correctly on my order receipt.  I wanted to return the plastic wand because not only did my cats not like it, it was less-expensive than the mylar, so not only was I missing a product I’d been stiffed a few dollars in the process.  I figured I could just write to EntirelyPets.com’s customer service department to ask them if I needed to return the incorrect item, or if they’d just want to skip the extra shipping charges and send me the mylar wands.

Five days passed with no reply from EntirelyPets.  I double-checked the email address on both their website and in my confirmation email, and I was writing to the correct place.  I then forwarded my original email to them again, with a note saying I hadn’t received a reply.  After waiting another two days, I finally got a response.  They said, “Please call any one of our Customer Service Associates so we may assist you better. “

What?!?!  I place an order online, they provide a customer service email address, they ignore my email for a week, and then they finally respond with zero information and just the instruction to “call them”?  Why on earth do I need to pick up the telephone to conduct business with an Internet company?  They messed up my order AND they over-charged me—shouldn’t they be bending over backwards to remedy the situation?  Apparently not, as I replied and told them I wanted to have the order corrected via email and I haven’t heard from them again.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/20 at 01:53 PM
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Orvis: the best of the good

For great customer service, I can’t think of any company which beats Orvis.  Their products are a bit pricey but the quality is excellent, and everything comes with a lifetime replacement guarantee.  Orvis has replaced one of our dog beds twice, each time after Dante chewed a hole in it.  They do this at their own expense, and always with a friendly and a courteous email.  On other occasions when I’ve written to ask about replacement parts (for example, replacement polyfil for the dog bed), they’ve promptly sent me a link to the item in question.  I think they’re just a super company, and I’d happily recommend them to anyone.  Thank you, Orvis, for great Internet customer service! 

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 07/20 at 01:44 PM
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