The prescription dog

This news headline caught my eye today:  Oregon man’s prescription dog found.  It’s a story with a happy ending about a man who suffers from depression and who lost his “anti-depressant canine”.  I love the idea of companion dogs (or cats) being assigned to mental health patients, just like I’m a fan of programs like Pups on Parole.  The animals get love and attention, and the humans get company, and in some cases, lessons in empathy and compassion.

I’m keeping busy getting prepped for Thanksgiving.  For one thing, my email box is full of “Thanksgiving wishes” from all sorts of companies—I particularly enjoy the one from a sushi restaurant, and it caused Flippy and I to think of new types of holiday sushi rolls like turkey and cranberry, stuffing and sweet potato, etc.  I also received one of those “pre-fab” trivia newsletters from a mortgage company, and one of the tidbits of info in it is, “With so many colorful character balloons floating above New York’s streets in Macy’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade, it’s no surprise that the well known department store chain is the second-largest consumer of helium in the world, topped only by the U.S. government.” So there you go… you can now imagine GWB and pals sitting around the Oval Office, huffing helium and talking like Minnie Mouse.

I’ve got a 17 lb. turkey in the fridge thawing, and I may end up cooking it for family dinner on Thursday, although I’m not sure yet.  Someone has to cook it, so either I cook it and take it to dinner, or we deliver it to the cook’s house on Wednesday.  I don’t mind cooking, but with so many pets, I always worry that my food creations will end up with pet hair in them.  I don’t think it’s ever happened, but I’d feel horrible if someone took a bite of stuffing and found a cat whisker.  I need to design some sort of vacuum-chamber for the kitchen, so I can cook while all displaced crumbs and bits of things get sucked out of the air.  Someone please invent that for me before Thursday morning.

On the stray cat front, I’ve got two regulars eating from my front porch.  One of them seems to come and go, so I think it might live somewhere in the neighbourhood.  The other does seem to be a stray and has made itself a small nest between the rosemary and lavendar bushes.  I’ve named him Perry Como, because the continuing “Paul Anka” joke on “Gilmore Girls” is getting on my nerves, and this helps distract me.  Speaking of Perry Como, go visit Flippy’s blog and read about NaBloCoMo.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/20 at 12:40 AM

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  1. I used to worry about cat hair in the food (for only one cat, Salem sheds quite a bit, and he also likes to hang out in the kitchen and watch me cook), but it hasn’t happened yet...at least not that I know of. I was pondering that again because of the upcoming Christmas family gathering at our house--because if something was going to go wrong, it would be when everyone, including in-laws, is there--but I figure my parents have a cat and my in-laws have dogs, so they’ll understand. Heaven knows I’ve probably consumed terrier hair and cat fur and not realized it, and it hasn’t killed me yet. smile

    On another subject--I’ve got some cats hanging around my yard, no idea if they’re strays or ferals or someone’s cats (I can’t get close enough to tell--they run when I come outside). But it’s getting cold and I feel bad, and I was thinking of putting out some food. Problem is that I don’t want to attract the possums and racoons. Do you have problems with critters other than cats eating the food on your porch? If so, any suggestions for preventing/dealing with it?

    Posted by Helena  on  11/21  at  08:46 AM

  2. The only critters who’ve eaten my cat food (other than cats) have been ants, cockroaches, and pigeons.  The first two I sprayed for (the cats won’t eat food if it’s covered in ants), and I just let the pigeons eat as much as they wanted because I figured they were hungry.  As far as I know, we don’t have any other wandering furry critters in our neck of the woods.  You might want to check with a site like http://www.alleycat.org for suggestions, although the ultimate suggestion might just be to “train” the cats to eat during a short time-frame, and then remove any leftovers.  If anyone who reads this knows the answer to this problem, please speak up!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  11/22  at  12:02 AM

  3. Thanks for the reply! I’ll check out that site to see if they have any info.

    Posted by Helena  on  11/22  at  06:56 AM
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