Lilian’s Second Anniversary

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Today, June 14, is Lilian’s second adoption anniversary. I picked my little Lilian up from an area Animal Services on this day in 2006. I dug back in the photos to share some.

Here she is after I got her out of the dog run. She had to get a rabies vaccine before she left, so this is what we were waiting for. I didn’t have any puppy sized collars or leashes, so she is crawling under a chair with a honker collar and leash attached that looked like they were made for a Mastiff!

I had just mentioned to a few rescuers that I was looking for a black/tan, female, all natural puppy. I wanted her around 3 months or maybe 4 months. I hadn’t seen one like that come through rescue the whole time I’d been doing it, so I figured I would have a long wait. The day I was down at the shelter picking up Ginger’s sister, was the day I saw Lilian. I didn’t want to run through the whole shelter because I knew I would get down about seeing all the ones I couldn’t save. I just had to pick one of many aisles to go down in this large shelter, to get to Ginger’s sister, Duchess. Well, I picked the right aisle, as I was speeding through, there was Lilian wagging her tail and saying hi to me. I yelled for the attendant with me, “Is this one available!” She grabbed the card and told me yes. Wow. I could not believe it. It was as if the law of attraction was at full-blown warp speed. Lilian and I were drawn to each other like whopper magnets.

Here she is at the first moments of freedom.

She is looking so cute, but what I didn’t know was how very sick she was. She came down with pneumonia. The vet at this shelter gave me a Sulfa antibiotic to give her, which, when I did, caused an acute arthritic reaction. Her back knees swelled and she couldn’t walk. She also has an ectopic ureter, which means she leaks sometimes. That’s not like spay incontinence. It’s different. Her plumbing wasn’t put in right. That’s why her crate is next to the back door. So I can let her out fast and first.

When I got her home, it was apparent she was a DoberDiva, even at this young age. Look at the kisser!


And here she is all grown up. She has the most beautiful bewitching eyes. Miss Lilian just got her AKC PAL number in the mail last week and is now eligible to compete in obedience trials. Now for the training!

Happy 2nd Anniversary, my lovely Lilian.

Helen

Midnight Morning, Friday the 13th

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Ginger’s been living with me for over two years. It took months before she’d go up on the futon, and I had to coerce her there. Even then, she’d only stay long enough until I stopped petting her and issuing her assurances that it would be all right. It took her months more, but she finally started to jump up on the futon at night to share it with Bouchard.

After she was diagnosed with cancer, I decided to start leaving her out of her crate when I was not home. I’d done that before, but had put up an ex-pen across the bedroom door. When I came home to find the siding of the door jam scratched and chewed and the ex-pen down, with Ginger and Bouchard running free all over the house, well, Ginger went back into the crate from then on, while the ex-pen and Bouchard stayed up and in the bedroom. Bouchard can be temperamental, especially with Luigi, so I don’t allow them to share space when I’m not home to supervise.

Well, Ginger’s gotten used to the futon. And she, like other members of the squirrel posse watched the bulk trashman take our beloved, but well-used sofa just two days ago. That means one less furniture piece for the siblings to share. There is the bed and the futon now.

Ginger’s never been on the bed that I can recollect. Recently, I moved some of the crates and dog beds/blankets around in the bedroom. Ginger does not like where I’ve put her bed. I moved a crate close to my bed. Anyone with a house that’s as thrifty on space as mine, learns to stretch furnishings for double duty . A crate is one of those. They make wonderful tables, and dog dens. Ginger’s bed used to be next to mine, now it’s next to the crate next to mine.

I tell you this as we came upon the stroke of midnight, Friday, the 13th of June, 2008. I slept, then I felt a poking nose from the side of the bed. I petted the head, and pulled my arm back in. Then, I thought the sheep I’d been counting earlier were back, as an arch of animal catapulted over the space above me and landed in the middle of the bed. I felt the ears. Ginger’s! She’s the only one at Fort Doberdale with cropped ears that flop.

We were none too comfortable. OK, I was none too comfortable. So I asked her kindly to get off, and I put a dog blanket right next to the bed. By the time I put her on it and reached up for the light, Ginger had jumped back into bed. I tried a second time to relocate her, and explain the bed was too small, but as I laid down, boink! There she was again.

This was far too strange for me to fathom. Why would Ginger, who’s had a furniture phobia, suddenly be so demanding? Was she dying? I swear, that’s what I thought. I’ve never had a dog with cancer. I don’t know the signs. Maybe overly demanding was one of them. I then decided to move us around as best as possible so I could listen to her breathing. She breathed. So did I. Someone snored. And I fell asleep. I woke up. I fell asleep. This pattern was basically what took place during the entire wee hours of the morning and slid us right into the ringing of the phone alarm when I got out of bed with a stiff and painful shoulder. Ginger was still there snuggling the covers. She had a good night. So good, that she stayed in bed so I could take some pictures of her proud moment.

Tonight, I’m going to rearrange the crate and put her dog bed back next to my bed. I hope she understands the concession I’m making and sleeps with it instead of on me.

Helen

The “Wild” Cockatiel of Fort Doberdale

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Well, another cockatiel is loose in the trees of Fort Doberdale. I heard him first thing yesterday evening when I got home from work. I stuck my finger out and whistled, but he was having too much fun singing in the tree to come down. This morning, I heard him again, and saw that he moved over one tree, and was still singing away. The blue jay nearby was having issues with him and trying to peck him out of that tree, but he stood his ground. I think the jay has a nest in the tree the tiel previously laid claim to. I hear a lot of peeping baby birds up there.

I just pulled a cage that a friend gave me to catch a cocatiel last year off a table and stuck it on a chair in front of a plant I’m trying to protect from the Fort Doberdale peesers. You know the table it came from? It now has a nifty new trinket named Sam on it.

Well, this morning, I put the cage back on another table, and aimed its opening right at the tree the tiel was now in. Being I had just recently fed the Fort Doberdale doves the food donated to catch last year’s tiel, I now have to find some new bird food to put in that cage, which has been basically inhabited by lizards all these months.

Oh well. I don’t have any luck with catching these cockatiels, and maybe if I do catch him I’ll have no place to send him? Huh? Where will he go? Huh? I think birds belong flying in the sky anyway. My concern with pet birds, though, is they aren’t savvy as to surviving in the wilds. Geesh. And boy, is he noisy! People think the local parrots are loud. Uh uh. This tiel just sings and sings and it’s just nonstop loud bird singing times around here. Yes, it is.

Helen

Newspaper Route to the SPCA Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale

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Every Friday, I collect newspapers in the highrise I work in. I pick up the papers from seven floors, pack them up, roll them down to the back of my truck, and during my lunch break, I take them to our local Wildlife Center. I’ve been doing this for nearly seven years. Hmmm…seven is lucky, isn’t it?

Last Friday, I found the welcome wagon, for the first time, strolling across the driveway entrance. I didn’t catch his name, but he is a handsome iguana, indeed!

These folks at the SPCA Wildlife Care Center are unrelenting in helping wildlife and small animal pets such as gerbils, birds, rabbits, reptiles anything not dog or cat. Here we have an employee hauling a bird cage from the bird building to the hospital building. I’ve brought many injured doves and pigeons to the Wildlife Center over the years.

This is what the entrance looks like from the slender parking lot inside, and just to the left behind that gate is where I drop off the boxes and bundles of newspapers I put together every Friday.

It’s a collaborative effort. If not for the folks in the building saving the papers, I wouldn’t have them to take to the center. And thank goodness for the Wildlife Center, who helps the locals with injured wildlife, and just like the reason Dobermann rescue is in “business,” there are people who get small pets and decide they no longer want them. The Wildlife Center takes them in to rehome, too. Click to visit their website: SPCA Wildlife Care Center

Helen