just wondering who has other animals besides their dogs....
i have 3 cats; 2 are mine, one belongs to a friend.
-Mitch was my first cat, i adopted him from a cat rescue that i later sat on the board of, ran the feral TNR (trap/spay-neuter/return), and fostered a large portion of the special needs fosters. Mitch was part of a feral feeding route for 4 or 5 years, and one of the few cats left in that colony who hadn't been TNR'd. he lived under a dumpster in chinatown w/another male (TNR'd) cat, sort of an off-shoot of a nearby colony. sometime in december 2002, he was hit by a car. it took volunteers 2 weeks (and eventually illegal entry into a backyard when the uncooperative owners had gone to bed....a volunteer staked out the house, apparently) to get him. he wouldn't go into a trap, but he was fairly weak by that point. his front right leg was broken in 6 places and needed to be amputated, but he was so anaemic they had to wait a few months before he was healthy enough. i adopted him maybe 6 weeks after his surgery. he needed a follow-up surgery, which nobody told me (the foster home knew, i found out later), but we eventually figured it out. he was a stray, not a feral/semi-feral cat, but it took him a while to come around. he's a big suck and loveball now, and is the one who really runs my house
Mitch is approx. 16 years old, a tripod, has no teeth, herpes, chronic renal failure, asthma, and some other minor type stuff, but he's doing great. Luc is in awe of him. i got involved in the cat rescue after adopting him.
-Lear - semi-feral - he was trapped at 4 months old (too old for the vast majority of street cats to tame up) with the rest of his litter and mother, all who proved to be basically unadoptable. they should've been TNR'd but it was before i was running that part of the program. i got him for Mitch, not me, since Mitch was proving to be lonely. he's very deferential and he and Mitch have done great from the start. I got Lear at about about a year and a half old. He is....6? now.
Mitch and Lear:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/DSCN0063.jpg
Esmeralda is my friend's cat. her dog went after Esme (who is very nosey, and was nosey about the dog's food) and punctured her esophagus. there was continuing concern about Esme's safety, so she came to live with me. she and Lear are good together and i hope her being around will ease the transition for Lear when Mitch dies (which of course will never happen!)
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/Luc/DSCN0007.jpg
i've fostered several special needs cats, from cat that have had provisional FIV+ diagnosis and lost eyes, had IBD and hyperthyroid and spondylosis, prolapsed rectums, c-sections, and my little pair of angel kittens, Georgina (asymptomatic hydrocephalus, born w/severe micropthamalgia - the neurologist was the first person to find her little vestigal eyes) and Georgia (fused spinal cord, mega-esophagus, micropthamalgia but not as bad as her sister, she did have eyes). Georgia did a weird thing were her mega-e became asymptomatic until after her spay - she'd had trouble right before she came to me at 10 weeks, and got dewormed, things coincidentally calmed down - and b/c of her age when she was diagnosed w/mega-e (as a result of a persistent right aortic arch wrapped around her esophagus), we made the decision not to operate. i liquified her food, fed her upright, burped her/carried her around afterwords, and limited anything that could be a foreign object for her, but she got a hairball (the one thing i hadn't thought of) and it caused horrible problems - she died at 14 months. that's when i stopped doing all the stuff for the rescue - i had been putting in 25 hour weeks, outside of fostering - i just loved her so much. i kept my one remaining foster who passed away a few months ago (she was 18, with a number of medical problems).
here's Georgina and Georgia:
http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/Georgina%20and%20Georgia/
I also used to do a lot of rabbit rescue work. I've had several rabbits over the years, including Thomas, my first, Tiffany (i didn't name them), who was a bitch but i loved her), and George (again, didn't name, I know, George, Georgina, and Georgia....), who was disabled without use of his back end. i took him for acupuncture, and towards the end, started having someone come in to do energy work with him (a 'i've tried everything else' long shot). to my shock, he showed improvement, and started being able to sit upright, and with some physio, could hop a bit if assisted. he died in his sleep, and i miss him very much:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/George2.jpg
Currently my bunns are Nikolai (named after nikolai gogol), a foster nobody wanted and after a few years i just adopted him) - i actually have scars from him, he was abused and a fear biter when i got him. He lives with Eco (named after umberto), and they are really well-bonded and just sweethearts:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/Eco%20and%20Nikolai/EcoandNikolaisittinginatree016.jpg
i also have 2 guinea pig brothers. i fostered-to-adopt them to be friends for ralph, a hairless guinea pig who was abandoned outside my local pet supply store - the owners knew i did rescue, and i agreed to take him and foster him for the rabbit rescue i volunteered for, but i feel in love with him - guinea pigs are so cool! here's ralph, who died last fall:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a384/mitchthecat/Ralph42.jpg
i love them all! the small animals have their own room, and stay there during the day. they are out and have the run of the house at night, when teagan is crated and 'put to bed'.
it's a lot, but i love working with all of them, and i find with the small animals it is actually easier to have multiples.
Teagan!
other animals?
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