missing Hermes…

well, we had to put Hermes to sleep today. boy, that’s not a fun thing to have to do. i wish i could work magic. i would have made him all better.

but he couldn’t breathe without extra oxygen, he could barely sleep, he looked so tired and in such pain, and yesterday he was no longer physically capable of eating or drinking. just smelling food would make him choke.

he was still there to the end. not Rumpelteazer…she left some time before. but Hermes was still alert, just tired. and sad. and so am i.

he was only 8 months old.

he loved to watch me was the dishes. he loved to sit in our laps & sleep with us.  he loved to play with the new puppies (some pics). he loved to interrupt my work. he loved to eat our food when we weren’t looking. he loved to rub his face against ours. he was so so sweet & loving. not as brave as Rumpetee, but just about. and he was the only reason i could cope with her sudden death.

and here i am, less than 3 months later and i’m doing this all over again. we’ve only had him since early november. but he rubbed my face goodbye.

he was so handsome. would have been a gorgeous tom.

but his problems he inherited from his mother, most likely, and we did what we could, but we just don’t have the finances to do everything that could have been done. things that would have only prolonged the inevitable most likely.

now i’m really going to be lonely. is it too much to ask for my cats to live? earth is such hell. sometimes i wish it would just explode. or trees would take over. one of the two.

so hoping Rumpetee & Hermes reincarnate really soon….

 

…in memorium… 

~HERMES~ 

Summer 2006 – February 26th, 2007 

poor little Hermes…

well, it was time for Hermes to get neutered. so we had that scheduled, then the night before i had to leave the woods for a few days, he starts having difficulty breathing, and we found a lump by his shoulder. now the lump could be a fibrosarcoma, a form of cancer that develops in some animals from the vaccinations they receive. as Hermes had shots before we got him, and that is the location for the shots, well……….

so he was taken to the vet and x-rays revealed that something is blocking most of his lungs, and that he is maybe only breathing with a 1/4 to 1/3 of their capacity. right now he is visiting with a grandmother who uses an oxygen concentrator….that really helps him out, and allows him to be more active. oh, and the vet thought the lump might be a swollen lymph gland….but then again, in my experience, the prognosis of most doctors & vets is a little faulty…

but unless we can get our hands on some effective treatments, which there are some just hard to come by especially with no holistic vets around, i don’t know what to do. it is like with Rumpelteazer–fine one minute and severely ill the next. i mean, just last weekend he caught about 4 mice!!!

so….hoping for a miracle. Hermes is the only reason i could cope with Rumpetee’s sudden & completely unexpected death.

the furry additions

here are the new pups. cuties! and Hermes curled up with the little one. he loves playing with them. just darling

st. francis of assisi or the latest furry additions

my brother recently said that i am turning into a saint francis of sorts…..you know, patron saint of animals & the environment & so on. guess all that’s left is a sex-change, trip back in time, and conversion to catholicism!

but i jest.

i suppose it’s how i (and my beau) end up with cute animals all the time, rescue them, find them, they find us….whatever. and maybe my overwhelming support of trees, flowers, and other plants (shall we say, mother nature in general?).

so about 2-3 months back….and i don’t know why i didn’t post about this sooner. (maybe because all the useful cords to my camera & its battery charger are now the toys of some mischevious & thieving goblins?)………..anyways, we ended up with the cutest kitten ever. a grey tabby, with a white stripe down his nose, and very black stripes. he is so sweet & loving (rubs your face, playful, definitely a lap kitty). he actually reminds me a lot of Rumpelteazer (they knew each other for about a month), but not quite as brave, so with his other traits he ends up being a combination of Rumpelteazer & Oberon. (I miss Rumpelteazer!!!) he has an umbilical hernia, not a threatening one, that will be operated on soon (the vet will do this when he goes in to get neutered).

his name is HERMES. took a while to hear that one. but it suits him.

***********************

and last week my father shows up with two puppies–not something i would ever expect him to do. they are a mix of australian shepherd…(a breed actually developed in the US)….and some other smaller dog that we can’t figure out. they are brothers, and cute, and way smaller than our komondor pups ever were! but they will grow to be a medium-sized dog. the one takes after the shepherd, and the other after the smaller breed. they are much easier to train than komondors too. in less than a week, they are near to being potty-trained. only a few accidents during a 24-hour period between the two of them.

oh, but these dogs are supposedly going to other people. my father was just going to (originally) have someone who has neglected animals in the past (mostly via absence & lack of attention/love/caring) “care” for them, and so for the first few days they were penned outside in the below-freezing temperatures (winter finally decided to show up!), but she didn’t visit them other than to feed them. (yes, i witnessed this!) just when we were determined to go and get them, i get a call from my father saying to please watch them as that lady is going to be gone for 3 days or so. (apparently she was supposed to tell us and didn’t….not surprising.) ha-ha! and off we went, and we’ve had them ever since, and they are attached to us now since we were the first to show any sort of compassion and genuine love.

that lady supposedly wanted one of the puppies. i guess she was going to raise it mean & depressed…why bother having animals if you aren’t around or aren’t going to spend time with them, show them affection? why are people convinced that there isn’t any work involved, especially with a puppy? if we had the money and the space, we would make a huge animal sanctuary for all types of species, saving them from neglectful, violent, irresponsible, or unloving people.

but it doesn’t matter, my father paid for the dogs, so they are his. but of course i am now attached to them.

one might go to a partially handicapped lady (this is not the neglectful lady) if he can be trained for this. it is possible with the aussie shepherd breed, but they need special training, though females are preferred for this job. we will see what his temperment is like, because he will have to help her & be very calm, very obedient, and never accidently make her fall. my father tends to act before he thinks. she really needs a dog that has already been fully-trained….she isn’t physically capable of training a puppy. so if one of these doesn’t work for her, we will find her one that will.

these pups don’t have names yet, of course. they get along well with my other (giant!) dogs, and my dogs have been behaving pretty well. (they sometimes don’t realize they are so big…)

whenever i get a decent working camera, or find the cords to mine, i’ll post pics!

until then…trust me, they are adorable!

missing Rumpelteazer

so.

last saturday night Rumpelteazer sat on my lap for a long time. i got up, sat back down, and she came back. she’s not a big lap sitter. and she never comes right back after i’ve gotten up.

sunday afternoon i found her outside, hiding more or less. one eye was running. her nose was running. and she was listless. i did get her to drink a little water.

emergency vet was far, but off we went. by then she was also drooling. lots of mucus…she had to breathe through her mouth because her nose was so congested.

the vet diagnosed her with an upper respiratory tract infection. gave her an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic, even though the infection was viral, and also some fluids. there she had a fever of 106. and we had her retested for FIV and Feline Leukemia virus, the latter of which she now tested postive for. but they sent her home.

back home her condition didn’t get any better. her mucus was tinged with blood.

all she did was sleep. i couldn’t get her to drink still. i put some colloidal silver in a humidifier and had that set up so she would breathe that in. also worked with a zapper, as they’re called, trying to rid her of bacteria, viruses, parasites.

tuesday morning we called the vet–we wanted to get her more fluids (these are subcutaneous fluids). her mucus/drooling had cleared up a lot (maybe due to dehydration?), but her eyes were weeping again. she was so weak. she had been urinating twice a day however. the vet didn’t have an opening until late afternoon.

at the vet, her temperature was 99.5–a little low. her abdomen was slightly swollen–perhaps a sign of FIP? but they sent her home.

that evening she started wandering around, meowing. then the wandering turned to circles. then she started trying to get in places she couldn’t go, like behind the fridge. sometimes she would stop with her head just stuck in some tight place somewhere. other times she would just scratch up the wall, like she was trying to climb it. it was freaking me out. we finally got her calmed down with various orgone pieces we have. she went to sleep, but her eyes were still opened. her pupils were huge and they didn’t respond to light. she had gone blind. vet was closed and emergency vet too far to get to–wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

after a couple hours of sleeping, i was on the internet desperately trying to get some info. david stepped outside for a moment. (we had been taking turns with her in our laps.) i heard her rattling sneeze/cough. i ran to her and all this mucus came out of her nose. this happened again. she coughed some more, and i’m holding her, david’s coming in. but i see it happening. her chest barely moves, a little, a little less….than nothing. 11 PM.

i think i held her for at least an hour. the only time it weirded me out was when her jaw twitched a bunch of times due to whatever death does.

she was just a year and a half. apparently the vets misdiagnosed her. it took 2 1/2 days from the start of symptoms until she died. what kills an apparently healthy cat that quickly?

talking to vets the next morning, and from the research i did, it seems a few things could have been the cause. FIP (which can cause both respiratory-like infections & neurological problems…but normally takes a few weeks or months until death, though it is almost 100% fatal once symptoms appear)….a liver shunt or a stroke (both cause neurological conditions)….FIP seems to be the winner. cats with FIP often turn up positive for the leukemia virus too. although the vaccine for the leukemia virus can also cause FIP. funny, huh? but she didn’t have that vaccine.

Rumpelteazer is my favorite cat. the best & most perfect. she wasn’t afraid of anything–nothing bothered her. she was quite independent, but also very loving. always hung out with you outside. she would calm on any walk in the woods, no matter how far we went or how many we you were gone…..she would simply meow “wait up” if we got to far ahead. she had no weird neuroses like so many other cats i know. she loved to sleep perched precariously in trees. she was absolutely beautiful, with her one striped leg, her speckled paw, the black dot of fur at the center of her chin, her super pointy ears with tufts at the end….and big gorgeous yellow-green eyes.

Rumpetee & Oberon were very close. Oberon is a ‘fraidy-cat, so he stays in mostly, that or sneaks outside when no one is looking. but they always slept together, gave each other baths, played & romped. they were in love. and now he sleeps by the cat door waiting for her to come back. they had to be separated those last days so infections wouldn’t spread. i feel so bad for him.

it’s odd. Rumpelteazer was secretly the most important part of my life. (well, she shared that spot with david.) it’s very lonely without her. outside, things are so dull & lifeless. i never expected something like this. i thought maybe 10, 12, 15 years even and then i would be experiencing this. it was so sudden, so traumatic. i feel like i’ve lost more than just my cat here…..

so. missing Rumpetee.

In Memorium

~RUMPELTEAZER~

(Rumpetee)

April 2005 – December 12th, 2006

some more pics at “kittens in love” & “a name at last”