Vet Visit

So today was vet day for all the ponies at Shar's place.  (Well, two of hers and the one of mine, not the baby or the other boarders.)  But first, we cleaned out the stall we were going to use for the teeth floating, then I wanted to shave Arya's brand so the vet could read it if she wanted to be sure she was signing the right BLM paperwork (in order for the prior owner to officially take ownership from the BLM, and then be able to officially transfer ownership to me, someone official (like a vet) has to sign off that the horse is in an appropriate facility and being taken care of.

First, I got her mane out of the way.  Cute pigtails, Arya!

Ready to attack with clippers.  She eyes me warily.

All done!

The first set of clippers didn't cut her hair at all, and the second set had a guard on that barely let it trim any hair, but luckily Shar has THREE sets of clippers, and the third time was the charm.  After all the futzing and false starts, she didn't mind the actual clipping at all.  Just as I finished up, the vet drove in, and Shar hadn't gotten her horses out yet, so by default, Arya got to go first.

We discussed what she's eating and the vitamins she gets, which the vet says are fine.  We discussed what vaccines we should do and when.  Then the vet took a peek in her mouth, and declared her teeth quite good.  She pulled out a file and filed down a couple sharp edges, but said they weren't bad at ALL, and that was all she needed.  Arya didn't LOVE having someone poking around in her mouth and filing down her teeth, but I rubbed her face (which she loves), and it seemed to calm her a bit, and she settled down.

However, since she didn't need to be sedated, I'm on my own for cleaning her boobies now.  Gonna have to actually get her used to it myself.  Oh well.

The vet signed the BLM paperwork and we chatted a bit while Shar fetched her horses, then Arya's part of the appointment was over, just like that.  Easy-peasy.

Flash wasn't so lucky--his teeth were bad enough, and his demeanor non-easy-going enough that he got the drugs.  It's so funny to see a "drunk" horse.  Their eyes droop, their lower lip droops, and they stagger if they try to walk.  When they propped his head up on the padded stand, then propped his mouth open with the speculum (yep, similar tool to that one), at first Flash wanted to protest, but he just couldn't bring himself to care enough, and eventually kind of gave in and just napped.

Flash, still not sure about what's going on.

All done!  Just gonna take a little nap now...

When his teeth were done, his down-below got a little groping (checking for a "bean" in the end of the penis), then he got to go sleep it off out in the round pen, and it was Goodwin's turn.  He was even less amused at all the harassment, starting with the shot.  But he, too, got over it with a little help from chemistry.  Once HIS teeth and private parts were done, he joined Flash out in the round pen and we settled up with the vet.  It all went by much faster than I'd expected.

Goodwin's turn!

So I fetched Arya from where she'd been tied to the trailer, and compared her brand to what it should be, based on her registration number and the cheat sheet.  It matches!

The first symbol means she was captured on US lands, the next part after that is the last two digits of her birth year, with the first on top of the second, then the next two digits indicate which state she was gathered in, and the last four are unique to her (within the birth year and state, of course).

While the boys slept off their drugs in the safe confines of the round pen, I turned Arya loose to mow down some of the tall grass around Shar's place (with her blessing and at her request).  Then I spied one of the cats and had an idea...

Arya was busy eating, so barely even noticed, and the cat was unsure at first, but then realized this was a nice warm fuzzy place to sit, so he stayed there a while, actually.

Humane Society

Even though it was Nathan's week with his dad, since we didn't do much at the Humane Society last weekend because it was so crowded, I picked him up today to go again.

The first thing we did was check on the dog Nathan and his dad, stepmom, and brother had looked at earlier to potentially adopt.  They had filled out the forms, but the HS needed to check with their landlord to verify they were allowed to have a dog.  Unfortunately, the dog got adopted before they reached the landlord (apparently they've been out of the office the entire past week).  That bummed Nathan out, but I think he saw the bright side--he'd actually been pushing for a cat instead of a dog, and now he had a chance to voice that opinion again.  :-)

We looked at the white board on which they list the cats that need their photo taken, and picked Smokey first.  Someone was in the process of putting him back in his cage, but he wanted to keep cuddling.  So I just took him directly from her.  She mentioned something about him only having three legs, and sure enough, he was missing a back leg.  He hopped a little awkwardly when chasing the laser pointer and/or feathers on a fishing pole, and he had a hard time balancing on just the one back leg when trying to reach up high, but it didn't dampen his personality AT ALL.  He was a total love.  Whenever we'd pet him, he'd shove his head into our hands, and raise his head to expose his neck so we could pet his favorite spot--his chin and neck.  In fact, when he got really into it, his leg stump started twitching like if he still had his leg, it would be kicking just like a dog.  Anyway, he was TOTALLY sweet.  Another one that I totally would have brought home if I could have.  On the bright side, a family was interested in him, and when Nathan and I left for the day, was actually filling out the forms in a visiting room with him, hoping to take him home.  Yay!

Here's Smokey:

Unfortunately, his nose is in focus instead of his eyes, but I still thought it was a cute photo.

The only other cat whose name was on the photo list and was also still present in the building was Justine--there were five cats on the list, but apparently the other three had been adopted during their "Black Furday" event (name your own price for any animal).  Justine had much less personality than Smokey, but was still a sweetheart.  There was another young volunteer (but a couple years older than Nathan), who she really seemed to get along with, so most of my photos have that girl's hand and/or arm in the photos.

Then we went into the kitten room for a bit, but there was only one kitten, and she was hiding, then some other volunteers were holding her, so we didn't really get a chance to cuddle her.  She was pretty stinkin' cute, though.  Her name (with unfortunate spelling provided by the Humane Society) is Sassafras.

Next we went into the other "cattery" (they have two rooms dedicated to housing cats, as opposed to the cats living in cages and only getting to visit a larger room when visiting with humans; one is for kittens and the other usually has two or three adult cats), and visited Lia and Fabio.  Lia was not very photogenic.  You know how some dogs look like they're always smiling?  I think some cats always look unhappy, even when they're not.  Lia was agreeable enough to us petting her and whatever, she just didn't LOOK happy.  (My own cat, Cookie, is a total sweetheart, but is not photogenic at all, either.)  Fabio, on the other hand, looked very handsome with his flowing locks.  :-)

This is Lia.

See what I mean?  She was actually purring.

And this is Fabio.

Lastly, we visited with Miss Romeo.  I have no idea why they named her that, but she was also a sweetheart.

And that concludes today's visit to the Humane Society.  I dropped Nathan back off at his dad's house, and thought I'd have to break the news about their potential dog being adopted already, but apparently they'd already figured it out by checking the website and seeing her disappear, and they're pretty ticked at the landlord for not being around.  Once the HS does reach the landlord, though, they'll be able to adopt or place a hold on an animal without waiting.  Hopefully they find a pet that's an even better fit for their family soon.

More Humane Society Photos

Nathan and I went to the Humane Society again today.  When we got there, there weren't any potential adopters, which is always nice--when there are adopters there, we try to hang back and let them have first dibs on the "Get Acquainted" rooms or petting whichever cats they're interested in, so it makes the process of taking photos of the specific list of cats harder.

We went into the cattery first, since when it is full of adopters, it's hard to get good photos.  I got lots of fun photos of kittens of various sizes (it's usually only smaller kittens in that room, but today there were a few larger ones, up to six months old).

We marked the cats whose photos we'd taken off the list on the white board in the volunteer area, and moved on to take photos of the cats in the wall of cages (I should take some photos of the HS itself one of these days).  We pulled Nikki out, but she wasn't in a very good mood, so we were letting her settle into the Get Acquainted room a bit, when I saw someone taking a kitten into one of the rooms that is permanently occupied--a no-no, since they keep cats who live separately separate all the time so they don't spread germs.  Only cats who already live together (like in the cattery) are allowed to be played with together.  I told the potential adopter about the rule and volunteered to let her use the Get Acquainted room I'd been in, and put Nikki away. 

While waiting for the only Get Acquainted room to free up (there are usually two, but they had a cat living in one of them), I noticed that a cat had thrown up in her cage.  Another volunteer told the medical staff while I moved the cat to an empty cage and cleaned out THREE cages--the one she'd made a horrendous mess of (looked like both vomit and diarrhea, and she hadn't eaten any of her food before destroying it, either), the empty one I'd put her in until the staff came to take her to the clinic, and the one below hers which had gotten some drippings.  Eeeew!  The place had reeked when I got there (and it usually doesn't), so hopefully that was the reason and it now smells better.  I wore gloves while cleaning, and both Nathan and I washed our hands after, but I didn't feel safe to handle other cats, since my clothes could have gotten germs from either the cat herself or the cage, and what she had looked NASTY.  Nathan and I washed our hands again and stripped our clothes as soon as we got home so our cats wouldn't get it, but unfortunately our day at the Humane Society was a little shorter than planned, and we didn't get as many photos as we would have liked.

Humane Society

Some time ago, the company I work for, which is very into charity, including allowing us to donate up to 16 hours of our time a year and be paid for it (it works like vacation time but doesn't come out of our bank of vacation time), organized an event at the local Humane Society.  We had to attend a bit of training first, then were turned loose to walk dogs and pet cats.  I learned that they allow children to volunteer as long as they're with a parent, and knew that it would be right up Nathan's alley (he's SUCH an animal lover), so I later attended the training along with him, and we've been volunteering there when we can ever since.

They've also asked if I can take photos of cats, focusing on the cats with crappy intake photos only, to be used on the website.  Now that we have a purpose for being there (petting cats DOES have a purpose, for sure, but it feels more like fun than work), we've actually been going just about every weekend.

Yes, there are the occasional cats that are tempting to bring home.  Sweet cuddly cats that love to be held and petted are especially attractive to both of us, but especially Nathan because he loves giving our cats attention, but they mostly rebuff him.  They are both older than he is, and apparently still think of him as an annoying toddler, even though he gives them wonderful care and is careful with petting them now.  But I always think of how difficult the relationship is between the two I have now, and how stressed they would both be if I brought a new cat home.  It wouldn't be fair to them.  So I've committed myself to not bring any more cats home until at least one of these two is gone, and even then, it will depend on which cat is remaining and how she's doing at that time.

Yesterday, though, was the first time a cat really seemed to choose ME.  I went into the area where they keep multiple kittens in a room that also has access to an enclosed outdoor area, as we do every visit.  I picked up a kitten, took a few photos, snuggled with him, took a few more photos, and started to move along to the other kittens in the room.  However, Harris kept coming back to me, meowing for me to pick him up.  Nathan picked him up, but he wiggled until he put him down.  I picked him up, and while he wiggled out of my hands, he found his way to my lap and settled in for a bit of a nap.  SUCH a sweetheart.  It was harder yesterday to stick to my committment to my two kitties, but I did.  I hope Harris finds a wonderful family to love him.

Here are some photos of Harris:

And some of the many other kitties (and bunnies) we've loved on in the past few weeks.  If you're looking for a pet, please consider your local shelter, whether it's run by the humane society or other organization.