The continuing epic saga of Biggie Smalls

Yes, my puppy is up to no good already! Here she is trying to rule the bed against my 4-pound chihuahua...

Small but mighty

My new dog Biggie Smalls attacking a t-bone :)

Merry Christmas Eve

This photo and story is being passed around Facebook right now. I found it absolutely beautiful and impossible not to share this Christmas Eve.

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so, and she dictated these words:

Dear God,

Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.

I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and play with balls. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.

Love, Meredith

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away.

Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.

Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I'm easy to find. I am wherever there is love.

Love, God

Merry Christmas everyone. Love,

Halloween is here! Let's keep EVERYONE safe!

Ok, I know that officially it won't be here until tomorrow but, in most places in the United States, Halloween is being observed tonight!


I decided today that I would post some safety reminders for you. Let's keep EVERYONE safe tonight!

Continue>>

EPA wants to protect your pets too

Each month I put flea drops on my cats. Because I love them. And I hate fleas. Plus I think they hate fleas.

After I apply the drops, my cat Larry itches like crazy. I've always thought that he scratched because the drops were making the fleas die and that the fleas were biting as they were dying. I'm not sure why I think that but that's what I think.

Then this morning I was reading a story that said the flea and tick drops are killing peoples pets. Killing them. That scared me. 

I scanned through the article and read the reactions that people reported their pets having: skin irritation, burns and welts on their skin, excessive drooling, uncontrollable shaking, vomiting, seizures and in 600 cases, death.

There was a link to the EPA site and I followed it (it's here if you want to see it) and became even more worried about applying drops to my animals that I thought were helping them but may be hurting them instead. 

Now, being the obsessive person I am, I just had to find out some ways to treat fleas without using pesticides. You know I love the internet! There are so many sites out there that give me the information I need.

I found this site and decided to share some of their ideas with you.

• You can dab some petroleum jelly on a flea comb to help make the fleas stick to its tines.
• Dab fleas with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. This slows down fleas, enabling you to catch them. Then plunge the fleas to the bottom of a cup of warm water. Next, dump the water into the toilet and flush, or rinse down a sink, to prevent the flea from escaping.
• Smother fleas by dropping them in a cup of water to which a teaspoon of cooking oil has been added. 
• A half teaspoon of nutritional brewer's yeast daily can provide the B complex vitamins a dog needs. Dr. Michael Fox has recommended brewer's yeast or nutritional yeast (but not baker's yeast), giving 1 teaspoon per 30 pounds of body weight mixed with the animal's food.
• B complex vitamins - 50 mg once a day for cats and smaller dogs, and twice daily for larger dogs.
• Use Omega 3 and 6 fatty acid supplements.
• Add a tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar to your dog's water bowl.
• Add a teaspoon each of safflower oil and powdered kelp or seaweed to the food bowl.
• Fresh garlic in small quantities can help repel fleas by making the animal taste unpleasant to fleas. Grate a small amount of fresh, raw garlic into your pet's food at mealtime, about one-half to 3 chambers of the clove (chamber, not a whole clove) depending on the animal's size. One vet recommends one crushed clove of garlic (not a whole bulb; a clove is just one chamber) per every 30 pounds. 
• When bathing your pet, you can use apple cider vinegar to rinse his or her fur. Fleas don't like the smell or taste.
• Lavender, peppermint and geranium essential oils repel mosquitoes. Lavender, lemongrass and geranium repel ticks. And lavender, lemongrass, peppermint and citronella repel fleas. Dab oils between your dog's shoulder blades. Lavender (which also repels flies) is particularly versatile. Other effective natural repellents include lemon, cedar, eucalyptus, myrrh, neem and rosewood
• Put a drop of lemon oil or rosemary oil on your dog's collar.
• A safe, easy homemade flea repellent: cut 6 lemons in half, boil in a quart of water, steep a few hours, then strain the solution into a spray bottle. Spritz your pet's fur, taking care not to spray near the eyes. Don't spray anything in a dog's face; apply spray to the hand and then rub it on the fur.
• Another gentle homemade flea spray: dilute a flower-scented shampoo in water and spray liberally, or rub into the coat and let air-dry.
• One inexpensive over-the-counter choice for dogs and cats is Gentle Touch drops. Gentle Touch is a spot on that is all natural and free of chemicals and petroleum solvents. 
• Avon Skin-So-Soft wiped on pets keeps insects off

I knew about the Avon Skin-So-Soft and have used it in the past. It really does work. You can put a couple cap fulls into a tub of water and dip your pet in it also. 

One more easy (and fun..at least to me) way to rid your pets of fleas is to take them to the beach and let them swim in the ocean. The salt water removes the insects and clears up any skin problems they may have. That works for people too.

So now I have some things to think about. Maybe you do too. All I know is that I don't want to harm my pets. Especially if I think I'm helping them.

Vote for Gizzy!

Meet Gizzy. Isn't he adorable?! He belongs to my friend Doris over @ Crocheting in Georgia. Doris says "I just entered my boy in The Humane Society's Spay Day 2010 Online Pet Photo Contest. I just learned about it and thought I would ask you, my dear friends, to help vote for my boy." Find out all the details by clicking here to visit Doris and reading all about this great program.

Everything has a purpose

Meet Molly. She's a grey speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Hurricane Katrina hit southern Louisiana. She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected, and her vet went to LSU for help, but LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case.

You know how that goes. But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn't seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight and didn't overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic.

Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee, and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there.

'This was the right horse and the right owner,' Moore insists. Molly happened to be a one-in-a-million patient. She's tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. She made it obvious she understood that she was in trouble. The other important factor, according to Moore, is having a truly committed and compliant owner who is dedicated to providing the daily care required over the lifetime of the horse.

Molly's story turns into a parable for life in post-Katrina Louisiana . The little pony gained weight, and her mane finally felt a comb. A human prosthesis designer built her a leg.

The prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly's regular vet, reports.

And she asks for it. She will put her little limb out,and come to you and let you know that she wants you to put it on. Sometimes she wants you to take it off too. And sometimes, Molly gets away from Barca. 'It can be pretty bad when you can't catch a three-legged horse,' she laughs.

Most important of all, Molly has a job now. Kay,the rescue farm owner, started taking Molly to shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers. Anywhere she thought that people needed hope. Wherever Molly went, she showed people her pluck. She inspired people, and she had a good time doing it.

'It's obvious to me that Molly had a bigger role to play in life, Moore said. She survived the hurricane, she survived a horrible injury, and now she is giving hope to others.'

Barca concluded, 'She's not back to normal, but she's going to be better. To me, she could be a symbol for New Orleans itself.'



This is Molly's most recent prosthesis. The bottom photo shows the ground surface that she stands on, which has a smiley face embossed in it. Wherever Molly goes, she leaves a smiley hoof print behind.

Be very very quiet...

I just had to share this video with you that I found while reading the news! The cat just cracks me up with his sneakiness!

Ninja Cat @ Yahoo! Video

Nemo, my suicidal fish

We have a fish tank, a very large fish tank. It actually requires a lot more care than I realized. It’s really not a bother. I adore animals and taking care of them. I have the idea in my head that they couldn’t survive without me. I know I’m right because my animals constantly prove it to me. I have this one fish in particular, Nemo is his name. He’s disturbed. Suicidal even. I swear to you I’m not making this up.

When we first brought Nemo home he pretended to be a normal fish. He acted just like the other fish. Not one sign of mental illness at all. It didn’t last very long. He became obsessed with an ornament in the tank. It’s one of those clams with an airhose attached to it so it opens and closes. I’m sure you’ve seen them before. When it opened, in he’d swim as fast as he could. Then it closed. I know they say a goldfish only has a 3 second memory…I heard that somewhere from someone. Anyway, over and over he would get stuck in the clam. Until I was so disgusted with watching this show that I turned the clam off.

He then decided that the sunken ship would be his new toy. The sunken ship with a hole half the size of his body. The sunken ship with only one way in or out. Can you imagine what he did yet? Yes! He squeezed himself INSIDE the sunken ship. By the time I noticed him he was so panicked that he was actually rocking the ship back and forth. I literally had to shake him out and sometime during his panic he managed to rip half his tail off. He has since recovered from this adventure and thankfully his tail is growing back. Around this time is when I decided he may be on a suicide mission.

We ended up with parasites in our tank, I assume from a couple of new fish we bought. But because I am home all the time I pay quite a bit of attention to our animals so I noticed immediately that they weren’t acting right and did my research on how and what I needed to do. The general consensus was to use Quick Cure and to drain our tank and vacuum the gravel thoroughly. I set out to do this, transferring my fish from their tank to bowls while I was cleaning their house. Of course Nemo viewed this as another opportunity to end his miserable fish life. I have him in the net going towards the bowl and he Leaps out! He landed on the table flopping around, almost reaching his goal of fish suicide but I yet again foiled his plans.

As of today Nemo is alive and well contrary to all his well laid plans. He has made a couple more attempts to leap out of the tank when the lid is open but thankfully the food has distracted him.

Henry...he's a cool dude

When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter we went fishing at a this little pond. My friend (and now my sisters husband) Mitch saw a little turtle floating on a piece of wood and he caught it. It was adorable, about the size of a quarter…I fell in love with him instantly. I took him home and named him Henry. I don’t know why, he just looked like a Henry to me. Animals have always been a weakness of mine..

I have him in a large tub now. He has lots of room to swim around and we built a little island out of rocks for him to “bask” on. They like sitting in the sun.. If you’ve ever walked up to a pond on a summer day you more than likely saw a lot of turtles on logs.

Henry is a red eared slider. He has distinctive red stripes down the side of his head, hence the first half of the name. The second half comes from their ability to slide quickly off whatever they are basking on and into the water.

I got Henry in 1989 so he’ll be 20 in a couple of months. It’s kind of amazing to me to think he is just now middle aged. They generally live about 40 years…sometimes longer if they are taken care of well.

He is actually a terrapin which means he is semi-aquatic. He spends most of his time under water and has to eat underwater. They have a fixed tongue which makes it impossible for them to swallow if they are not underwater so they couldn’t snap a fly out of the air but they can snap them off the surface of the water. I like to give Henry bugs.. I like watching the hunt and the kill… maybe that makes me morbid but I do like watching it…