Month: January 2024

Today’s Treat!

Cali’s New Bedroom

Cali is doing OK. She is slowly learning to get around a bit better, but I still have to carry her around a lot. I’m not letting her do stairs at all, so lots of carrying her in and out when she needs to go outside. The pen above is her night time set up for now. That’s in our bedroom, so she gets to stay close, but I don’t have to worry about her attempting stairs in the middle of the night. So far it is working out really well.

The Treat Planet goodies have been a life saver with Cali being hurt. The other night we were all in the living room and she was a bit restless so I pulled out a giant treat for her.

This was the Etta Says Mega Chew, Elk recipe. It’s huge! It’s about an inch around, and about 14″ long. It must smell really good to all meat eaters, because not only does Cali love it, but I’ve seen the cats chewing on it! This has been another great, long lasting chew. Cali worked on it for a couple of hours the other night and didn’t even chew up a quarter of it. Keep in mind, Cali is a 10 lb dog, so I’m guessing a bigger dog would go through it faster, but they do last. I love that Treat Planet is very careful about getting quality ingredients. Everything comes from the United States. I read that the elk is sourced from Texas.

I also read that Treat Planet has partnered with Goodwill Industries since 2010: 

“Everyday, a dedicated team of adults with intellectual and /or physical disabilities, work to label our extensive chew line with the support of a supervisory team.

At Treat Planet, we’re proud to partner with our community and continually seek new ways to make a helpful impact.”

Cali was so excited when I gave her this chew. She sniffed it and then looked at me like, she just couldn’t believe her good luck! Once I told her it was OK for her to have it, she wasted no time at all getting to work on it.

Bean was also very interested in this chew and worked on it for a few minutes when Cali put it down! As with the other Etta Says chews I’ve tried, there haven’t been any stains on the carpet which I love!

Who wouldn’t want a Yumm stick?

I had to go out for a couple of hours this morning, so Cali got an Etta Says Chicken Yumm stick. This one smelled so good! These treats have no additives, they  are all natural chicken, no hormones, no nitrates or nitrites, no MSG, and they are soy and gluten free. They really smell like something human-grade.

Cali has been hanging out in the little house above quite a bit since she got hurt. I had put the treat down just in front of the house, and she grabbed it before I could even pick up my phone for a picture.

As the cats smelled the treat and came to check it out, Cali managed to stand herself up to growl at them and explain it was her treat. When I got home, this treat was gone!

This morning I spent a couple of hours volunteering at a local shelter. Such nice people! I loved spending a couple of hours there with all the other animal lovers. I probably won’t foster again for a while , so it’s another way to help out and get some more animal time.

Does anyone else do any volunteer work with animals? What do you like to do? Share in the comments.

Weekend With Cali

It’s been tough dealing with Cali, trying to keep her from doing too much, carrying her around, medicating her, and constantly checking on her. This morning I woke up to her barking at 6:30AM and had to go find her. She made her way downstairs (I’m going to have to gate the stairs from now on), had an accident, and couldn’t get back up to the bedroom. I wish she had just woken me up to put her out!

Today, I have to give a huge thank you to Treat Planet. I discovered their treats in a local pet store recently, and reached out about getting some more products to review. They sent me an amazing variety of treats, and it has been a life saver with Cali being injured.

The chew sticks, bars, jerky and Yumm Sticks have been great for keeping Cali occupied while she can’t really move around.

This Etta Says bacon flavored chew kept Cali busy all day yesterday. I like that there were no messy crumbles, no stains on her bedding, no odor, and she worked on it all day and there is still about a third of it left.

The Etta Says brand focuses on meat-based treats and unique chews. They are easy to digest, and thankfully they aren’t smelly!

I’ll be writing more about Treat Planet in the coming weeks, but wanted to thank them for their perfect timing on these treats for Cali! I’ll be writing about some of their other brands in the coming weeks. Overall, they have 5 different brands with different focuses, surely something for every type of canine.

 

 

Do you have a favorite brand of treats? What do you look for in a treat? Let me know!

The Fun Never Ends!

Just when things seemed to be calming down for Logan, Cali starts limping. I put her out yesterday afternoon. I’m not sure what happened, but when I called her to come in, she was just sitting in the driveway. When she tried to come to me, I noticed she wasn’t putting any weight on her back right leg. I didn’t think too much about it. I assumed it was cold or she got some snow in it. I scooped her up and brought her in the house and washed all her paws with nice warm water.

It didn’t help. She was still limping and not putting much weight on it at all. I gave her some CBD, wrapped her in a blanket and let her sleep. I was hoping she would be better this morning, but she wasn’t.

I cancelled all my plans for the day and was able to get her in to the vet this morning. Unfortunately, it’s not good news. They are pretty sure she tore a ligament, similar to a human tearing their ACL, it’s basically what poor Cali did.

Unfortunately, they don’t want to do surgery. She has a heart murmur and kidney issues, and they feel that operating may cause worse problems than the knee. The vet says to keep her quiet and see how she does as she heals. She’s on pain meds and a joint supplement. Poor baby.

Puck is keeping Cali company.

Poor pup, she is so miserable, but the pain meds do seem to be bringing her some relief. I guess we’ll see how she does over the next couple of weeks.

The good news from the vet visit is that she hasn’t lost any weight. I’ve been worried because she really doesn’t seem to like any of the Kidney diet foods I’ve tried with her. I’ve been mixing some regular dog food in with the prescription food which isn’t the best for her kidneys, but She’s too little to lose much weight. I guess she is eating enough to maintain herself at least, so that’s something.

Any one else have a dog with a torn ligament? Did you opt for surgery? Share your experiences in the comments, I’d love to learn more.

 

Quick Foster and Logan Update

The lovely family I really liked at Sunday’s adoption event wants Skye! Fingers crossed all the paperwork goes through and she gets adopted this week!

Logan went in for more blood work on Monday. This cat is a fighter! The ups and downs are killing me, but I’m happy she seems to be doing well again. She’s back to eating, and the bloodwork shows that the medication is working! Her ketones and blood sugar are down, and her liver and kidney values are back in a normal range! We will continue with the Bexacat and retest in two weeks. If things look good in two weeks, we won’t have to keep testing as often, YAY!

Happy Hatch Day Hector D. Byrd!

Busy day today! Picked up Skye the foster dog to bring her to an adoption event this morning. She was such a good girl! Lots of people really seemed to like her. Hoping she met her forever family today!

Hector D. Byrd is celebrating her 31st birthday today! She’s happily whistling away. She enjoyed making lots of fire alarm noises earlier today when my husband was checking batteries in the fire detectors! Tonight she will celebrate with a nice, fresh, birdie omelette!

http://Www.TreatPlanet.com sent me a lovely sample bag of treats to check out. Looking forward to sharing more info on their products soon! Cali is already going crazy just smelling the bag. I wonder what her favorite will be! Does anyone have a favorite Treat Planet treat, let me know!

Foster and Logan Update

I’m worried about my kitty. Logan had bloodwork done earlier this week because of her starting on Bexacat. Her blood sugar was remarkably better after just three days on this med, but there were some other numbers the vet was a little concerned about. For now we are continuing the med and doing more blood work on Monday. Logan isn’t eating very well since she started the medication, so I’m a bit concerned about that. We will find out more on Monday or Tuesday.

Foster dog Skye is really a dream foster. This puppy is so good! She loves to go on walks, but can also calmly chill. She is content as long as she is by my side. She’s currently sleeping in her little pen right next to me.

 

Unfortunately, there is something about this dog that is totally freaking out my cats. The cats have not ventured far from the underneath of my bed since she got here. She hasn’t chased them or barked at them, but there is something about her that has them really shaken up. I was hoping that they would come around, but it has been several days with no change. I’m looking for a new foster for Skye, or I’ll have to take her back to the shelter tonight. Sunday, I’ll take her to an adoption event, hopefully her new forever family will be looking for her there.

The good news is that other than the cats, fostering has been a great experience. She’s been super easy to take care of, and even my husband is willing to try fostering again. My cats aren’t usually wary of dogs. My Dad’s dogs come over pretty regularly and they don’t care, so I’m hoping fostering might be more successful in the future.

First Foster! Meet Skye!

After two nights of volunteering at the shelter taking care of puppies, this one came home with me. Not to keep, just to foster. Out of 21 puppies brought up from the South, they are all already adopted except for a couple.

This sweet girl is named Skye. I’ve been calling her Pie, as in Cutie Pie because my daughter’s name is Skye, so it’s just a little weird to call the dog Skye.

So far she is doing great. She doesn’t like going in her crate, but she is fine once she is in it. She spent the night in her crate, no accidents, and waited nicely to pee until I got her outside.

She is definitely nervous about a lot of things, but she can be brave and work through them with a confident human at her side. She is fantastic in the car! She doesn’t like to get in the car, but once she is there, she sits right down and doesn’t move for the whole car ride. I even left her for a second and got out to grab something, and she sat up so she could see me, but she didn’t try to escape the car or even to move around.

She hung out in this pen while I worked this morning and did great. She didn’t make a sound. She got a little nervous when I was out of sight, but she settled and didn’t try to get out of the pen which she easily could have done.

 

We went to the pet store and met the nice employees. She was a little shy and worried about the new smells at first, but quickly decided she wanted to explore. I didn’t get any pictures in the store because I was busy with her, but this is her back in the car with her bag of goodies.

 

I’m looking forward to getting to know her more. So far she is such a good girl. She really wants to please. We had a nice little adventure to the pet store today and then a short walk outside. I’m hoping the rain goes away and we can get out for a longer walk soon.

PUPPIES!

For the past 6+ months, I’ve been more puppy obsessed than usual. I really want another dog, but I also know the timing isn’t right. With a diabetic cat, and an older dog with kidney issues on top of the rest of the pets, it just doesn’t make sense to take on the responsibility of a puppy right now.

I’m trying to satisfy my puppy cravings by volunteering at a local animal shelter. Fostering was my plan, but I haven’t had the opportunity to take a dog in yet. There was an opportunity for in shelter help this week, so I did get to go help out at the shelter.

They just brought in a transport of 21 puppies from the South, every color and size, and all adorable! This little guy in the picture wanted nothing more than to snuggle me! I got to spend three hours tonight doing nothing but playing with puppies. That three hours went by so quickly!

My job tonight, along with the other volunteers, was to take different groups of puppies outside to play. In between outside groups, we hung out inside and just snuggled the puppies and gave them lots of love, so fun! The puppy breath, the soft fur, the kisses, it was all awesome!

Amazingly, all except for two of the puppies have homes waiting for them as soon as their quarantine is up, so I’ll go back one more time to help out on adoption night. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I might get to take home one of the two puppies that hasn’t been adopted yet as a foster, but if that doesn’t happen, I’m happy to have had a couple of chances to play with them before they head off to their forever homes.

Anyone else do any animal-related volunteering? 

Happy New Year!

Lots of updates coming in later this week!

Cali got a new treat. It’s from Treat Planet. I hadn’t heard of this brand before, and the treat was literally an impulse purchase at my local pet store yesterday. I had no idea it would be such a huge hit! I got the Etta Says Crunchy Chicken and Chia chew bar. I’ll write up more about it later this week.

Today is a big day for Logan the cat. I start navigating her diabetes journey. She was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been waiting for test results to confirm and then making a treatment plan. We’ve decided to try a new Medicine called Bexacat. It’s an insulin-free treatment option. I picked up the medicine yesterday and will start the first dose today. Logan will need to have blood work done on Tuesday to make sure things are going OK. I’m finding it’s an interesting an involved path dealing with a diabetic cat. I’ll be sharing it all here and would love comments, questions and feedback from anyone else dealing with a diabetic cat. More on that later this week as well.

Bean and Puck

Bean and Puck enjoyed the holidays, and now they have been taste-testing a new creamy cat treat for me from Catit. This is another treat that seems to be a big hit in our house right now. More on that soon!

Wena the bearded dragon LOVES our new kitchen sink. Not sure if it is the color, size, material, whatever, but she is so happy bathing in it. She’s been pretty picky about her food lately, but I found a trick online that suggested baby food veggies for picky dragons, and it is working well. She had some purple carrot baby food with her breakfast today.

 

Cali isn’t a big fan of the cold. She’s spending as much time as she can snuggled up in blankets.

She also really likes the new candy cane pajamas she got for Christmas! Because I seem to have more than my share of pet issues these days, have I shared about Cali’s bump? She has a growth on her neck that the vet says is benign and nothing more than an annoyance, but it’s growing. It’s about the size of a dime and raised off her skin. She tends to scratch at it at times, and there is concern that eventually she will end up with an infection. We have tried to freeze it off twice, but it didn’t help. Surgery is the only removal option now, and I’m not sure I want to put my 14 year old dog with a heart murmur and kidney issues through surgery even if it is minor. For now, I’m keeping an eye on the lump and hoping it doesn’t get worse.

Thankfully Hector D. Byrd is thriving. She’s really my buddy. Someone would think I’m crazy listening to my house all day. Working at home, I find myself constantly chatting with her. She’s such great company!


Check back for all kinds of updates soon, and have a great weekend!