Annie, and Other Pet News

Another foster puppy has moved in. Little Annie is quite a handful! She is a high energy border collie mix, six weeks old. She SHOULD still be with her mom and any litter mates until eight weeks, but whoever bred her mom or didn't bother to spay her obviously didn't care. So she'll be keeping me up nights for the next few weeks.

She looks like snoopy when she's sleeping. She has two modes - full tilt and fast asleep. She is totally innocent and it's fun to watch her chase her tail, pounce on a toy, or try to play with the big dogs. Less cute is the getting up every two hours to put her out all night, the house training, and the constant supervising to make sure she doesn't get into anything that could hurt her. But, it's for a short time, and I think it's worth it. As I write she is rumbling around the room sounding like a tiny horse galloping. She sounds MUCH bigger than she is. All the cats, even Nadia, the smallest, are bigger than Annie.

Callie is trying to teach her the rules for playing with adult dogs: do not jump on their faces, do not bite their ears, do not try to nurse off them, do not hang on to their hair with your teeth and get dragged, etc. So far Callie and Simon have both been very patient with her, as have the cats.

She is really, really cute. The above photo gives you an idea, but she's even cuter in person. I'm sure at least a few photos of her will make it to the blog over the next couple of weeks.

In other pet news, Elsie the foster cat has left the building and gone to Petsmart in hopes of getting her own permanent home. I'm told she's marketing herself well, coming to the front of the cage and saying hello to people. I hate leaving her there, but not one person has called about her, and being all black she'll rely on her personality and exposure to get adopted. I'm checking in on her daily to see how it goes. If she isn't adopted in a week or two we'll see about taking her back indefinitely.

Oscar the cat has an unexplained tummy rash. We are, to his dismay, treating it and we'll see how it goes. Love those vet bills.

We are also expanding the family a bit, and more on that in the posts to come over the next week.