strawberries

We planted a large strawberry patch early spring and it has begin to give us strawberries! They are so so good. The plants are sending out tons of 'runners', which are thin vines that make new plants. We're going to pot the new baby plants after their roots get established so we can double our patch. If we had thought this through, we would have just started with a much large patch and spaced the plants really far apart. But we didn't, so there's a bit more work involved. Also: greens, spinach, and romaine lettuce.


Foster Dog Dash has gone back to the shelter. He was way too much of a puppy for us. I took him to the dog park every day after work and he ran and swam and tired out every other dog at the park and still managed to come back to the house and go wild. Dia was so fed up. They did manage to cuddle for about two seconds, so I snapped a picture. I hope Dash gets a home with a jogger or something.

Foster Dog Dash

New foster dog... a few days ago I got an email from the shelter that said they had taken in 25 cats in 2.5 hours last Monday and the rest of the week wasn't much better... they were saying if they couldn't get animals moved out they were going to have to start euthanizing just for space reasons. So of course I go in and get a dog... Foster Dog Dash.




Dash is 5 months old and a cattle dog / russel terrier mix. He's a wild ball of energy. He's been at the shelter for 2 of his 5 months, and they were worried he was missing his critical socialization window.

He's not completely house trained. He bothers the cats. He has WICKED gas. It's okay, we like him. Hopefully he'll get a home soon. With someone who jogs or something, because he will not stop running through the house.

Max catches a mole

Foster Dog Max really likes to dig and smell things. He likes to smell things and then 'point' at the source of the smell. Today he would not leave this one spot he was pointing at, and then suddenly shoved his face into the ground AND CAME OUT WITH A MOLE.


In other less interesting news, our rhubarb plants are finished growing. We have a variety of rhubarb that is mostly green. This is normal, it doesn't get totally red when it's ripe. I made a pie, and it was amazing. Pie recipe:

1 and 1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
4 cubs chopped rhubarb

mix sugar and flour, put a heap on the bottom of a 9 in pie crust, then heap rhubarb, then cover with the rest of the sugar mix. Put a pie crust over the top. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then 350 at 45 minutes. We put a pizza pan on the bottom rack to catches spilling juices.

foster dog

We have a foster dog! His name is Max. They think he's two years old and some kind of hound mix. To us, he doesn't really look like a hound but a Beagle mix, but he will howl, so we're deferring that he probably has some hound. He was very scared when I met him at the shelter, and I had to lift and shove him into the car to get him home. But he jumped out of the car, saw Dia, and ran for her. They've been Best Friends ever since.

Max is leaving us May 4th to catch a bus to New England to go to a shelter up there. Apparently, they have shortages in shelters in New England, and there is a program that takes bus fulls of dogs from Indiana up there. The woman who runs the foster program says that the shelters up there hand pick the dogs they want from the Indiana shelters and they are often adopted before they even get there.

Animal fostering

So, in the poll, one of the most requested topics was fostering! So here's the rundown on fostering:

The animal shelter here has application where you fill out what kind of animal you'd be willing to foster, and any stipulations you may have. Cat or dog, momma with babies, pregnant momma, would you foster a sick animal, be willing to do behavioral training, nurse an orphan, etc etc.

We said that we would take small dogs, heartworm dogs, and cats and kittens.

Dogs that have heartworm are treated with shots of poison. The poison kills the worms, which break off from the heart and enter the blood stream. Exercise will cause the heart to pump faster and bigger pieces to break off, causing clots. The clots can cause heart attacks and strokes. Therefor, dogs being treated for heartworm need to be kept calm, and mostly crated. They need to be leash walked and crated for about two weeks. Dogs can't catch heartworm from each other because it is mosquito borne only.

Our first fosters were a pair of adult male cats who had gone on a hunger strike in the shelter. One of them was near death, and in my opinion was just waiting to die. He didn't eat or drink anything for three days... no using the litter box, not even moving. I held him down and squirted food in his mouth via a syringe. After day three I took him back to the shelter where they put him on an IV and gave him shots of vitamins and iron. He bounced back quickly after that. They were both covered in scabs from fleas. They also had nasty respiratory viruses. Most cats at my local shelter get respiratory viruses when they come in. It's hard to contain them because there are so many cats squeezed into such a small area.

After however long it takes to get the animal ready to be adopted, the animal goes back to the shelter to try to find it's forever home! I am pleased to report that my foster babies both found homes in less than a month!

So you want to foster a cat from the shelter and have other cats at home? This is what you need:

A room you can isolate the foster in. We use the guest bedroom, but any room is fine. Somewhere without wall to wall carpeting is best in case they have an accident. Many cats will have a bacterial infection, and it can make them pee outside the box. Cover porous furniture in the room with towels for the same reason.

A litter box with unscented clumping litter for adults or NON-clumping litter for kittens. Kittens will eat litter and you don't want them to eat the clumping litter. Bad news.

For cats that refuse to eat... heat up wet cat food. If the smelly wet cat food won't even get it, try meat baby food.

If they have nasty congestion, rub a warm wet towel on their nose to try to open it up. They're more likely to eat if they can smell the food.

If you have another cat in the house, wash your hands like a crazy person. Change your shirt after holding the foster.

Give the foster lots of attention. Find something to do in the room you're keeping it in. Attention will help sick cats eat and socialize kittens.

Christmas

Well, once again, there's not much to report. The chickens are laying about 6 eggs a day. We're going to order 25 more layers to come in February. I'm still deciding which breeds to order... still loving the Australorp, but am a sucker for some of the stranger looking varieties.

We have foster kitties from the shelter right now. They are about 3 years old. They came to the shelter as strays, but they think they were owned together, and may possibly be brothers. They're the same age and both front declawed. Rhett is a black and grey tabby and Ashford is a red tabby. Rhett almost died... he was so skinny you could feel UNDER his ribs, like they were wings. He had horrible sores all over from fleas. He didn't eat for a week and I had to take him to the shelter for them to hook him up to an IV. They gave him B12 injections and iron supplements, and I was forcing baby food in him with a syringe. He also had some kind of virus/infection so bad that the mucus was coming out of his mouth because his nose was so blocked. Very gross.

They have both made dramatic recoveries and are eating, drinking, playing, and being great cats. They're scheduled to go back to the shelter Jan 3rd to go into the colony, where we're hoping they'll adjust nicely while they wait for someone to fall in love with them.




And Merry Christmas from the fam!