Thanks, Chron, for giving a platform to the voice of reason -- UAF's Jennifer Fearing speaks her mind about cloning.

Momma cochin and her 10-day-old chicklet

Check out New West -- the latest venture of Industry Standard cofounder Jonathan Weber -- for the fabulous news that Pearl Jam will play a benefit August 29 in Missoula for Jon Tester, the president of the Montana state senate who is running against Conrad Burns for US Senate next year.

Go! Go! Go! Jeff's a Montana boy and a dog lover....nuff said.

HT BB.

Jeff's dog, Ruby, died at age 13 in 2004...here's her obituary:

"Ruby, 13, beloved dog dies. She could eat anything. Known as much for her ability to eat virtually any matter as she was for her charm and personality. Ruby entered the afterlife with a head full of memories from her charmed life. Ruby and her constant companion (by whom she is survived) spent the majority of her years in the great state of Montana, where Ruby rubbed shoulders with members of the rock band Pearl Jam. She also managed to dig out some chocolate bars from the luggage of the bassist of the aforementioned rock band...on more than one occasion. She will also be remembered for devouring an entire steak that was cooked by none other than the famous grillmeister Mr. Mike Watt. An attendee of that particular soiree was unfortunate enough to place his steak in the near proximity of Ms. Ruby while taking a croquet shot.

She was a dedicated and loyal friend for her long life, and she will be missed by many. Loving monuments have been created in the companion's home. Donations may be made to the charity of your choice."

Need a cute kitten fix? Kittenwar.com

HT Bruner

How cool is this: Terrapass, an easy way to absolve myself of any emissions-related guilt associated w/ my recent purchase of a GMC Yukon. Oh yeah and along with clearing my conscience, it's actually good for the environment too. Brought to you by some smarty-pants recent Wharton grads.

Thank God, because I love my truck!!

Now if it could just help with my gas bill...

I visited my good friend Kathy at her new place in Sonora last weekend -- man oh man am I jealous. She and her daughter, a dressage trainer, bought an 80 acre facility up there and it is amazing. Their barn is a beautiful, superb quality work of art! And the land is lovely, complete with a pond. Wish I had pictures to post, but I don't.

Ever since she moved there, she's been saying to me that as soon as I saw it I'd want to move there too. She was right. I'm sure my boys (Athos left, Intrepid right)
would think it was just dandy to move up to Gold Country. Along with the rest of my critters. True, they have it pretty darn good right here at home, but it just seems better up there. I want to go.

It was a Thursday. Should have been like any Thursday, except my cat was dying. I had known since the day before that OJ didn’t have long. So it was earth day 2003 and I had to let my sweet girl go. The sun came out and she got to sit in the sun. She died in my lap, in the sun, with nothing but love surrounding her.

Then it was a Sunday, almost two years later. But five days before, the shock I felt when I came into my parents’ house and saw her lying in a huddled ball on the rug was beyond explanation. I reacted as a tech and immediately began administering fluids subcutaneously, then realized she needed more. I called my friend at emergency and off we went.

My parents didn’t understand the gravity of Spider’s condition. I felt horrible that I had let her stay with my parents. I know she was happier there, she didn’t want to live with all the animals here, but still, at that moment, and always, I knew that if she had been with me all along I would have noticed her sickness long before my parents did. I wish I had known.

I fought for her life for five days and then on Sunday she told me that she was done. I wished I could have realized it or heard her sooner -- she had lived a long and wonderful life – 19 years – but I was so caught up in feeling guilty that I didn’t want to see how sick she was and I felt compelled to try and get her back. She had been telling me, in her own way, that she was ready to go, but I couldn’t hear her over my own feelings of guilt and obligation. Finally, thankfully, I realized my girl didn’t want to come back, couldn’t come back, that she wanted to go, that she was ready. So I helped her go…she was Spider. She was one in a million. Spider Elliott.

Then another Thursday came. After years of worrying about various dogs with various conditions, suddenly Peanut was dying. It was something I was so unprepared for it was shocking. I knew she was sick. I had known that she had cancer since the end of January but she was doing so well I guess I was just hoping she’d live forever. She was 15 years old. She was my first dog and my best friend. My best little girl. She endured my bringing home many puppies, many kittens and many boyfriends and never failed to tell me what she thought about all of it…but she tolerated it nonetheless. What a good friend she was.

She died on Thursday May 5 just around noon. It was a cloudy day which I found very disturbing, because I think death is better suited for sunny days. But the sun came out just after she died, which Jerry pointed out. I noticed too.

So here I sit and sob and cry because I miss my Peanuttier so much. It’s such a hurt in my heart, a hole in my heart, not to have my Nutty here, not to ever hear her bark or see her face again. She is such a part of me I feel like something is missing now. I took her to be cremated and it was not so bad at the moment but looking back it was terrible. I had to leave her, the last time I would ever see my Peanut. The last time. Ever. I would ever see her. Ever. I just wish I could see her one more time.

I have her ashes back now, in a little cedar box. I can’t believe my Peanut is in that box, but I hope her spirit is surrounding me. Looking at the box that contains her ashes makes me very sad. Yet I look at it often.

Peanut marched into my life when I was 20 -- a fat little tan and white puppy with a black nose and a big attitude. Right around the time Intrepid, my horse, was born…his 15^th birthday is tomorrow. It’s hard not to think about these landmarks after such a loss. Losing Peanut. Sounds silly because she had a silly name perhaps, but it fit her. She wasn’t silly, she was just The Nut. Nuttiest One. She was such a good dog.

The first name she had, that I knew of anyway, was Piggy, given to her by the college student in Chico who found her on the side of the road. He called her Piggy because, he said, she had barbecue sauce on her nose so she was a little piggy. I had been really wanting a dog and I found out about her needing a home so I went to pick her up. I hate to say this but I wanted a “big dog” and I wasn’t sure she was the dog for me. I even considered giving her up to the hearing dog program that was clamoring for her because they said terriers made such great hearing dogs. Quickly I fell in love with her and I learned from her that bigness comes from nowhere but the heart. She topped out at 35 pounds but was the biggest dog I ever have known.

The same college student who found her on the road 15 years ago called me the night after Peanut died. He had heard of her passing from his grandmother, who had heard from her daughter, his mother. He called to say how sorry he was. I was very touched by that.

Camille then...

...and now

Guinness and Peanut in the salad days...we miss you Nuttier.

Thought I would explain about Camille. Turned out she had a persistent right aortic arch (PRAA) -- vascular ring anomalies are congenital malformations of the large vessels of the heart that result in entrapment or compression of the esophagus and esophageal obstruction. The most common vascular ring anomaly in dogs and cats is PRAA (but far less common in cats -- leave it to me to find the feral kitten with a life-threatening birth defect!). PRAA occurs as the result of an error in development of the aorta. In an embryo, there are two nonfunctional aortas, the left and the right. As the embryo develops, the left normally becomes the functional adult aorta and the right disappears, allowing the esophagus to develop normally on the right side of the chest. In the normal fetus, there is also a connection between the aorta and pulmonary artery that shrinks to a small band at birth. In an animal affected by PRAA, the right aorta rather than the left becomes the functional aorta and gets in the way of the developing esophagus. The band between the aorta and pulmonary artery now has to cross over the esophagus and as a result compresses and obstructs flow through it. The segment of the esophagus ahead of the obstruction then becomes dilated when filled with food and water.

Anyway that is what she had. She had thoracic surgery at the tender size of under two lbs...successfully fixed the problem. Brave kitten! She had to continue being fed via her PEG tube (straight into her stomach) for many months to give her time to grow into her baggy esophagus (it was very stretched out from food backing up behind the constricted area) and for her esophagus to regain motility as much as possible....

Some time I'll post about the troubles along the way, and the horrid day when she was given a 50-x morphine overdose by an asinine tech....that was truly scary. But she survived it all, and is a big happy 12-lb cat who will turn two at the end of this year. As my vet friend Gary says, she has no business being alive, yet here she is, and Gary also says he hopes she will someday pull me from a burning building (or perform some similar act of heroicism to save my life) to repay me...but I don't think she will :-) Who cares, she is a happy cat and I love her.

Peanut, the best dog in the world

March 1990 ~ May 5, 2005

More Nutty

The latest addition to my ever-growing family at Poppy Hill is a little black rabbit. Some jackass in my neighborhood set at least two domesticated rabbits free at some point, and ever since I've lived out here -- four years now -- I've seen little pseudo-wild bunnies out and about. They mostly congregate on one corner where they are relatively safe, I suppose, but I've seen more than one dead in the road, plus there are lots of predators so I'm sure attrition is the main thing keeping the wild rabbit population somewhat under control.

I found my new little friend on the side of the road last week -- I was able to pick it up because it has an injured leg. Brought it home, now am turning into an obsessed rabbit fanatic, it's really fun. Bunny's temporary housing is that incredibly versatile and useful Vari-Kennel in my tackroom -- thank god for the giant Vari-Kennel! -- and I've already ordered a fancy hutch for more suitable living quarters. I'm fantasizing about the outdoor run that I'm sure somebody like my boyfriend or my father will eventually build for the rabbit, and also fantasizing about getting a companion for the bun - it's sure to be lonely all by him/herself. Since I don't know the sex of this rabbit, I figure I can play it safe and get a spayed or neutered bun through rabbit rescue. Just have to hope they like each other.........

I have always loved animals but as a kid my parents were pretty strict about pets (boo, hoo). I had a dog when I was little (and that was only because my parents caught me trying to pet the goldfish when I was about three years old so they went out and got a dog) but her life was not happy. Huge psychic guilt, saved for another post.

She was a shelter rescue, which makes me happy, and she did have some happy times in her life but overall she did not live the sort of life I'd wish for a dog. At first, I was too young to know any better, and by the time I figured it out, I tried to make changes but my parents were not agreeable to my ideas and then my poor girl died. Sigh...

Anyway, I have always wanted a life with animals - lots of animals. Don't know why, it's just always been there in me. Now I have a place in the pseudo-country (only 45 minutes from San Francisco yet I have over two acres of land, lucky me!) where I live with dogs, cats, horses, chickens and goats. Yee Haw.

But I should back up and talk about how I came to have all of these animals. Other than the horses and chickens, they are all rescues. I have dogs who have endured truly horrifying things, from having at-home tail amputations to being hit by cars to starvation and neglect to attempted murder (by gasoline, ugh). My cats have not endured such trauma but they are all ex-ferals whom I trapped and tamed as kittens - they were lucky to avoid growing up in the circumstances they could have.

All are spayed and neutered, in case anybody's wondering.

Guess that's enough for now.

Camille has officially graduated from her PEG tubage!

Just realized I forgot to mention that, how could I. I pulled her tube nearly two weeks ago, happily! She's doing great, as I knew she would, and I'm slowly working on integrating into the household at large. Not the easiest task. She's a ballsy little one, pretty darn tough when she feels like she needs to be...but I have a houseful of tough cats and dogs too and she has no idea what she's in for. So for now, because she's still on meds and because I can't bear the thought of just turning her loose in the house and watching her get her little booty kicked, I take various cats/dogs on individual visits with her in her room. She does ok. I try to rotate among cats who will just ignore her, and cats who will put her in her place without hurting her. Hopefully she will get the drift that she doesn't just get to stalk/"kill" everything she sees. I can't blame her for it, she's basically grown up in solitary confinement -- but she wouldn't be alive at all otherwise, and I'm sure we'll all figure out a way to make this latest addition work. Long road ahead though, I think...

Just had a really fun few hours with my goats. Lucky (who is now Luca, sometimes), Trinket, Chloe (nee Brownie) and I just hung out in the front area. They had so much fun. I was worried about letting them out, thinking that they might just go feral on me (I'm all about worst-case scenarios) but the complete opposite was true. Actually I only put them back in their paddock because I wanted to come inside, but they followed me right to the door, and I didn't want them to look around and see the few plants I DO cultivate and eat them. I couldn't get far away from them, the minute Luca couldn't see me he'd start racing in the general direction where he last saw me. Which is GOOD - because Trinkie and Chloe follow him wherever he goes, so I now have much more faith in my ability to successfully move them from place to place without stress. He follows me, they follow him...easy!

We spent a lot of time wandering the yard, they ate a bunch of weeds. They haven't yet noticed the poison oak, I can't wait til they do and eat it all! Anyway, they climbed up on top of everything they could find to scale, most notably an overturned bathtub (ex-horse watering trough that's too heavy for me to move alone so there it sits!) and played king/queen of the mountain. And, they actually galloped around a bit, romping to and fro, and had some alpine ramming games (they don't even have horns but still they love to rear up and butt heads with each other, all in fun).

I think I'll go back out soon and let them out for round two!

I added three African Pygmy goats to my little farm yesterday! I still can't believe I did it but I've been wanting goats ever since I moved to the country and now I've finally taken the plunge. A black two-year old wether named Lucky Charm (goofy name, but apparently he nearly died at birth and then his mother rejected him and he had to be bottle raised, and nobody could believe he survived, hence the name...), a black two-year old doe named Trinket (L.C.'s sister) and a brown three-month old doeling who I need to name. She's just called "Brownie" for now, need to get to know her before I decide on a name (I just brought them home yesterday evening!!).

L.C. is super friendly and sweet and trusting -- the girls are a bit nervous but that's totally understandable, I'm sure they will settle in fine in a few days.

The good news is, Camille the Christmas Kitten is almost recovered! Finally! There's a lot of blank in between I need to fill in. But she's eating canned food and kibble now, I'm weaning her off her propulsid, if all goes well I should be able to pull her PEG tube and start integrating her into the household at large in the next few weeks!

Side note, she trotted out of her room this morning and nearly into the living room, suddenly froze and panicked when she saw all the cats looking at her. Heh. Good thing the dogs were outside!

Twas the night of Christmas, and I found a feral kitten staring at me from my hayshed. Not my first - at my old house, I spayed/neutered 22 feral cats and kittens, and early in the process bought my own humane trap...just seemed like a good idea...so when I went out to feed my horses on Xmas and saw little glowing eyes reflecting in my flashlight, I naturally ran to the garage and grabbed the trap.

In the morning, there was a frightened little black kitten safely in the trap, hissing at me for all she was worth. I set her up in my gigantor Vari-Kennel in my tackroom with a cozy bed, food, water and a litter box and waited to see what would happen. She didn't do very well.

What had recently been an angry wild kitten had rapidly -- within a few hours -- mushed into a sad little barely-responsive creature. Luckily I have a good friend who is a veterinarian and I rushed little kitten to his hospital...he thought I was crazy, me and my less-than-two-pound half-dead feral kitten, but he also knows me well enough not to ask questions when I'm sure about something. And I was sure that I had to save her.

So she got the works. IV catheter, fluids, antibiotics, many more meds than I will bore anyone with...but we went balls-out to get this kitten back on her feet, and what do you know, it worked. I honestly wasn't sure it would...she was really out of it. After about four hours she woke up, looked around with her big round scared tiny eyeballs, and started regurgitating pretty much right away.

What the hell, we thought. So we took an xray and saw what can only be described as a big fat gnarly mess of something in her esophagus.

By some stroke of luck, we found an internist willing to endoscopically remove whatever was obstructing this little girl's throat at 6 pm on Dec. 26 (and a Friday no less - I think his girlfriend is still holding a grudge ;)) The poor guy, the vet that is, agreed to do it thinking that it would be a quick and easy grab and pull - we all thought that -- six hours later, after he had patiently extracted bit after bit of amorphous crap from this kitten's esophagus, we found that wasn't the case.

Phew, we all thought. At least that's over. But in the back of our minds...why can't this kitten swallow?? There was no obvious obstruction. Why?

Dr. Patient With The Endoscope had the foresight to place a PEG (stomach feeding) tube, because he thought it would be a bad idea for her to try and swallow food right away after what she, and her sad throat, had been through.

And that's all for now...more of the Christmas Kitten serial soon...