Diva Enablers!

We've been dog-sitting Pippin since this past Saturday evening. Our next-door neighbors in our old neighborhood had to go to Warsaw for a few days, so we told them we'd be happy to look after "the Pip".

A couple of days before Pippin was to arrive, her "mommy" (she wishes to remain anonymous) dropped off some of her supplies (crate, food, toys, etc.) and instructions for taking care of the Pip. Here are a few excerpts from those very detailed instructions:

...walks between 8:00 - 8:30 a.m. Lasts between 35 - 50 minutes.

...gets sausage treats on walk when she does not bark at other dogs.

...Pippin gets her "treat bag" after her morning walk. The big piece of treat is broken up into 6-8 pieces and hidden (not too hard) in her red blanket and you have to tell her to find. Do not put the blanket on the floor. It has to go on carpet because she does not like the plain floor - she slips too much.

...After her treats & blanket, you tell her it's breakfast time - one-third of a container of soft food.

...At lunch she gets a bag of hard food & 1 tbsp. of soft food with one slice of lunch meat (cut into small pieces).

...Maybe one or two sausage treats if she is good. Playtime with toys & she likes to bite hands. [TBF: You mean she has some stuffed toy hands that she likes to bite? Pip Mommy: No...she actually likes to bite your hands.]

...Suppertime is right after her afternoon walk which is around 4 p.m. (usually 20-30 minutes). Suppertime is bag of hard food & "Sunday chicken" [roasted chicken from grocery store].

...She may need some help jumping onto couches.

...She should go "potty" before bedtime, and her bedtime is between 10:30 - 11:00 p.m. Just tell her it's sleepy time and go to box and she will go in there. SHE GETS A MASSAGE & BELLY RUB [caps mine] before bed time.

I kind of teased Pip Mommy about the list when I first read it (TBF: You're joking, right? Pip Mommy: No, and I forgot to write down that she gets two strips of bacon with her breakfast on Sunday mornings.). But then I started to think back to the days when we had a dog, and I soon realized that we were just as guilty in diva creation. Our dog slept on our bed, got fed table scraps, and was not banned from using any piece of furniture as her own. We bought her Walker's shortbread cookies and Basler Leckerli (probably the only expat to actually like the taste of them) and gave them to her as treats. Oh yeah...plus the greatest dog treat of them all: stick your fingers in your dog's ears, rub them around a bit, and then let your dog lick her ear wax off of your fingers. Dogs LOVE it! Oh sure, you say it's gross now...but I GUARANTEE you you'll try it!

Oh...and telling the Pip to go in her box after her massage and belly rub? We wouldn't DREAM of it! She sleeps on our bed...wedged between our pillows.

Pippin appears to have even won over King.

Saturday evening.

Sunday morning.


Monday afternoon.

Time To Relax...

Along with being more than satisfied with my list of the morning's accomplishments, the sky had cleared and the sun was shining brightly by the time I got home.

Time to relax...

I grabbed the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, a cup of coffee, and my iPod Shuffle. When I opened the front door, King lead the way up to the roof.

We parked ourselves on the bench, sheltered from the wind, in the warm sunshine. That was all King needed. Normally he walks around and explores; but not today. Today, he just parked himself on the bench, closed his eyes, and hardly moved.

Well, he did wake up to tell me that I had my finger on Pete Wentz's nipple.

Greasing The Pipe!

King da Cat is old! How old? We really don't know for sure since we adopted him as a stray from a shelter, but we estimate that he will be 19 years old (the equivalent of 89 human years) this May. Yup! O...T...D! Older Than Dirt!

If you'll remember from last week, King was a bit sick and had a rather unpleasant episode of vomiting and diarrhea. Sure, he vomits every now and then (most cats do), but I knew he was sick when I noticed the diarrhea. That's because, normally, he has the opposite problem: nuggets hard as granite!

We've tried cat grass (works sometimes) and various hairball eliminators mixed into his food (eats it for awhile, and then won't touch it), but nothing seems to ease the strain of his kitty constipation. So, today while picking up thyroid medicine for the beast (gettin' old's a bitch!), I mentioned it to the vet who decided it was time to move onto heavier artillery.

Enter...Gatinar.

The Germans call it: Darmregulans

The French call it: Regulateur Intestinal

The Italians call it: Regolatore Dell'Intestino

...the vet calls it: "...just vat an olt und fett cat needs to help beecome unplukked!"

I just about snotted when he said that!

Then, the vet pulled out a syringe. I took the syringe into my hand, and...this is a recreation of how I imagine my face must have looked when I imagined the pure joy of being put in charge of giving King daily injections. However, no such luck! The syringe is just used to draw the "...sveet liqvid" from the bottle before indiscreetly mixing it into King's food. I figured that King would shun it, but I determined that I hadn't added to the Rejected By King Collection" for awhile, and thought..."what the heck?"

I wasn't very optimistic when I was mixing into his food, but...the beast proved me wrong. Just look at that pig licking his chops. He loved the stuff so much that he even went around and licked up the food that flew out of his bowl while he was gorging himself.

Then, I realized that the old lunker didn't know that the syringe wasn't for injections, so I decided to torment him for a few minutes by chasing him around the apartment with the syringe.

He didn't seem too concerned. He ran straight to the bathroom, and went to sleep on the warm floor.

Gatinar, do your magic!

Sick Day...

...times two!

King and I are both sick today. I began feeling flu-like yesterday morning ("...feed a cold, and feed a fever, right?"). This morning, I woke up (with the chills) to the sound of King throwing up what I thought was a hairball. Then, Mrs. TBF informed me that there were little drips of kitty diarrhea all over the house.

"Arrrrgh!"

I have to say that since we adopted King back in 1991, he has rarely been sick. As a matter of fact, I don't recall him every being sick other than having to have an injection to clear the fur out of his digestive track.

So, I jumped out of the warm bed and started the fun task of going around the apartment wiping up all the little "chocolate" drips (...thank God for tile floors). King was kind of following me around, and he would stop from time to time and look as if he was going to...poo on the floor right next to me!!!

"ARRRGH!"

Now, King is normally one of the greatest litter box users in the history of all felines, so this abnormal behavior kind of startled me. I picked up the phone, called Dr. Buser, and got an appointment for 10:00 a.m.

It turns out that King has a bacterial infection. Dr. Buser gave King an antibiotic injection, AND an injection that stops his digestive track working for eight hours; apparently, this was to stop "the beast" from launching from both ends. Also, I'm not supposed to feed him for 24 hours, and he's only supposed to have 1 teaspoon of water at a time.

...good grief! How the Hell am I supposed to do that?

As I was loading King back into his crate, Dr. Buser told me "...zat zee wirus can NOT be transmeetted from zee cat to you, but zee bacteria CAN make you seek eef you do not take extra care by sanitising everyseeng!"

"YOW!!!!"

The worst part, after we got home, was that I had to go around (while sick) and sanitize the floor with bleach and wash a bunch of rugs and our duvet cover (...not a pretty sight!) while King...just slept on the warm tile floor in the bathroom.

It's raining sideways outside right now...

There's not enough food in the fridge for dinner...

I have to go to the grocery store in my weakened state...

Oh, woe is me!