Petsitting, what a week!

Pros and Cons about this past week at my cousin Suzy's house:

Pros: My aunt came over to paint Austin's room. He is my cousin's son. His room was sooooo messy and my aunt and I cleaned it up, painted it, and decorated it. He was very surprised when he came home yesterday and thanked me for it (kinda).

The dogs and cats kept me company.Blackie, a mutt rescued from Hurricane Katrina

Raven, a fat but very sweet Dashchund

Brutus, the very quiet Golden (red) Retriever who does retrieve balls!Rascal, the mischievous skinny dachshund.
Tiger and Survi (short for Survivor)
Toby and Butterscotch (the father of the kitten)
Sunshine

(Snowflake was in hiding)

This is one of my summer jobs so I did get paid for taking care of many animals!

Cons:

Rascal got out one day and ran all over the neighborhood with me chasing him, I thought for sure he was going to get hit by a car. Then he saw a neighbor's dog and barked at him through a fence. As I tried to pick up the little bit, he tried to bite me! arrggh! I am ok though.

I got paint on my favorite jean shorts.

Blackie followed me everywhere and rubbed his nose on me all the time. As I tried to play with the other animals, he would cut in and try to bite them (not hard though).

Read about Tiger's Tragedy and Pride!

Tiger's Tragedy and Pride!

Tiger was the pregnant cat that I was petsitting. My cousin told me a while back that Tiger had become pregnant and it was unexpected because she thought Tiger was a boy. Very wrong! I figure she probably would not deliver until my cousin and her family returned from their trip. It was the day before they came back which was Friday, I was awoken by strange noises. Tiger had been acting weird Thursday night and had blood under her tail. I figured that she could do it on her own. When I woke up, I looked under the bed and saw a black kitten searching for its mother and Tiger was acting like nothing had happened. She wanted me to give her attention. I tried to put the kitten with her but she kept walking away from it. She had other kittens in her body and didn't try to deliver them. I thought she might not be ready for them yet. I closely monitored her, she delivered the kitten at eight that morning, and it was lunch time and I thought that it wasn't a good sign. I called the vet that they normally go to, called the neighbors to help put the cat into the carrier because she refused to go into it and rushed her to the vet. When I got there, the vet checked the birth canal and it was open, no blockage. Then they took an x-ray to see how many kittens were there. Three were shown on the x-ray. They induced her and waited, still nothing happened so she had to have an emergency C section. By that time, it was too late to save the kittens, they had died. As soon as Tiger went into labor, the body cuts off the oxygen for the kittens and apparently she didn't try to deliver all of them so they suffocated. I was so sad to hear this, I was also sadden by the x-ray of seeing the kittens who were given life to be cut very short. Tiger was still a kitten herself, she was only a year old. The vet told me that she's not mature enough to be a mother so that my cousin and I would have to help her nurse her baby. They also gave me formula just in case the mother completely gives up. I spend most of Saturday morning and afternoon sitting by Tiger and the kitten to be sure that she stayed with her baby. She wouldn't take care of the kitten unless someone was there with her. Everyone thanked me for saving the mother and the baby. The mother would have died later if I didn't take her to the vet. I was sorry I couldn't save the kittens but now I know a little about birth of kittens. I named the kitten Survi because it is short for survivor. I wanted the name to tell the story of the kitten's birth.

Meet Survi

It had been a long week but I am glad that most of the animals were ok and I didn't get bitten too hard.