Paranoid Pet and Horse Owners, Unite!
Jan 28 2010
I’m working on another bigger story but I had to put this up because I just know I will hear a lot of similar stories from my readers!
Last night, while wandering around the house on a phone call, I walked into my bedroom and a pillow was knocked onto the floor and soaked in a reddish liquid. Â OMG. Â I examined it and removed the pillowcase and started looking around — surely someone was puking blood and needed to go to the emergency vet immediately.
I scoured the house and checked every single cat and the dog for any sign that weren’t in tip-top condition.  I felt their chins, I smelled their breath.  They all seemed fine…but what if they weren’t?  OMG.  What would make a cat puke blood?  I was about to go to google and try to find out when I walked back into the bedroom to find the shy kitty that lives in the closet…and discovered what had thrown up on my pillow.
A can of cherry Diet Dr. Pepper that some naughty cat had overturned on the dresser.
HMPH!
These animals will give you heart failure, won’t they? Â I remember another time when I was positive a kitten had gotten out and was lost — only to find her inside the kitchen cabinet. Â Note to new cat owners: Â they can and do open cabinet doors!
So, I know I am not the only one. Â Share your stories of a time when you were sure some animal had gotten very sick or very hurt or gotten out and were freaking out, only to discover everything was fine after all!
217 comments to “Paranoid Pet and Horse Owners, Unite!”
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Uuuuhhhh….last night???
Got home from work, in the dark of course, and saw that the top wire of the fence, closest to the road, was broken. I quickly scanned the pasture for my mare (who wears a charcoal colored blanket!) and COULD NOT SEE HER!!! OMG SOMEONE STOLE HER OR SHE GOT OUT…..OMG!!
Nah, she was standing by her shed, patiently waiting for me to do chores and take her to the barn for the night.
Oh that’s so funny….
One of the first times I rode my mare before I bought her I fed her some treats right after the ride. She still had her bit in and I knew it was wrong of me but I did it anyway. Karma punished me. When I went to take her bridle off, her lips and teeth were red with blood. I was so horrified that I’d cut her mouth while riding, I wanted to die….
Then I realised that those appleberry treats were the same colour. Her slobber was blood red with raspberry flavoured goodness.
That deep, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach left, thankfully, but I know it was punishment for feeding treats before taking the bit out!
Just this past Christmas my home was in turmoil. I thought my Miniature Schnauzer Bella had eaten a poisoned dead mouse, while she was in the shop at work. I was SURE that there was nothing she could get into, but… It’s a long story…but, the cure of making her vomit, etc…to be sure she didn’t eat a dead mouse…was horrible. It took a lot out of her, and she took a week to fully recover. It was very expensive, traumatic, and depressing. The good news is that she didn’t eat a mouse, and she is fine now. Thank God…she is like my daughter. It’s amazing how much they give us every day!!!
I had adopted a cat that the previous owner had let out. Even though he was declawed….grrr. Well, kitty had it in his head he was an outdoor cat and had a tough transition to being an indoor one. So tough that after five years of consistent acrobatic escapes, I gave in. He truly was miserable indoors and if he got killed being outside, at least he would die happy.
Every time I let him out I was terrified. Other cats and wildlife roamed the neighborhood. He was stalked by a wild turkey. He fought off tom cats. He dodged cars when he slipped across the street. But, he also grew lithe and strong, and came home content and purring.
One night I heard a huge cat rackus. I ran outside with my flashlight and broom ready to break up a fight and followed the noise to a neighbor’s hedges. THREE cats were ensconced in the bush fighting over territory. OMG! There was a brown tiger, my neighbor’s spotty cat, Patches, and an unknown fluffy black cat. Huh? Where was MY cat? I thought the worst: they had seriuosly hurt him or killed him! I looked all over for an hour and gave up, heading home with tears. My cat? He was sleeping on his blanket at the bottom of my closet. I had let him in and forgot!
He spent years frightening me with his outdoor adventures and died at age 14, from complications of cardiomyopathy (heart failure.) Go figure!
I don’t have cats anymore but when I did, I learned to do a morning and nightly headcheck. One of my cats got folded into a sleeper sofa by accident and I didn’t find him until the next day: mangled, dehydrated and pissed on himself.
When I was little I remeber my parents teling me a story about a cat named Smoky. Smoky had gotten into the engine bay of the truc and rode for about 50 mi on top of the engine block. When we got where we were going we heard a strange noise in the engine, my parents opened the hood and found this scared cat jut sitting on the engine. They called the owners, which were family membes, and came and picked him up. I have no idea how he survived that trip but he was fine, according to the vet. The crazy places animals get themselves in to.
Engine checks are routine practice for us. My two kitties are indoor only but the neighbors have outdoor cats plus there is a large population of wild cats, Both varieties enjoy curling up next to a nice warm engine on a cold winter night!
That’s kind of funny! Definitely not for you at the time though I’m sure!
I posted last week about a bunch of SPCA seized horses going to auction in Alberta. Well the auction was yesterday and I am VERY happy to report that NOT ONE horse went to the kill buyer!!! Way to go to the people that showed up at the auction!
Ha ha …been there, don’e that….in my case it was The Mysterious Case of the Mortally Wounded Jack Russell Terrier….but it actually turned out to be the Comedy of The Greedy Jack Russell Terrier & the Ketchup Sachet
I had almost the exact same situation: found some *bright* red watery vomit. I FREAKED out. Wasn’t sure which critter it came from & was convinced that someone was having an arterial bleed out. Started planning how to get them all to the 24 hour emergency vet, got out carriers…
Detective work finally revealed that one of my little darlings had consumed a short piece of red yarn (from a harness/bridle decoration, by the way) that was naturally dyed, so it bled color like crazy. I swear they do stuff like this to torture me. #5098 why I don’t have children.
Oh! I’ve got a good one. I have both a large fish tank and a cat. I was watching my cat one morning and I noticed what looked like his INTESTINES hanging out! It was a yellowish pink thing about as big around as my pinky attached to his stomach. In a complete panic I flew over there and overturned him to see what had happened, dreading what I might find! It took me a while to realize that my DoJo Loach (this is a small eel looking fish) had jumped out of my fish tank and in the process of playing with it, my cat had gotten him entangled in his belly fur. I got the DoJo freed from the cat and dropped him back into the water to see what kind of shape he was in. I was absolutely amazed when he took off swimming for the nearest rock. Even after being wrapped up in cat hair for heaven knows how long, he was still alive. I didn’t see him for several days after that, but in the end BOTH the cat and the DoJo were fine and I only had a small heart attack! ;^)
The loach was in his belly fur.. that is hilarious.
That one literally made me laugh out loud! I would totally have thought that it was his intestines, too!
I honestly thought my heart stopped when I noticed it. At least I got a good dose of adrenaline out of it! In my life….
BTW, same cat is laying across my arms as I type (crashed and purring)! Brat!
That’s nothing! When I moved I had all of my fish in a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket – so I could keep the lid on while driving. I took the lid off when I got to the new house and plopped an air stone in to add oxygen while I got the tank set up. When I came back in the room to get them all netted and moved, I found one of my koi (a small one, 5″ or so) on the floor. He’d clearly been there for a while as his scales were completely dry, but as soon as I dropped him in the water he started breathing!
Always sniff the offending liquid first….more than one time I’ve been misled by a tipped over glass of something or other!
Once, I went out to feed my horses, and the one was lying down in the pasture (wet and muddy – it had been rainning all day), with her foot caught in the fence (lesson learned there!) Me and my mom freed the foot, but she wouldn’t get up, we were just going in to call the vet and she pops up, and doesn’t even have a limp, just a few cuts.
Then there was the time I was home alone and couldn’t find my dog. I had let her out but couldnt remember letting her in, so I was hunting and hunting inside and out. Turns out she was under a pillow and a blanket sitting on a chair.
I have more, but I’ll spare you all. XD
The first Christmas my fiance and I had in our apartment, he begged for a real tree. I’m a little bit of a scrooge, but I eventually relented and we picked out a beautiful fir.
A few days later, he called me at work in a panic. He works from home, and he said my cat was missing. He had looked and looked and called and called her, but she was nowhere to be found. I was shot through with fear.. my kitty is such a marshmellow-lump, she was sure to be hit by a car in the apartment parking lot, or stolen by cruel kids, or killed by dogs. I was just sick with fear, and I was about to call and ask to go home early when my fiance called back and said he’d found her.
…
She was sitting on a branch, deep inside the Christmas tree. He said he finally noticed a pair of yellow eyes peering out at him from between the decorations. She’d been in there all day, deliberately ignoring him while he tore the house up looking for her.
Such a brat.
Had a similar thing happen- lived in a large apartment complex and was in and out doing laundry. Came in to go to bed, and couldn’t find my kitten, Nikko. Looked everywhere, even got the manager to let me up on the roof, she wasn’t there. I went back to the apartment to have a diet coke and figure out plan B. She was sitting in the regrigerator, on top of the vegtable drawer. She had jumped in an hour ago, when I put some leftovers in there. The funniest thing was the way she looked at me and said “mew?” She lived to be 16…
I went out to feed my horse a couple of months ago and was freaking out because I couldn’t find her. Well it turns out she was in the neighboring pasture because she had busted through a latched gate. Man was I glad that she was still there and not wondering around somewhere since she has no brands, tattoos, or a microchip (which i’m know considering getting just in case) and she is also in a very public area. She has since been moved and know lives with me so that I don’t have to worry about anybody messing with her, stealing her or busting through the secure gates that have a five and half foot pipe fencing.
On Thanksgiving we were at my parents’ house, in a city and neighborhood that is unfamiliar to our two red heelers, and 500 miles from our own house. My dad had been in very frail health – lots of stress and worry – but he was doing better on Thanksgiving day and we were all, well, thankful for that. We decide to take the dogs for a walk after the big meal. They’re just not in the backyard. They’re nowhere. The sun is about to go down. Oh – geez. Son and I start walking a grid of the streets, asking every happy football-throwing family we see along the way if they’ve spotted our two dogs. One is nearly 13 years old and blind – did I mention that? My husband gets in one car. My frail pop and mom get in the other and they’re driving the streets.
About an hour of no luck passes and my 8yo son and I are getting progressively more worried. How do you find a dog from 500 miles away? How can we leave town the next day? What if they went toward the big major street?
Then I started thinking. Neither dog is a jumper. They didn’t dig out. I walk back to the house and hear the shake of a dog’s collar. They’re in the bathroom – right where my husband shut them when we started eating dinner.
I can’t believe we lost the dogs in the bathroom. But I’ve never been so happy to see those waggy dogs.
So glad to hear your furkids are ok! I have two pitbulls, one is not allowed off leash…never, he was abused and suffers from fear aggression. We live in a somewhat rural setting, but we do have a few neighbors. As I was going to put the two dogs in the back of my SUV for their daily trip to the park, I had to move some stuff out of the back to make room for them. I loaded Milo into the back and told him to “wait”…he usually doesn’t get out until I tell him “ok”. I moved the stuff to behind the garage to burn. When I came back, Milo was not sitting where I left him. I think I stood there for a moment in shock. Thinking he went into the back yard, I ran into the yard calling him and scanning the yard and fields for him. I started to panic when I didn’t see him. Thinking the worst I ran up to the front of the house YELLING his name. I stopped and heard silence…which can be a good thing- I didn’t hear him fighting with the neighbor dog or hear any neighbors calling help because a pitbull was running loose terrorizing them. I almost started to cry thinking the worst was about to happen…As I was standing in the driveway I happened to glance at the Jeep….there was Milo sitting in the front seat curled up into a little ball looking sheepishly at me over the armrest because he knows he’s not supposed to be on my leather seats!! He didn’t come when I yelling his name because he probably thought he was in trouble.
I woke up one morning and as probably everyone has to do at that time, I stumbled into the bathroom still mostly asleep. I was instantly jolted wide awake with a nasty charge of terror at the sight of the bathtub covered with many bloody pawprints. I frantically grabbed my cat (who was quite indignant about being suddenly awakened in such a way) and looked her over to find…nothing. No horrible wound, no orifice leaking blood, nada. She was completely clean. I went back in the bathroom, very confused, and looked in the tub again. Off to one side was a disposable razor which I hadn’t noticed in my shock at seeing the bloody pawprints. Then it hit me, this cat loved playing in the tub with anything she could swat around. I looked her over again and found a teeny-tiny nick on one paw pad, which was already licked clean and dried up.
And that was the day a new, absolutely non-negotiable house rule was made: NO felines in the bathroom unattended!
I live with 3 corgi’s. I had recently acquired the third (a rescue cardigan) and left all three unattended in the house for a short time. Came home to find a compact disc that had been on a tall side table in a bunch of sharp, shiney little pieces on the floor. I immediately blamed the agility dog since she has no problem with climbing tall things and walking narrow ledges. She and the older dog who eats just about anything that falls went to the vet. After a full day of observation/x-rays, both were clear and came home. It just never occurred to me that the new guy would do such a thing.
Next day the cardigan started pooping glitter. I swear that dog has a gizzard. Not one bit was bigger than a speck.
I had a similar experience. While cleaning up the back yard I found a bright red pile of poo. I had a few minutes of panick until I remembered the dog ate the cardboard Coke box.
I had a cat that wedged itself behind a stove when I moved to a new place.. had to pull her out.
Same cat disappeared when I went to College for 2 weeks..I left her with my parents for the summer (had a place lined up for fall where I could keep her with me). My mom told me after they found her (10 miles away on my old front porch) that she had been missing.
Of course there was also the dog that got the emergency vet visit because she was left in my old boyfriend’s parent’s garage.. We asked if anything was out there that could hurt her.. they said.. no.. we put out poison.. so there won’t be any mice.. ARGHHH.. of course no poisoning.. but it was a 300 plus trip!
We learned the hard way. They hide. They do it just to amuse themselves, wasting your time as you run around frantically searching for the missing fluffmuffin, certain that it has become coyote bait (heinous visions come to mind). Of course we freak out. They live to give you an adrenalin rush and piss you off.
Now that we are seasoned cat owners, when we determine that one of the pride has “vanished” the first place we look is the lazy susan. Somehow it hadn’t dawned on us how exciting it is to crawl through endless boxes of ziploc bags, aluminum foil, wax paper, napkins, plastic silverware…., perhaps getting shut in there for hours-Wooohoo! The “horse room” (extra bedroom serving as overflow storage for show stuff, books, Nelson waterer parts, ribbons, etc) is also in high demand. Unexplored territory is always a tease, and there is plenty of fancy dark stuff to sleep on and turn into a disgusting hairball.
I had a mare with a slight mystery lameness one time. She was a tough old broad, bought her off of some “good ole boys” that had starved her down to a rack of bones and rode the piss out of her regularly on a gravel road. She never really limped, would just point her front right toe out. Vet checked her, no heat, no sensetivity to pressure, no other sign of a problem, no actual favoring the foot when moving, so we just watched it while she was gaining wieght again.
About 2 months later she had all her wieght back on and we were actually cutting her feed back because she was getting too big. Man she was an easy keeper! These guys must have been feeding her NOTHING for her to get in that shape. She always pointed that toe, but was never lame. I pestered the vets that were overseeing her care (I use a vet clinic with 5 vets and a surgical center, they are the best!) They always checked, never found anything. I pestered the farrier, a guy that I have used for 16 years and has done wonders with some very bad feet. He found nothing. I was driving these guys crazy.
When I started riding her she just felt off. No actual limping or favoring a foot. She just didn’t gait right, like she did in pasture. I was at a loss. No limping from her but I was certian something was wrong with that foot. But still no heat anywhere in the leg, no other signs of anything wrong, everything else pointed to her being perfectly healthy. All her vet exams and farrier visits went fine.
Finally one day I called the clinic and asked them to bring out the portable x-ray machine and requested the head vet at the clinic do the x-ray. By this point I had myself convinced there was something wrong with that foot and was not riding her. He brought the machine out and x-rayed the foot. Well guess what? This tough old mare had an abscess VERY close to the coffin bone! How she was moving on that foot and not favoring it I will never know. The vets were amazed and said she must be the toughest horse they had ever seen. Needless to say we drained the abscess and put her on antibiotics immediately. She made a full recovery and two weeks later she was gaiting down the trail faster than my speed racker. Man she was tough!
Now she is at a stable doing theraputic riding for autistic children. They say she is the toughest horse they have ever had. She is 16.2 hh, borderline too fat on grass hay and no grain and barefoot with never a foot problem. She will stand patiently and walk slowly all day for those kids like an old pro that knows her job, then go tear up a trail like a crazy horse when they take her out for a trail ride. I can’t help but think of how that infection could have crippled her and wonder why it didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t just take what everyone else told me at face value and listened to my gut. I guess sometimes it pays to be a little paranoid…
Our house at the time had a screened in patio and our two (2) cats had a pet door to go in and out freely. My husband and I went to see a movie one evening and when we returned, one of the cats was on the patio with his mouth wide open. At his feet was a recently (still alive) small frog that he appeared to have captured.
The cat’s mouth was stuck wide open and had begun scratching himself in the face with his front paw. We quickly got a flashlight to look into his mouth and couldn’t see anything wrong. We decided that possibly the frog was poisonous and we needed to get him to the vet.
Because it was late in the evening (11:00 p.m.), we had to drive across town (20 miles) to the only emergency animal clinic that was open. He was a very good cat on the ride over and during the two (2) hour wait to see the vet he sat patiently in my lap with his mouth wide open. We brought along the frog in a zip-lock bag (complete with air-holes) so the vet could see it.
Around 1:00 a.m., we got to see the vet. She looked at the frog and said it was not poisonous and had her assistant free the it outside. She continued to examine the cat and could not see anything wrong with his mouth. The vet was puzzled. Our next option was to sedate the cat and take x-rays.
$300 later and around 2:00 a.m., we found the cause of kitty-lock-jaw. He had chipped a molar and it was wedged in the back of his mouth.
The vet said if she ever wrote a text book she was going to include this story:-)
When I moved onto the ranch into a small trailer, I brought my 2 cats, one of whom I had recently found after being lost for a month. They were freaked and weren’t allowed out for the first week. I came home from a long day at work and the one cat was MISSING!! In a small travel trailer with closed windows!!!! I was looking for an hour, terified she had somehow gotten out and took off. She had crawled into the WALLS thru the closet. Should have seen my face when she appeared! POOF there she is with that wicked Siamese smirk.
2 incidents come to mind, first, i awoke to find blood-real blood- all over the carpet, kitchen and a pool of it in the living room! we had 3 dogs, one of which was ancient. i ran like a lunatic from dog to dog searching for what had to be a spurting artery. i actually became more fearful as i checked each one and found nothing, what had happened in my house? i checked my sleeping daughters. i searched and searched until i noticed one dog continuously returning to peek under my youngest daughter’s desk, peeking at the huge dead oppossum she had dragged in through the dog door! i guess after dear hubby had left and before the girls and i were up, said oppossum had dared to come into our yard and met the wrong dog. there was much action afterward, disposing of the carcass before 2 little girls got up for school, cleaning what i could and calling the carpet cleaners for an emergency clean-up. oh, did i mention we were moving and had the house on the market? what fun!
the other time my oldest daughter’s pet rat got loose and the whole family set off on a merry search for him. suddenly i spotted blood drops! they led to the daughter’s room. i rushed to look, found nothing but blood and resigned myself to break the news. tearfully i called them together and said what i feared. then we went to find and retreive his little body. well, we found his little body, hair up and nose twitching, very much alive. the blood? one of the dogs had found the rotten rodent, pushed a bit too hard and got nailed on the nose. to this day(10 years later) that dog steers clear of anything even resembling a rat or mouse.
My dog brought a not fully grown possum into the house once, only it was still alive. I’m not usually squeamish, I swear, but when the dog dropped the possum on my living room floor and it popped up and started running I just about screamed my head off. My husband was of course out of town that week and I was on the phone with him when it happened. He told me to just pick the possum up by the tail and toss him out. He said, “trust me, it will play dead.” At first I was like no way but at midnight when I couldn’t get any one to come over and help me I donned rubber dish washing gloves that went up to my elbow and approached the possum. Sure enough it did play dead and holy cow do they look dead. I cautiously picked it up by the tail and put it outside where it ran off.
There are very few living things on my list of things that really creep me out, and possums are one of them. Great visual of the gloving up, fighting back laughter at my desk!!
About 9 years ago I rescued a dog from the SPCA. She broke my heart when I saw her. You could count every bone in her body so we took her home. We also had another dog at home. One day I came home from work and found a bottle of Children’s Motrin (that was brand new) chewed up and all of the motrin was gone. One of the dogs climbed up onto my dining room table to get it. I didnt know which one drank it because they were both acting fine. I called my vet and they told me to induce vomiting on both of them immediately. So I induced the vomiting and locked both of them in my kitchen. By morning I found that my rescue was vomiting up blood. I had only had her for a week. So I called the vet – it was 7 am their answering service told me to call some animal hospital. By the time I got ahold of the hospital (who was telling me they needed $400.00 just to walk through the door!) I realized that in the time it would take me to get to them my vet would be open. So I loaded her into the car and took her in. She was pretty sick for a while, cost me a ton in vet bills but she is fine!
Yes, kitties can open cupboards and closets! My Balinese gets into everything! I once thought I had lost one of the barn kitties only to find out the little imp had gotten into the Pump house, where it is warm and we keep the hoses.
I did have a very real scare many years ago. My first Australian Cattle Dog had swallowed a golf ball, unbeknownst to me or the vet. Many tests later, they finally xrayed my normally energetic dog, who had become very lethargic and seemed to be fading before my eyes, to find the golf ball lodged in his intestinal tract. After surgery and a couple days stay, he was back to his normal happy self. BIG SCARE and I learned no more golf balls EVER!!
These days, since I am an outspoken advocate for proper animal care, I worry about my horses being in their outdoor paddocks, 30 feet off the road behind a double fence line. People are scary! Animals are not so scary!
Carrie Giannandrea
Dances with Horses
Formula One Farms
my 3 year old pointer jumped out of a 18′ hay loft landing on concrete and a drain grate. Broke his femur in 3 places, had to take him to Pilchuck vet (super expensive, if you don’t know its one of the biggest vet clinics for horses and smaller animals in the NW) anyways, upwards of $10k later, we finally got him stabalized, the pins they put in to set the femur back ruptured the femoral artery multiple times
about a week after we got him back home, he started throwing up every time he drank water or ate anything, and he would scream in pain when he got up to move. we took him back to pilchuck for another week, running blood tests and x-rays… nothing showed up out of the ordinary. my dad finally asked to see the x-rays, and noticed there was a round shadow in his abdomin. they took him into emergency surgery to see what it was, and pulled out a 3.5″ superball. (they even gave it back to us lol)
He is 6 years old now, fat and happy as could be!
I went out to the barn one day b/c the farrier was coming out, so I went straight to the paddock. When I got to the gate I realized it was wide open! I had forgotten to latch it that morning when I had fed Kahlua! AHG! And she was not in the field! I called for her and looked around, then I walked around the barn and there she was, munching on some very green grass! She was so proud of herself for getting to that grass! Needless to say, she was just fine, but I on the other hand have never forgotten to latch the gate again!!
My cat is a special needs cat. She is completely deaf, among other things and has lived her entire 4+ years with us in our house. We had a visitor and she was gone. We searched and searched everywhere she ever hides and could not find her. I was in tears because I know if she gets out that if being out doesn’t scare her to death, something will kill her.
My daughter and I found her lodged into a crevice in items that were stored behind the couch. The only way we found her was that the flashlight caught her eyes. Since then she has found many more unlikely places to hide – it is amazing where cats can squeeze into.
A few weeks ago, my white horse came in from the field with faint blood streaks ALL OVER his right side. After freaking out a little, I realized there wasn’t a mark on him, so it couldn’t have been his. Checked the other horses in the field, no one is bleeding. Hm. My friend arrives, I tell her the mystery, so she goes out to check the other horses again. And comes back in the barn with a TOOTH! Turns out the 4-year-old had a loose baby tooth, and was rubbing his mouth all over my horse to try to get it out…
LOL! Thank God it was only soda!
I’m sure I have lots of similar stories, but the only one that popped into mind when I was reading this:
One evening I was sitting on the sofa watching t.v. when I heard the tiniest little “mewl” from a kitten. We only had neutered/spayed older cats, and feeling certain that one of the kids had brought something home, I immediately jump up and yell “all right, who brought a kitten home?!?!” and start looking around to find the baby kitten who sounds like its in distress. All the kids give me the “deer in the headlights” look, as if they know nothing. Yeah, right!
I kept looking and looking, trying desperately to find the baby kitten when I happened to pass by our cockatiels cage right as he let out the softest, tiniest little “mewl” sound. Then I realized what happened. We thought it would be funny to teach the bird to meow like a cat. So we had been saying “meow”, “meow” in a regular voice to him over the past several days. His mimic of the word sounds remarkably like a baby kitten crying. Even now, years later, he’ll “mewl” every now and then and it catches me off guard for a moment.
I got a million of those stories… There was the ime the cat was missing , durring a huge snow storm. normally OK but this is a Devon Rex in the Swiss Alps ( no hair) Naturally I freaked, was everywhere with a flashligt looking for this cat.I went in peoples yards, under cars , in stalls, calling out his name , and freezing cold. I went back to the house to get socks and found him sleeping in with my socks. Usually when I find anything that looks like blood , it usually is blood, unfortunatly.I do have a chihuahua that I lost in our Hotel I went up to the top floor to check on a room, she wanted to stay in the lift and wait for me so I left her in there . As soon as I turned the corner down went the lift with her inside, it stopped , then went again, stopped , and went again. By the time I got the elevator back to the 5 th floor where I was , she was gone. I did eventually find her in the lobby about 1/2 hour later. Another time I was checking a room that I thought was empty. When I opened the door , my chihuahua ran in the room and jumped on the bed, as my eyes followed Kirby the chihuahua ,I noticed a man sleeping in the bed , he sat up half naked looked at the dog in a bewildered way then over at me ..I will never forget the look on this mans face. Fortunatly the dog was well trained and ran out when I called him, we shut and locked the door before he could say a word.
I’m pretty sure that I freak out on a daily basis over Denali. She was treated for EPM in October/November and in December the Vet said that she looked good and we stopped the medication. (Which was VERY expensive, but well worth it!! If you ever need it I got it through an online pharmacy and it was only 700 versus 1000 through the vet. I was also able to buy individual tubes of meds, instead of two packs of 4.)
Anyway, the vet said that she could re-laps and that has me freaked out. A week ago she made a funny move with her hind end, and yesterday she was doing really funky thinks with her leg. It ended up looking like she pulled a muscle trotting over ground poles. I at least keep telling myself that!!
I know that this has turned into a VERY off topic subject, but I do wonder if anyone else has treated a horse for EPM and ended up needing to treat a horse again.
I’m having the Chiropractor out on Saturday to work on her back. She’s gained a ton of muscle since she finished the meds and I’m hoping that she is just sore.
All honesty though…. I freak out daily!! It’s a horrible feeling and I wish that I could get over it!
Who came up with the saying “Healthy as a horse” because that’s a bunch of bull!!
http://www.wildponybeast.blogspot.com
Denali said:
“Who came up with the saying “Healthy as a horse†because that’s a bunch of bull!!”
Probably the same person that came up with “Sleeping Like a Baby!” What? Like waking up every two hours and screaming?
HA HA HA. So true!
OMG you’re killing me here! Too funny!
Gosh, my mother in law does this all the time with her indoor only cats. She freaks out, going out into the yard yelling for the cats, calling us to come over and find it. Usually its asleep in the closet or in a box. In the 15 years I’ve known her there was only one time the cat got out.
One other time I heard a puppy whining and barking, turned out is was Bogey, her blind & deaf 18 yr old pug, walking in circles out in the tall grass. She didnt even know he was missing yet when I found him.
I was probably 10 or 11 yrs old when this happened. My parents weren’t home and our nearest neighbors were miles away. I went out to get my Morab gelding for a ride (ignoring rules of never ride alone and never when parents are gone) Once he was saddled up, we took off for the miles of trails in the woods across from our house. Usually pretty calm and dependable, this time the gelding was being a pain. He didn’t want to leave the yard, didn’t want to cross the road, maybe he knew that we weren’t supposed to be out riding.
Out of nowhere, a stray dog popped up out in front of us on the trail, and my gelding did the famous duck, dodge, spin and bolt. Of course I was sitting mid air while he was halfway home before I really knew what was going on. The dog was friendly, didn’t mean no harm, so off I went to catch my gelding. He’d made a beeline right for the feed shed and was happy as a clam eating the hay in the hay cart. As I get closer to him, I notice his front legs are covered in red. All I could think was he had fallen when he hit the road and had cut himself up. He wasn’t going to let me catch him to let me look, so I go inside and call the vet out to come doctor him up.
After a merry chase of “No, I’m free, can’t catch me” made even worse by the sight of the vet’s truck pulling in, I finally got him caught and lead over to the vet. Our vet took one look, ran his finger down the geldings leg and tells me it’s not blood, it’s motor oil. Had I looked, I would have noticed he knocked over a bucket of used oil in my dad’s shop on his way to the feed shed. It had splashed up and stuck, coverring his white socks.
About that time my parents pull in, see the vet, see the horse saddled and knew what I had done. I was grounded for a month, couldn’t swing leg over leather and had to spend every saturday & sunday of that month working at the vet’s cleaning kennels & stalls to work off my bill.
My cat McGee figured out pretty fast how to use the dog door, and he loved spending time in the hay barn. I’d call and call but no McGee, so I’d head outside with the flashlight and search for the pair of googly eyes (the Geico “Somebody’s Watching You” commercials always remind me of how McGee’s eyes shown in the dark hay barn ;o)
My dogs knew McGee did not belong outside, so they’d chase him back to the house. It became a game after awhile, and all I would have to say was, “Where’s McGee?” and the dogs would take off running to the barn.
My redhead cat, Mollie Jean, wasn’t one to come when she was called. She would sit quietly wherever she was and let me search and search for her. When I moved here, she got out (I thought) and I went to the empty field where everything seemed to be “cat colored.” She was in the house the entire time, under one of the beds. I think she enjoyed the fact that her “mother” was “on a mission” and all the frantic activity amused her. ;o)
my first horse was a Morgan colt, who had a wonderful sense of humour!
on one of those really nice warm early summer days (after a looong cold spring/winter) I went to the barn to work him
he was nowhere in sight in the pasture, checked with the barn owner, ‘nope, he’s not in the barn, he’s out there’….
So I went back to look for him….. found him stretched out flat amongst the daisies, completely motionless……….. Terrified, I ran up to him….. he raised his head, with a really dopey look on his face. ‘watch’a want? I’m sleepin’………………’
When I was in college I got a panicked phone call from my old room mate, Jen. She couldn’t find one of her cats and would I come over and help her search the neighborhood and hang up posters. So I come over right away and for at least two hours or so she and I scoured the neighborhood calling for the cat and hanging up the posters she’d made (at least twenty of them.) Finally she realized that there was nothing more to be done so we went back to her apartment and sat down on the couch. (At this point she is exhausted from crying and worrying.) We were sitting there when we heard this very soft, “meow?” It was “said” with a question I swear and it was coming from the couch. It took us about thirty seconds to realize the cat had been under the recliner when Jen had closed it and was stuck in the couch. We laughed about it and breathed a sigh of relief and Jen promised to always check in the couch before she called me again to come help search for a cat.
A couple of years later after I was married my mother-in-law called my husband and I around 10PM. Her dog (which my husband and I had given to her and her husband after they had watched him for a summer and fell in love with him) was missing, Her husband, who is an alcoholic had lost him while she was out. We, of course, went over to help her search. They have a creek that runs through their backyard and goes for miles so my husband starts walking the creek, while my mother-in-law and I drive around the neighborhood. (Her husband went to bed.) We searched for a good two hours at which point my husband and I decided to give up b/c it was dark and he was soaking wet from the knees down. My mother-in-law kept looking, driving around the neighborhood for hours. We got another phone call at 4AM, she had found the dog, he had gotten locked in the bathroom. Basically, the dog had followed her husband into the bathroom and he was so drunk he didn’t realize it and he ended up shutting the dog in the bathroom. My mother-in-law just took her husband’s word that the dog was missing so she never thought to look in the house. She literally had made herself sick with worry, throwing up and everything. At the time I didn’t quite understand. Don’t get me wrong I loved the dog too but she was in full out panic mode. A while later she finally confessed that she thought the dog was a “test” and if she failed we would never let her watch our kids. I suppose in a way she was right. Of course she is always welcome to watch our kids, she is an excellent grandmother. The kids are just never allowed to be left alone with her husband.
First of all fugs, stop drinking that shit, it’s really bad for you. I got my first cat when I was 18 and living in a dive basement apt. with college friends. After I released my beautiful long haired calico girl, she disapeared, I didn’t see her for 3 days, I thought she had gotten out and was gone. Then, here she came through a floor level shelf unit from the utility room behind my bedroom. Then she disappeared again. For days. Then, about 6 of my ceiling tiles fell down upon my head and there she was, hanging by a 2×4 holding on for dear life, she had been in the ceiling. Dumb cat. I was cleaning a lady’s barn in Woodinville, and I heard my dog barking like crazy, I went out, looked around couldn’t see her, but I knew from the tone of her bark, it was pretty serious stuff, so I went looking, the bark got quieter. I knew she wasn’t in the barn, nor around the barn, finally I heard her again, looked up and she was on the roof of the barn, barking at a cat! I could have killed her! Silly dog!!
I hardly ever drink, I don’t do drugs, I don’t eat meat but dammit NO ONE is taking my caffeinated diet drinks away from me. I looove my cherry Diet Dr. Pepper and cherry Coke Zero and will continue to swill ‘em down in large quantities.
(Don’t worry, I won’t be writing a health blog!)
I’m right there with ya on that! Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper is super yum! An I will NEVER exist without it happily. I too, have hardly any vices….but that is the best soda ever!
One of our sales horses walked into his stall from his paddock with an abscess on his chin, hanging his head down… we immediately called the vet who came out, and who said it might be strangles. 10 days of isolation later, the tests all came back negative… apparently he just hit his chin on something being an idiot with the horse next to him.
I had a cat that would open the cupboard doors, and over the years he has taught my other cats how as well. There have been may times I’ve gone looking for cats, and have looked in the same seemingly empty cabinet or closet repeatedly, only to see them calmly walk out when they’re good and ready.
Recently I was helping a friend move, and while she was visiting relatives out of state I brought her kitties to her new house. I stayed with them for a bit, and when they seemed settled I went home to care for my own animals. I stopped by the next day to check on them, and while the two 6 month kittens came to greet me, Mama was no where in sight. I searched for two hours, even looking in tiny holes that she might have been able to squeeze through in a panic, but there was no sign. I was near tears when I checked the master bedroom for the umpteenth time and saw a little pink nose poking out from underneath an endtable. I didn’t even look there, as there was maybe 1/2 inch clearance. She really flattened herself to get under there!
Last year I hurt my back really, really bad and could only literally crawl outside to feed and check on my horses (who were fortunately practically in my backyard and I could often see them from my house). I went out one morning to find my yearling filly swollen all along her belly with edema that rivaled any pregnant mare I’ve ever had. I paniced because she had a small hernia and she had been badly malnurished when I got her, so, thinking that her whole abdominal wall had given way, I called my vet who was of course out of town. I then called the local vet who immediately came out.
I was in such a state of panic. I couldn’t check her myself because I couldn’t get around well enough to feel around on her belly. I kept wondering how in the world I was going to drive her to the university for surgery when I couldn’t even walk! I dreaded having to put her down, thinking there was just nothing else I could do if that’s indeed what had happened. My thoughts raced while I waited for the vet to arrive: Why hadn’t I had the hernia fixed regardless of what the vet said (he had told me it was small enough to wait)? Why hadn’t I seen any sign of this happening earlier? Why was she so perky if her guts had fallen out?! (LOL)
Well, the vet checked her out and she was perfectly fine–she had just gotten kicked pretty badly, but otherwise she was just fine. I felt pretty foolish but even while I wrote the $60 check to the vet for pretty much nothing, I was so thankful she was ok I really didn’t care about how irrational I had been. She’s still perfectly fine, hernia is healed and that edema was completely gone within a week. I still say I’d rather spend $60 on nothing than to have to put down a horse anyday!!
As I’ve probably stated before, we’re in the process of moving. I had packed some boxes and put them in my closet to store them. Not two seconds later my cat, Sabbath, thinks the boxes are a nice place to climb. So, I take her back down and close the door. There wasn’t anything really dangerous in there, but I was still concerned (paranoid much? xD). Well, I took care of a few things here and there and, after a few hours, realized that Sabbath was missing. I asked my mother if she had seen her, asked my brother, checked her usual hiding places, and checked other places she could potentially hide in. My mother recalled hearing the door make noise like it had opened, so we assumed the worst; Sabbath had left. We went to the library and noticed a black cat running across the road, so we stopped to see if it was our cat. Nope. Too big and way too feral.
I go to bed at ten that night, close my door, and think about how much I already miss my cat. Around two in the morning, I hear shuffling. Now, I have a Yorkshire Terrier whose ancient and sleeps when I sleep…plus she was right next to me when I woke up. What the crap was that? Just to check, I tap my fingers against the metal frame of my bed and I feel soft fur and whiskers. Sabbath! Where had she been all this time? I later found her collar (its a quick-release collar, so if she gets stuck, it comes right off) in the back of my closet. Apparently I had gotten into my closet and left the door open, allowing the cat to get in. I don’t know if she had been stuck or had stayed in there because its quiet. I was so relieved to have found her.
By the way, Sabbath is a cat that was found under my car in below zero weather, shivering and crying. She was on the thinner side, loved to get my attention, playful, surprisingly well trained, and quite young (the vet said five months). She’s really skittish, gets scared quite easily; my mother thinks she may have come from a hostile home with the way she acts. No one came to claim her or came looking for her, so we decided to keep her. As for my little Yorkie, she was abandoned with her siblings and her mother in similar weather conditions at one of the mills’ parking lots.
We had a kitten that disappeared for an hour. We were so sure he was in the house somewhere. He was one of those that never wanted to go outside. Then we heard some muffled mews. He was in the refrigerator.
Amusing aside: a friend’s kids had a very old hamster. They convinced the kids that it time for old fluffy to go. They assured the kids that the best way to escort the hamster to the Big Wheel In The Sky was to put him in the freezer overnight. They put him in a bag and shut him in the freezer. Next morning, they opened the freezer, and the hamster was eating frozen corn and feelin’ fine.
FYI: Freezer euthanasia – very illegal. Ask Petco, they got in a shit-ton of trouble for thinking that was an ok way to deal with ailing critters that needed to be sent to that big Habitrail in the sky.
I hope they let the hamster live after that!
I certainly wouldn’t want to freeze to death – I HATE being cold! Good grief!
Yes, freezer euthanasia is really bad for warmblooded animals and reptile and amphibians. The only animals for which it is humane are smaller fish and bugs (I worked with endangered butterflies at a zoo once, that’s how we euthed them when they started going down hill). It’s especially bad for reptiles because while they do go into a torpor they don’t go unconscious, meaning they are still aware when they start to freeze solid. The same with amphibians, although some species can freeze solid and come back to live after defrosting!
With small animals if you don’t want to pay for the shot cranial-spinal dislocation is best, or the old pillow sack method (put them in a sack and whack them against a hard surface as hard as possible). If done properly death is instantaneous. The problem is some people hesitate, especially if it’s a pet, and end up hurting the animal rather then killing it. I’ve killed many wild mice and some birds that way (non-natives in Hawaii that were sick with something, probably avian malaria or avian pox), but I would never euth a pet myself like that because I’m sure I would hesitate.
I generally lurk, but this is too good to not share:
Several years ago, while I was away at college and my dad was on a business trip, my mom and brother could not for the life of them find one of our cats for 3 days, 2 nights. They could hear her meowing (seemingly from nowhere in particular–the heating ducts carry sound far from the source) and searched every room over and over and thought she must have gotten stuck up in the attic (we were having a skylight put in at the time). Finally someone distinctly heard her in the guest room and figured out she’d jumped up onto, and down behind, a tall, narrow wardrobe that had been put at an angle in a corner! (Weirdly enough, they found no sign of her having relieved herself while back there…)
Of course, now we know not to place furniture in such a way that could trap a curious cat. (Well, mostly her, she likes to explore any small space including: vehicles, like the backs of workmen’s vans; neighbors’ garages; crawl spaces (especially when pest control is visiting!))
I just about died~ last fall when I was freeschooling a little quarter horse mare. She was cantering about, merry as can be, when for quite frankly no reason she tripped and fell on her head~ and rolled over and was just lying there for several moments. My friend and I went running over to her with hearts beating faster than a barn mouse when she rose and trotted off with her tail in the air. Literally did not have a scratch on her. I’ve never seen a more potentially disastrous little tumble, though–she literally went right down on her head.
[FHOTD in: Holy crap, find out her HYPP status - that sounds like a textbook HYPP attack. She could have just tripped but if she isn't tested, test her before someone gets seriously hurt.]
That was instantly what I thought; she had been tested previously though and we know she doesn’t have or carry it, thank God!
The woman who owned the house next to my pony’s field phoned up: “I think you need to get here QUICKLY! There’s something wrong with Blue! He’s unconscious or he’s collapsed or something, I’ve called his name but he doesn’t move…”
Race down there to find… very lazy pony, sprawled out sunbathing. And he didn’t move when I called his name, either, but he got to his feet in record time after I rustled the treats bag in my pocket!
OH I have a really funny one!! My mom who was just remarried moved to California from Pennsylvania with her two Aussies in tow to begin her new life with her new husband…she came back to PA for a visit about a 6 months later, leaving hubby at home in Calif. to watch over the dogs. The 14 yr old, blind and deaf Aussie managed to get out of the house and wander away ON THE DAY my mom was to fly back to CA…dear husband looked and looked and looked, but didn’t want to worry my mom in PA so he didn’t tell her yet, figuring he could find the dog before he was to pick her up at the airport, he couldn’t find the dog. He picked her up at the airport and was trying to get the courage to tell her he lost her precious doggie when my mom recieved a phone call ….from a neighbor down the street who found the dog in her back yard and called the phone number on the tag……My mom looked at her dear husband and said “why does this woman on the phone have my Gracie??” Boy did he have some explaining to do!! There are still happily married and Gracie lived to be 17 years old!! Beloved Grayson was born in North Carolina with me, moved back via car to PA with me when she was 4 months old, then moved to Calif. via car when she was 14 with my mom. That dog had seen almost the whole country!!
They always seem to be able to scare the crap out of you and it be nothing!
First I had an older Arabian mare who was always moving! Always. The barn where I boarded had an indoor arena and they had taken round pen panels and made two round pens that can be taken down and put up against the wall. Anyways I had been busy cleaning stalls and she was out in one of round pens, I walked through the arena and she is laying down with her front feet under the panels and her back feet THROUGH the panels! Im panicking because she is just laying there like nothing happened. I undo the panels and move them she raises her head, sees her feet are free, stands up, nickers, and takes off running. I was relieved but irritated I was sure she was going to be hurt
The other was I had a 2 1/2 year old gelding that I had bought about 2 months prior. So during really bad weather I would let him out in the indoor arena while I was cleaning his stall. And he would run and act like an idiot and then he would roll right next to the wall and get cast. Well the first time I heard him thumping around and my first thought is “OH NO hes cast!” I run to the arena and sure enough he’s cast, just as I’m about to go screaming for help (I was 12) I see him start wiggling (he’s acting very calm mind you) He scoots and wiggles until he can get his feet flat against the wall with his legs bent. He gives a thrust from his legs and the rolls back over, stands up, bucks and takes off running! Im standing there slack jawed and the BO (whose house was PART of the barn) walks up and says ” Yeah his first night hear I heard thumping so I came out found him cast and was just about to call when I saw him do that and get back up” He did that and every time he would get himself un-cast.
Then their was another time with that same gelding. We were working on showmanship and he decided to try and bite me so I elbowed him in the mouth. Not 30 seconds later I turn around and he’s bleeding. Im freaking thinking ive killed my horse! So I open his mouth and first I see one of his teeth are missing (then im thinking GREAT I knocked a tooth out) and then a tooth falls out into my hand. I put him away and asked someone and she told me he was losing baby teeth. Figures lol
Haha, that reminds me of the first time I taught a puppy class. The puppies were playing afterward and suddenly one of them was covered in blood. We check the bloody one over carefully, but couldn’t find anything wrong. So we checked tho mouth of the puppy the first one had been wrestling with, and you guessed it, she had lost a tooth.
LMAO. OMG Fugly my dog scared me half to death the other day. We had the door cracked and I kept calling my dogs name trying to find him. We started freaking out because we live next to a very busy road and thought he had snuck out the door. We ran downstairs searching all around the apartment with no avail. We went back upstairs and started searching the house. We live a small one bedroom apartment, and the dog is a pit, so he shouldn’t be hard to find. So we thought, at least. We searched all the rooms and finally found him on the bed under all of the blankets. We didn’t even check their because normally he lays on top of the blankets. He had apparently gotten on the bed and burrowed his way under the covers and just ignored our calls. Silly dog.
Haha… this isnt really the same, but, my dog does this thing called “reverse sneezing” which is apparently harmless. Except, the first few times he did it I was convinced he was DYING. It’s this awful sucking in sound that sounds like he cant breath or that he’s chocking on his own spit, and it can last for serveral mins. I literally almost gave him mouth to mouth the first time he did it for an extended period of time, but I couldnt figure out how to keep the air flow going to his lungs since he doesnt have cheeks, but I DID put my hand down his throught trying to fish out the “object” he was choking on!
The dog doesnt seem to mind though.
Toy breeds and brachycephalic dogs are most prone to reverse sneezing. It can be uncomfortable for the dog, not to mention alarming for the owner.
You can help the dog get out of a fit of reverse sneezing by gently covering his nose and blowing on the front of the muzzle to stimulate a swallow. Once the dog swallows, the reverse sneezing fit stops. Dogs that have a lot of reverse sneezing will often get to the point where they come to their owner to get help stopping the fit.
I was watching my Appy mare out the window and saw her rubbing her belly on the ground. Convinced she was colicking, I panicked, grabbed my coat started putting it on, when my husband stopped me and said, she always does that, she’s just scratching her belly. I fel like a real idiot.
My Arab scratches her belly like that. Seizure? Colic? In any case, a huge vet bill. It only took a minute to figure out she wasn’t in danger but that minute was a lifetime. Here I am near to collapsed on the ground in relief, and she gets up, passes gas, and walks off. She is a funny girl.
We moved a lot when I was younger, & one time my Siamese Manx cat, Maynard, had had enough. We lost him for 3 days, & being very young I was near tears for most of those days. My beloved cat was eated or gone! Unfortunately, Maynard has kitty asthma, induced by anxiety. We eventually followed his coughing to underneath the new shower in my parent’s room, which had a small crawl space under it. Silly cat had gotten himself stuck…We got him out & cleaned up the spider webs off him, & for awhile he got to wear a cat bell!
So this incident happened in September.
I came home from school and my dog came and greeted me in the back yard. So I come up the stairs on my padio and my dog runs ahead. That’s when I notice an area that looks like blood. I run in, have a freak out to dad who sits in the chair trying to keep the smile off his face. I get mad at him as I’m checking the dog over. The same thing happens when my brother comes home. Mom had been painting the kitchen and the paint brushs and stuff had been moved down stairs. They were in an area where the dog doesn’t go and really, the paint shouldn’t have been wet but it just so happens it was wet enough to die a red(apparently orange and yellow make red) spot on my dogs white yellow fur. It was just our luck that she had a vet appointment that day so when we brang her down to the vets office the vet had to check it out also, giving us a dirty look when she discover it because we hadn’t mentioned anything about it.
When I was eight my cat had kittens. We kept her and her litter in my room. One day I was cleaning my room. The kittens were old enough to leave their basket and wander. I got out the vaccum and carefully vaccumed my floor. When I finished I went to play with the kittens. That’s when I realized that one of them was missing! I searched frantically high and low for that kitten for an hour. There was no way she could have gotten out of that room. Crying I got my parents and told them I vaccumed up a kitten. They came to my room looked around and then looked at me funny as the elusive kitten came out of nowhere and looked at me innocently. Syill have no idea where she was hidingf but she damn near gave me a heartatack.
It was about a month ago. I arrived at my grandparents house and went to check to see how much water my horses had. They were low so I was turning around to go get the hose and I look at my horses under their run-in. My 2yo TB Magic was laying down but he was buried in the hay. I immediately thought he was dead. I freaked out and ran into the run in. Surprisingly, the other 2 horses just looked at me heads cocked with a “are you sure you are okay?” look on their face. Magic continued to lay there freaking me out even more. I looked down at him and looking for a sign of life, like his stomach moving from breathing. I couldn’t really see that but when I looked at his face, he blinked his eye at me. I felt better knowing that he was just pretending to play dead and not actually dead. The reason he had hay on him was because the QMB (Queen Mega Bitch) threw the hay on him. After I had established that he was not dead and just a tired horsey, I went to my car, grabbed my cell phone and took some pics so I could show a friend how silly my horse was.
My father’s Thoroughbred, Jake, gave me quite the scare last weekend when I was “horse-sitting”. He’s an older guy, about 18 years old now. He was lying flat out on his side, but with his head twisted the wrong way. I thought “OH MY GOD HE’S BROKEN HIS NECK!!!”, I couldn’t see him breathing and he wasn’t moving. I had been watching him through the window, so I threw on my boots and rushed out to check on him. I was saying “Jake…Jake…JAAAKEEEE!!!!!!!” the entire way to the pasture (about 100 ft from the side door), and nothing, no response from Jake. So then I open the gate, he was about 10 ft from the gate, and nothing, not even an ear twitch, by this point I am fighting back tears and starting to panic…so I finally get within reaching distance, I reach out and touch him on the withers and say “Jake?” softly, and he EXPLODED! He jumped up and stood there looking around, then he pinned his ears at me and walked off all perturbed that I messed up his mid-day snooze, HAH! The old bugger scared the hell outta me!!!
My normally vocal kitty spent four hours in the back of the kitchen junk drawer, playing quietly with the cheese grater. I was looking for him all over the neighborhood.
Ah, runaway pets… In college, many of us had illegal dorm pets. One of the students in my dorm kept a large python, who one day escaped into the ductwork. Of course, the student could not report the missing snake for fear of getting in trouble. The snake seemed to do just fine, though — for many months afterwards we would occasionally hear the scamper of little mouse feet through the pipes, followed by the quiet slither of a snake. Not joking!
My worst escape story involved our pet dove, Doodles. My husband loved that bird more than he loved me, I swear. She had the habit of sitting on our heads and riding around the house. So when she disappeared one evening, my husband instantly blamed me, stating she must have been on my head when I stepped outside and then she flew to freedom. I kept insisting that there was no way I could miss a reasonably large bird with sharp claws sitting on my head, but he refused to believe she could be in the house. Until the next day, when we heard a faint coo from behind the entertainment center. Turned out she had been perched on a picture frame on the top of the entertainment center, the frame had tipped over and she had fallen between the furniture and the wall, and she had been unable to stretch her wings and fly 8 feet straight up to escape!
“The snake seemed to do just fine, though — for many months afterwards we would occasionally hear the scamper of little mouse feet through the pipes, followed by the quiet slither of a snake. Not joking!”
Oh my word. I’m not usually scared of snakes, but I’m not sure if I could stay in that dorm…
Y’all have much better stories than I do. The best I’ve got is the time our rocks-for-brains very small cat decided to chase three fully grown raccoons off the back porch. I’ve heard many warnings to keep all pets – even large dogs – away from raccoons as apparently they can do a lot of damage (not to mention infections, etc). I thought we’d seen the last of her, but little rocks-for-brains was back in about fifteen minutes, and we didn’t see the raccoons again that month. I’ve never seen anything quite so pissed off as she was.
That same cat used to lay in the middle of the street – nothing like warm pavement for sunbathing, I guess. She’d lay there and dare cars to drive around her. Then she abruptly started running for cover whenever a car turned onto our street, or when one was started. We can only assume she had a very close call!
My yearling filly was an orphan foal and I have had her since the day she was born. One morning, I went out to the farm to see her, and she wasn’t in her paddock. I checked the shed, and her pasture buddy was there, but Kennedy was not. I was panicking. I noticed the back gate was open and I knew she had escaped so I started searching the barn yard. Long story short, I found my darling filly in the hay stall, standing knee deep in hay, with the most innocent look of “what?” on her face. Since then, she has discovered she can escape almost everything. Her favorite pastimes is breaking fence boards, and she has even learned how to remove the gate off of its hinges. Thankfully, she doesn’t go far, and the barn yard in enclosed (for all the good that would do us if she really wanted to escape), but every once in a while, she will break out of her paddock, just to prove she can. I should have named her Houdini!
Some years ago, after living in apartments for some time, we had the chance to lease a home near the ocean. We were thrilled with the appearance of the exterior..the interior needed work, but we bargained with the owner and were willing to paint and spackle, no big deal…All fine, until we went into the basement, house of horrors, loaded with spiders, hybrid/daddy longlegs, icky black big spiders!~ So, Hubby and I bought bug bombs..we bombed the basement, taping off all vents into the upstairs. We set off the bombs, 6 of them, wearing respirators, ran upstairs. O.K. where is the indoor cat? Ran all over the house, up and down the street calling her name, nothing..O.K. hubby and I took turns running through the basement, wearing respirators, me in tears, no little gray cat… nothing….Hubby started to methodically check upstairs, and of course, there’s Kitty in an open China Cabinet, behind some plates, curled up and fast asleep…Gah…
We have three barn cats: Uh-Oh, his brother Wow and a little one we call Stripe. (We got Uh-Oh and Wow when my son was quite small and his first words were “Uh-Oh” and “Wow”.) The two brother cats are identical except that Uh-Oh has a white spot on his chest and Wow is solid black except for one whisker. The two of them have been here for seven years so they are smart enough to come home for breakfast and dinner, but it is not unusual for them to still be out hunting for a meal.
Two weeks had passed and I had not seen Wow at any feedings. I finally asked my husband if he had seen Wow, but he had not. A week later, I told my son that Wow was gone. The two of us shed a few tears before turning to what could have happened to him. We didn’t think he had been hit by a car because there was no body to be found. I suspected he got a little too close to some coyotes. But what we finally decided was that someone saw him and thought, “Wow! What a nice cat!” and took him home with them. We both knew he was dead, but it made the grief a little easier with this story.
One week later, I was on the phone talking to a friend while my husband went out to feed the ponies. Sudddenly he was at the door with a cat in his hand. Jeff LOVES his barn cats and picks them up on a regular basis, but the only reason he brings one in the house is if it is hurt. So I looked up and asked what was wrong with the cat. Jeff just smiled to me and lifted up the kitty’s chin revealing NO white spot. Wow was home!
We have no idea what happened to him. He was a little thinner than when he vanished, but did not look like he had been injured. We suspect he may have gotten in/on someone’s vehicle and jumped off as soon as he could. He must have been pretty far away because he took a whole month to get back home.
Since his return, Wow has not missed a single meal time!
Oh, Sorry, another funny short story, same cat. I had moved into a new townhouse, and of course kitty managed to get into the basement and find her way out, I went all over, calling her name. Went out into the backyard, an old dead tree with an opening, it was a dark hole, but saw two yellow eyes, yes I was desperate, I reached in and grabbed for it, came out with a large gray, pissed, spitting, and howling tom cat! A neighbor found my cat, at her door, several hours later.. Moral of this story…Don’t ever reach for anything that you can not see!!!..he hacked up my arms, definitely, my fault though…
We had one time when we were coming home from vacation and we found a cat on the side of the road that had been hit by a car not too long before. She looked almost EXACTLY like one of our cats, Bandit. We were all distraught thinking we’d lost him. After dark that night Bandit came in through the open door yowling to be fed and completely oblivious to why we were fawning all over him.
There was another time that my mom’s favorite cat disappeared for like a week. Normally she doesn’t leave the house for a few minutes. She figured that she’d been hit my a car or a coyote got her. I just figured she’d come home when she wanted to. Mom used to go wandering all over the woods looking for her, but sure enough she just turned up again one night.
If I could count the things my Akita has gotten into over the years… his intake of chocolate and caffeine alone would probably have finished off a smaller dog.
A partial list:
A whole batch of brownies.
A spoonful of peanut-butter… and the plastic spoon. (Crunchy!)
He was quite a wizard at stealing coffee for a while. We got pretty good at remembering to remove any such tempting liquids from places where he could get into them unsupervised, until one winter night we got a flat (and then our spare was flat, because we’re lucky like that) and had to get our jeep towed with him in it and I’m looking out the back window of the tow truck, seeing him make his way up out of the trunk area, into the front seat, ignoring an entire package of Oreos that I’d stupidly left within reach, so that he could tear the lids off of our coffee cups and drain them dry.
Then there are the various wild animals, the largest and messiest of which was a skunk (he won, but the skunk got a shot off before it died, unfortunately, and hit the air-intake for my parents’ central air conditioning. My parents were… un-pleased).
And the most recent heart-attack was finding him lying happily on his doggie bed, covered in blood, a few minutes after he stole a glass bottle from the recylcing, attracted by a tiny bit of oil in the bottom of it. He decided that chewing up the bottle would be a great way to get that oil. After I got over my panic about where all the blood was coming from (blood+ saliva looks like a lot of blood!) began the panic as to whether he’d eaten any glass. We tried to reassemble the bottle and weren’t 100% sure that all of the pieces were accounted for, so our amazing vet (who was available by phone at 9pm) had us feed him 6 slices of whole wheat bread, with the idea that the fibers would wrap around any glass he did ingest and keep it from cutting him up inside.
I realize that sometimes you could feed bread (or canned pumpkin) and still have a problem, but that’s a neat little first-aid trick to know about, since if the objects are small enough, you’d usually let the dog try and pass it, even if you did x-ray immediately.
Another way to clear sharp things (SMALL sharp things) from a dog’s system is to feed them (one at a time) 5 or 6 cotton balls soaked in cream. (for a medium-sized dog.)
To make them throw up, dump a tablespoon or two of peroxide (the medical kind) down their throats. Be ready – it works fast!
Ruthie, way too experienced
Hah- I have a similar one- if you scroll down you can see my story with my lab- but my vet’s remedy was cotton balls soaked in coffee creamer. Same principle though
My mom and I were visiting her friend in Dallas. They had an old, fat bulldog that they never walked. We decided to take him on a nice walk one evening — not too much for him, but at least get him out of the house. The next morning, my mom and I woke up early. The dog was lying in the corner behind a chair, not moving. We called his name, tapped him with our foot, shook him, and he did not respond — we couldn’t even see his belly rising. While we are deciding how to tell my mom’s friend that we killed her dog, she comes downstairs and he pops up the minute he hears her!
Also had my indoor cat get out of my apartment on a busy street in Raleigh. Went nuts trying to find her, knowing she would get hit by a car. When we finally found her about 30 minutes later, she was asleep in a spot of sun on a wood pile outside the back door (where she escaped). Very adventurous cat! (Miss that cat — she used to play fetch with a ball of aluminum foil.)
Best one so far from my collection is the first time my mare got choke – she started arching her neck and coughing and pulling faces, so being the first time I’d ever dealt with choke I started panicking lot, having always had it told that choke is really bad, phone an experienced friend who also started flipping, calmed down enough to start trying to massage the lump at the bottom of her throat and couldn’t get it cleared. Got someone to call the vet (typically at 8pm on a Sunday night) and they came right away. She cleared the choke herself about a minute before the vet arrived. Since then she has choked several times (has a habit of rushing her dinner – now has lots of carrots in it which seems to help) but has always cleared it herself.
One bad choke I have dealt with since was in my sister’s youngster – he choked on haylage and the choke was high up. He started snotting gunk out of his nose and mouth – seemed to be breathing ok but due to the amount of gunge coming out got the vet right away. Vet tried buscopan (to relax the gullet) which didn’t work and ended up putting a stomach tube down through his nose which started to help however he then started a nose bleed. That was not good – he had a massive bleed for over half an hour – it got to the point the vet was panicking cause we couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. Eventually it did and he’s absolutly fine now, but not a good experience!
I’m always amazed how 2 animals with essentially the same problem can have such different experiences and it’s completly typically of the 2 of them – my mare is usually very easy and stays out of trouble while the youngster is forever finding trouble – he’s a good example of why horses and famr machinery don’t mix (stood on top of a plow at 6 weeks old – before we got him – and stripped his leg to the knee, now absolutly fine). Other typical things of him are he got out of his box one day and disappeared – didn’t go to the lovely grass on the yard, he had to go and climb through the muck heap, sinking to his hocks in the process. He is such a goof!!
[FHOTD in: NOTE THE GENDER. Nothing EVER happens to my mares. My !$&$!!$#!( three year old gelding? He has hurt himself more times than I can count. He is an equine Darwin award trying to happen. He makes me INSANE. I need a bubble wrapped pasture for him if he is ever going to get sound enough to start under saddle. AUGH!)
Haha, same thing here! Our mare is graceful with decent common sense. The gelding? He’s totally an idiotic klutz. They are both three year olds and they share 3 out of 4 grandparents. (Born on the same farm on the same day in fact.) Yet she is a ballerina and he is a clown.
Yup, sounds about right. Everything he does is goofy – the only good thing is when he does get in these situations he doesn’t panic – he was tied long so he could graze (we were stood nearby) he managed to get the rope a full turn around one hind leg, behind the other and then he pulled up and pulled his hind legs out from under him and flopped down on his side – most horses would panic and struggle – he just lay there and went ‘I’m stuck, can I have some help?’ with the dopiest expression on his face. (I know, don’t tie long but I could have sworn it wasn’t long enough to do that)
I’ve never had a false alarm, but I will NEVER forget what happened with my dad’s dog.
My mother is a music teacher. They had exams at the house. Because this dog would bark at the drop of a hat for any reason or no reason, both dogs were evicted to a sitter for the day.
This dog got car sick. So she was not always easy to get into a car (do you blame her?). We didn’t move her by car much. The sitter decided to drive them back.
Of course, Roxy refused to get into the car, got loose and…no kidding…jumped INTO a passing car…and knocked herself cold.
The sitter panicked. He had our vet details, so he picked up the unconscious dog and put her on the back seat. Got the other dog into the car, drove to the vet’s.
She came around, realized she was outside the vet, jumped out of his arms and BOLTED. And…vanished.
We put out lost dog posters everywhere. We did a search pattern from the vet’s office with the other dog, figuring he’d have a better chance of finding her than we would. The sitter was absolutely distraught. The vet’s office was the far side of downtown…a few miles. Three days later, we were sitting there in utter distress, because we were sure we would never find that dog, when…
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
She knocked three times on the front door and then dragged her bedraggled self in…she was absolutely filthy, had pulled a muscle in her hip and…
…we had almost a week of blessed silence. She’d barked herself hoarse.
But man. I was so glad to see that little troublemaker of a dog.
Long time lurker, I’ve posted before, not much though. I totally had to jump into today’s post!
I have to laugh at the lost kitten remark.
Years and years and many, many moons ago, whilst still living under the roof of my parents, we had a beautiful three or four year old cat. I had a sleep over the night before and of course, the neat thing to do was sleep on the hide-a-bed down in the basement.
After my friends left and my family and I went about our merry ways, we realized that our faithful companion of feline perfection (Tiger was the God of cats and he knew it) was missing. We searching the house for two hours to no avail. We searched outside and even called neighbors to ask if they had seen him. By an off chance, my father suggested we pull out the hide-a-bed. Sometime during the day, Tiger had decided to investigate this new found section of his kingdom, which was the couch portion of the hide-a-bed. We basically shut him in there without realizing.
Looking back, we were very fortunate not to have injured him with all the moving parts of the hide-a-bed, but man was that cat PISSED… Seriously pissed right off. After all, he was the Feline God and us puny mortals managed to trap him away for a million years in some retched tomb. That cat was spoiled rotten every day of his 13 year life. He’s still greatly missed today.
I will always remember this day the screams of my brother when he came out of his room in our two story house crying, “MOM, I KILLED THE CAT!!” When my mom finally calmed him down enough to ask what happened, Tiger was sitting in the window while my brother was petting him and the screen fell out with the cat. Of course, Tiger came tearing around the side of the house to the backdoor like he had seen Death himself, and my brother was so relieved that he didn’t kill that cat and that cat’s do land on their feet.
As for horses doing certain things and me having a heart attack… again, a younger me – I think I was five at my grandparents farm – had never seen a horse laying flat on it’s side to sleep. I immediately started crying over the dead pony until my father pointed out that the horse was in fact breathing and now looking at me awkwardly while I was mourning it’s untimely passing.
I was out walking after 11 p.m. one night. This SUV passed me very slowly, went down our hill, then turned around and just sat there. It sat there for several minutes and then slowly started to go back up the hill. Being a young woman with a healthy imagination, I panicked and cut through my pasture to get home. I went in my horses lean-to and hid behind my 2 year old, Bandit until the SUV passed, then went inside and triple-checked that every door was locked.
The SUV came back, and stopped right outside the horse shed. Having read about one of those horses being slaughtered in their pasture stories, my thoughts went that route and I was thinking about calling the cops. Then a van joined the SUV before eventually driving to the lower pasture. Said van happened to have a bunch of writing on the side advertising a same-day plumber… it was my neighbors.
I sheepishly walked down to the van (still wasn’t too sure about the SUV) and said hi. My neighbor was on the cell with his wife talking about whether they should call the cops. It turns out the wife was in the SUV and I scared her enough in the dark that she didn’t feel safe driving into their house. When she saw me hop the fence she figured I was definitely a bad guy, and I was a bad guy messing with a horse they adored. They were having a jolly time trying to catch me – after we worked it all out they spent the next 15 minutes cracking up and rehashing the incident. They said it was the most fun they’d had in a long time.
It’s nice to know I have neighbors who would go to such lengths to try to protect the horses and my family!
Two stories:
1 – A new bunny that was being quarantined in my bedroom. He disappeared one evening, and I knew the door was shut. I ripped the bedroom and closet apart looking for him. Could not find him. Actually called my roommate on a trip 3 time zones away in a panic. Roommate says “did you look under the dresser?” I said, “no, the dresser is a solid bottom and there’s not even a little gap for him to get in!” But, only the front and sides were solid, I pulled the drawers out and there was the bunny hiding.
2 – During my horse management course, there was a huge class and each horse had a group of 3 – 4 students responsible for that particular animal. One of us had to go to the barn every day and grain the I went out to the barn one day only to discover someone had been out the day before, grained and not noted it in the log book. I had also been out the day before and grained. I immediately started to worry and started walking the pasture. I eventually found our horse, flat out on his side and non-responsive. Holy ****, I killed my horse. (The weird things that go through your head — do I fail if I kill my horse?). After a brief panic, I held his nose to get him up (a trick my riding instructor had taught me years ago). He jumped up and was fine. The bugger was just sleeping out in the spring sun.
I have a weird one, happened about two years ago when I was still living with my parents. Things you need to know for this story to make sense: 1) I’m super super nearsighted. Without my glasses, I can’t read even size 72 font from more than two feet away. 2) My cat Abbey is a rather small (and really quiet) black and brown striped tabby. 3) My mom is a high school biology teacher and has the weirdest collection of pets that she keeps for the sake of education.
So one night I’m sound asleep at about 3am and I hear my poor Abbey in my room, yowling and growling and carrying on. I turn on the bedside lamp, and in my near-blindess, see Abbey with a big reddish lump on her back. It basically looked like she had a huge, swollen, bleeding wound on her back. I jumped out of bed and put on my glasses to go examine her. With my glasses on I saw that the “wound†on her back was actually a lobster-like creature! Mom’s crayfish!!!
Somehow he got out of his fish tank (maybe Abbey helped fish him out) and he had latched onto my poor kitty and rode her all the way downstairs to my room. He didn’t hurt her, but I think she was more scared as I was.
One of our Dobermans, who is known to be an escape artist, turned up missing one morning after she had been put out in her run after breakfast. We were absolutely positive that we had made that run escape proof, but she was no where to be seen. We searched everywhere, had neighbors searching – could not find her. We looked for her for TWO DAYS without finding her. Went out to the run on the third day and heard a whine. Found an incredibly small opening under the kennel building. She had squeezed herself in there – still don’t know how she fit – chasing after a rabbit, and got herself stuck. It took hours of digging to get to her. She was no worse for the experience – a little dehydrated, but bounced right back and went on to win Winner’s Bitch at a show that weekend. I’ve always said that dog is too smart for her own good!
I went out after a rain storm last week to check on my Blue Heeler / Pyrenees pup, Clyde, and he was covered with bloody streaks all over his face and feet and sides. I checked him all over (not a scratch), then counted chickens (all were accounted for) I found the culprit in his doghouse: a rawhide chew bone that was BBQ-flavor (bright red powder coating) that had gotten wet in the rain! He still has light pink stains on his fur.
My daughter and son-in-law have a cavachon who is their baby until my daughter finishes pharmacy school and they have the time and money to have a human baby. We were packing things into vehicles for one of their moves between schools or a trip somewhere….I really don’t even remember the reason for the packing. Our two laboradors were supervising along with the cavachon. The labs made sure they were in the truck and ready to go but suddenly we all realized that we hadn’t seen Tucker (the cavachon) for a while. Oh….my…….goodness. Frantic calling while walking and driving around the neighborhood ensued. My daughter was in tears and ready to turn herself in for animal neglect for not paying enough attention to notice that he had wandered off until he was clearly at least two counties away, since he didn’t come to our calls anywhere in the neighborhood. Long story short, someone opened the unattached garage door to reach in and grab something to assist in the search and out hops Tucker, very excited to finally be able to respond to the calling he had been hearing for the last half an hour. This was one time when his extraordinary quietness was an unwelcome trait. No one ever thought to even look in the garage for him as it had been so wide open all day! But apparently when the doors were closed the little guy decided it was better to stay put than to rush out. I doubt that this will ever happen again as he is careful to be completely underfoot whenever they are loading a car and looking like they might go somewhere.
One time when my Cattle Dog mutt was about a year old, we thought he had run away from home, or someone had stole him as he never left the yard. My entire family and most of the neighbors set out to scour the neighborhood looking for the little spotted dog hoping not to find a smooshed one on the side of the road. We searched for hours with no sign of him. We had been packing to leave for a trip, and when my mother went back into the camper to look for a flashlight she had just packed when she heard whining coming from the bathroom of the camper. She opened the door to find Lucky standing there, wagging happily. All that freaking out and running around, and he was right in our back yard safe and sound in the camper…
We had a similar experience with an adopted cat. A few days after we had brought him home, he disappeared. We thought he may have escaped out a window or a door when someone didn’t notice. We found him three days later, wedged behind the washer and dryer.
Oh god, lord, my dog… he has this really good habit of walking like, right next to my heels. Which is good if I’m walking around the house or church and I want him with me. Not as good if I’m going to bed and I cannot.find.the.bugger. I don’t know how many time’s I’ve wheeled around frantically looking for him, only to realize that he’s down by ankles and he’s turning with me with this ‘What are you doing mom?’ look on his face.
He also likes to sleep in my covers, curled up into them, and between me (I toss and turn), my covers can get pretty knotted. I have this fear that one night he’ll suffocate down there (even though he’s seven and has been doing it for years) so if I wake up in the middle of the night, I check on him. I don’t know if it’s sleep apnea or just him, but I swear.. he can hold his breath. So it LOOKS and feels like he’s not breathing. I don’t know how many times I’ve yanked him out of a deep sleep to make sure he was alive. Thank god he’s tolerant and the most I’ve gotten is a ‘Mom, what are you doing?’ look.
Although one morning, he got let out… and he’s a jack so when he comes back he does so by BOUNCING onto my bed and giving kisses. One morning he did that, I was half asleep and I swear… I thought a little pit bull had leaped up with me! Scared the crap out of me and I’m sorry to say, he took a bit of a flying lesson when I startled D:
I was getting ready to go to work and realized that while my beagle was in plain sight, my 10 week old corgi puppy was nowhere to be seen. I scoured each room for him and then closed the door behind me. Nothing. I looked in all the usual doggy hiding spots. Nothing. All I could figure out was that he’d somehow followed my husband out the door when he went to work, which meant my poor, helpless puppy was loose on the streets in the dark. I was about to panic, but then he popped his goofy little head out from between the sofa and the coffee table. He was so small that he’d wedged himself in and I didn’t see him in the shadow.
Little bugger…
I do have one story where I was convinced that my horse was dead, but in fact she was fine. I had her at a crappy boarding facility (actually, a friend had her there while I lived in Denmark) it’s the kind of facility that SHOULD be featured on this blog… ANYWAY when I came back my 16hh 5 Year old TB was NUTS. She had no turn out and was always bucking and running around when given the chance.
One day I had the farrier come out to trim her feet. While waiting for the farrier to get set up I took Denali into the arena to take her blanket off. While in the process of removing it she took off and I didn’t have a chance to grab her. (yes, yes, dumb me for NOT holding onto her, but I let my guard down, she was always fine before this, and she didn’t crosstie at the moment) She took off running and bucking the blanket off. She continued to run…right for the arena wall. The 5 foot arena wall. My horse is not a jumper, and she made it about 2 inches off the ground before she exploded out of the arena. Wood went everywhere and I stood at the other end of the arena in shock. The farrier grabbed her phone (thinking we’d need to call a vet) and I grabbed her lead rope. We ran to the other end of the arena and I was CONVINCED that I’d see her laying on the other side with wood sticking out of her and with broken legs. When we got there she had let herself into a small paddock and was drinking water. She had opened and closed the door herself. It was crazy. Not a scratch on her.
Here’s the picture on our blog http://wildponybeast.blogspot.com/2009/01/im-done.html
She got her feet done and she was fine. A little afraid of the blanket, but after an hour or so of working with her I got her back in it.
We moved barns the next week….
One time I was deep cleaning the bird room for several hours when I realized that I hadn’t see my female turquosine parakeet in all that time. Since she was in the middle of laying a clutch I got really worried and checked her nestbox. She was inside it, but to my horror I saw that her rump looked really swollen and to my eyes she looked like she was straining. Fearing eggbinding I called my avian vet only to find out that she was on vacation. I called around, found another vet who saw birds, and rushed her, nest box and all, to the vet for an emergency vet appointment.
For those who don’t know, birds use the same plumbing for EVERYTHING. If they are eggbound everything gets backed up, and they can die of kidney failure if the egg is not removed. Eggbinding is a true emergency, and suspected eggbinding should be treated immediatly by a vet since you usually don’t know exactly how long the egg has been stuck. This is a risk that all owners of female birds have, since they can lay eggs without a male. So imagine my panic.
We opened the box at the vet, only to find that she had taken the hugest poop I have EVER seen from a parakeet on the way over. Yeah.
As best as I can figure she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her nestbox to poop while I was in the room, so she held it as long as possible.
A few years back, I had a 2 and a half year old mustang filly who was given to me as a yearling (she was a notorious fence jumper and destroyer). I moved her to a new place and she stayed on pasture board in a big 15 acre field with no more than five other horses at a time. One day I swung by just to check up on her, maybe groom her a little or lunge her, I don’t remember and I couldn’t find her. Now the pasture was kind of hilly and had a few thick stands of trees in it so you could not see the entire property from any one point so I jumped on Chief, my current horse’s brother and the most beautiful Appy I have ever seen (and I am not an Appy fan, let’s just say) and started frantically looking around the pasture, convinced that she was either dead in a ditch or long gone. After nearly a half hour of searching and calling the barn owner frantic, the little brat comes tear-assing out of this enormous, thick stand of trees like magic and stood there staring at me like “what’s the big deal?” I had no idea a horse could even fit in there, let alone WANT to, but apparently the skinny blue roan thought it was shady and nice and when I went in to look, I found that she had smached down the interior and made a nice bed in the shade out of sight. Scared the bejesus out of me.
My other story that has aged me twenty years happened when I came home from classes one day and found the side gate to my yard wide open. I ran inside and all but on eof the dogs was accounted for. My mom’s Jack Russell was nowhere to be found so I went driving through the neighborhood yelling for him and crying and trying not to think of him alone and starving or hit by a car. Turns out, and I found this out three hours later, he had gotten himself locked in the linen closet and was curled up in the dirty clothes, sleeping soundly while I was out freaking out.
I’ve been around horses for ages but I’m in no way a country girl. Horses I know, goats (horse-friends) I’m familiar with, cows, not so much . . . I was at a fair this past year with a friend whose background is similar to mine and we went to look at the cows (cows = exciting novelty). I noticed this massive swelling on the bottom of a dairy cow’s stomach and, concerned, we asked the guy watching the cows if he’d noticed it. So, umm . . . apparently dairy cows have these *really big* veins to help make milk in their udders . . . whodathunk?
I am reposting this for a friend who has photos of this situation…..
There are 10 severely neglected and emaciated horses in sumner county on opposum road in portland. [This is north-central TN]. they will die with the weather coming tonight. please help us get them seized call 615-452-2400 and make a complaint asap!
[FHOTD in: Well, send me the photos to post and send me an actual address, not "a road" that might be 20 miles long for all we know. You can't expect people to call with no information...no one will pay any attention to them and they'll probably get yelled at.]
Hey now….when I’m in the middle of my work day and get a panicked Facebok message from someone I trust containing only the info I posted….I hoped some of the faithful FHOTD readers in TN would see it and be able to call. Since this is in the middle of nowhere BFE Sumner County, Animal Control would know EXACTLY where to start…and it’s the kind of area one or 2 calls won’t matter. Luckily, the people who found the horses were able to talk the owner into surrendering them. They are supposed to be sending me photos, names of owners, and etc tonight. I will forward when I receive. This is the fourth large-scale neglect/starvation case in TN since November.
About a year ago, my GSD and I, Gunner, were playing in this construction site that had tons of equipment and vehicles parked in it. After about an 1 of solid running and jumping off leash, I call him back and hook him up. Then my bright little 11 year old mind gets the bright idea to jump one of the cinderblocks x) It was about 2ft tall and 2ft wide. It was like massive! So, after backing up Gunner and I start charging towards it. I clear it just fine, but Gunner’s left paw hit the cinderblock when we launched ourselves into the air. So he comes down limping and yelling and I’m like OMG WTF HAPPENED?!?!?! I tried to help him walk it off but after 5 minutes he was still yelping and limping. And then I started crying. Like, hysterics. So, I pick him up (Mind you he was about 90lbs at the time) And start lugging up through the construction sight, over the meadow, and then up the hill. So once we get to the top of the hill I set him down so I can catch my breath, and guess what. He comes over and licks my face before bounding away. So I chase him all the way home with a tear streaked face while he’s running like nothing ever happened;D
The only reason I could remember all these details is because it was a traumatic experience on my part. He got a free ride out of it though x) Ahh, the joys of a German Shepherd<3
OMG, my cat, Sexy, did this to me when I moved into my first apartment! She was only a year old and I had just taken her to the new apartment. I left her leash attached to her harness so I could find her easier or grab her if she made a run for it. I was still bringing stuff in, there wasn’t much in the apartment yet. I realized I COULD NOT find her! This was only a 1 BR apartment, no furniture to speak of for her to hide in, no sign of the leash trailing out somewhere, nothing! I called and called her, shook the can of Pounce treats, searched everywhere five times. So I call my best friend sobbing thatI’ve lost the cat and beg her to help me come look because I was sure she was wandering around the complex and wouldn’t know her way home. My friend comes over, looks in the apartment, calls her, no sight of her! So we start searching the grounds, me still sobbing hysterically (she is my first cat). After about 15 minutes of searching my friend goes back into the apartment just to check, Sexy is sitting in the middle of the floor, looking up at her like ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ I was so sure I had lost her!
I was the barn manager for a large AA-show barn. The owner/trainer was in Florida and her son’s favorite pony from his childhood had just been returned to us. The pony was old, but still in pretty good shape. One morning, the grooms come to me in the office in a panic. Something is wrong with “Petey”! They tell me he’s not walking right. I’m thinking, great, just what I want to do, call the owner and tell her the pony is injured. I have the groom pull him out of the stall and he’s walking with a hitch in his back end. I’m thinking that he’s pulled something overnight, got cast, something has happened to his back end. The groom takes his blanket off to discover….The tail cord had been between his legs. The poor pony had a wedgie all night long!
Moral of the story, make sure your employees know the difference between a tail cord and a leg strap.
Poor guy! Wedgies are NO FUN.
I did LOL though
That story made me smile! Poor pony wedgie! Too funny. And they can’t pull them out for themselves too.
I was trying to sell my flat in London and had a prospective buyer booked to meet me after work. They were there on the doorstep as I got out my keys and let myself in, ready to pimp my flat to the max.. In the hall was blood. Deep, ruby red arterial blood. Splashed up the walls, on the cream carpet, smeared liberally on the staircase – I swore and took off, to find my kitty ON THE BED with a dismembered pigeon. As I snarled “This is no *** time to look smug!”, the buyer tentatively poked her head round the door and said “I don’t think this is quite what I’m looking for.” When she’d gone, I snuggled my lovely Gothmog, relieved that the blood wasn’t his. Then I steam cleaned the hall.
Several years ago my husband’s Burmese Python escaped. He was found curled up in the ferret cage. Python and ferrets were snuggled together, comfortably asleep. Thereafter we used heavy medical texts to weigh down the cage lid.
Last summer I tripped over the kitten and stepped on him – not on his tail but right in the middle of his body. I actually felt his little body squish under my foot. Even after my husband and I examined him and he seemed fine, I took time off work to rush him to the vet. They played with him all afternoon and didn’t charge me. He’s fine, but earned the title Lord Underfoot.
So many times I’ve called the vet for gas colics, bloody noses, and minor household mishaps. I prefer being the concerned responsible “parent” to letting a potential injury go untreated.
ditto – I would always rather pay the vets fees and be sure than not and be sorry, even if it’ someone else’s animal – there was a mare stabled next to one of ours and she had a rep for being grumpy. The lass who had her was only a teenager, parents didn’t know horses and she’d had the mare 1 month, first horse etc. I got concerned cause it was up and down and really unsettled, got the yard owner to call the girl and the vet. After several vet visit’s I started on a 2 hour trip to the vet hospital with the mare at midnight (they didn’t have a trailer), got her to the vet hospital, she was looked at, seemed to have settled a bit on the trip so they were going to keep an eye on her and she started colicing again. They operated and she had displacement and a twist of the gut – my lesson from this was always trust your instinct till proven otherwise! (even if it’s someone else’s animal)
Ok, I have to ask who this is – your name must be a reflection of mine.
I have a torty cat that can disappear in broad daylight. She is also Empress of all she surveys. When I get home from work, the dog and my other cat are bouncing at the door – hooray, she’s home. Not Sam – I am required to search out whatever nap spot she has graced with her presence and greet her accordingly.
Had people fixing my a/c a few years ago and I was very careful about keeping the door shut. After they leave, I can’t find Sam – anywhere. I search the house – top to bottom, then start looking outside. Finally spot her, under the end table next to the couch – watching me act like an idiot.
We went on a week long camping trip with our then 6 month old Golden Retriever. I noticed a dark spot on his tongue one evening, and over the course of 4 days it grew from the size of a pea to the size of a quarter, and another dark spot appeared. As soon as we were home I rushed him to the vet–certain he had terminal melanoma or something else dreadful.
The vet looked at his tongue and said nothing. I asked “Well, what is it?????” She said, “it’s spots”.
Oh.
Later I learned that my pup’s parents also had dark pigmented spots on their tongues.
[FHOTD in: That would totally happen to me!]
I have two cats, Persian & Ragdoll
My persian went missing for 4 months once, after exhaustive searching, flyers, newspaper ad’s CL ads alerting the micor chip co, groomers, rescues and shelters found her in the neighborhood, dirty, matted and skinny.
But otherwise OK.
Less than 1 month later, my in laws are going to live with us for a month while they close on thier new house.
Furniture in storage, they have two big dogs (Dobbie and German Short Hair)
The day they move thier things into my guest bedroom, after all things are in, I go to release the cats from the bathroom where they were held to prevent escape…bathroom door is open. No cats…find the persian, no Ragdoll…in laws KNOW what I went through for the 4 months and feel horrible! We all jumped into action, searching the house, the neighborhood, my FIL even took the German Short Hair and went “hunting” for him (she’s got a GREAT nose and eyes) 5 hrs later still no cat.
I’m crying my eyes out, hysterical
I flop onto a leather chair we have (not a recliner, modern design) utterly heart broken and feeling SO guilty and worried.
All of the sudden, the BACK OF THE CHAIR moved behind me, not the seat the BACK, and out he squirms…didnt even KNOW there was a way into the back of the chair! And he’s an 18# MONSTER…how he fit I have no idea.
Silly guy….
My gelding Valen has given more than one person temporary heart failure. I can remember my first; he was lying on the ground grunting and moaning all spread out and his body was twitching: legs, tail, and the fur over his abdomen. So of course I just know he is in the process of colicing, I ran over with a lead rope nearly killing myself climbing through the hot fence, because of course it takes too long to undo the gate latch, to get him to his feet. I put his halter on and start pulling on his head and all of a sudden he throws his head in the air and wakes up giving me a dirty look for disturbing his sleep. Of course I still made him get up as I was so certain he was colicing and after much prompting he did finally get on his feet and then promptly digs in my pocket for a treat. I checked his respiration, pulse, capillary refill, and gut sounds and what is it. NOTHING! He was having a great dream and was not real appreciative about being woken up.
I have since learned two things:
1st— My gelding snores, groans, moans, grunts, kicks, twitches, and rocks while sleeping, especially a deep sleep.
2nd— Every new boarding/training stable I go to I now explain this factor of his personality to the owner/care takers as he has given 4 people a mild heart attack, a couple of sleepless nights, and caused a vet call which thankfully was called off 15 min later and before the vet could leave his current appointment. They like me still generally will go out and make him get to his feet whether it be in the paddock or stall but at least they don’t panic anymore.
Oh and as a baby he would often roll over backwards and stick all four feet straight up into the air, to get out of having his feet trimmed. The first time the farrier thought he had hurt him. Thank God we were able to train that particular gem out of him. LOL!
Oh here is another one. I moved Valen to a new boarding stable that was way off the beaten path and had access to about 150 acres of hilly wooded trails and fields the boarders would often ride on, plus nice looking hay, an outdoor and indoor arena, and it was only $175 a month including hay. He had been there adjusting to the new horses on the other side of a fence for about 4 days when a couple of the boarders (the owner was a definite hands off kind of guy. I later found out 75% of the fence were crap and he did not like to feed hay on any kind of schedule in the winter.) said oh put him out with the rest of the horses all of them are great. So, I turn him loose and he goes charging up the 20 acres of hilly pasture past another one of the boarders who starts freaking out saying you better not let Remi get near him. Of course this is just as my gelding goes streaking past us again to the other side of the pasture followed by none other than Remi, who commences charging and biting at him, and gets him cornered and causes him to run into the wire fencing. He flips over the top wire face plants it in the ground and sits there for a moment. Just as I am running up to him he staggers to his feet and starts running through the woods and comes on one of hundreds of riding trails over this 150 acres of private and county owned land. I am running after him calling to him and watch in horror as he takes off running uphill along the trail. I started up the path following his running hoof prints. As I am following his tracks thankfully managing to take the right branch 6 times, I notice that he deviated off the trail once at what looked like a dead run and hit an old line fence made out of you guessed it three strands of old rusty barb wire, so by this time I am scared out of my mind thinking he is majorly gashed up, probably lame, who knows where, and possibly on the road in the country where everyone drives like a bat-outta-hell; as some of the trails come out on the road. I had no water, was wearing riding boots, and did not really know my way around yet so at this point I am even fearing being lost myself. Finally 2 miles and 40 min later I found him in a ridge top meadow eating grass having scared the crap out of some lady walking her 2 dogs when he went past her. I got into the meadow and called to him and he walked over and put his head on my shoulder. I started looking him over and what do I see a 6×2†patch of hair missing on his chest, skinned up legs, a few really minor surface cuts, and 4 tiny puncture wounds wear the barbs on the fence had punctured but not tore the flesh. At this point he was hardly bleeding and was not lame so we started the long walk back to the stable where, I cleaned him up, slathered him with goop, and put him in a stall for the night. Boy was he stiff the next day! He managed to get out the fence and to another boarding stable also about 2miles away about 3 weeks later; again he was only slightly scraped up. This is about the time I checked all of the fences instead of just looking at the ones up front. It is also about the time that I found out the owner was a lying sack of shit, and had bold faced lied to me when asked, “you have at least 2 strands of hot wire that stay hot for all your fencing, and no barb wire, right? I even stressed that my gelding had been known to get out before.†It is also when I found old barb wire cattle fencing, no fencing, and huge sections of fencing on the ground. I just wished I had walked all of the fences before boarding there. As the owner had beautiful 3 strand hot white tape fencing with 4 foot mowed paths around all of the front pastures and assured me we could put my gelding in one of those pastures if he got out of one of the others, he just needed to let one pasture grow back up as it had been chewed down, I had never questioned his word or looked over the rest of the fencing, it was 20 acres of hills with trees and brush after all. Of course my gelding did not get to go in one of the front pastures as one of the other boarders was paying extra to keep those pastures just for her horses. Oh and Remi’s owner was one of the “ladies†who said there were no aggressive horses in that pasture. I moved my horse in under 4 weeks, a new record for us!
Sorry now that I checked it, it is closer to 600 acres not 150 as he alone had 150. A trail riders dream stable minus the shitty care!
When I was a teenager, I was going for a bike ride around the block with my best friend. I got up to the main road and there was a gray tabby cat that had been killed by a car. I thought it was my cat – Fuzzball. I picked up this dead cat whose eyeball was popped out of the head and had body fluids draining… and I carried it home in racking sobs all the way. My best friend kept telling me she didn’t think it was my cat – but how would SHE know? It wasn’t her cat – I KNEW my cat…
My friend rode ahead and told my dad I was coming with the cat. When I got to the house, my dad said he didn’t think it was Fuzzball – he had just seen her a few hours ago and this cat was post-rigor. I KNEW it was my cat… but dad went ahead to get some towels and box to bury “Fuzzball”. I sat down by the swimming pool, holding this cold lifeless cat in my lap, stroking it’s fur, and watching as my tears would roll off the stiff pads of the paws. I was talking to it, saying good-bye, and pouring out my soul of how much I loved my cat… when I heard a VERY jealous low-rumbling growl… I looked up and screamed, throwing the limp body in the air! There was FUZZBALL, staring at me with the most hateful look an animal can give – her tail twitching sharply with irritation – I had betrayed her with a stray.
Needless to say – my family refuses to let me live that down, but my gracious Fuzzball forgave me as soon as I took a shower and picked her to cuddle her. If anything, that incident made me realize just how much my animals meant to me and how precious life is; how mortal we all are.
Fuzzball died this past year at the ripe old age of 15, even after surviving the pet food scare with some kidney damage. My dad found her; she was found curled up under her favorite lounging tree – a peaceful, quiet, painless passing. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to her to go – it certainly beats being hit by a car… that was always my greatest fear for her after that.
R.I.P. – “Fuzzball” – 1994-2009
The BEST darn cat a kid could ever have grown up with…
Here’s a funny one>I went out to the pasture to bring in my horse, he was an older guy good at putting his front feet through the bottom wire of the fence. We had put in all smooth so he wouldn’t cut himself. Well, he wasn’t stuck in the fence this time, he was stuck in the hay rake! We have an old hay rake that was converted from horse drawn to tractor drawn. There was a bar that the front was attached to and he had somehow gotten both front legs over that trying to get at some green grass. He got the grass alright and got himself in a tight spot. He ate the grass and must have been there most of the afternoon judging by the pile of poop. We scratched our heads trying to figure out how to get him out. We thought we’d have to have someone come over with a torch and cut him out. Basically he had to rear up and swing both front legs over the bar. Well, not being a circus horse he wasn’t trained to do this. I was about in tears and my husband picks up one front foot and bends it all the way up as far as it would go. Gunny got the idea and sort of hopped up and got that leg on the other side of the rake. A light bulb went on and he reared up and got his other leg out. Not a scratch on the old fart either. We eventually just took the bottom wire off all the fence to keep him from sawing off a hoof.
Funny thing is our vet also caused a huge nose bleed in him trying to move some feed in his throat. Sorry to say he didn’t survive this choke and we had to have him euth’d. He was a goony horse though. He’d go to sleep and fall down, a lot!
We were traveling and had a friend feeding the cats. The first day we were gone we get a panicked call from our friend that someone had been in the house and opened all of the lower kitchen cabinet doors as well as the lower doors in both bathroom vanities.
Oops – I forgot to tell her that Stripes the cat’s favorite trick was to open cabinet doors.
We took in a group of neglected weanlings that had been part of an SPCA seizure. After 2 days I discovered one colt down in the snow too weak to get up…after much drama and a week stay at the vet on IV fluids, he was well enough to come home. A couple of days after he’d been reunited with his buddies I went out to feed everyone and he was no where to be found.
20 minutes of running around the pasture hollering his name I finally spotted a head peeking out of a pile of hay. The little bugger had nestled himself in the remains of a round bale…he looked like a little bird in a nest with hay piled up all around him so you couldn’t see any sign of him until you were right on top of him. I must have gone past him 10 times!
Terrorizing me like that became his trademark as more than once I would go out and discover him laying flat out in the snow far away from the herd and not moving. I swear the little bugger enjoyed waiting until the last minute to lift his head and show signs of life.
One night about 8 years ago I discovered my normally energentic 2 year old chocolate lab sprawled out on the bedroom floor looking absolutely miserable. After a closer look, I discovered that his abdomen was a hard as a rock and he looked like he’d swallowed a basketball. I immediately freaked out, sure that he was bloating. I rushed him to the Emergency vet who agreed that he didn’t look good. He was rushed back for X-rays which showed that he was actually not bloating and nothing was twisted. He stomach was just crammed full of as much dog food as it could possibly hold. Apparently, someone had left the pantry door open at home and he had gone in there and helped himself to an after-dinner snack.
Needless to say, as I paid the huge ER vet bill, I didn’t feel very sorry for the glutton.
LOL thanks for reminding me of my late Snowshoe Siamese. She was a sweet heart! She would open my bedroom closet door (and mostly shut it behind herself as well) to be found sleeping in/on my baseball glove. The best one was when she opened the liqueur cabinet door and my dad finally found her some time later standing on the tops of the bottles. One paw per bottle with the threat of spearing herself if she tried to get off. Guess she got tired of that hiding place as needed some help to get out.
Ha. My favourite was a month ago; I was puttering around my kitchen cooking, and tidying up and doing about a million other things when I noticed smears of blood on the floor. Now at the time we had; two dogs, three foster dogs, three indoor cats, three foster kitties, and three barn kitties who I haul into the house for safe keeping when it gets to be minus twenty. Of course everyone was loose because I was “supervising”. The Great Hunt Began. It ended rather abruptly when my partner in crime came home and asked what I had cut my foot on and why I was trailing blood all over the house. Thankfully, our numbers are much reduced now.
Although, I had a certain fondness for a kitten I’m certain will win a darwin award someday. He was only maybe 6 weeks old and more noisy than any cat in the house. Except when he needed to be. He made normal everyday activities into heart attacks. I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water . . . He was sitting on the top shelf of the fridge and indignantly meowed at me. My partner was hauling garbage out to the dumpster. . . He hopped out halfway there. I checked quite thoroughly before I tied the bag shut but apparently not thoroughly enough.
yes let us unite!
Mine came from an auction purchase of my clydesdale x colt. As with auctions there is not enough time to get the vet checks so I had to rely on my own assumptions. He seemed perfectly healthy and happy so we brought him home and quarrentined him with another horse bought from the same auction.
A few days in he developed a snotty nose and a slight temperature, wasn’t off his feed and certainly wasn’t sluggish. Someone, in conversation, casually mentioned strangles! My god, my mind seemed to click over every single symptom and suddenly I had the whole vet clinic in a panic. The vet’s came and were ready for lock down! Speaking of informing the council and having the area shut down.
He had a cold, a common, garden variety cold that was cured with some medication and rest.
My were my cheeks red!
I am owned by a yellow lab. For those of you that have never been owned by a yellow lab, I’ll start by telling you that they have iron constitutions. He has eaten: socks, toys, too many balls to count, a Naruto action figure (just the arms, mind you), a FULL set of knee and elbow pads, an entire plastic bicycle helmet, and a considerable amount of our porch.
One morning around 5am I staggered into the kitchen, as usual, to make a pot of coffee. Suddenly I felt a horrible stabbing pain in my foot. I lifted that foot off the ground and starting hopping on the OTHER foot, in agony. Guess what- sudden stabbing pain in the OTHER foot. I plopped my ass down on the kitchen floor and realized that blood was pouring out of cuts in both of my feet. As I was trying to determine what the HELL just happened to me, coffee started spilling out from the counter ALL OVER the floor. Yup- I had started the coffee but forgotten to put the pot in!
Finally I realized what had happened: My lab had dragged the glass casserole dish down off the counter in the middle of the night, the one that had held meatloaf that evening. It shattered when it hit the ground. There were a few large pieces and lots and lots of tiny shards. Most of the dish I never did find- he had eaten it. He had dragged other shards of glass into the living room and elsewhere around the house and licked them sparkling clean. Yes, we’re talking about RAZOR SHARP shards of glass in varying sizes.
I was mad. No, I was PISSED. I got my feet Band-aided up and got most of the coffee wiped up, and picked up what shards of glass I could see, swore I was going to KILL that stoopid dog and was seriously considering doing so, realized how late to work I was and ran out the door.
I got to work and immediately flip-flopped and started to panic. OMFG, my dog ate GLASS! LOTS of glass! He’s going to die! Did I really just wish my dog dead? What if he’s dead now? What do I do? I called my vet. My vet told me to go to the store and buy REAL cotton balls and sweet coffee creamer. (this is so the dog will find the cotton balls tasty.) He told me to soak the cotton balls in coffee creamer and feed them to the dog.
I made an excuse to leave work. I FLEW down the freeway all the way to Walgreens. I bought a huge bag of cotton balls. I already had French Vanilla coffee creamer at home. I flew into the house- dog still alive, WHEW! I soaked them for about 5 minutes and…..My lab, who has eaten damn near every inedible object on the face of the planet, REFUSED TO EAT THE GODDAMNED THINGS. That’s right. I had to get behind him, pry open his mouth like I was going to pill him, and JAM the fucking things down his everlovin’ throat. And he’s making these horrible gagging noises like I’m feeding him the most disgusting thing on the face of the planet and looking at me with these soulful sad “Why me, Mama?” eyes. Or maybe just still had a bellyfull of a delicious satisfying meal of Pyrex and grease?
I don’t know. I DO know he was perfectly fine in the end. No ill effects whatsoever. Apparently the cotton will bind to any glass in their system and cause it to safely expel from their bodies upon defecation of said glass. Look it up- it’s true, it works.
Thanks for giving me the chance to share this story, Fugs!
That is hilarious!!! I can totally sympathize. I keep a bottle of activated charcoal on hand for all the unorthodox “treats” my lab (and other dogs) decide to eat.
My 8 year old daughter hates my Pointer, Oliver, for many reasons, but mostly because he ate her pet beetle. She had the beatle in a bedding of oatmeal in a pyrex dish with an overturned yogurt cup as the castle. One morning I heard her scream, “OLIVER ATE ROSIE!!!”. The dish was totally licked clean. Not even a stray crumb. I had to struggle to keep a straight face. It was a tearful morning.
Oh, goodness. It’s only funny because the pups are okay in the end, but that *is* funny. After our little dog-ate-glass scare, I googled around and did hear of using cotton balls, too, but felt like I’d have been terrified of causing an impaction. I’m glad to hear that it really does work!
I worked at a doggie day car and boarding facility. We had a shop cat, King, who would keep the other kitties boarding there company (usually at a distance, he didn’t want to get in a fight). We’ll he’s started acting more and more “boy” so we found a low-cost (we’re poor) spay/neuter clinic that was on my way to and from work and we made him an appointment.
I told the owner I’d take him home that night and drop him off on my way in, then pick him up that night and ring him back to the shop the following day.
My cat was piiissseeeeeddddddd. She’d met King before when I took her in for a bath day, but that didn’t matter. There was now a -boy- cat in -her- house. I let King wander, and he was well behaved, didn’t even offer to mark, found the litter box very quickly. Then they both vanished.
I thought they’d escaped when I opened the door to let the dogs outside.
I found them, hours later, under my mom’s bed, where I had already looked two or three times. My cat on one side, King on the other, him staring patiently at her and she with her tail all poofed out, ears laid back, and I swear she was threatening him with ‘You come one step closer…”