pets

Here’s her new sleeping quarters….(we checked in the middle of the night last night, and she was still right there next to Fiona.) Notice that the cat is UNDER the covers with a PILLOW for her head. Sure beats sleeping in the garage in a box with old blankets!!!

I’m sure Granby is happy, but I think Fiona is probably even happier.

Meet Granby (named after a wrestling move.) She’s our new cat.

Granby appeared just before Christmas. We really didn’t want to encourage her, but it was in the middle of a very cold spell, so we fixed her a box in the garage with lots of fuzzy blankets and put out food and fresh water for her.

Granby is very friendly and quite social. She loves to cuddle and is amazingly tolerant and good natured. She’s put up with “dancing” the Nutcracker standing on her hind legs with Fiona and being worn like a scarf by Fiona without ever getting upset. She and Molly avoid each other, but she and Spartan always nuzzle when they see each other (I guess they have a lot in common, both are black, both eat rodents, both get bossed around by Molly).

Six weeks later she’s still around. We decided we either needed to find her a “real” family or take her in ourselves. She couldn’t live her entire life as an outside cat. It was torture to watch her looking in the window and to hear her mewing.

Guess what we decided?

Last night was supposed to be her debut as a house cat because we were getting back too late from a wrestling tournament to pick the dogs up from the kennel and she would have the house to herself. Because of a poorly organized tournament and white-out blizzard conditions for 100 miles, we got home much later than we expected and Granby wasn’t around.

Even though it was almost midnight, even though he had his pajamas on, even though (he claims) he doesn’t like pets, Kevin went out into the freezing cold night and walked around and called until he found Granby so he could bring her inside.

Welcome home Granby!! You’re already loved very much.

Well “Sparty, Sparty, King of the Party” (as Jack calls him) has been here about ten days and I guess, so far so good.

He’s VERY good about sleeping in his crate, is still pretty lazy, likes to play fetch and is working hard at digging a hole to China in the front yard. He’s also in danger of being loved to death by Fiona.

Owen has realized that being a “doggie daddy” is a lot of work, although he has been very good about getting up at 7 AM for the morning playtime shift.

Jack is pretty mellow about the whole thing and steps in when we need him to.

Kevin still maintains that he doesn’t really like dogs (although Spartan was his idea.)

Molly is getting used to him and they have a couple of playtimes everyday before she gets fed up.

I even caught them snuggling on the sofa for a nanosecond before Molly realized someone was watching and she got huffy and moved.

How do you lose a fish out of a fish tank?

Our orange, white and black platy, Archie (Manning), is missing…how can that be?

Unless Molly ate him once he landed on the floor, I don’t think he jumped out of the tank. He’s too big to get sucked up by the filter and he’s definitely NOT hiding in the plants.

Do you think aliens took him?

Can we call the “Finding Nemo” people?

We are pleased and proud to introduce Hooper McKenna and Cottonball McKenna. They arrived on January 28, each weighing several ounces and just a few inches tall. Proud “papa” Owen McKenna is so happy to have his OWN pets.

That’s Hooper on the left and Cottonball on the right. (They look pretty much the same to me, but Jack and Owen say they can tell them apart.) I have taken almost 200 (!) photos of these little guys this week, trying and trying to get a good photo to post with their “announcement”. It’s almost impossible. These are the best pictures of the lot.

What we were thinking, getting two rodents, when we already have two pets, Elvis and Molly, that are genetically bred to EAT rodents, I’m not sure. But they’re very cute little guys and so far very popular. When they first came home, Fiona OOHED and AAHED and tried to get in the cage with them. Molly just stares at their cage longingly and I”m not sure Elvis (who eats two baby mice at meal now!) knows Hooper and Cottonball are here.