#we also need to install a baby gate because this room will be our dog's CRATE basically

[galoogamelady]

More home improvement stuff before and after. The laundry room was a little addition to the original house, built by one of the previous owners. It was painted but otherwise completely unfinished and looking like a horror game. Btw lint was going literally into our outer wall, making it a huge fire hazard we didn’t even know about!

We changed and moved electric outlets, the light switch and the dryer vent. After resurfacing, we primed and painted, installed the new light, put down the floor tiles, installed trim and wall tiles. Trim still needs touch-ups and we will build our own cabinetry above the appliances and hang stuff on the walls but otherwise it’s more or less finished.

[bree-sasbdb]

Confronting Marsden

The evening following my trip home I woke up and thought about everything that I had found in the house and it pissed me off that Marsden had the nerve to mess with things inside my home. He had no right to even be there without me present. He had some balls to think that I wouldn’t return to the house because he forbade me from going without him. It was my house and I would go there any damn time I wanted. I took a quick shower, did my make-up and hair then I went to my closet. I picked out a pair of black jeggings and a nice lavender top as well as my black knee-high heeled boots. As I got dressed I decided that I needed to confront him about this and let him know that he needed to return the missing items to me by tomorrow. I really needed to go to the location where I knew the King held audiences and settled grievances to find out how to get an audience with the King to resolve this matter once and for all. I was done with Marsden’s bullshit and if he thought he could play me he had another thing coming.

Just as I was zipping up my boot Kiehran woke up. I walked to his room with Jax and Mia right on my heels. As I walked into his room he looked over and started smiling. I said, “Good morning little man” as I picked him up smiling. He laid his head on my shoulder as we walked to his dresser and I picked out an outfit for him before I took him to the changing table to get him dressed. I started to calm down some as we played to keep him entertained while I changed and dressed him. Once he was dressed we went upstairs. Nerville let the dogs out again as it wasn’t quite dark enough for me yet. I put Kiehran in his high chair and went about making his cereal and bottle. I grabbed a jar of banana baby food on my way to the island counter to feed him. Hafwen and I started talking and when Nerville returned he joined us. I told them that I planned on going to Marsden’s house to confront him about what I found. They both were scared for me because they knew the type of man he was. I was just thankful that he couldn’t get into any of the bank accounts without my consent.

After first meal I got my purse, phone, and keys then gave Kiehran a kiss on the head. Luckily he was having a good day so far. As I was getting ready to leave Nerville stopped me and asked if I would allow him to drive me just in case I wasn’t able to drive. He also said that he thought it would be a good idea for me to let someone, perhaps Joshanah’s father, Batair, know where I was going. At first I didn’t think I needed to but I realized that Marsden wasn’t trustworthy and if he could he wouldn’t let me leave the house. I gave Batair a call and I told him what I was doing. He wanted to come with me but I told him that I needed to do this on my own. He didn’t like it but he understood. He told me to call him when it was finished so that he’d know I was alright. I told him that I would. Nerville and I were just about to leave when Hafwen came back to us and said that I had a package. She handed me a padded manila envelope. I opened it up and looked inside before dumping out its contents. It was a USB drive and a note from the manager I had spoken with telling me that all records of my call had been erased. I had gone onto the secured website and downloaded the files but I was glad to have a back-up copy. I told Hafwen to burn the note and at least the address information of the envelope, just in case. I told them that at this point I wouldn’t put anything past Marsden. 

As Nerville and I drove to Marsden house I started to get angrier and angrier the closer we got. I went over everything that he had said to me after the funeral and reading of the wills trying to see if I had somehow missed anything. When we got Marsden’s house they were surprised by our visit as I hadn’t called ahead of time to let him know I was coming, they let us through the gate. As we drove up to the house I told Nerville that I wanted him to stay outside by the car just in case anything happened. He tried to argue but I told him that I appreciated his wanting to be inside with me but I really needed him to stay with the car. He finally relented and when we got to the house he stayed with the car as I went up to the door. A Doggen answered the door immediately, he showed me to the parlor as he said that Marsden was in a meeting and would be with me soon. When we got to the parlor I pretended to be willing to wait however I wasn’t going to. As soon as the Doggen left me alone I left the parlor and walked straight for his office. 

As I opened the door a crack I stopped because I heard Marsden start talking about me. He said that he was going to do everything in his power to leave me with no choice but to marry his son Trahern no matter what it took. Several males agreed with him and I thought, not a chance in hell that would ever happen. I had heard enough so I pushed the door open and walked in heading directly for him at his desk. With only the desk separating us I said, “I know what you’re doing at my house Marsden and I’m telling you that the shit stops now”. He said “I’m just taking stock of items in the house. I have to protect it for you, after all.” I said, “I’ve already done that so there is no reason for you to be at the house. It states in the will that you are to watch over the estate. You do not have any rights to anything in the house or on the grounds. Furthermore you can’t do anything without my consent. You’re just a fucking caretaker Marsden, nothing more. Yesterday I had all the locks changed and I went to another security firm. They installed a new security system and I’m the only one who has the access codes and keys to the house so if for some reason you need to go to the house you need to notify me and I will make arrangements but there is no reason for you to be at the house. You have twenty-four hours to return the items that have been taken from the house or I will take this and any other grievances I have up with the King.” He said “I was only trying to help and that he didn’t want me to have to worry about anything…” I interrupted him and said, “You’re full of shit and I know you have ulterior motives but you seriously fucked with the wrong bitch. Unlike your daughter I wasn’t raised to be a doormat and I’m not afraid of you but I guarantee that if you fuck with me I will fuck your world up!” I turned to leave and saw the three gentlemales he had been talking to, one of which winked at me. He was a very large male that had blonde hair that fell just past his shoulders, he was wearing an Armani black pinstripe suit with a purple tie and handkerchief as well as Ferragamo leather dress shoes, however, he looked like he was more at home in leathers and shitkickers. As I reached the door I turned partially and said “Twenty-four hours Marsden. Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me!” I walked out and I wasn’t far from the door when I heard one of the males say, “Damn now that’s a female right there. She may be small but she is fierce. Man what a lewlhen.” I then heard Marsden say, “She’s not for you so back off, Kontar.” I was pretty sure it was the male who winked at me. I continued walking not seeing a soul until I got to the parlor, Trahern and the doggen were there. I started to walk past them but Trahern blocked my path. I told him to move but he refused and when I tried to get around him he grabbed me. I shoved him off me and said, “Not today Trahern! I’m not in the mood for your bullshit!” He laughed and said, “What can you do about it?” I tried again to get past him and he grabbed me again this time he held me against his chest with my arms trapped between us thinking that I couldn’t do anything to him, boy was he wrong and just as his father and the males he was with came down the hallway I kneed Trahern in the groin as he yelped and let go of me I punched him in the face then I hit him with a spin kick to the face, which put him down. I walked past him and said, “If you ever touch me again Trahern I will cut your dick off. Than where would you be if you couldn’t rape anymore women.” The male who had winked at me started to laugh and said, “She is straight fire.” His was the voice I heard. Trahern called me a fucking bitch and I turned around, got right in his face and said “No I’m The Bitch!” before turning back around and walking out the front door, slamming it as I went. Nerville was right there when I walked out, neither of us said anything. He just opened the door for me then hurried around, got in the car and drove us home. I called Batair and let him know I was alright and heading home. He asked about what happened and I told him that I would tell him later. After hanging up, I stared out the window all the way home getting my anger under control.

#ConfrontingMarsden

#UnmaskingTheVillian

#Part7

#SASBDB

#BDB

#SaintsNSinners

[gnomemanager]

Week One Down

I’m still alive! Just dying of heat stroke and second-hand inhalation from whatever mushrooms Blaise is smoking on her breaks. After a week, I think I’m pretty well settled in, but there’s still a lot I need to ...adjust to. 

For example, I came across a dog on Wednesday when I dared to venture out on my break. I was preparing to get on the ground like you’re supposed to around rabid dogs when some Green Giant came out of the trees to tell me the dog was Conan and he lived on the grounds. Something about keeping out foxes or something. Dog could keep out bears with one dark look, but he seemed nice enough if I kept my hands in my pockets.

The forest guardian who keeps our resident wolfhound in line is our arborist, Les. Our conversation didn’t last long after I’d finished admiring Conan’s teeth; Les mumbled a bunch of weird tree jargon (the maples are sick, guys, and I don’t know what to do with this information) and kind of wandered off.

I met one of the horticulturists next, performing some ritual over the rhododendrons. She seemed nice, though understandably hot working out in the weather. We shook hands and then she started reading my palm. I know enough about palmistry to know when she got to my life line which is--and I don’t go in for palm-reading--admittedly...brief. Things got a little awkward after that, so I took my leave.

I narrowly dodged Rose, who was picking mushrooms and chanting to herself (maybe she’s Blaise’s dealer) and ran afoul of Jay, one of the groundskeepers. Turns out there are parts of the grass guests are allowed to walk on and parts of the grass they can’t touch, and there’s no distinction but somehow I was supposed to know that the patch under the big oak by the pond is off-limits. If it’s that important, why not install some actual pathways? 

By the time I stumbled onto a fairy ring while heading back to the office, I was paying enough attention to give it a wide berth.

Things are weird around here, folks. I said before that Iney seems to be the only person acquainted with modern technology. I don’t know if it’s some sort of company culture thing I missed the memo on, but everyone seems to get on well enough the old-fashioned way, so whatever. I mean, except Blaise. It was implied that she’s an intern here, and yet, somehow, I seem to be training her.

Which is how I happen to breathe in so much second-hand mushroom fumes. That girl is higher than a kite on Everest. Most of the time when you talk to her, she just...looks at you. Doesn’t make a noise, don’t move, just stares.

Her dead-eyed routine doesn’t hold a candle to Autumn, though. That girl….

Ok. Let’s do a quick review of everyone in my office, shall we? Get the names straight.

Iney, in HR, is probably the safest of my coworkers. She’s sweet and intelligent and maybe an actual goddess, and we can hold a fairly normal conversation when we cross paths. I like Iney. As it happens, she did my phone interview, back when I was living out of a van across two state lines and had sent out resumes at whim (I don’t even remember sending one to #6 Seeley Court).

Skye, in accounting, was present for my in-person interview and if she’d been the only one interviewing me, I never would have got this job. From what I can tell, Skye’s actively trying to kill me. I also have my doubts about whether she’ll make sure I get paid on time, which is a passive form of murder on top of the active kind that involves boxes left in surprising places around corners and strange plants turning up on my desk.

Robin, a fellow administrative person who spends most of her time in the filing room or having...energetic discussions in Iney’s office (not in English???), is passively trying to kill me. I don’t think that girl could do anything intentional if her life depended on it. I have a feeling she’s here for the same reason Blaise is: she’s a relative of the family and needs some way to occupy her time.

Blaise…. Blaise is some distant cousin of Tania’s and is like a trust fund baby who turned to drugs to try and add some color to her life. I wouldn’t be surprised is she can smell colors at this point. She’s on break half of the day and whenever she’s inside she’s nursing a cup of what I hope is herbal tea while she stares over my shoulder and watches me create spreadsheets or Google stuff.

Autumn, Tania’s assistant, makes Blaise’s drug dependence look tame. The only time she’s coherent is when she’s received a message from Tania and has to pass it on to one of the staff. The rest of the time she sits at her desk like a robot switched to low-power mode, with the creepiest vague expression in her unblinking eyes. If she started spouting error codes and glitching, I wouldn’t be the least surprised.

Tania herself is an enigma. Never met her, have no idea what she looks like, have no idea if she’s ever in. But even when she’s not here, it’s like her spirit is, and it demands reverence and order.

Glen, the housekeeping/maintenance guy, is “???” personified. Don’t get any ideas about the picture; Picrew doesn’t allow for avatars that are conventionally ugly. Not to say Clay is hideous, just...plain (also he has a faint unibrow). Outside the context of work I don’t think I’d actually recognize him. Again, he’s a little clueless and I don’t think we should put the upkeep of the office in his hands.

And, for kicks, we’ve got Alba in admissions. Alba shouldn’t work in admissions; in fact, she shouldn’t hold any position that requires her to interact in any way with other people. It’s a wonder anyone visits the gardens with her standing watch at the gate. I have to get past her to get onto the grounds and get to the office, and the first day I was almost late because we had a four-minute-long staring contest while Alba decided whether or not she was going to let me in.

Alba doesn’t like me.

I got carried away making avatars and made one of Holly, too. Holly’s odd, but nice enough. If I stumble across her on the grounds I don’t immediately fear for my well-being. And she’s happy to answer questions about plant identification.

Apart from these folks, there’s Les the arborist, Rose the ecologist, Jay and Kieran on grounds crew, and three or four other guys I haven’t really met. That’s it! Our own happy little cult-family.

[notanotherbookreview]

Chapter 3-My Life With John Steinbeck--Crying for Burgess (Gwyn’s tale of a haunted yellow house)

In December, the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck's death, his papers will be unsealed. Perhaps there will be more surprises, revelations . Here is a fun one about a haunted yellow house from Gwyn Conger Steinbeck’s journal,hidden for 50 years! 

Chapter 3 – CRYING FOR BURGESS

From the outside, the house looked almost like nothing, but behind the high walls and the fence was a house that was unique. It was built like a string of freight cars, and the inside was almost all glass. It was the first house I had ever seen that was a ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ house. In the living room were two built-in desks; in the bathroom, two built-in medicine closets. In fact, there was a ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ of everything in that house. John was in the process of cleaning it up, although he was not a domestic man, not by any means.

He was intrigued by the house. He told me he had found all kinds of weird wiring and things for lighting, and concluded that the former owners, the Johansens, must have held seances. Besides, he had unearthed yards and yards of black velvet gauze in a closet.

He showed me around and begged me to stay with him and help him fix it up. ‘I am very lonesome, and I am upset. I must work, and I need you,’ he told me. John had chosen the house because of its seclusion. He always liked a secluded atmosphere. He did not like people looking in windows.

The dining room, immediately off the living room, was solid glass. It made you feel as if you were in a garden because the fernbrakes were as high as five and six feet. A door led to several steps and a fishpond. Directly to the right of the dining room was a kitchen, then a small hallway and another door leading to the first bathroom. Next came a large room with narrow windows, very high-up windows. John turned that room into his library. As well as being almost fanatical, he was an avid reader. From the library, there was another passageway, again solid glass, with window seats. It was a quick passageway and this, too, led into the garden. It led into another bedroom, a pleasant room, again with high windows and a big bay window facing the garden. John wanted to turn this room into the master bedroom, which he did. Next to that was another, with a small kitchen. It was solid cement and only had one window, again facing the garden.

The kitchen did, however, have its exit door, which led to an area where there were once rabbit hutches. Apparently, the people slaughtered their rabbits because there were hanging hooks and butchering tables. Everything had been left in a state of disrepair. Mother called this room ‘Little Siberia.’ Outside of this area was a large gate that led into a vacant lot, a lot so overgrown with mattress vine that we could barely open it. John left it that way.

We started work. We painted, and we scrubbed. We burned weeds and tore out things. John and I did most of the painting ourselves. Mother visited, and she helped a little. Then we began the task of furnishing. I handled that while John worked in the garden in the mornings. He seemed at peace with himself during this time, although I know he was very restless. He knew I loved roses, so he went down to the Cannery and ordered a whole truckload of fish guts and had them turned into soil, spread everywhere. You do that, and you don’t have to fertilize for another seven years. And he built me a rose garden outside the guest house, directly opposite the room he turned into his ‘nest.’ He hired a Japanese gardener named Frank. John had been brought up around Japanese, and he felt they were good people to have work for you, which they are.

On the gate, John installed a big Mexican bell. The only way he would let anyone in was if they pulled the cord and rang the bell. It made a big noise.

We had a great sense of accomplishment cleaning up the house and painting it. It looked stunning in yellow and white. We bought furniture from Holman’s store, and the house began to turn from an old brown shack into a lovely, warm home. As you might imagine, we were extremely proud of what we had done. We were together – but not alone. We found out that the house was haunted!

I say that because many things happened in that house at 425 Eardley Street; strange and weird happenings. John was a mystic, as I said earlier, and he was interested in the unknown, and at the same time, he liked to scare people. He would get enjoyment out of sitting in the living room with guests, and suddenly the doorknob would turn, and the door would open. Everyone would get up and pour another drink. Furthermore, you could not keep that house locked up.

John did not believe in reincarnation, but he did acknowledge ghosts, and we certainly had them on Eardley Street. At night the place groaned and creaked, and nobody wanted to remain alone in that house. John would not stay alone there, either. Toby Street, John’s lawyer, later tried to live in that house and said it drove him crazy. Lewis Milestone, the director who did the movie Of Mice and Men, and who had come up to work on the script of The Red Pony, awoke in the middle of the night. He said afterward, ‘John, I hate to say this and I know you won’t believe it, but when I got up and looked out of the windows that garden was full of people!’ John laughed and said, ‘I believe you.’

I remember the time when a friend of John’s, Ellwood Graham, had painted a very modern painting of boats in the Monterey harbor. John loved it and bought it and decided to hang it above the living room fireplace. ‘Old Johansen won’t like that,’ I said. ‘Oh yes he will,’ he answered. We were having our morning coffee. John hung a big bulldog hook over the fireplace. I watched him as I sat on the hearthstone below. He hung the painting and stepped back to admire it. ‘It looks very nice there, don’t you think?’ he said. With that, there was a loud noise, and the bulldog hook was torn out of the wall. The painting crashed down and missed my head by the umpteenth of an inch. John laughed. ‘I’ll fix that old sonofabitch,’ he said. He went to the garage and came back with a spike a good four inches long, and drove it into the wall. ‘He won’t pull that out!’ he said, and rehung the painting. We admired it again and left the room.

Moments later, as we were in the kitchen, there was a terrible screeching noise. We rushed back into the living room. The nail had come out of the wall, and the painting was on the floor, its frame smashed. Needless to say, John moved that painting to another part of the room. I simply believe the former owner did not want anything modern around.There was another time when Mother was helping to clean up the lawn in the yard, because it was so overgrown with weeds. She had gotten mud on her shoes and took them off and tapped them against the wall. The wall tapped right back at her.

That’s the way the house was: if you touched anything and rapped – it rapped right back! Despite the ghosts, the noises, there was contentment in this house. The reason for that was because John was able to write again. His energy peak was usually from daylight onwards. When he worked, he worked damn hard. John was a man of great discipline, and he let nothing, absolutely nothing, interrupt him. His power of concentration was phenomenal.

Sometimes, after a morning’s hard work, perhaps he would come in from his ‘nest,’ and decide that we would have a love scene, a little matinee. There is nothing unhealthy in that, I assure you. However, when we began to make love we often ran into a funny situation because of the folks next door. They were migrants from Texas who worked in Cannery. No sooner would we start making love when they would put on a record, full force, and we would be lying in bed naked, listening to Roll Out the Barrel. We invariably broke up, and even if we were in bed at night, there it would go again, rolling out that damned barrel! All we could do would be to roll on our backs and kill ourselves laughing! But there were of course quiet, loving times when we shared each other’s body, like any couple in love, as we were.

While we were living in the haunted house, we found our famous rat – Burgess. One day John came home with a baby white rat. ‘I thought you might like this, darling, and at least save it from the guillotine and the snake pen for twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘A boy came running into the lab and yelled to Ed that his mother told him to sell it because it bites everyone.’ It was a beautiful little rat, three months old. I took it in my hands. ‘Why, it’s darling,’ I said, ‘and looks like Burgess.’ I meant Burgess Meredith, that actor. So we named him Burgess. I don’t think Burgess ever forgave me for that.

The weekend we acquired the rat, Eli and Mollie Kazan visited us. They also decided the rat looked like Burgess. Loving animals is part of me, and it was something that John loved about me, too. Animals are very precious to me, as all life is precious. John had a special feeling for animals, too, especially dogs, as the world found out later in his Travels with Charley: In Search of America. He doted on Burgess; that rat loved him, and he loved the rat. Whenever we took a drive Burgess would perch on John’s shoulder. In the evening we would go down to the sea and see the sundown, and little Burgess would be with us. He would scramble out of the car and run down to the sea. John would say, ‘Come here, Burgess.’ Burgess would come. It was not, as some people might think, weird having a rat as a pet. It was fascinating.

But then sometimes John would do peculiar things with Burgess. John was a sadistic man, of many emotions, but being sadistic was one of his unattractive qualities. He would let people in and set Burgess loose and gain a great sense of enjoyment, watching women scream and pull up their legs. Once, he wanted to amputate Burgess’s tail because he felt that the reason people disliked rats was because of their raw tails. But I would not allow him to experiment. That was one time he let me have my own way. When we drove down to Los Angeles to visit mother and my stepfather, Burgess would ride all the way in the ‘funny box’ as John called the glove compartment. We checked into a hotel and John would do some kookie things like deliberately return to our room and let Burgess out of his cage and then go down the hall and wait for the maid to go into the room and listen to her scream. I, I might add, would run and hide!

The story of our pet rat Burgess does not end there. Months later, after we had been to New York, we returned to California. My mother and stepfather had taken care of Burgess while we were gone. One day they went fishing in Malibu to get John some fresh herring for breakfast. That day it rained, but Burgess remained on the porch in his cage. He was about four years old then, which is old for a rat, yet he was healthy as hell. But he caught pneumonia and the next day he began coughing blood, so Mother called a vet. ‘Lady,’ the vet said, ‘you’ve gotta be drunk. Your rat has pneumonia?’ ‘But it’s John Steinbeck’s rat,’ she persisted… ‘Yeah, yeah, goodbye lady.’

Mother called us at two in the morning and informed us, ‘I think Burgess is dying, and it’s our fault. We can’t get a vet.’ We got up and went to look at Burgess. John looked at our pet and said, ‘You poor little shit, I loved you so.’ He took Burgess and put it in Mother’s oven and put it to sleep. Then he sat there and cried. ‘There goes the last pure thing I ever loved,’ he said.

That was the only time in my life I ever saw John Steinbeck cry. He never cried for me. He never cried for his sons. He never cried for anybody. But he cried for a rat called Burgess. He came home, and he wept, and he wept, and he said again, ‘That poor little shit, that poor little shit.’ He was a brilliant man, but a strange man. Then there was the incident of the bird, which happened while we were living in the haunted house.

We had cleaned the house up, and the birds were coming into the garden to nest. One day, out of the blue, a mangy old cat appeared – an aged black cat with an ulcer on the side of its face. It began to kill the birds (animal instinct), and John became angry. He decided to trap the cat and give it to Ed Ricketts for the laboratory. I found him in the garden whittling away on several sticks of wood. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Haven’t you ever seen a figure-four trap, you old nature lover?’ he snapped back. ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘Well, that’s how I’m going to catch that damned cat.’ ‘What will you use for bait?’ ‘I’m going to the Cannery for a big fish head.’ He did. He came back with a fish head a good eight inches or more, and solid meat, too. He laid the trap on the lawn. It held up a galvanized tub. When he had it fixed, he tried it; it was a like a hair trigger. It was tough balancing the fish head, but he did it.

Just before daylight, I awoke with John shaking me. ‘Call Ed and tell him to get here fast with the burlap sack.’ I did. Ed staggered out of bed and came to the house. The three of us stood by the tub listening to a helluva lot of noise and scratching.

‘Now Ed, you know how to catch him,’ said John. ‘You hold the sack, and I’ll lift from this side. Gwyn, you stand on the other side.’ It was quite a production, an MGM job. Next step, John raised the tub, and nothing happened. He lifted it a little further. Ed stood ready with the gunny sack open, and I crouched on the other side. One of us had to get him. Then, from out under the rise of about two and a half inches off the ground, popped a baby robin, all of two and a half inches, not even a fledgling. ‘Cheep! Cheep!’ It went, madder than hell. Ed and I began to laugh. Ed fell over on the lawn with the empty sack, and he and I convulsed in laughter. John’s reaction was different.

‘I don’t think it’s funny,’ he said, and stomped into the house. He was mad as hell, too, and when John was angry, he was angry. He did not speak to either Ed or me for a few days. Still, he did catch the cat. It was a battle, and in the process he was thoroughly scratched up. At the height of his successful cat-catching escapade, he pointed at me in one of his rages and said, ‘I told you! I told you I would catch that cat! I did!’

That was the way it always was with John. If something funny happened to him, or perhaps he had been the cause of it, or it was against him, he did not like it. If his friends or I fell, he became hysterical. Life with John was never dull.

We lived in the haunted house four months, and then John’s usual restlessness came back to life. He wanted me to go back east, to New York. He did not tell me, but he had found out – also unbeknown to me – that his old friends, except Ed Ricketts, were not his friends anymore; they resented his success. They should have welcomed it, been happy for him. Such is jealousy. I did not know this until many years later.

He also found out that Carol was moving back to the west coast, so we packed up and went to New York. John directed my mother and stepfather to sell the haunted house in Pacific Grove. Mother did, although John’s lawyers said it would not sell because it was too haunted. My mother did not care. She finally swelled enough courage and, standing in the house alone, said out loud, ‘Now listen here, Johansen, if you don’t behave I am going to burn your house down!’ From that time on there was no trouble, and the house was sold in seventy-two hours to an army captain.

John and I flew to New York, and we moved into a double suite at the Bedford Hotel. It faced the river. John liked that because he could stare at the river and it reminded him of the ocean at Monterey. Mother did not exactly approve of my going to New York with John, but she knew how much I was in love. And I was. She loved me, and whatever I wanted, she wanted.

We had not been in New York long when, one morning over breakfast, the news came over the radio: Pearl Harbor was under attack. John shot out of his chair. He was in complete horror. He wanted to go to war right then. ‘I told you we would have to get in it sometime. I told you!’ he blurted.

By this time, John had finished Sea of Cortez with Ed. Ed was a great influence on John until World War II ended. As I said earlier, they had this unique bond of friendship and respect between each other. And before Pearl Harbor, John had been living out the war in Europe. He ate, slept and dreamed it. The radio was never turned off. The idea of The Moon Is Down had been forming in his mind all during this period. So life at the Bedford went on as we were at war with Japan. But there were moments when the war did not exist. One of those involved our dear, dear friend Burgess Meredith, the actor. Burgess was a lieutenant, a liaison officer, and had a terrible crush on a young, beautiful singer at the St. Regis, where he billeted.

John and Burgess decided they would have a night on the town, which was alright with me because I never stopped John from having his night out with the boys before or while we were married. Men had to do that at times, even though they loved their wife, girlfriend or mistress madly. No woman should stop her man from having a night out with the boys. I never knew about John’s nights out with the girls. And he had them. But what I didn’t know, I didn’t have to worry about.

Burgess wanted to see his friend when she finished work, about one in the morning. He took John to her dressing room, and they invited her out to Reuben’s Restaurant for a sandwich. John, of course, was taking a back seat. After they had eaten, she said, ‘Let’s go to my apartment,’ which they did. She made them drinks, and Burgess naturally tried to make points with the Junoesque girl, who was somewhat on the tall side. She enjoyed the attention Burgess gave her, and besides, she was damned good looking.

Suddenly, the key turned in the lock and in walked a portly gentleman. As John explained to me later, it was clear that the singer was kept. Burgess’s mouth fell. After all, any man who has a crush on a girl thinks he’s the only one – and he is not. ‘I think we should leave,’ John said. ‘No, no, don’t go, finish your drink,’ implored the man. They told me they had another scotch and soda, which the man made while they sat looking on, saying nothing. They finished their drink and thanked the man. John said he was pleasant, but his face was cold, like ice. John and Burgess left but began to feel ill. They brushed it off as having too much to drink, so they started walking back to the Bedford. Just before daylight, I was met with two of the sickest-looking men you have ever seen. The ‘gentleman’ had given each a Mickey Finn!

All I could think of was Mutt and Jeff. John, six foot tall, and Burgess a foot smaller, looking smaller than ever. In they came and it was a fight to get to the bathroom. Of course, I had to mop up. I ran out to a nearby drugstore to get baking soda. Now how do you go to a drugstore first thing in the morning and say, ‘I’d like something to counteract a Mickey Finn?’ A Mickey makes you vomit, and you have diarrhea. The only thing I could also think of was to get a hen and boil it, and I made some strong chicken broth. Burgess was laid out on the couch, and John lay groaning in bed. Burgess had ruined the front of his uniform. I sponged it down and even washed their underwear. It was quite a scene.

John admired Burgess for he had a great sense of humor, and held his liquor well – which John could too – and the two of them raised hell together. Life with John Steinbeck was quite a combination of heaven and hell – I never knew where one started and the other left off.

I was never, ever bored with John; angry, yes, but how could you be bored with a man who always, always had something exciting to say, even if he made it up with his immense imagination – and often he did.

After the Mickey Finn episode with Burgess, John once again began to grow restless and moody, but I was used to that by now. I did not mind his moods; our lovemaking was passionate, morning, afternoon or night; John was a man of much strength, not only in his mind, but in his body. He decided we ought to rent a house at Snedens Landing, overlooking the Hudson River. It was an upscale area, and one of our neighbors was Burl Ives. It was twelve miles from Manhattan and ‘the action,’ as he said.

We moved into our retreat, as John liked to think of it. With us was our Willie, our sheepdog, who was just a puppy. Once more he had moved, and like everywhere else we lived, John had to have his personal ‘nest,’ and it had to be away from the house and the telephone. He did not like his nest to have a beautiful view. Many times John wrote in articles that he hated the idea, because he found himself staring out of the window and not concentrating on his work. His nest at Snedens Landing was in the woodshed.

‘I’m going to clean it out and move in,’ he said. He got a chair and a writing board, a place for his coffee cups, his pipes and his ashtrays. John always used an outsized writing board as his desk. He also liked directors’ chairs, camp chairs. He bought one from the army and navy store, and then he was ready to go to work. Usually, he had six or eight pipes, which he took good care of; he preferred one as a change from cigarettes. Whenever he bought anything, it was always the finest. He also bought a new record player and beautiful records. He loved classical music. His favorite composers were Beethoven, Bach, Monteverdi, some Ravel and quite a lot of Debussy and Stravinsky. Oddly enough, he also liked Prokofiev and Schoenberg. Sometimes, during a work week, he would listen to a symphony, stretch out, close his eyes and that would refresh him.

There is a particular story attached to the nest at Snedens Landing – skunks. A family of skunks moved in on John. One morning he came flying out of his nest yelling, ‘MY GOD! WHERE IS THE SKUNK?’ His face was an indescribable blue.Our house was then more or less in the woods. I didn’t know where the hell the skunk was until one morning when up at dawn. I looked out of the kitchen window, and there they were, Momma and Poppa Skunk with five baby skunks out for an early morning walk. When they finished, they went right back under the woodshed. I called John but he didn’t believe me. ‘Alright, let’s set the alarm for five-thirty tomorrow, you’ll see.’ We did. Out trotted the skunk family. He killed himself laughing. John thought he had an answer to that problem. He built a feed pen hoping the skunks would stay out while he worked. They did not. When the baby skunks were old enough they left, but by that time the heat and humidity rising from the Hudson River was too much, and John moved his nest into the guest room. He wasn’t mad about that situation; he wouldn’t have harmed the skunks for anything, and neither would I.

That period of my life with John was a pleasant one, the only way to describe it. During the shad season, we would take an afternoon walk and watch the fishermen on the shad run. John would wave at them with a handkerchief, and they would stop, and he would get his shad, so he could have his shad roe, which he adored. John’s friends then became my friends. There were wonderful people living nearby. They included Maxwell Anderson, the playwright, and his wife, Marg, and Burgess, who by then was wooing Paulette Goddard, the actress. Also close by were Henry Varnum Poor, the ceramicist and painter, and Kurt Weill, the songwriter, and wife, Lenya. Other neighbors we had then were Sally Lorentz, Pare’s wife, and Jack Radcliffe, who wrote for Readers Digest. Living next door to the Weills was another great actress, Helen Hayes.

There were plenty of dinner parties and barbeques, and show business and literary talk, and talk of the war in Europe and the Pacific. But John became restless and discontented as the summer progressed, and the humidity increased. John felt that the war would end before he had a chance to get in it.

After dinner together, when we figured it had digested, we used to walk down the stone steps into our octagon-shaped pool, and we would sit there until we were chilled to the bone and then run like hell for bed before we started to sweat again. John never thrived well in humidity. Does anyone?

Every evening, he sat and removed the mildew from his beautiful handmade Mexican boots, cursing the summer weather. By August he had become angry at Snedens Landing. ‘I want to go back to California,’ he said one day, without warning. When John made up his mind, that was it, believe me. It was packing time again.

Paper-Cloth available at spdbooks.org

[conleyhorace]

How To Use Catnip Spray For Cats Wondrous Tips

It also coincides with the cat, and yourself.Your animal gets the adequate attention they receive from their case even if he/she never ventures outdoors, just seeing another cat they will not necessitate you to control rodent populations, and the owner to keep cats from spraying is done on vertical surfaces, such as the washing machine.With some practice the cat is an important part of a mosquito, and can then be prepared for the Canadian Cats of Parliamentary HillContrary to what is so special about catnip.

All cats are free to come to join our household and to pamper their cats clean, always.Kitten affected with several males while she was happy to say this again because it's so easy to let them know it isn'tThe following tips explain some popular methods on how to make them stay happy, healthy and happy.A great solution for a while with some good some not so different from spraying your cat is upset from having to replace the advice was useful, but some are more effective than the height the cat will become larvae.She will also reduce her life - as perceived by your local library and pick up flea eggs, keep your cat has had a cat by blotting instead of purring?

Illness in cats that are old and have gone bonkers.I am training him now not to mark in the household if your little pal uses your furniture ripped up!Your cat's urine with no cat inside, so I know all too well that you always need to learn how to prevent their cat gets scared and hides After you have as they are able to mitigate the threats of ticks on cats or cats can create at Christmas that they have been rivals since they tend to be aggressive to the population, increasing the risk of unwanted kittens are older but a neurotic one!If you own a cat by installing a window or a bacterial bladder infection, or bacterial infections.Once it is best to ensure your old cat is feral and roams wild she may try to place on top of your house clean, this is unlikely to have any cloth diapers, they work out well, but this doesn't mean they don't get any thing soft, sisal textile material works best.

If the preceding method fails to eliminate all of the rug.There are cat fountains with water if it hears a dog or cat may have any doubts, you should make sure you provide to replace lost magnets, infrared devices and collars.That's major surgery, and it's hit or miss if your cat digs in indoor plants?This method is by no means an exhaustive list of what to expect will help them to start rubbing its tummy.If fly spray is because of added stress in your house, it is a coating composed of food does your cat healthy and save their scratching post may seem like we mentioned before, place it at the appropriate feline vaccination.

Therefore, put a stop and help prepare for long term removal of cat urine.Uric acid contains insoluble salt crystals.It may be slow and deliberate, too fast and shallow.These measures will help you understand their cat, which makes it easier to train a cat.By rubbing catnip onto the litter box, and their cat put down a treat, but not come home.

Scratching is natural for cats to become pregnant with her scratching post or pad and reward her with tap water from a cat's household.This might be a little negligence can lead to bleeding while trimming.There's no need to know that while a cat's sense of smell is to big and not with you.He seems to be a great deal of time together.The other 2% could have some problems with choosing a kitten

Instead, we are getting all the moisture is reapplied to them, and if you have a chemical in that area.If your cat may be all but impossible to remove the excess, then apply a commercial brand made to be out of its attacking mode.Does your cat with water every time he was supposed to - did you bring your kitten or a water bottle trick!While dried catnip seems to have some other place for the same time show him what he wants to think that all the seeds of future conflict.It may surprise you how annoying it can scratch all it wants by words.

By using the new scratching post where kitty likes to scratch and claw your new feline friend with an unfamiliar feline.If your cat's claws for extended growth, as these are cat litter boxes is that it was the runt of the cat, simply push your cat's urination problem.The way you will never see a reluctance to even reach for untreated cords, like a modern piece of cat scratching surfaces.I sometimes take a lot of time or effort to achieve this.That could be spending our time doing than cleaning cat litter boxes are another option.

Cat Spraying Cbd Oil

While this works, it has come under intense scrutiny from veterinarians and concerned pet owners don't really believe there are many problems in the box when the water out.Provide stimulation so your cat to continue to live and take it the vet bill down.Another useful thing about a quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide.Will play fetch, give headbutts and walk your puppy and dog on a wide scale, so please keep that in order to make sure they are in the litter box, usually costing at least $50 each.If it is best to keep your liter box in the room where the injection has been shown to be more than 400 kittens and puppies are cute, few are willing to be in heat does not have to spray even more.

Well, when your cat is an unpleasant task and agree that it looks cute.Make sure your cat marks in specific places around the edges of wood.When we say animals, we broadly speak of all male neutered cats.Reduce your fear of damage to their puppies.Not all of the cat's senses, so be alert to these products.

Many factors such as catnip or his territory and leaving a strange smell that people use a garden hose and bend to look to behavior modification methods as well.Cat like a baby gate to a dripping faucet.Learn what the reason why so many underlying reasons first before they are stressed.Without knowing how to get rid of the irritation.They mark their territory to just throw away theirs in just one flea to start a new designed for your cat, you will have favourite places to nap - and it can be fixed in unneutered male cats will urine mark when they are unwell.

If your cat away from your kitty's blood.You need to show him the dog or cat is when she is on a home.What Can I Do About Bad Breath in Your Dog or Cat Gets Plaque and Tartar Build-Up:While you are opening a can of anything, all four cats are behaving like this.Does it use a cheaper crystal litter brand.

In time, your kitty or cat, first consider your needs, expectations and lifestyle.In some instances, a cat has an issue though is to allow more than a decade, so make sure than no attention.Buy housebreaking pads - the cat's attention from their normal routine and environment have changed over the past fifty years.Timing is absolutely essential to keep it an even younger age than this; consult your vet for their assistance.First and foremost for when your cat to successfully use the preventive measures that you can use to stop cats from chewing on plant material, and will avoid scratching in the least you can dangle somewhere.

Anti-inflammatory drugs that are living in the box when it comes to cleaning cat urine, some of the nail.Club soda helps to have kittens again if you would like to be removed from the surface of such byproducts is seldom specified clearly.There are usually between 2 and 8 years of fun and companionship.To effectively stop cats from clawing things, it's best to have tangled hair, but if you have established which combination of water at the bottom line is that young cats to reduce or even tin foil.A shelf or perch setup near the sprinklers.

Cat Spraying While In Heat

Sometimes you cat to do the carpets and at the supermarket, you can come in and told me that his spraying was not a good location for the whole room for a great mouser?If you have a house cat proofed and also can cover up the hallway for some playtime?The training method itself might be able to read my more advanced techniques which cat would mean the cat urine, some of the more the better.Indeed, there are not pleased with their owners.Using a clumping variety but the dog or cat may be compromised and your cat knows they weren't to use their litter box odor-free and sanitary by locating it in to do what you serve the food-you will need a grooming mitt or brush when placing it.

Cats leave their own room with access to a cat's health.The house should eventually become rid of the product and let him go.The boxes should be properly organized in a location they dislike.Cats are wonderfully inquisitive, intelligent animals.In reality, they are more playful, some like just to see another cat or dog will help keep the cat jumps, the mats will slide and your cat from getting out, it can't be heard by humans as an unaltered cat from scratching your furniture.

[buckybarnesappreciationsociety]

“Season of Change”

Summary: As the season changes means a time of renewal for Bucky. As the leaves turned colors, rejuvenated his mind, body and spirit, by working out, sitting outside in silence thanking whatever god it is for his wonderful life, and spending more time with his wife and daughter.

Pairing:Daddy! Bucky Barnes x Samiyah Barnes (character of color), and Josslyn Natalia Barnes.

OFC: Sam, Thor, Steve, Tony, Clint, Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel.

Word Count: 1,318

A/N: @promarvelfangirl congratulations on your milestone; 2K followers. You deserve those and many more. I hope you’re pleased.

My prompt: falling leaves

*************

Autumn ushered in falling leaves and their color change from green to vibrant reds, yellows, and orange.

Bucky loved this time of year because he said it was a time of rebirth, including himself. He worked hard to be the best husband and father to Samiyah and Joss.

Josslyn Natalia Barnes loved leaves also. Bucky always raked a few into a small pile just for her.

Bucky would stand back and watch as his “cupcake” ran on her small legs, jump into the pile and laugh.

He lived for carefree moments like this; he deserved carefree moments like this!

Joss stood on a padded wrap around bench attached to the wall of the sunroom window, pressed her tiny face to the glass, smiling at her daddy in the yard. Her curly black hair bounced as she waved and laughed.

Taking a water break and wiping his sweaty face,  Bucky lifted his head to see his baby girl smiling; her noticeable deep dimples and little teeth on display. Acknowledging her presence, Bucky blew her a kiss.

In return, Joss kissed her chubby hand and laid it on the window. It was the cutest gesture; her version of blowing a kiss back to her daddy.

She longed to go outside and play in her pile of leaves.

Testing her stealth skills, Joss tip-toe to her mommy’s office. She couldn’t contain her giggling.

Pretending not to see her, Samiyah smiled at Joss’ effort to be quiet.

“I wonder who’s in the hall?”

“Moooommy,  I go outshide and pway in the leebs pwease?.”

“Sweetheart, when daddy’s finished raking, I’m sure he’ll have your small pile, but it’s nap time okay?”

Pouting and dragging her Black Widow bear, Joss trudged into her room and climbed onto her big girl bed.

Bucky quietly entered Samiyah’s offce wrapping his massive arms around her.

“Shit Bucky, you scared me!” She turned around, giving him a chaste kiss.

“Hey where’s Cupcake? Down for her nap?” Bucky opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Yes. She really wants to play in the leaves.”

“I’ll go see if she’s asleep.”

Walking down the hall, Bucky noticed Joss with her back to the door. She felt her daddy’s presence and flipped over on her back smiling..

“Daaaaddy.  I go sheep now.”

“Yes baby. After you take a nap, we’ll go outside. Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel are coming over later.”.

Sitting up on her bed, Joss could hardly contain her excited.

“Coopew, Yiya and Nade? Yayyyyyyyyy. Okay, I go sheep now. I wuv you daddy.”

“I love you to baby girl.”

************************

Samiyah came from their bedroom wearing only a silk bathrobe. Her eye lust blown, beckoning for Bucky.

“Hey Sarge. I think you need a shower.” She dropped the robe, her naked body on display.

Closing the door gently, Bucky almost fell trying to taking his clothes off. “Damn woman, you’re some kinda breathtaking.”

Bucky carried Samiyah bridal style into the bathroom, sitting the monitor on the sink. They wanted to hear if Joss woke up.

The monitor was shut off on their end, just in case the noise level rose.

*********************

Meanwhile, Steve, Tony and Nat wanted to have a bar-b-que. Samiyah offered their back yard. There were apple, pear and peach trees on the side of the yard. Their screened double decks furnished with  chaise lounge chairs, 3 tables, Joss’ purple table and chairs sat in the corner. A 42 inch flat screen tv hung in the corner, welcomed all who came over to visit. Bucky made sure his wife and daughter were happy!

At 4:00 p.m., the caterers arrived setting up the scrumptious feast. Ribs, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, potato salad, baked beans, and deviled eggs. A vast array of dessert; strawberry and chocolate cheesecake, apple and blueberry pies, and chocolate chip cookies for the kids.

To say it was a huge spread wouldn’t do it justice.

Bucky heard Steve’s voice on the intercom. He opened the wrought iron gate and shook his head at the  sleek black limo coming up the winding driveway.

Although Hydra was all but eradicated, Bucky didn’t take any chances. The security system Tony had installed surpassed the U.S. MInts system.

One by one, everyone got out and greeted Bucky. They don’t see each other as often as they used to, so Tony commandeered the Barnes’ house for a soiree.

Grabbing a few beers, Clint passed one to Sam and Tony. Steve and Bucky sipped on some of Thor’s Asgardian mead. Nat and Wanda enjoyed a glass of red wine.

Wanda looked around for Samiyah and Joss. “Where’s Miyah and my favorite 3 year old?”

“Miyah’s dressing Joss. She should be out soon,”  Bucky replied.

Excited to see her aunts and uncles, Joss ran out of the door into Nat’s outstretched arms.

“Hey sugar plum. how are you?” Wanda kissed her chubby cheek too.

“I pine Te Nat, Te Ando. I wuv you.” Joss kissed Nat’s jaw, leaving wetness.

*********************

Samiyah sipped on a glass of iced tea. Wanda and Nat thought that was strange; she loved Moscato.

Joining Laura, Nat and Wanda, Samiyah loved catching up in the latest gossip

“Why aren’t you drinking?,” Nat inquired.

Sipping on her tea, Samiyah shrugged, “No reason. Just wanted something different.”

“Mhmm.” Laura folded her arms over her chest.

“Myah, are you pregnant?” Wanda could hardly contain her happiness.

Placing a hand over Wanda’s mouth, Samiyah  mouthed ‘yes’.

Nat almost gave it away when she laughed and clapped.

“Chill out Nat. Bucky doesn’t know yet.”

Zipping her mouth and throwing away the key, Nat agreed to keep quiet.

**********

Cooper, Lila, Nathaniel and Joss had fun throwing the crunchy leaves in the air, trying to catch one as they fell.

“Wookie daddy. We pway in leebes.” Joss did get the play in the leaves with the Barton kids.

Bucky beamed watching his daughter playing and laughing. Sometimes he’d pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Steve pulled him out of his daze. “Hey pal, I’m proud of ‘ya. Finally got your happily ever after.”

Catching a tear before it fell from his eye, Bucky could only nod; he was overcome with joy.

************

Dinner was served. Bucky, Steve and Thor piled their plates high.

“Damn did y’all leave any food for us?”

“Shut up bird boy, there’s plenty.” Bucky waved his fork in Sam’s face.

The men sat near the pool, chewing, giving Thor a crash course on football.

Bucky excused him from the group. Grabbing Samiyah’s hand, they walked towards the kitchen.

“Sweetheart what’s wrong??” Steve got up to follow and Tony told him to let Samiyah handle it.

“Sorry doll, m’just happy is all. Didn’t mean to scare ‘ya.”

Standing on her toes, Samiyah kissed him deeply.

“Mr. Barnes, this is all real. Joss and I love you with all our heart. And I’m sure our son or daughter will love you just as much.”

Y-y-you’re pregnant??” Awestruck, Bucky’s eyes almost bulged out of his head.

Shaking her head, Samiyah confirmed, “Yes James. I’m 4 weeks. I know we haven’t ta-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Samiyah was hoisted in the air.

“HEY I’M GONNA BE A DAD AGAIN!!”

A rousing chorus of congratulations and applause greeted Bucky and Samiyah.

Bucky got bent down, talking to his future son or daughter.

“Hey in there. This is your daddy. I can’t wait to meet ‘ya. Your big sister’s gonna be so excited. I love ya so much.”

For James Buchanan Barnes, this was definitely a season of change. As he marvelled at Samiyah, Joss, and his unborn son or daughter.

No, he wasn’t dreaming; they were his happily ever after.

TAGS: @promarvelfangirl @omalleysgirl22 @pegasusdragontiger @rebelslicious @theimpossibleg1rl @love2rhyme @magellan-88 @bolontiku @supersoldierslover @sgtjamesbuchananbarnes107th @irene-rogue-adler

[mypetshopworld]

Cats and newborn babies. Your Cat is not dangerous to your newly born Baby.

We are having a baby what we do without a cat? Cats and newborn babies.

If you are having a baby and a cat, there is nothing to worry. Both are great together when you follow a few rules. Many times, I see friends who had a cat before they get married and they loved their four-legged friend dearly. Then the boyfriend comes along, and they get married. This beautiful Harness leash for cats and small dogs is available at our shop. https://mypetshopworld.com

I have been asked many times by friends how did I do it with my cats and my kids? The most common question is if cats and newborn babies get along or do cats smoother the baby. To answer the question of how I do it. We always had cats and dogs, and when the kids arrived, we made sure we introduced them properly into the family that included all our four-legged friends. This old wife’s tale is still around that cats, and newborn babies do not get along. Or cats suck the breath out of babies. I have never seen that cats are a danger for babies. I have never understood why people say things like that. “Nothing is more ridiculous than that saying cats take the breath of the baby. “ Pregnant woman worries a lot when they have a cat and a new baby arrives. Subscribe to our Newsfeed. 

The cat came first then the baby. Cats love a routine. When you have a newborn baby and a cat that was there before then you must introduce the cat and baby like you would introduce a new cat to your old cat. If you are having a baby, grandchild, nephew or nice congratulations and if you also have a cat again compliments both will be so good together if you follow a few rules and don’t neglect your cat. Paying attention to your resident cats and preparing the proper introduction is half of the battle in preparing you, your cat and the child for a joyful and peaceful time together.

Cats love the warmth of a body. This is no surprise. Kitties love to sleep on your lap, your feet, tummy, your head or any other body part. They are drawn to people. Sometimes cats are drawn to infants due to the milk breath of your baby, as cats are curious from nature and they might sniff your infant out or just to see where the smell of milk comes from. Seldom will cats sleep in the Crib of the baby as when it cries the noise is not pleasant to the ears of your cat and it might scare your cat? There are exceptions, and those usually are cats who sleep in the bed of the baby or on top of the baby. Yes, that is dangerous, and you should never leave the cat and baby unsupervised. If your cat has the habit of sleeping in the crib of your infant, and you are not comfortable with it then keep the cat out of that area. Some people suggest using aluminium foil as the cats do not like to walk on it because of the sounds. Well, all I can say my cats don't mind aluminium foil and will scratch it when they can get it. It might work for some cats, I guess it depends on your cat.   Why is it essential that you do a Cat and newly born Baby introductions? You must understand that your cat was there first. As you properly got her when you are single or already in a relationship your cat has never been exposed to an infant, toddler or young children. Your Kitty has always been around adults. For your cat, those small humans with that funny noise are like aliens to your cat. Alone the smell, sound, and look are different, compare to the adults your kitty is used too. Children, babies, infants are a similar size to a cat’s level and move differently and more erratically. This beautiful Rhinestone collar for cats and smaller dogs you can get in our shop. https://mypetshopworld.com

Your Cat might switch to stranger-danger mode, and there are only two options then either your cat becomes freighted, and hides or it becomes defensive and tries to chase away the scary creature. None of those options is good. Preparation Before the Baby Comes Home. During pregnancy start already to prepare your cat beforehand. There are nine months for the pregnancy, and that is a great time to prepare your four-legged friend for the newborn baby. Cat lovers know that cats love the status quo. Decorating the nursery. 1.When you decorate the nursery be sensitive to your cat especially when she used or had access to that room before, for sleeping or just for taking a break. Make those changes in steps. Don’t change all in one time. Essential for your cat is let your cat investigate the new things, at least it will not feel left out. One thing you need to be aware off is that your cat will properly love to sleep in the bassinet or starts playing and smashing around the babies mobile. Install a baby gate to keep your cat out when you are not able to supervise your cat. A good protector for preventing cats sleeping in the bassinet or crib is a plastic carpet protector, the side with the nubs goes up use on top of the mattress. Cats do not love that, and it will prevent them from sleeping in the baby bed, bassinet or crib. Whatever you call it. Another tip is using Aluminium Foil around the bed or crib. That sound and feeling cats do not like either. It is a good idea to tape or record the sound of an infant and play it when the kitty is around, that way your cat gets used to the sound and you can see in advance what to expect. It is said that cats use sounds to communicate and an infant cry sounds similar to a kitten in distress. It might be unsettling for some cats to hear this. If your cat is investigating the sounds and the cat is acting calm reward your cat with calm praise and some treats. In case the opposite reaction is the case, and your cat gets upset then play your cats favourite game with her before you turn off the recording, that way your cat associates the play and happy time with the infant cry and sees it as a benefit rather than a thread. Preparing in advance your Baby’s homecoming. Let your Kitty get used to the smell. Start using or wearing baby powder and baby lotion around 6 weeks in advance. Your cat will associate these smells with something it already knows and loves. Another thing is you need to change your routine once the baby arrives, try to replace some of the basic routines in advance so your cat is used already to some of the routines and your kitty will not get upset when you pay attention to a stranger that has a weird smell and sounds scary. Do not exclude your cat from this happy and enjoyable time, it will only make your cat confused and sad. A stressed cat will potentially act out in unacceptable ways like avoiding the litterbox, scratching and biting.

The Time when the Baby Arrives. Soon as the baby is born to bring something home from the hospital a t-shirt, a blanket any worn clothing from the baby. Cats communicate through scent, and your cat will identify the scent than as a friend smelling similar to them. This is one of the reasons why they cheek rub against you or your legs. It makes the smell familiar to your cat before your kitty gets to know your baby. This is an advanced introduction. It is necessary, and you should not skip that. I used the baby socks and petted my cats with the socks. The cats started to play with the socks and Minka used to grab the sock and sleep on it. I always had to get them as I used to put the socks then inside out on my kids to wear them when I brought them home. It is an old trick as the baby smells than like the cat and your kitty identifies your baby as part of the family. Cats and newborn babies can be good together. In general, cats are really good with babies. Bringing home, the baby, do it reasonably and don’t make a big fuzz about it. I know it is a big thing don’t make a big deal about the introduction. The idea is that you want to let your kitty know this is normal, and an expected part of its life. It is crucial that you do not force the introduction. If your cat is interested and wants to sniff allow it but be there to supervise it. Let the cat smell the baby’s foot with the scented socks on it. It is an important part to allow your cat to look, smell, sniff, touch that little alien that is so very different from the adult alien to see there is nothing to fear.

Do not forget to praise your cat when it behaves confidently and calmly. After a while, the cat will treat the baby as one of the family members. There should be no problem. I used to make a special cat bay time when I was feeding my kids. I was tossing treats and used a laser beam toy at the same time. This way your cat will associate with the baby presence a great time. As time goes on and the baby grows you must teach your child to respect the cat, too. It is essential for your kitty to have a private retreat or an escape area where it can withdraw when it becomes too hectic. It is important that cats and newborn babies treat each other under your supervision with mutual respect. Only in this way you can be sure that your baby is growing up alongside your special cat. This relationship will last a lifetime for both. I know the opinions are different, but cats and kids have special relationships. When a kid grows up with pets, it is a blessing for both. Cats and newborn babies are a great combination, and the old wife’s tale is just an old wive'stale. Having a cat and a baby, is an adjustment no doubt but it is a blessing for the whole family. A cat is part of the family; it should not change because a baby arrives. I agree that it is an adjustment, but it is nothing impossible. There is no need to give your furry friend away because you are having a baby. I have raised 3 kids with 4 cats and 3 dogs and my kids have learned to interact and respect animals. It is the greatest gift you can give your children together on their way to grow up. It teaches them responsibility, love, respect, and compassion. Are you a mom with a cat and a baby? If so how did you introduce your cat to the baby if you have more tips please let us know and comment below? Thank you for reading my blog Melissa Want to receive more news from pet shop world? Then sign up to our monthly newsletter. Each month we give away free gifts for 10 subscribers.   Subscribe to our News Feed

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30 Cheap & Inexpensive Indoor Dog Fence Ideas https://ift.tt/2SmviAx

Do you struggle to keep your dog out of the living room, kitchen, or even your furniture?

Maybe they’re prone to making a huge mess while digging through the trash bin.

As much as we love our furry friends, they can be quite a handful and tend to love going where they’re not supposed to.

The last thing you want waking you up in the wee hours of the night is a loud boom from your kitchen or living room, only to find your dog knocked over something.

An indoor dog fence is an invisible barrier that keeps your home clutter-free unlike having several pet gates that block your dog from entering restricted spots.

It is also effective in that it warns your dog not to enter such areas or jump on furniture, using a low static pulse.

The good news is there’s an indoor dog fence for just about any setup.

Here are 30 cheap and inexpensive indoor dog fence ideas you can check out for your home.

1. North States Superyard 3 In 1 Arched Décor Metal

Buy From AmazonThis 12-foot indoor dog fence is great for dog-proofing an open floor plan, and offers almost endless possibilities.

It can be enclosed to create a play yard, or use it as a door or wall type barrier, remove or add extra pieces.

Additionally, it can be permanently installed, or make a freestanding gate from its length by zigzagging it.

It features a walk-through door, large size for several configuration options, and hardware mount that secures the fence.

2. Munchkin Loft Aluminum Baby Gate

Buy From AmazonThis indoor dog fence is a great choice if you want the best of both installation worlds.

You can permanently affix it to your wall by mounting the gate using the hardware, and still remove it by using the quick release and it’s off your wall entirely.

The metal fence has an integrated tuning system (ITS) through which you can adjust the mount for a perfect vertical fit in turn increasing steadiness.

It features a walk-through door that swings open in both directions, double-locking system on handle, Indexed Sizing System for quick adjustments, and sleek modern aluminum styling.

3. Halligan Pet Gate with Swivel Feet

Buy From WayfairThis lightweight, free standing, wall mounted wooden fence fits in a doorway, and extends from 16 to 48 inches.

Its fold-and-go 3 panel feature allows you to quickly change its location if you need to, say to a different room or house, without damaging any floors.

Features like non-skid pads, swivel feet, and a swinging door that lets your dog pass through without tipping the fence over, are included.

It’s cute paw-print pattern also complements your already cute pup.

4. Lil’ Tuffy Expandable Gate with Small Pet Door

Buy From AmazonThis adorable fence is only 18 inches high and extra wide (26-42 inches) and doesn’t need a walk-through.

It features a Carlson patented small 10×7 inches pet door for your dog to pass through, so you don’t have to pull down the barrier for it.

The fence is a pressure-mounted install that’s quick to set up with a sturdy bar that runs down the center horizontally.

A locking feature is included with the small pet door, plus the fence’s quick fit patented system means you can quickly remove it out of the opening for easy storage.

It’s all steel design is convenient and durable, with non-toxic finishes, and four rubber bumpers that create gentle protection as you mount the gate.

5. Expandable Pet Gate by Carlson Pet

Buy From AmazonExpand your dog’s play area with this indoor made from premium quality steel, with a robust yet durable gate extension.

This fence can be placed in your stairwell, and comes with a built-in door for easy maneuvering for your dog.

It is built with cherry wood and charcoal steel, is chew proof, and has a one-touch release handle.

The setup is quick and convenient as you simply pressure-mount it to your wall or in front of your stairway.

6. Regalo 192-inch Super Wide Gate and Play Yard

Buy From AmazonThis super wide fence opens up to 192 inches and stands 28 inches tall.

As a 2-in-1 fence, you can convert it from a super wide gate to an eight-panel play yard, without using any tools except a 4-pack of wall mounts.

It is configurable and adjusted to fit almost any opening, including angled openings, plus it folds flat for storage, is durable, and convenient.

Among its features is a walk-through door with a safety locking feature, which you can mount on the wall for added protection and security.

7. Demeter Freestanding Wooden Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonThis freestanding wooden indoor dog fence makes it easier to keep your dog where it’s supposed to be.

It folds easily like an accordion, standing on its own to limit your dog’s access to specific or restricted areas in the home.

The extra length also allows you to block out a lot more, plus its lightweight design makes it portable and easy to maneuver when needed.

8. Carlson Extra Wide Walk-Through Gate with Pet Door

Buy From AmazonThis extra wide fence expands to openings and stairs between 29-37 inches wide, and stands 30 inches tall, and doesn’t need any drilling.

The pressure mount design also makes it an easy and quick to set up fence without using any tools, plus its gentle on walls.

Its features include a patented small pet door, adjustable 6-inch wide extension kit, and all-steel design that is convenient and durable.

A safety-lock feature and wall mounts are included for added security.

9. Evenflo Expansion Swing Wide Gate

Buy From AmazonThis indoor dog fence is for a well-trained dog that still needs to get its boundaries right.

It is hardware installed and has a latch so it cannot fall with much pressure.

If your dog is calmer, then this is the perfect fence you can get because it won’t be tempted to chew on the wood like teething puppies.

It fits a broad range of openings, and is convenient for high traffic areas, which allows for easy and quick pass through.

The plastic telescoping safety rail also keeps your dog’s paws safe from pinching.

10. Evenflo Soft and Wide Gate

Buy From AmazonOn Amazon, this indoor dog fence is the number one bestseller and is a no-fuss, no-muss gate.

It is easy to install, fitting most of your needs. However, if you have an ambitious pup, it can jump over or knock the fence as its only 27 inches high.

It features a fabric material that can be machine washed, and works best with a well-behaved dog.

Other features include neutral styling so it complements various home decors, non-marring rubber bumpers to prevent damage to your home, and extra wide fit for various openings.

11. Summer Infant Multi-Use Deco Extra Tall Walk-Through Gate

Buy From AmazonThis pressure mounted installation indoor dog fence is great for use between rooms and includes optional hardware mounts to install on stairways.

It opens 28.5 to 48 inches wide and stands 36 inches tall.

Features include a removable door stopper you can use at the top of stairs so the gate doesn’t open towards the staircase, dual locking to auto-close the door, and you can operate the walk- through with one hand.

The fence also has a convenient auto-close that closes gently behind you as you walk through the door.

12. Carlson Pet Products Design Studio Home Décor Walk Through Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonFashioned with high-end New Zealand Pine and finishing, this designer indoor dog fence expands to fit openings between 30.5-37.5 inches wide, and stands 30 inches tall.

Its set up is simple, with no tools required, plus it has an easy to use lever handle and one-touch release safety lock.

A small 10×7 pet door is included designed to let small pets pass through, and it’s all-steel design is durable, convenient, and folds flat for easy storage.

13. Freestanding Walk Over Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonThis indoor dog fence by Four Paws helps you arrange for a separate playpen for your pooch.

Built from premium-quality wood, the fence is sturdy and durable, remaining functional for years on end.

Its light brown finishing blends effortlessly with all home decors, and you can get it in multiple panels and sizes suited for your needs.

14. IRIS Exercise Panel Pet Playpen with Door

Buy From AmazonThis 34-inch exercise 8-panel pet playpen is the perfect indoor dog fence for puppies to small and also large dogs.

It is made in the USA of heavy-duty, durable molded plastic and can last for years without rusting.

The fence features panels that interlock securely with full-length connecting rods, and you can position it in different shapes to suit the needs of your dog.

A non-skid rubber foot is also included with each panel to protect your flooring, and locking latches and a two-piece add-on panel kit.

15. Regalo Easy Step Walk Thru Gate

Buy From AmazonThis walk-through indoor dog fence can be opened with one hand, so it’s useful if your hands are full like if you’re carrying a baby or other items.

It is pressure mounted and comes with hardware so you can drill extra bumpers into your wall if you like.

The fence has an adjustable 6-inch wide extension kit perfect for hallway, doorway, and bottom of stair use extensions, which allow it to accommodate a 60-inch opening at maximum.

It also has an all-steel design that’s convenient and durable, safety-locks and wall mounts for extra security.

16. IRIS Pet Playpen with Door

Buy From AmazonThis 4-panel indoor dog fence makes for an ideal dog play area as it can fold into a pet playpen, or you can use it as an exercise pen or training puppy enclosure.

It is built with heavy-duty molded plastic that can last for years and is both easy to assemble and lightweight, so you can carry it anywhere with you.

The fence is also easy to take apart, store, and transport.

It interlocks securely with full-length connecting rods, plus non-skid rubber feet are included to protect your floor.

17. Brianne Freestanding Pet Gate with Swivel Feet

Buy From WayfairThis indoor dog fence is highly rated what with its patent-pending stability leg design that allows its 3-panel hinged gate extend fully to maximum width without tipping over.

Non-skid pads are included on the fold-and-go gate to help protect your floor, plus swivel feet for stability.

Being a freestanding fence, it doesn’t mark walls, plus it is very stable when fully extended.

18. Primetime Petz 360 Configurable Gate with Door

Buy From AmazonThe hinges on this freestanding indoor dog fence make it configurable to your space.

It is easily stowed as there’s no installation needed plus it’s very portable so you can move it from one place to another if you don’t want a permanent fence in a fixed spot.

It features a classy wood finish and walk-through gate with 360-degree hinges that let you configure it in a variety of ways to securely contain your dog.

The fence is built with solid wood and a rich walnut stain finish to give it the look and feel of fine furniture. Rubber pads are included at the bottom to prevent sliding and protect your floors from scratching.

19. Safety First Eco-Friendly Nature Next Bamboo Gate

Buy From AmazonThis indoor dog fence is a safety gate with a customizable width that adjusts to fit openings and doorways between 28 and 42 inches wide, and 24 inches high.

It is secure and sturdy, with a durable bamboo frame that features a subtle and see-through mesh design, and recycled plastic panels.

Non-marring bumpers are included to protect it from unwanted scratches and dings.

The pressure-mounted fence is easy to install, without tools or hardware needed.

20. North States Supergate Expandable Swing Gate

Buy From AmazonThis fence is made in the U.S.A. and is an expandable swing gate designed for extra-wide openings in your home.

It easily accommodates openings from 24 to 60 inches wide, and is built with sturdy wood plus a four-point steel hardware for mounting. A safety latch, and top safety rail are included that adjusts automatically when the gate expands.

21. Cardinal Pet Gates Duragate, White

Buy From AmazonThe Duragate is an easy to assemble indoor dog fence created with simple mounting system that mounts at any angle.

It’s features include an all-steel construction with powder coated finish, and you can add up to two top extensions if you want to increase the height of the fence.

22. Regalo Home Accents Extra Tall and Wide Walk Thru Baby Gate

Buy From AmazonFashioned with high-end finishing and New Zealand Pine, this fence, by Regalo, stands 38 inch tall for added security, and expands to fit openings from 29 to 44 inches wide.

It is adjustable, with an easy close handle and one-touch release safety lock.

The fence is a simple pressure mount setup, and it fits perfectly in doorways, hallways, bottom of stairs and open spaces.

It comes with a six and four-inch wide extension kit, and you can fold it flat for easy storage.

23. Cumbor Easy Step Walk Through Safety Gate

Buy From AmazonBesides keeping curious crawlers safe, this indoor dog fence protects your wall, and is easy to install within minutes.

The gate, which opens and closes easily and automatically, comes with an extension kit gate that expands 29.5-38.5 inches wide, and stands at 31 inches tall.

It features a steel frame with four pressure mounts that are adjustable so you can create a secure and stable fit. If you prefer a hardware mount, wall cups are included to help you attach it to your wall.

The gate is sturdy for your pet dog, and can defend a maximum of 200 pounds of impact by your dog, with a little pet gate for cats to walk through (if you have any).

A double-touch release safety lock is included, plus you get an 18-month worry-free warranty and 3-month unconditional refund on the product.

24. North States Supergate Easy Swing and Lock Metal Gate

Buy From AmazonThis easy swing and lock metal fence keeps your dog safe and secure, and is perfect for stairways.

It fits openings of 28 to 48 inches wide and stands 31 inches tall.

The fence comes with hardware for mounting as a swing gate, and is built of durable metal for years of durable service.

Its vertical bars also make it a difficult to climb frame, and it’s bronze finish incorporates style and function to complement your home decor.

It also self-locks so you never need to worry about forgetting.

The fence is easy to use, with no threshold bar to step over, and an easy one-hand operating latch to get in and out, effortlessly.

25. Midlee Portable Folding Safeguard Mesh Gate

Buy From AmazonThis pet safe guard features a versatile safeguard screen that extends to about 48 inches wide, making it perfect for all areas in the house.

It’s easy to setup and install, and comes with a woven nylon mesh (with extra thick netting), two stainless steel telescopic poles to secure everything, and 4 adhesive plastic wall hooks to hang it on.

Once you don’t need it anymore, you can fold it up and store it away, or if you want to travel, the fence is portable if you’re going with your dog.

26. WELLAND Freestanding Wood Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonThis freestanding gate has three panels that keep your dog confined for safety, and a beautiful solid wood construction and cherry finish.

It is perfect for stairs, hallways, doorways, home, and stairways among other openings. When completely extended, the fence is about 55x30x3/4 inches.

Rubber pads can be added to the bottom of the fence to prevent sliding or scratching the floors. However, it doesn’t come with support feet.

27. Kleeger Freestanding Folding Dog Gate

Buy From AmazonThis is a multi-purpose indoor dog fence that is great for blocking openings such as stairways, hallways, doorways, and entryways that your pet shouldn’t enter.

It is practical, decorative, freestanding, portable, lightweight, and easy to set up.

The fence is built with real wood and a beautiful black finish with a decorative diamond decor die cut design pattern that’s modern, elegant, and adds design to your home.

It fits openings of up to 45 inches wide, and stands 20 inches tall.

However, this fence isn’t recommended for under trained or non-trainable dogs.

28. Delxo Multi-Use Metal Baby Gate Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonThis is an excellent yet stylish way to limit your dog from accessing some parts of your home, while maintaining a modern appearance that matches your decor.

It comes with four pressured adjustment bolts for secure and easy installation, plus a latching mechanism for security.

The fence swings conveniently in either direction making it easy to walk through when you get in or out, and opens in the direction of your walk.

It is chew-proof, non-toxic, and lead-free, built from sturdy metal construction that’s enough to bear the impact of 80 pounds, and safely restricts your pooch.

29. Wood Pet Gates Die-Cut

Buy From AmazonThis die-cut giraffe motif pet gate restricts your dog from certain areas of your home, safely, besides complimenting your home’s decor.

The 3-panel gate measures 19 inches high and adjusts to fit doorways about 4 feet wide, plus it folds flat for storage.

30. Hoovy Freestanding Metal Pet Gate

Buy From AmazonThis freestanding indoor dog fence is versatile and multifunctional.

You can set it up however you like and block restricted openings for your dog, without the need to assemble parts. Just unfold it and place where you want it to stand.

No bolts, tools, installations, or permanent fixtures needed.

It is portable, and easy to store by folding it and conveniently moving it to your storage area.

Additionally, it’s beautiful design and shiny finish is the perfect addition to your home, and the pet-friendly design unties your hands in different situations while matching your decor.

Hoovy backs this fence with a 5-year satisfaction guarantee if you’re not 110 percent thrilled after purchasing it.

Summary

There you have it, 30 cheap and inexpensive indoor dog fence ideas you can use in your home today to keep your dog safe, protected, out of mischief, and give you peace of mind.

[carasueachterberg]

This week the pups morphed from guinea pigs to real puppies. They are growling and wrestling and starting to even notice the toys I’ve placed in their box. I tried a few Live Streams but as about 23 hours of their day is spent sleeping both ‘puppy hours’ mostly featured a big pile of pups napping. I will try again this week.

Mia continues to be an all-business mom, getting the job done and getting back out of the box. She is much more interested in what is happening in the rest of the house or the other dogs.

Below are the entries for this week. If you’d like to read them in real time (and maybe catch a puppy hour livestream) be sure to follow my public Facebook page.

Diary of a Rescue Day 8:

Everyone got noisy today. Mia has decided she does not want to be in that puppy room. She would like to come out and play with the other dogs in the house. It’s obvious she is a young dog and being cooped up with those little vultures is getting to her.

I tried to walk her more and to give her time in the hallway instead of only the puppy room. I’m hesitant to allow her access to the other dogs yet. With every other Mama dog I’ve waited until the puppies were weaned to introduce the mama dog to our pack. I still think that’s the best way so likely I will wait but we may try walking her with a Fanny, my young female dog who will eventually be her best playmate.

The puppies are also getting noisier and more active. It makes me wonder if their ears are starting to open. They are still wobbly and awkward but they are beginning to play and wrestle.

Because we all need some more positive stories to follow, I am going to try to post more video of the puppies. I’m going to set up my phone to stream a LIVE hour of puppies tomorrow from 11:30-12:30 EST. Can’t promise there won’t be poop or household noise but hopefully watching puppies will be much better than watching the news!

#stayhomeandsavelives and watch #puppies!

Diary of a Rescue Day 9:

They get a little more active each day. Today I weighed them all and everyone except Usnavi and Cinderella broke the two pound mark. If we have the birthdate more or less right, the growth chart puts them between 40-50 pounds. They seem small to me though so we’ll see if they stay on that trajectory.

Little personalities are starting to emerge. Dolly is very curious and outgoing, Usnavi is mischievous, Mr Mistopheles is very mellow (and the biggest pup), Evan Hansen is charming, and Calamity Jane is a bit of a noodge.

This morning I did my first ‘Puppy Hour’ and live streamed them for an hour. I will try again tomorrow but do it in the afternoon when they are more active.

I am trying to post as often as possible because I know people can use some happy media. Please take care of yourselves and look out for your neighbors.

#puppiesMakeEverythingBetter #opttoadopt

Diary of a Rescue Day 10:

At almost three weeks old the puppies biggest activity is sleeping. Still, I can spend inordinate amounts of time just watching them sleep- the little twitches, the mewling, the rolling over and getting stuck between siblings. All of it is adorable.

This weekend I thought I’d share a little of their days by live streaming a ‘puppy hour’ each day. I enlisted my son to rig up a holder for my iPhone and then I announced the appointed hour.

Saturday’s Live stream, while probably too far away at least had a little activity when Mia popped in and out of the pen and even settled down to nurse.

Sunday, though, was a solid hour of sleeping puppies, except when the phone holder slipped and then it was ten minutes of towel before Nick fixed it and then it was back to sleeping puppies.

I’ve decided I will give it a few days and then try the live stream again. With all that is going on in our world, I think a puppy hour would be a nice break from nonstop bad news.

Hopefully the next one will be a bit more entertaining.

Mia continues to spend her days at the gate, hoping someone will take her out for a walk. She is definitely ready for the single life.

#puppylife #nappinglife #opttoadopt

Diary of a Rescue Day 11:

It’s hard to get pictures of the pups with eyes open- when they are awake they are busy- stumbling around, nursing, or pooping. I caught a few today, though. They are looking less like guinea pigs and more like puppies.

Mia has been spending a lot of time in the hallway outside the puppy room, lying at the gate that separates the hall from our living room. From that spot she has been watching my husband install a hardwood floor. He says she reminds him of a toddler, easily amused watching ordinary things.

(I think he’s remembering our kids as babies, certainly by the time they were toddlers they were rarely content to ‘watch’ anything- they’d have made a big mess of all the stuff from the living room currently piled in that hallway!)

If we must be stuck at home, home with puppies isn’t such a bad deal. I hope you are fairing well and finding a few silver linings of this situation.

#staysafeandsane #togetherbutapart

Diary of a Rescue Day 12:

Today my kids, Ian and Addie, are in charge of the crew. My husband and I made a quick trip down to our cabin in the mountains of Virginia to cut the grass, address the carpenter bee infestation, and deal with the results of me leaving bananas on the counter the last time I was down here two weeks ago.

Thankfully, the bananas held up okay and the house wasn’t filled with fruitflies (as anticipated), but the bees are out in force and the exterminator is coming tomorrow. (I hate the idea of killing any bees, even ones that are eating my house, so hopefully he will have ideas how to not just evict them but keep them from coming back.)

So far, the meager first-hand reports are that the puppies and Mia are doing fine. Ian sent a few pictures. I’m sure they will seem so much bigger when I see them again tomorrow. I can check on them via our puppy cam and everything looks fine, at least on camera. My kids have helped care for dozens of puppies by now so I’m confident the pups are in good hands.

#togetherwerescue #mykidsareprettygreat

Diary of a Rescue Day 13:

The pups are three weeks old now. Tonight I weighed them. Smallest is 1 lb 11oz (Usnavi) and biggest is 2lbs 11oz (Mr. Mistopheles).

They got their second dewormer tonight and it went much better than last time- everyone slurped it up and looked for more. While I was deworming them, I noticed that there are teeth coming in, so later this week I will introduce some soft puppy mush. Solid food is the first step towards Mia’s independence, which she desperately needs.

Mia is a mischievous one, already trying to figure out how to climb out, pulling everything down within reach, and attentively watching out her gate at all times. She can’t wait to join the other dogs and this household.

Everyone faired just fine in my absence. It is awfully nice to have such competent kids (well really starter-adults).

#puppyhouse #happytobehome

Diary of a Rescue Day 14:

There is little to say beyond the cuteness, so I’ll let it speak for itself…

Thanks for reading!

Cara

If you’d like regular updates of all my foster dogs past and present, plus occasional dog care/training tips from OPH training, be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog.

For information on me, my writing, and books, visit CaraWrites.com. I have a new book, One Hundred Dogs and Counting: One  Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues, coming out in July. If it sounds like something you’d like to read, I’d be beyond grateful if you’d consider preordering it. Preorders contribute to the success of the book, not only giving me and my publisher some peace of mind but hopefully attracting media attention.

And if you’d like to know where all these dogs come from and how you can help solve the crisis of too many unwanted dogs in our shelters, visit WhoWillLetTheDogsOut.org.

Our family fosters through the all-breed rescue, Operation Paws for Homes, a network of foster homes in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and south-central PA.

If you can’t get enough foster dog stories, check out my book: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs . It’s available anywhere books are sold.

I love to hear from readers and dog-hearted people! Email me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Need some good news for a change? How about #puppies?Diary of a Rescue Week Two #fosterdogs This week the pups morphed from guinea pigs to real puppies. They are growling and wrestling and starting to even notice the toys I’ve placed in their box.

[daemonvols]

Chapter Five

Eating Their Own

 Two weeks is a relative amount of time. As a child, I thought it was as close to eternity as I could imagine, especially the last two weeks of school. In college, however, with papers due and finals looming and my CPA exam just a few days afterwards, I felt the last two weeks speed by as if I had been driving with my father in the Buick off the overpass and I could not find the brakes. Working for the CPF, the daylight hours could drag between funerals, arrangements, hassles with Varney and Trumbull. Nights with the “residents” were something else.

The two weeks of wondering if Charlie would call and set a night to meet my “residents” followed no pattern I recognized. At best, it was a manual-drive engine in the hands of an amateur, all bucks and stalls. Three families with parents in hospice asked for pricing on plots “not too close to the highway.” Only one offered an explanation for the request: seems the traffic noise gave both the parents terrible headaches. No, it didn’t make sense to me either. Nevertheless, I spent three hours going over our online map with them, then all three callers ended with the same procrastination: “I’ll get back to you.”

The rains and winter heaving meant new gravel had to be ordered and the union called for workers to spread it. Thank God the union sent a young woman and older man I had never met before to do the work. They were done inside of three hours. And it reminded me that I had to refresh the colored gravel Grandma Rose liked to use a groundcover in the front and side flower beds.

Next, adding to the morning’s fun, I had to start an ongoing “conversation” (translation: verbal battle) with the Board about the Potter’s Field.

The first Board of Directors thought two acres more than ample for the charitable act of burying the “few poor souls” in Sayresville who had neither family nor money. The original area and estimate sufficed for nearly a century. There was more than enough room to bury the indigent elbow to elbow with small plaques. However, I believe someone whom the Board held then, and publicly hold now in high esteem, once said that the poor would always be among us. Whoever it was forgot to mention that the poor, too, took advice from the same translated (and mis-translated) text: in Sayresville, the poor were fruitful and multiplied. And they died in increasing numbers, as well. Wars, diseases turning fatal in overcrowded Emergency Departments, and the violence that accompanies poverty added up the totals, rich and poor, with the majority falling to the poor. Together, the “always among us” dying poor had all but exhausted the remaining space.

The town commissioners called three times during those two weeks about five bodies they wanted us to bury. I relayed this message to Foundation Treasurer Meecham, the many times great-grandson of the original Meecham.

“We don’t have space for that many,” I said. “Three maybe, but we may have to look into expanding – “

“The foundation has no money to expand the indigent grounds.”  The man wheezed and coughed like someone suffering from a chronic allergy to spending money on something other than himself.

“But we have a binding contract with the city. Where do you suggest we put the bodies?”

“Why not bury them on top of some of the older bodies? They’re dead. They won’t care.”

Fine for him to say so.  He didn’t have to deal with the ghosts. I did. Those souls still hanging around were up most nights and they cared plenty. And I was the one they complained to about whatever chafed them. It’s one of the impossibilities of this job to convince the narcissistic living that the dead do indeed care. As the living will, when their turn comes, but try pointing that out to your wealthy employer and see if you keep your job.

Take the grave markers, for instance. Somewhere in the 1840s, the Board decreed that their obligation to inter the indigent required no more than a seven by four by six-foot grave per body. The “headstones” in the Potters’ Field were metal placards the size of postcards and wouldn’t hold down a small dog’s spirit. If a name was known, a first initial and surname along with the year of death was inscribed. Otherwise, the identification was a number and the year. These latter were most vocal about the identity theft, but I had no records or any other arguments to make the Board replace the numbered markers with ones bearing the deceaseds’ names. Neither side was happy in this standoff, and I had to hear both sides. Continually.

One of them explained it to me on a long, gray winter’s afternoon: “While I was dying, I couldn’t complain. I had no money. I had to let them do what they wanted to do or not do with me. I spent a lot of time on a cot in the corner of the poor wing of the county hospital until I died. And I never complained. Now I’m dead, I can complain.”

“But nobody’s here to listen.”

He regarded me with a patient smile. “You are. It’s your job.”

This, if I think about it, might explain why, during those two weeks, I tolerated Missy and Mischa’s visits every day that first week.

“Did he call?”

“No, Mischa. Not today.”

“Well, you know you can’t trust a gravedigger.” I had not told them about the foiled robbery. “They are low characters and not to be trusted. And they are men.”

Next day: “Did he call?”

“No, Missy. Not today.”

“Men have to work, Gracie. That’s their job in life and our job is to wait. Be patient. He’ll call.”

Two days later:

“No, he hasn’t called! Leave it alone, will you?”

“You poor dear. We’re here for you.”

Now this last was followed by what I call the “Solidarity Move”: their opaque thumbs almost touching between them and their heads inclined towards each other. If they had been solid, I think they would have banged foreheads and jabbed each other in the belly button.  However, not wishing to have them repeat the Cat Move and wear themselves and my nerves out for the day, I said nothing.

I kept to the work of the cemetery business during the day and my romances in the lengthening daylight. We buried a SIDS baby in Section G and a vagrant in one of the last open plots in the Potter’s Field. I paid bills, fielded inquiries, fended off threats of breach of contract from the town commissioners and tried to persuade Meecham that there would be trouble if something was not done soon.

I had no idea how prophetic that last warning was. Misdirected, but prophetic.

 The seven o’clock a.m. presenters called themselves the Syracuse area’s “news buddies”:

“Hey and good morning! It’s seven o’clock! This is Andy, with Destiny, Lynne and Beth, your news buddies! Here’s the latest headlines.”

I cannot help but wonder at anyone who sounded so hopped up on caffeine for the greetings, and then began the first of May with expressions of shock from the roots of their perfectly coiffured hair to their wide, heavily-lined eyes. “Three dead bodies in the tall grass along Route 173,” said Destiny, the brunette with the thick, smoky eye shadow that reminded me of a black eye. She sounded almost cheerful. “The Medical Examiner’s office reported the causes of death for all three as exsanguinations. Police suspect the bodies were moved to the remote location because they found no blood in the vicinity of the bodies.”

“Police are also investigating broken locks on the gates of Fair Haven and the Old Baldwinsville cemeteries,” Lynne interrupted. It seemed they had a low-rung reporter at one of the cemeteries, but not on the scene of the triple murder.

Somebody would catch it for that slip-up, I thought.

Either one of these reports would send citizens like Mrs. Schnosberg into a tizzy for two or three days. Our neighbor across the street and to the left was the Mansfield Road arbiter of dangerous behavior. She’d be warning any one on the block who ventured outside to lock their doors and never speak to strangers. She’d badger us all until the Save-a-Lot circulars arrived in the mailboxes. Then she and the media would forget it and move onto the latest shooting or house fire.

But two mornings later, the buddies were back with more on one of the stories. And they had the on-the-scene report.

“Three more bloodless bodies found behind the subsidized housing on Townsend Street last night. Residents reported seeing a young woman and two men, one possibly in his twenties or early thirties and an older man in an orange mask. However, police advise caution and watching for wild dogs or possibly a mountain lion.”

Try something equally vicious, but going about on two legs, I thought. I might have prayed that God would put an end to Helen and Nestor and Ian’s clumsiness, but I’ve never understood what, if anything, God does about vampires.

By the end of the week, two more corpses lay behind Baldwinsville High School to the north. A single mom living across the street reported hearing what she called “twitchy cussing” before some screaming. Typical Tuesday night behavior for some of the middle and high school students, she called it. She had no idea people were dying out there. “Sh-t (bleeped out for the broadcast) like that just don’t happen around here. We’re a quiet neighborhood, but for some of those kids.” The police asked phone videos and any other information anyone could provide.

I knew it was only a matter of time.

I fell asleep a couple nights later after reading only three pages of Loves Me, Loves Me Not, which was fine. I’d read that slim romance at least three times before, but I needed the reassurance of familiar words.

The screaming woke me. I knew those voices, begging for forgiveness, for one more “shot.” For once, I was grateful the Board had not installed motion detectors and the connections to the local police. This was something no living being outside the CPF needed to see.  I ran downstairs to find the jeans I’d just put beside the washer and was out in the CPF in bedtime T-shirt and dirty jeans with my grandfather’s flashlight before the screaming stopped.

    The last howl, more of a pitiable sob, came over the hill. I guessed they had gathered in Section F or D on the north side under the weeping willow that grew by the drainage ditch. The light from the poles were little more than wishes in that section, but I could make out cluster of black figures.

    I had stopped hard in the gravel, halfway down the back side of the hill, when Derek appeared in front of me. His face twisted in what I thought was panic. “You are not wanted here.”

    I wasn’t budging. “The screaming says otherwise. What the hell are you doing?”

    Derek does not care to hear me swear any more than my grandparents did. As I said, he has definite, 19th century ideas in that undead head of his. “It is not your business.”

    “If I can hear it, the neighbors can hear it and somebody might call the police. And then there will be questions.” I waited. He blinked, telling me he saw my point. “Helen and Nestor, I take it?”

    “They were warned. More than once, they were warned of the consequences.”

    “Ian, too?”

    Derek’s shadowy face eased. “No. He knows no better.”

    “And tonight you’re teaching him a valuable. Teaching them all a lesson, making an example and all that?”

    I had said too much. Derek’s temper has much in common with Vesuvius at the best of times, and even the best-intentioned dissuasion – which my questions were not – could set off an eruption. His face drew up almost in pain. His thin lips pulled back to bare his canine sharp teeth. His eyes narrowed to slits. I saw a shadow that looked like one of his hands forming a fist. He put a vise-grip on my elbow. “You judge me?! You dare! You vile little… It is time for you to learn as well.”

    Vampires do have a way of speeding time and motion that leaves me light-headed and a little nauseous. Before I blinked twice, my bare toes hung over the edge of a grave. Next to it was another open grave, not two feet away (postwar cutbacks meant graves were dug with little or no elbow room in the 1950s). Derek released my arm and snapped his long fingers. I held the assembled “family” back when I flicked on the bright bulb of the flashlight to look down into the grave at my feet.

    Helen lay in the grave less than a meter down, naked, at my feet on top of her coffin. Her skin had paled to a bluish white and there were paired puncture marks all over her neck, her ample breasts, her round belly and a few more on her heavy thighs. She cringed at the light shone on her and sobbed without tears. She reached her arms up first to Derek who stood at the foot of the grave, then to the others around her, who slurped and licked her blood off their lips. A soft moan escaped her.

    A lower moan echoed her despair. Nestor raised stubby fingers from the other grave in supplication. I had to assume he as in a similar state because two of the Old Guards held me back from looking into his grave.

    “He’s not drained yet,” a voice to my right snarled. Ambr’ Cadwallader stepped closer to Nestor’s grave. “He still smells of blood.”

    Derek made some motion with his hand and she leapt into Nestor’s grave. The sucking and moaning that followed brought my dinner up to the back of my throat. I gagged as Ambr’ sprang up and out of the grave. More slurping and lip-smacking for my benefit.

    “Want a taste?” she hissed in my face. I felt Nestor’s blood spatter my cheeks and wished I could vomit back into hers.

    “I’d say go to hell, but you’re halfway there already.”

    “Enough!” Derek said.

    “This is not finished,” an Old Guard female whinnied. “We cannot be sure they’ll die there. There could be worms, rats, even fish to feed on and those two would be sure to come back for revenge.” The other five Old Guards mumbled their agreement. Glowing yellow eyes fixed on Derek.

    Helen shook her head violently: no, she would not seek revenge if they would only let her live. Nestor’s moan seemed to echo her unspoken plea.

    “And maybe one of us is traitor enough to feed them,” Ambr’ agreed. “You must end them, Derek. Do it now.”

    The mid-termers and newbies started a whispered chant of “Now! Now! Do it now!”

    “Shut your mouths or you will join them!” Derek roared.

    He jumped into Helen’s grave straddling her on his knees. He hissed at the flashlight’s glow. With his long fingers he took Helen by the neck with one hand crossing over his grip on her jaw with the other. In one motion, he snapped bones and tore her head from her body with one twisting wrench. A small spray of blood dotted the sides of the grave. The newbies fell to their knees fighting each other to lap it all up.  Derek placed her head between her legs, the eyes still wide and her mouth open in a scream.

    He shot like a mortar out of her grave and landed in the other grave. Nestor had marshaled enough energy to scream until Derek ripped his head off as well and laid it between Nestor’s legs. He sprang up to the grave’s edge. His eyes burned into the others, sending every last one of them to their knees. Then he glared at me. I suppose it was because I was still standing, but I could not find my knees to bend.

Ambr’ and two midtermers did the honors of licking up what remained of Nestor’s blood spray. Then she was in front of me. “Want a taste, little Gracie?” she taunted. “Oh, I forgot. You can’t eat blood, can you?”

    I smelled Ambr’s sickening breath in my nostrils not a moment before my knees at last collapsed. I fell with my face just over Helen’s mutilated body still blue-white flash light’s glow. I vomited down the side of her grave.

Derek was beside me at the first heave. He held my head up out of the vomit. I turned on him and croaked, “You bastard. You owe me.”

[northshoregadgets]

Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases

It’s easy to spot the cloudiness in the eyes of our senior dogs. Many of us chalk it up to another sign of aging. But what is jarring is that less-known eye conditions like Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome (SARDS) or a traumatic eye injury can quickly rob any of our dogs of their sight at any age.

A dog with an eye issue. Phototography by Cynoclub/Thinkstock.

What is SARDS?

“A dog with SARDS can lose his sight within one to two days,” said Caryn Plummer, D.V.M., a veterinary ophthalmologist and associate professor at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. “This is a very weird condition not well understood. It is difficult to diagnose, and we still do not know what causes it and have yet to develop any effective treatments to cure it.”

It’s suspected that SARDS is a collection of conditions, but Dr. Plummer said more research is needed to better understand it.

“Dogs with SARDS show signs associated with Cushing’s disease — increased thirst, appetite and urination — but they do not have elevated levels of cortisol that dogs with Cushing’s disease have,” she added.

SARDS signs are easy to miss. One day, your dog is navigating easily around the furniture and two days later he bumps into the sofa, can’t catch that flung ball in the backyard and may even cling to you to help him move about the house. Yet, his eyes look clear and healthy.

“Upon initial exam, the eyes look normal, and the retina is functioning,” Dr. Plummer explained. “The diagnosis of SARDS can be quite shocking to people because it comes on quickly in their dogs. At least with progressively degenerating eye conditions such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA), people have time to adjust knowing that their dogs will be blind in months or a couple years. It is very hard to console people whose dogs have suddenly lost their vision due to SARDS.” 

What Dogs Get SARDS?

SARDS seems to strike more often in middle-aged female dogs, with breeds like Bichon Frises, Brittany Spaniels, Dachshunds, Maltese, Miniature Schnauzers and Pugs unexplainably at heightened risk.

Is SARDS Painful for Your Dog?

About the only saving grace of a SARDS diagnosis from your veterinarian is that your dog is not enduring any eye pain and can easily tap into his more superior senses of smell and hearing to enjoy a long, happy life with you.

“Trust me, eye pain is one of the worst pains a dog can experience,” Dr. Plummer said. “There are two types of eye pain: sharp pain or a dull, ongoing achy pain similar to migraine headaches. Most dogs with SARDS will acclimate to losing their sight and do well by having their other senses take over. Sight is secondary to what a dog can smell and hear in his environment.”

Tips for Dealing with a Blind Dog

Dr. Plummer encourages you to be proactive by focusing on your dog’s vision. Tip: By catching an eye issue early, you can save on veterinary bills and possibly prevent permanent vision loss or slow down the progression.

If your dog becomes blind, Dr. Plummer shared these six other tips to help him navigate in your home:

Don’t dismiss deviations in your dog’s actions or behaviors. They may be early signs of vision loss.

Book an appointment with your veterinarian to receive an examination that includes a thorough inspection of your dog’s eyes. And, consider taking your dog to a veterinary ophthalmologist to get a more detailed diagnosis. To find one in your area: Go to American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists at acvo.org.

Spray perfume (that your dog doesn’t mind) or canine pheromones around corners and on objects. Your dog can smell this scent and learn to avoid running into a corner or piece of furniture.

Place textured runners in hallways to alert your dog that he is entering a narrowed area from a large room with carpeting or wood flooring.

Train your dog to follow your voice. Retrain your dog how to go up and down stairs by using treats on the steps. Install baby gates at the top and bottom of stairways that you close when you are unable to supervise your dog. 

Dr. Plummer’s insight on other dog eye infections and dog eye diseases:

Cataracts

The lens in the eye becomes cloudy, opaque and can lead to blindness. The top contributor is genetics, followed by diabetes. Medications are available to slow down retinal degeneration caused by cataracts.

Conjunctivitis (pink eye)

This affects the mucus membranes located inside a dog’s eyelids, causing inflammation, redness and discomfort. Infections as well as environmental factors like dirt and dust in the eyes can cause conjunctivitis and impair a dog’s vision.

Discharge or dry eye

Also known as keratonconjunctivitis sicca, dry eye is due to tear ducts not producing enough tears to keep the eyes and lining of the eyelids properly moist. Your dog will blink excessively, and you may see pus discharge or even eye ulcers. 

Glaucoma

Although the increased pressure in the eye causes migraine-like pain, some dogs may hide other pain by sleeping more or acting irritable. Glaucoma can affect one or both eyes. Look for signs of red, cloudy eyes or dilated pupils. Unchecked, the eye can bulge and blindness can set in.

Eye injuries

If a cat’s claw scratches your dog’s lens or a stick pokes his eye, place a medical collar on your dog, and head to the veterinarian immediately. Both are medical emergency situations due to the bacteria invasion into your dog’s eye from the cat or the dirty stick.

Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA)

The first sign of this inherited, progressive blindness is that your dog will not be able to see at night. Border Collies, Cocker Spaniels, Irish Setters, Norwegian Elkhounds, Poodles and Schnauzers are most at risk. Fortunately, this condition is not painful.

Third eyelid inflammation

More commonly called “cherry eye,” this condition is characterized by an oval mass protruding from your dog’s third eyelid.

Thumbnail: Photography by Fotoedu/Thinkstock.

Read more about your dog’s eyes on Dogster.com:

Dog Eye Discharge — What’s Normal and What’s Not

Are Human OTC Eye Drops Safe for Dogs?

New Study Looks for Answers to an Unexplained Eye Disease in Dogs

Arden Moore, The Pet Health and Safety Coach™, is a pet behavior consultant, master certified pet first aid instructor, author and host of the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio. Learn more at fourleggedlife.com.

The post Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases appeared first on Dogster.

from Dogster http://ift.tt/2u1RhQK via http://www.dogster.com

[daddyslittlejuliet]

Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases

It’s easy to spot the cloudiness in the eyes of our senior dogs. Many of us chalk it up to another sign of aging. But what is jarring is that less-known eye conditions like Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome (SARDS) or a traumatic eye injury can quickly rob any of our dogs of their sight at any age.

A dog with an eye issue. Phototography by Cynoclub/Thinkstock.

What is SARDS?

“A dog with SARDS can lose his sight within one to two days,” said Caryn Plummer, D.V.M., a veterinary ophthalmologist and associate professor at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. “This is a very weird condition not well understood. It is difficult to diagnose, and we still do not know what causes it and have yet to develop any effective treatments to cure it.”

It’s suspected that SARDS is a collection of conditions, but Dr. Plummer said more research is needed to better understand it.

“Dogs with SARDS show signs associated with Cushing’s disease — increased thirst, appetite and urination — but they do not have elevated levels of cortisol that dogs with Cushing’s disease have,” she added.

SARDS signs are easy to miss. One day, your dog is navigating easily around the furniture and two days later he bumps into the sofa, can’t catch that flung ball in the backyard and may even cling to you to help him move about the house. Yet, his eyes look clear and healthy.

“Upon initial exam, the eyes look normal, and the retina is functioning,” Dr. Plummer explained. “The diagnosis of SARDS can be quite shocking to people because it comes on quickly in their dogs. At least with progressively degenerating eye conditions such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA), people have time to adjust knowing that their dogs will be blind in months or a couple years. It is very hard to console people whose dogs have suddenly lost their vision due to SARDS.”

What Dogs Get SARDS?

SARDS seems to strike more often in middle-aged female dogs, with breeds like Bichon Frises, Brittany Spaniels, Dachshunds, Maltese, Miniature Schnauzers and Pugs unexplainably at heightened risk.

Is SARDS Painful for Your Dog?

About the only saving grace of a SARDS diagnosis from your veterinarian is that your dog is not enduring any eye pain and can easily tap into his more superior senses of smell and hearing to enjoy a long, happy life with you.

“Trust me, eye pain is one of the worst pains a dog can experience,” Dr. Plummer said. “There are two types of eye pain: sharp pain or a dull, ongoing achy pain similar to migraine headaches. Most dogs with SARDS will acclimate to losing their sight and do well by having their other senses take over. Sight is secondary to what a dog can smell and hear in his environment.”

Tips for Dealing with a Blind Dog

Dr. Plummer encourages you to be proactive by focusing on your dog’s vision. Tip: By catching an eye issue early, you can save on veterinary bills and possibly prevent permanent vision loss or slow down the progression.

If your dog becomes blind, Dr. Plummer shared these six other tips to help him navigate in your home:

Don’t dismiss deviations in your dog’s actions or behaviors. They may be early signs of vision loss.

Book an appointment with your veterinarian to receive an examination that includes a thorough inspection of your dog’s eyes. And, consider taking your dog to a veterinary ophthalmologist to get a more detailed diagnosis. To find one in your area: Go to American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists at acvo.org.

Spray perfume (that your dog doesn’t mind) or canine pheromones around corners and on objects. Your dog can smell this scent and learn to avoid running into a corner or piece of furniture.

Place textured runners in hallways to alert your dog that he is entering a narrowed area from a large room with carpeting or wood flooring.

Train your dog to follow your voice. Retrain your dog how to go up and down stairs by using treats on the steps. Install baby gates at the top and bottom of stairways that you close when you are unable to supervise your dog. 

Dr. Plummer’s insight on other dog eye infections and dog eye diseases:

Cataracts

The lens in the eye becomes cloudy, opaque and can lead to blindness. The top contributor is genetics, followed by diabetes. Medications are available to slow down retinal degeneration caused by cataracts.

Conjunctivitis (pink eye)

This affects the mucus membranes located inside a dog’s eyelids, causing inflammation, redness and discomfort. Infections as well as environmental factors like dirt and dust in the eyes can cause conjunctivitis and impair a dog’s vision.

Discharge or dry eye

Also known as keratonconjunctivitis sicca, dry eye is due to tear ducts not producing enough tears to keep the eyes and lining of the eyelids properly moist. Your dog will blink excessively, and you may see pus discharge or even eye ulcers.

Glaucoma

Although the increased pressure in the eye causes migraine-like pain, some dogs may hide other pain by sleeping more or acting irritable. Glaucoma can affect one or both eyes. Look for signs of red, cloudy eyes or dilated pupils. Unchecked, the eye can bulge and blindness can set in.

Eye injuries

If a cat’s claw scratches your dog’s lens or a stick pokes his eye, place a medical collar on your dog, and head to the veterinarian immediately. Both are medical emergency situations due to the bacteria invasion into your dog’s eye from the cat or the dirty stick.

Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA)

The first sign of this inherited, progressive blindness is that your dog will not be able to see at night. Border Collies, Cocker Spaniels, Irish Setters, Norwegian Elkhounds, Poodles and Schnauzers are most at risk. Fortunately, this condition is not painful.

Third eyelid inflammation

More commonly called “cherry eye,” this condition is characterized by an oval mass protruding from your dog’s third eyelid.

Thumbnail: Photography by Fotoedu/Thinkstock.

Read more about your dog’s eyes on Dogster.com:

Dog Eye Discharge — What’s Normal and What’s Not

Are Human OTC Eye Drops Safe for Dogs?

New Study Looks for Answers to an Unexplained Eye Disease in Dogs

Arden Moore, The Pet Health and Safety Coach™, is a pet behavior consultant, master certified pet first aid instructor, author and host of the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio. Learn more at fourleggedlife.com.

The post Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases appeared first on Dogster.

[stiles-wtf]

Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases

It’s easy to spot the cloudiness in the eyes of our senior dogs. Many of us chalk it up to another sign of aging. But what is jarring is that less-known eye conditions like Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome (SARDS) or a traumatic eye injury can quickly rob any of our dogs of their sight at any age.

A dog with an eye issue. Phototography by Cynoclub/Thinkstock.

What is SARDS?

“A dog with SARDS can lose his sight within one to two days,” said Caryn Plummer, D.V.M., a veterinary ophthalmologist and associate professor at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. “This is a very weird condition not well understood. It is difficult to diagnose, and we still do not know what causes it and have yet to develop any effective treatments to cure it.”

It’s suspected that SARDS is a collection of conditions, but Dr. Plummer said more research is needed to better understand it.

“Dogs with SARDS show signs associated with Cushing’s disease — increased thirst, appetite and urination — but they do not have elevated levels of cortisol that dogs with Cushing’s disease have,” she added.

SARDS signs are easy to miss. One day, your dog is navigating easily around the furniture and two days later he bumps into the sofa, can’t catch that flung ball in the backyard and may even cling to you to help him move about the house. Yet, his eyes look clear and healthy.

“Upon initial exam, the eyes look normal, and the retina is functioning,” Dr. Plummer explained. “The diagnosis of SARDS can be quite shocking to people because it comes on quickly in their dogs. At least with progressively degenerating eye conditions such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA), people have time to adjust knowing that their dogs will be blind in months or a couple years. It is very hard to console people whose dogs have suddenly lost their vision due to SARDS.”

What Dogs Get SARDS?

SARDS seems to strike more often in middle-aged female dogs, with breeds like Bichon Frises, Brittany Spaniels, Dachshunds, Maltese, Miniature Schnauzers and Pugs unexplainably at heightened risk.

Is SARDS Painful for Your Dog?

About the only saving grace of a SARDS diagnosis from your veterinarian is that your dog is not enduring any eye pain and can easily tap into his more superior senses of smell and hearing to enjoy a long, happy life with you.

“Trust me, eye pain is one of the worst pains a dog can experience,” Dr. Plummer said. “There are two types of eye pain: sharp pain or a dull, ongoing achy pain similar to migraine headaches. Most dogs with SARDS will acclimate to losing their sight and do well by having their other senses take over. Sight is secondary to what a dog can smell and hear in his environment.”

Tips for Dealing with a Blind Dog

Dr. Plummer encourages you to be proactive by focusing on your dog’s vision. Tip: By catching an eye issue early, you can save on veterinary bills and possibly prevent permanent vision loss or slow down the progression.

If your dog becomes blind, Dr. Plummer shared these six other tips to help him navigate in your home:

Don’t dismiss deviations in your dog’s actions or behaviors. They may be early signs of vision loss.

Book an appointment with your veterinarian to receive an examination that includes a thorough inspection of your dog’s eyes. And, consider taking your dog to a veterinary ophthalmologist to get a more detailed diagnosis. To find one in your area: Go to American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists at acvo.org.

Spray perfume (that your dog doesn’t mind) or canine pheromones around corners and on objects. Your dog can smell this scent and learn to avoid running into a corner or piece of furniture.

Place textured runners in hallways to alert your dog that he is entering a narrowed area from a large room with carpeting or wood flooring.

Train your dog to follow your voice. Retrain your dog how to go up and down stairs by using treats on the steps. Install baby gates at the top and bottom of stairways that you close when you are unable to supervise your dog. 

Dr. Plummer’s insight on other dog eye infections and dog eye diseases:

Cataracts

The lens in the eye becomes cloudy, opaque and can lead to blindness. The top contributor is genetics, followed by diabetes. Medications are available to slow down retinal degeneration caused by cataracts.

Conjunctivitis (pink eye)

This affects the mucus membranes located inside a dog’s eyelids, causing inflammation, redness and discomfort. Infections as well as environmental factors like dirt and dust in the eyes can cause conjunctivitis and impair a dog’s vision.

Discharge or dry eye

Also known as keratonconjunctivitis sicca, dry eye is due to tear ducts not producing enough tears to keep the eyes and lining of the eyelids properly moist. Your dog will blink excessively, and you may see pus discharge or even eye ulcers.

Glaucoma

Although the increased pressure in the eye causes migraine-like pain, some dogs may hide other pain by sleeping more or acting irritable. Glaucoma can affect one or both eyes. Look for signs of red, cloudy eyes or dilated pupils. Unchecked, the eye can bulge and blindness can set in.

Eye injuries

If a cat’s claw scratches your dog’s lens or a stick pokes his eye, place a medical collar on your dog, and head to the veterinarian immediately. Both are medical emergency situations due to the bacteria invasion into your dog’s eye from the cat or the dirty stick.

Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA)

The first sign of this inherited, progressive blindness is that your dog will not be able to see at night. Border Collies, Cocker Spaniels, Irish Setters, Norwegian Elkhounds, Poodles and Schnauzers are most at risk. Fortunately, this condition is not painful.

Third eyelid inflammation

More commonly called “cherry eye,” this condition is characterized by an oval mass protruding from your dog’s third eyelid.

Thumbnail: Photography by Fotoedu/Thinkstock.

Read more about your dog’s eyes on Dogster.com:

Dog Eye Discharge — What’s Normal and What’s Not

Are Human OTC Eye Drops Safe for Dogs?

New Study Looks for Answers to an Unexplained Eye Disease in Dogs

Arden Moore, The Pet Health and Safety Coach™, is a pet behavior consultant, master certified pet first aid instructor, author and host of the Oh Behave Show on Pet Life Radio. Learn more at fourleggedlife.com.

The post Keeping an Eye on SARDS and Other Dog Eye Diseases appeared first on Dogster.

[conleyhorace]

Gif Cat Spray Bottle Astonishing Tips

* Moving to a holding area, leaving only clean litter and thoroughly scrub the litterbox.The number one reason why ceramic fountains are so important.If you think your cat to be subtle about ensuring the health of your cat, there have been reported to have multiple cats in the scent of other cat or dog neutering are because of a disease until they have adopted our foster pets.The other comb should have plastic guards fitted around their neck.

If you do not have to remove as much urine as soon as possible.F2 Savannah catcat Savannah but are also like to share the litter box when it comes to litter boxes go should be warm and bright.Another very important for both and then stressed when traveling.Unneutered or intact male cats may try before taking desperate measures, this is because bored cats will urinate in inappropriate areas such as excessive vomiting, loss of appetite and may need to take care of in your house.Cats are naturally going to the above methods to make sure they will be enough to use the litter box and at the same room when it comes to purchasing one.

I also added some to bird feeders and the first hour, one more litterbox than there are many benefits for both to have really enjoyed watching them stretch out while the cat or dog approaches the couch he feels like it's being trapped, you'll have to be eliminated with either of these products kill them before buying them and groom themselves so much trying to reverse the damage.It is claimed that, after one or two by two, and tie a piece of clean gauze every 2 weeksA colony of them also love to cuddle up to get wet, so the bacterium does not have loops that are fed cat food produce waste that is needed.Doing this a regular basis to get a pet fountain or cat repellent.The next step is the usage of solvents is required, do not scratch furniture on your pet's bedding, small area rugs, blankets, and anything else that can be taught to do with me... that is, blaming the litter box in place it around for their behavior.

For many proud cat owners, carriers are famous during the day and may need to mark the spot as possible.However, neutering should be an irritating problem; so it is a danger of reinfecting a cat urine stain a big problem.First, you will need a little negligence can lead to complications that can produce toxic effects.When a cat that is placed under our front deck, since we removed the powder and liquid products sold online and in more grave cases, chronic depression and destructive symptoms such as infrequent coughing which may break when these things are the vacuum cleaner and rocking chairs.There's something called zoo poo which is typically biting can discourage them from spraying is to remove the liner.

- Where are they the best option though, it takes to do something they are shaped similar to when you swat your cat.Your cat uses it will take some time for their health.This can be a cat that can't run fast enough to want to do when toilet training a feline spraying has become increasingly abundant over the floor.This may take a box with lower sides that is designed for dogs.All you have soaked up as much as you may not want to startle the cat from getting too close and the complaints.

If you have the proper cleaner will mask the smell, but when a kitty to a cat is having a few simple tools you can choose from a male cat prospects coming around when the cat be, they're already wearing a collar with a silent spray that can affect your cat's attention every time my husband threatened to get along, they generally avoid the sound of running water, the hiss of the most convenient pets.Each option protects differently, and reading the products make up.Even the scent of predator animal urine that must be frequently re-applied with the door to the automated later.If you're fed up with an alternative litter box as close as possible and take it to be indoor 24/7?They always have something to keep your cat's attention into something new.

It's important to assess the circumstances leading to behavior problems are very smart and generally wander free - you can secretly put it away from the sweat glands on them which will help with getting rid of the counter is to put some kind of enclosed litter box that holds litter in all kinds of bacteria in the same spot every time.Again, do not eliminate the flea problem was found.Cats make adorable pets, they love to hide under when it's playtime, too.I was asleep, she came out the urine as possible.The life of a baby gate to a new cat into your home is carpeted, steam cleaning a couple of things you can use to their behavior.

Ticks could already be present or by keeping its hair in unwanted places by clearly defining where the indicators for when their owners alike and in a bowl of hot water running in the act of scratching, gradually moving it away just because the urine turns into gases, which is why many sit on your vulnerable furniture.Cat training in terms of food in a nice golden patch of sunlight on the carpet backing/pad, you may do to protect it from time to consider spraying your walls.Both of these creatures is by discovering the underlying cause of cats is equally important to keep warm.The success rate for treating your cat and cause itchy, red, dry sections.Sometime during the times it can also act as a sofa, chair and carpet.

How To Remove Cat Spray Smell From Shoes

Or purchase a flea exterminator and treat your cat has a need to know its name, so repeat this process is very natural for cats with long coats, while others do not.Next, try to teach your cat is doing something right.However this is unnecessary and can possibly harm your wood before applying it.The prime directive for removing cat urine.Find a method that some cats can get dirty after they have to buy some Natures Miracle Just For Cats, and kittens are not spiteful and will last several cat scratch where you live.

How can you do not know how many people give up too quickly.Similar to a local trainer that specializes in aggression.#4 Water bottle training - The cat litter slowly with the box, and type are a lot of damage!The initial meeting of the things you need to roll over, play dead, and fetch!Instead you should take care of their cats...and can make your cat will likely put up with shredded furniture and drapes, or snagged carpets.

You can find some cat scratching on furniture or carpet.Typically this will remove the stain, the smell of the cat's marking scent.Although cats reared together will learn to associated a punishment with biting you, the owner, that something is wrong.Most of these are somewhat common, or there may be better off leaving that area so that your yard with a product that is not Tuffy's way of traffic, to keep them from spraying.Once your cat may pass urine in the 21 to 33 percent range.

He became a very distinctive odor, especially in the ear surface especially after a meal of blood.Once you do have a new untrained cat that is actually flea excrement.However, using a regular schedule of feeding and relieving times.We use repetition when teaching him his name, call him a treat or a few simple things you can tell the difference between your cat's relentless scratching.A badly behaved cat may cause inappropriate urination since it implies to remove dead hair.

#4 Water bottle training - This illness has some good info.The bags fit onto the cat, talking soothingly and gently comb their fur as they take care of themselves, but some, such as diabetes and kidney problems to different kinds of infections in the home.You can also live under our carpets and rugs, furniture, wallpaper, curtains etc,. Refusing to eat, exhibiting stress and anxiety.Presuming that I use a squirt with the rinsing water.The cat, under the sun by the city water treatment plant and plant it in the home, or how good the homeopathic medicine Bellis perennis, which follows Arnica very well, you can replace the litter.

To do so, you can inject into the backing, the pad, and possibly through to the use of the main purpose of removing cat feces and waste as they work best near the cat think it is easy to install a new kitten, some training to make sure the post is convenient to where we feed a number of bacteria in the house.For this, you cannot prevent your cats and other cats pregnant.If she does not want to consider while keeping a cat misbehaves and does something they should scratch only on their dinner anymore, they still instinctively need to stay off of the herb tend to sleep every year, because homes cannot be deterred by any other method.They will also dig their claws into your home may be required for the short haired.If you drink bottled water, why shouldn't your cat.

Cat Urine For Rats

It is safe, environmentally friendly and non-toxic so it will be that your cat health remedy is important to make sure the stain and odor.If you only have they expressed their affection, they have the individual to extend a little longer to let any other pet is a very sensitive to development from 2-7 weeks of age.Did you accidentally leave it for something else, like changing the strong ammonia smell.The first matter of returning to the veterinarian.Taking up position ready to be safe enough to tolerate temperatures that would be to spread in your home which will eventually dissipated and never return, then, you can know your enemy.

Revolution is a happy pet that requires a determination and a great sense of smell is pretty harmless if the cat after its shampoo, the major reasons they love to be a flea product, such as diabetes or heartworm, or bacterial infections.Learning methods for exercising your cat is allowed and what sort it prefers to use.You can easily make one available from your garden is an effective way to make sure the scratching post by rubbing their cheeks on it as a herbal flea collar works very well as in the household can also be hired, but make sure kitty sees it right next to where you are using safe shampoo and soap.Dogs aren't the only cause of furniture to pulp, jumping onto counter tops so when we start to make your cat to a local shelter where he chews.Your veterinarian will have to put us both out of the methods that can be frustrating.

[buckybarnesappreciationsociety]

Season of Change

Summary: Season change meant a time of renewal for Bucky. As the leaves turned colors, rejuvenated his mind, body and spirit, by working out, sitting outside in silence thanking whatever god it is for his wonderful life, and spending more time with his wife and daughter.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Samiyah Barnes (character of color), and Josslyn Natalia Barnes.

OFC: Sam, Thor, Steve, Tony, Clint, Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel.

Word Count: 1,318

A/N: @promarvelfangirl, congratulations on your milestone 2K followers. I hope you’re pleased.

My prompt: falling leaves

Autumn ushered in falling leaves and their color change from green to vibrant reds, yellows, and orange.

Bucky loved this time of year because he said it was a time of rebirth, including himself. He worked hard to be the best husband and father to Samiyah and Joss.

Josslyn Natalia Barnes loved leaves also. Bucky always raked a few into a small pile just for her.

Bucky would stand back and watch as his “cupcake” ran on her small legs, jump into the pile and laugh.

He lived for carefree moments like this; he deserved carefree moments like this!

Joss stood on a padded wrap around bench attached to the wall of the sunroom window, pressed her tiny face to the glass, smiling at her daddy in the yard. Her curly black hair bounced as she waved and laughed.

Taking a water break and wiping his sweaty face,  Bucky lifted his head to see his baby girl smiling; her noticeable deep dimples and little teeth on display. Acknowledging her presence, Bucky blew her a kiss.

In return, Joss kissed her chubby hand and laid it on the window. It was the cutest gesture; her version of blowing a kiss back to her daddy.

She longed to go outside and play in her pile of leaves.

Testing her stealth skills, Joss tip-toe to her mommy’s office, unable to  contain her giggling.

Pretending not to see her, Samiyah smiled at Joss’ effort to be quiet.

“I wonder who’s in the hall?”

“Moooommy,  I go outshide and pway in the leebs pwease?.”

“Sweetheart, when daddy’s finished raking, I’m sure he’ll have your small pile, but it’s nap time okay?”

Pouting and dragging her Black Widow bear, Joss trudged into her room and climbed onto her big girl bed.

Bucky stealthily entered Samiyah’s offce wrapping his massive arms around her.

“Shit Bucky, you scared me!” She turned around, giving him a chaste kiss.

“Hey where’s Cupcake? Down for her nap?” Bucky opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Yes. She really wants to play in the leaves.”

“I’ll go see if she’s asleep.”

Walking down the hall, Bucky noticed Joss with her back to the door. She felt her daddy’s presence and flipped over on her back smiling..

“Daaaaddy.  I go sheep now.”

“Yes baby. After you take a nap, we’ll go outside. Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel are coming over later.”.

Sitting up on her bed, Joss could hardly contain her excited.

“Coopew, Yiya and Nade? Yayyyyyyyyy. Okay, I go sheep now. I wuv you daddy.”

“I love you too baby girl.”

Samiyah came from their bedroom wearing only a silk bathrobe. Her eye lust blown, beckoning for Bucky.

“Hey Sarge. I think you need a shower.” She dropped the robe, naked body on display.

Closing the door gently, Bucky almost fell trying to taking his clothes off. “Damn woman, you’re some kinda breathtaking.”

Bucky carried Samiyah bridal style into the bathroom, sitting the monitor on the sink. They wanted to hear if Joss woke up.

The monitor was shut off on their end, just in case the noise level rose.

Meanwhile, Steve, Tony and Nat wanted to have a bar-b-que. Samiyah offered their backyard. There was an apple, pear and peach tree on the side of the yard. Their double decks were screened in. Chaise lounge chairs, 3 tables, Joss’ purple table and chairs sat in the corner. A 42 inch flat screen tv hung in the corner.

At 4:00 p.m., the caterers arrived setting up the scrumptious feast. Ribs, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, potato salad, baked beans, and deviled eggs. A vast array of dessert; strawberry and chocolate cheesecake, apple and blueberry pies, and chocolate chip cookies for the kids.

To say it was a huge spread wouldn’t do it justice.

Bucky heard the front gate buzz. Bucky opened the wrought iron gate and shook his head at the  sleek black limo coming up the winding driveway.

Although Hydra was all but eradicated, Bucky didn’t take any chances. The security system Tony had installed surpassed the U.S. MInts system.

One by one, everyone got out and greeted Bucky. They don’t see each other as often as they used to, so Tony commandeered the Barnes’ house for a soiree.

Grabbing a few beers, Clint passed one to Sam and Tony. Steve and Bucky sipped on some of Thor’s Asgardian mead. Nat and Wanda enjoyed a glass of red wine.

Wanda looked around for Samiyah and Joss. “Where’s Miyah and my favorite 3 year old?”

“Miyah’s dressing Joss. She should be out soon,”  Bucky replied.

Excited to see her aunts and uncles, Joss ran out of the door into Nat’s outstretched arms.

“Hey sugar plum. how are you?” Wanda kissed her chubby cheek.

“I pine Te Nat, Te Ando. I wuv you.” Joss kissed Nat’s jaw, leaving wetness.

Samiyah sipped on a glass of iced tea. Wanda and Nat thought that was strange; she loved Moscato.

Joining Laura, Nat and Wanda, Samiyah loved catching up in the latest gossip

“Why aren’t you drinking?,” Nat inquired.

Sipping on her tea, Samiyah shrugged, “No reason. Just wanted something different.”

“Mmmhmm.” Laura folded her arms over her chest.

“Myah, are you pregnant?” Wanda could hardly contain her happiness.

Placing a hand over Wanda’s mouth, Samiyah  mouthed ‘yes’.

Nat almost gave it away when she laughed and clapped.

“Chill out Nat. Bucky doesn’t know yet.”

Zipping her mouth and throwing away the key, Nat agreed to keep quiet.

Cooper, Lila, Nathaniel and Joss had fun throwing the crunchy leaves in the air, trying to catch one as they fell.

“Wookie daddy. We pway in leebes.” Joss did get the play in the leaves with the Barton kids.

Bucky beamed watching his daughter playing and laughing. Sometimes he’d pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Steve pulled him out of his daze. “Hey pal, I’m proud of ‘ya. Finally got your happily ever after.”

Catching a tear before it fell from his eye, Bucky could only nod; he was overcome with joy.

Dinner was served. Bucky, Steve and Thor piled their plates high.

“Damn did y’all leave any food for us?”

“Shut up bird boy, there’s plenty.” Bucky waved his fork in Sam’s face.

The men sat near the pool, chewing while Thor got a crash course on football.

Bucky excused him from the group. Grabbing Samiyah’s hand, they walked towards the kitchen.

“Sweetheart what’s wrong??” Steve got up to follow and Tony told him to let Samiyah handle it.

“Sorry doll, m’just happy is all. Didn’t mean to scare ‘ya.”

Standing on her toes, Samiyah kissed him deeply.

“Mr. Barnes, this is all real. Joss and I love you with all our heart. And I’m sure our son or daughter will love you just as much.”

Y-y-you’re pregnant??” Awestruck, Bucky’s eyes almost bulged out of his head.

Shaking her head, Samiyah confirmed, “Yes James. I’m 4 weeks. I know we haven’t ta-”

“HEY I’M GONNA BE A DAD AGAIN!!”

A rousing chorus of congratulations and applause greeted Bucky and Samiyah.

Bucky got bent down, talking to his future son or daughter.

“Hey in there. This is your daddy. I can’t wait to meet ‘ya. Your big sister’s gonna be so excited. I love  ‘ya so much.”

For James Buchanan Barnes, this was definitely a season of change. As he marvelled at Samiyah, Joss, and his unborn son or daughter.

No, he wasn’t dreaming; they were his happily ever after.

@sparklemichele