The three Siamese cats that I had in my spare bathroom recovering from a sneezing problem have recovered and are back in the store for adoption. They are so much fun, the adult male, Mongo, is the greatest cat. He lets the kittens climb all over him, lay on him, pounce on him -- you get the picture. The adult female, Sky, is tolerant but not as easy-going as Mongo. The little flamepoint kitten, Snowfire, loves to cuddle. I can't believe they lasted the week in the store, I thought they would go out quickly because they are beautiful, nice cats.

This weekend we had "Santa" at the store for pictures with pets. PetsMart keeps part of the money and part of the money is given to the non-profit involved. Because it is so close to Christmas and I have bizillion things to get done -- JoAnne had to twist my arm a little bit to have me go in for a two hour shift to take pictures. What a blast - I will remember how much fun it was and schedule time next year! Our first two customers were actually kids. Since we are back in the corner and it is fairly quiet (because it is easier to take pictures if the animals are calm, of course) there was no commotion and no lines. One of the first Mom's said that she brings her kid to PetsMart every year because it is a much nicer experience than the mall stores. Certainly, our Santa had time to talk with him. That kid was clutching a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper the child had glued pictures of what he wanted for Christmas. He showed each one to Santa and described them in detail. Santa was VERY attentive and then said "I'll give this directly to the elves so that we will be ready to visit your house Christmas Eve". Mission Accomplished. The child shook Santa's hand as he got ready to leave. We actually had a lot of kids come by - and some really nice dogs as well. Only one picture that I took was just of the dog - most of the pictures included everyone in the family as well as the dog. It was fun but sometimes there were so many people that I had to step back and soon the Christmas backdrop wasn't big enough. I kept telling people "it looks like we're going to get some of the cat trees in the background - is that OK?" People were really nice and I had a good time taking the pictures. Thank goodness the person who was actually printing the pictures and putting them in the frames knew what he was doing and was able to fix the camera when it got stuck.

Now I have Patches in my spare bathroom. A beautiful callico, Patches was scared spitless in the store. I suspect that she is another one that will need to be adopted from the website and go to a quiet home. Her Mom lost her job, housing and decided to move back home across the country and couldn't take Patches with her. Patches has been sitting in basically one spot every time I've gone in to visit with her; I hope she starts feeling comfortable soon! At least she is eating and using the litter box so it can't be all bad.

This week I went to a vet office to pick up a little one who had been abandoned at the Vet office. The dog had one of our tags on the collar - the people just never came back to pick her up. I don't know if JoAnne was successful at reaching them or not but regardless, she is in a foster home now and hopefully I'll see her tomorrow at the dog adoption! She is a sweet little one but pretty scared. When you have no control over your life and/or destiny, sometimes the world can be a scary place.

Today I worked half the day at home with a happily snoozing dog supervising me -- and the other one outside telling off the garbage collectors. If any of my neighbors were home, I'm sure they were muttering not nice things about us.

The kittens that came up in exchange for the unadoptable/wild cats are SO CUTE. But, they started sneezing and so the people taking care of them have their hands full and we haven't put many of them up for adoption yet. It is so much fun to walk into that room - at first they are all cuddled up in groups of 4-6 kittens sprawled all over each other but as soon as someone shows up - they start wacking each other and chasing toys and tails and pushing each other off the cat towers.

I saw Max last weekend - I'm not sure if he remembered me or not. I'd like to think that he did. He is a beautiful dog but he is really strong now. I'd have to use both hands and really plant myself solid if I wanted to stop him moving forward.

Max is coming back! Unbelievable - he was the sweetest puppy and smart as a whip. I can't remember how we got him but we were his foster home for a few weeks until he was adopted. Now, his family has received custody of their grandchildren and a 1.5 yr old bouncy lab (with a lethal tail) and small children just don't mix. JoAnne called but my girls are still fighting so I just can't foster quite yet. We do try to put pups back in their original foster homes to minimize the number of households to which these dogs need to adjust to and learn. I hope we can find someone who will work with him - I'm sure he is much larger than when I had him and if he is just as bouncy - he would be a handful until/unless he is able to run off some of that excess energy. I remember when I was fostering Sugar - a young female black lab - I told JoAnne: "I need another foster, this one is driving me crazy." So - here came LuLu. Those two were about the same size/age and about the same weight and (yeah!) they were an absolute matched set. They ran. They wrestled. They stalked. They pounced -- THEY LEFT ME ALONE...and when I did walk them, they were usually just fine - not crazy and trying to pull me in 10,000 directions at once. It will be nice to see Max at the weekend adoption. His picture is very handsome.

We also received a new kitty in this week - her name is Biscuit (because she loves biscuit/treats). I think her foster Mom is correct - she does look like she has a good portion of Russian Blue - and she is a purring machine. Eight months old and a little snuggler. She went right into PetsMart. We were saving room for all the kittens that we brought up but those darn little kittens are all sneezing - but getting better every day! Whew...

Saturday I held the cutest, shivering little scared dog - his tail was so tucked I thought that he was tail-less. Yesterday I heard that he met someone and sparked right up - tail swishing and eyes sparkling -- and he went home with them! Yeah! Tilly was adopted out to a couple that had another cat that was getting into trouble and needed some company. I wouldn't call Tilly a steadying influence but hopefully they will run and tumble and NOT look for trouble! Brewster did not come back - for whatever reason I heard their dog started ignoring him so the family was willing to give it another shot. It is so hard to tell sometimes when you are blending in new pack members.

I was so happy to see Timber brought back in - his hair is growing back and this weekend he proudly was carrying his tennis ball. He was grinning and his eyes were normal and sparkling. JoAnne commented that it looked like he had "firmed up" and the brother who brought Timber in said that he had been playing with a Golden Retriever puppy. Yep, that will do it. He looked SO MUCH BETTER. Then - the people who had adopted the younger dog that was brought in with Timber at the beginning happened to visit the store. Timber jumped up and was so happy/excited to see that other pup. It was wonderful and sad at the same time. I'm sure Timber will find just the right family. We're all on the look-out for him because he is such a sweetheart.

Have you ever been some place with bizillion kittens all running and jumping and pouncing and playing? After more than one year working with nine cats that we accepted in from a difficult situation, we were unable to get them to the "adoptable" stage - they remained too scared and jumpy. It might have been different if we had been able to find one-to-one foster homes to work with each of them, but foster homes are in short supply with so many people losing their homes and moving in with family/friends. Anyway, we finally made arrangements to have them go to a cat santuary. The santuary works with non-profits and trades adoptable cats/kittens for non-adoptable cats that they take care of for the cats lifetime. The trade rate per unadoptable cat is either (1) five adoptable cats or (2) 25 kittens. I'm not sure exactly where they get the kittens since the cats from the non-profits need to be spayed/neutered before they will be accepted but - apparently they have a LOT of kittens. Each non-profit has one year to complete the trade. They took in nine of our cats. In exchange, for our first exchange shipment, we took a few adult cats but overwhelmingly, we have kittens. White, black, tiger, spotted, striped, big tails, no tails, fluffy, sleek -- you name it, we have one (or more) and they are all busy, busy, busy! I picked one up last night and went to sit back down -- and sat on another kitten who had jumped up into the chair in the ten seconds it took me to stand up, bend over, scoop up a kitten and BAM - some other adventureous kitten had jumped into my chair. Fortunately, I didn't QUITE sit down once I felt and heard the kitten squeak. Kittens are scampering up the tables and bins, they are exploring every nook and cranny, rolling on the cat beds and trust me, you have never seen so much action in the litter boxes. They are very, very cute. Hopefully they will adopt out quickly and we can take another "exchange" group. It is impossible to frown when you are surrounded by kittens.

We have had a hard week in that Brewster is being returned. He is a big cat (declawed) and really a lot of fun. He adopted out and through no fault of his own, the family dog just didn't like him and didn't want him in the house so - here he comes back. He is a sweet baby. Tilly is going crazy in her cage - she is jumping and pouncing and generally shakes all the cages that border with her cage; it's like having a very noisy neighbor. The other cats are starting to get tired of the thumping from her cage but she is BORED to death. She was so quiet when she first arrived but you would never know it now.

We took in two dogs unexpectedly - border collie and a border collie mix. Their 45 year old owner passed away at home. Four days later, someone came to check on him and brought the police. Because there were animals in the house, the police had to call the park service. The dogs were curled up beside the body and wouldn't leave. The park service got the younger dog to come out but the 4.5 year old refused to leave the owners side so someone put a noose around his neck and metal around his lower jaw and pulled him out. The noose was so tight that his eyes literally bulged/popped out of their sockets. When the family called, JoAnne told them to get the dog to a vet. The vet was able to re-set the dogs eyes back into their sockets. When I saw the dog (Timber) on Saturday, his eyes looked like cherry tomatoes they were so bright red. He was in total denial. He laid very still with his eyes mostly closed despite the chaos of a PetsMart adoption day. The younger dog adopted right out but this one just looks awful even though you can tell he is a sweet dog - but, his hair along his back has fallen out -- I don't know if it is stress or something else -- sometimes it is hard to tell. The volunteers were all lovin' on him but he just didn't really care. He was so - so- so sad. Another family member is fostering him right now so maybe that will help; at least he already knows them.

Isis was adopted today -- YEAH!

We have lots of bouncy pups ready for adoption -- they will be at PetsMart this weekend. It should be a busy weekend -- and probably noisy although it is difficult to tell. Some weekends it is just deafening with all the barking and some weekends - honestly, you would hardly know there were dogs in the store.

The kitties are just wonderful right now. We have two little grey kittens with the prettiest orange/brownish eyes. They pounce on everything that moves and when I clean the cage above them, I feel little kitten paws patting me to get my attention to play. They love that blue circle toy with the ball in the middle that spins.

We have a calico/siamese mix, probably about a year, that is absolutely one of the most beautiful cats I have ever seen...and Bassett is sweet. She hides in her litter box when kids come in. Brother, I just saw her picture on the web - she is 1,000 times cuter than THAT.

The two declawed sisters were adopted - they were such nice girls - but Brewster is still staying with us. People getting married and one person is alergic to cats and here we are ... I felt so sorry for him when he came in because instead of a blanket, he had a sweatshirt to lay on. He cuddled on that for a good week or so before it got changed out and washed. I don't know whatever happened to it - but it is probably waiting with any other "stuff" he has to go with him.

Brewster is next to Pumpkin Pie in PetsMart - those two are both players. They love to be pet and they bat those little mice and other crinkly cat toys around in the cage and pounce and play. Those cages aren't very big and these are both good sized boys but they make the best of it. Pumpkin Pie loves to be pet.

Parcheesi and Lincoln are still at PetSmart. Parcheesi is a beautiful calico with big green eyes. She had four kittens - all of whom were adopted. While the kittens were in the store, someone brought in one kitten so we put him in with Parcheesi and her group and they all got along well. So, now Lincoln and Parcheesi are together. Lincoln is a talker - he talks and talks and talks. The only time I've seen but not heard him was when a gentleman was holding him and the man was talking Lincoln who was just laying there in the crook of that guys arm quiet as he could be. I couldn't believe it.

We also have a tabby and a black cat in the middle cage. They are both pretty large and nice. When I first saw them, they were curled up in two separate corners but now they are relaxing a little more with all the commotion at PetsMart - they are out and about and available for lovin' from our visitors.

Isis is still here too - she came from a house that we took either 7-8 cats from when the people had to move and couldn't take everyone with them. All the other cats were adopted but Isis is a shy little girl and she is grey. She nestles down in the box and you can't really even tell that she is there. If you stand and talk to her for a minute, she gets right up, stretches and then comes over to say HI. Everytime I see her I think, WOW your life has changed 360 degrees. Hang in there, it will get better.

We'll see what the weekend brings -- hopefully lots of adoption action!!