Time just flies ... unfortunately there were some glitches with this blog but hopefully things have straightened out now.

Those puppies were incredible - I say "were" because they were adopted almost as soon as their paws hit the ground. Once they had been fixed, had their shots and were ready for adoption, they were scooped up by people looking for sweet puppy companions. When JoAnne did her follow-up calls, one of the adopters told her "This puppy is crate trained AND house broken!! I laughed and told JoAnne, umm...he wasn't either of those two things 48 hours ago.

One of the puppies is coming back tomorrow for a three day stay with Luna. When he was adopted it was with the understanding that the new family would be out of town part of this week and we agreed to watch him for them. Since we no longer had the puppies around to climb and wrestle and play, Luna went to the vet last Friday and finally got spayed herself. She has been peacefully recovering although it has been difficult. I just don't see how you can keep a young, healthy dog quiet for 7-10 days without any exercise. We have obediently stayed quietly home but she is stir crazy and climbing the walls. I looked at her trying SO HARD to get me to play with her as I was sitting out in the back yard tonight and thought "The way she is running and twisting and jumping, I might as well take her for her usual walk!!" We'll see how she does with one puppy back here to keep her company. Maybe it will be enough that I won't walk her until the weekend.

JoAnne and I have decided that we will not take Luna to PetsMart on dog adoption weekends - we will introduce her privately to anyone interested. She is just too agitated in new situations with a lot of "stuff" going on around her. She is a very loving dog and after having her so long, I will really miss her! I told someone today that it would be tempting to give up accepting foster dogs for a year or so while training her out of her initial greeting "jump" towards another dog but -- I really enjoy fostering and it just wouldn't be fair to bring a new, scared dog into a house with a resident dog who I already know will thump on them when she first meets them. After that first time, she is fine but since foster dogs usually pop in and then out of your home, I just can't see Luna relaxing in that lifestyle. She would be constantly having to thump someone and I would be constantly on her case -- doesn't sound like very much fun to me!! With the right person in the right situation, she will be a great dog.

We did find out that she panics, I mean BLIND PANICS, at thunder and lightening and fireworks. I've only seen one other dog (that I was dog-sitting) who went through the screen window he was so scared of fireworks. That was way too exciting - I did manage to get him back into the house but only because when he went through the window he landed in their fenced yard -- otherwise, he would have been gone. Anyway, Luna would have done the same if she'd had a chance. I called JoAnne after the thunderstorm when it was clear that there would be no peace in the house and asked her if she had any sedatives because nothing I had tried was even beginning to make a difference. JoAnne didn't have anything other than "TravelCalm" which somehow just didn't sound like it was going to be enough, so I called the emergency vet clinic but they declined to advise me because they hadn't examined the dog. However, if I wanted to bring her in... YEAH, I thought, that's helpful, it's after midnight, she is in a panic and I don't think I can get her in the car, out at the clinic and back into the car in her current frame of mind so ... I kept calling people until I found someone with dog sedatives who (what a great friend) would bring them over to me and leave them on the front porch. Two hours later - ahh...a snoozing dog. It was amazing. The next night (after all the clinics had closed for July 4th) a customer came into PetsMart looking for sedatives for her dog for the holiday weekend. She said "You won't believe how upset he was" and I told her I absolutely WOULD believe her but that I didn't know of anything over-the-counter that will begin to calm a fireworks scared dog.

The volunteers that clean the cat cages at PetsMart have wacko schedules for the summer because of vacations so I have been filling in cleaning the cat cages more than usual. It is always fun to see the cats. I'm absolutely in love with Smokey - he is an older cat but the sweetest, most loving cat. He just wants to cuddle up and tuck under my chin. He is skinny and has a "lion cut" hair cut. That is because he was so matted when he was found that they just had to shave him bald except for around his face - so, his face has hair and looks like a lion's mane. So many people come in and ask "Oooh, what breed of cat is that?" but then there are others that come in and say "Umm, Lion's cut - he must have been really matted". He is an absolute darling. Buddy is still there, too. He is such a nice cat. We still have Baby too - yeah, Baby. JoAnne lost the battle and won the war with her. Baby was so matted but she could see JoAnne coming a mile away -- no amount of sweet talking or cat treats could disguise the cat brush in Joanne's hand. Finally, JoAnne took her to a professional groomer to get the mats out. Now, Baby is mat-free and JoAnne is happy. Since Baby no longer presents a challenge, JoAnne has turned her attention to our crazy Internet kitty. That poor little one was purchased through Craig's List - shipped to her new home -- met by a huge dog that scared her to death -- and since she couldn't be returned to her original home ("No return" policy) the person gave her to us because it was clear that things just weren't going to work out. Well - that cat was so scared that you couldn't even open the door without seeing teeth and feeling a good strong swat from a lightening fast paw. I told JoAnne I was afraid to open the door to change the cat litter. Well - JoAnne put her mind to it and started talking up that cat. Pretty soon the cat was coming out to see JoAnne and letting her pet it etc. I still don't like to change the litter but I've been really amazed at the number of our regular cat visitors who are also cooing at the door to that kitty -- and that cat is walking up to the front and letting them pet her - sometimes. I was watching someone stroke her the other day and I told them "You couldn't pay me enough to do that" and someone else who was standing there said "She has always growled at me before but just yesterday she finally let me pet her". We have such a great group of regular visitors to the cat area who really do a nice job of working with the cats -- in this particular case, much better than I do!! More power to them - I think that cat will come around although as I said to JoAnne -- after JoAnne bragged that she cut the cats nails without anyone holding the cat, the cat just sat there and let her clip the nails --"I don't care how sweet that cat is to you - I'm afraid of her and that's that."

We have Peter and Paul out front - they are great cats, just over a year old Maine Coon mixes. What nice personalities, they are always happy to see me. We are in kitten season so we have many kittens waiting to adopt out in pairs. I like kittens but I don't like to clean their litter boxes because they are faster than greased lightening and by the time I get the litter box out of the cage to dump out, I've usually successfully grabbed and put back in the cage 1-2 escape artists.

I'm currently fostering a kitten that was hit by a car (but not hurt) on Walker Road out in front of PetsMart - a customer brought it in. We couldn't find the Mom or the rest of the litter. I named that little one "Noodle" - what a sweetheart, that little black and white kitten just purrs up a storm. In another 2-3 weeks, it should be big enough to get fixed and shots and then come into the store for adoption.

JoAnne got called by K-Mart employees. They had seen a mother cat with her litter in a couch around in back of the store. One day the mother cat didn't come back (we have a LOT of coyotes in Beaverton) and the babies were crying. JoAnne asked one of the foster family if they could help and they came to get the litter -- the kittens can't be more than two weeks old and will need to be bottle fed. That is not one of my areas of strength but thankfully there are other people with the time and energy to work with those little babies. It's never dull around here for long...this Saturday is a dog adoption weekend so we'll see what happens. During last dog weekend we adopted out several dogs - but not one cat. Hopefully some of the cats will find their homes this weekend too.