Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Pet News’ Category

BuddyBoy ain’t too fond of cats. He wants to chase them, at the same time he’s afraid of them. Most of our cats are smart enough not to run, some actually run at HIM, lol!

Just an example, but if all the cats are on the porch and in front of the door then I almost have to drag Buddy into the house. Ditto if he’s in and there is that cat gauntlet to go through to get out.

It’s been bitterly cold here. 16F for the low, maybe up to 30’s for the highs. That’s darn cold for here.

I walk the dogs anyhow… and yesterday when we got back from walkies there were 3 cats in BuddyMack’s house! One came out as we came up to Buddy’s house, but the other two looked like they were going to stay for a while, lol!

Buddy has a heat lamp to keep him warm, operated by a thermostat so that I don’t have to turn it on for him. The girls have both a heater and a heat lamp, that was the original kitty house. The cats have a new house, with a heat lamp, but evidently they prefer Buddy’s house!

So Buddy hurries up and eats his food… he doesn’t want the cats getting it! Then he proceeds to just bark like a maniac until the other two cats left his house.

He should have just let them stay… they could all keep warm together. :)

I just thought it was the funniest thing…

hugs,
Vyx

I gotta remember to get the camera out, sigh. Even tho I don’t trust it to work right all the time.
That means… no photos, yet again.

Anyhow. I’ve been bringing the beagle kids in the house this week. Pretty soon it’s going to be winter and we won’t get walkies every day. Oh, we’ll go if I can walk without slip sliding away and it isn’t actually raining or something… the cold won’t stop me, just precipitation and it being dark before I get home from work.

The poor Beagle kids haven’t been in the house for much of the summer. Heck, WE aren’t in the house if we can help it for nice weather. And I love my dogs in the house… get to have lots more love and fun things like hunt the laser bug.

Sadie came in and immediately started looking at the floor… waiting for the laser bug! BunBun got her nummy bone and immediately ran around the whole house trying to find that perfect spot to hide it and save it for later. BuddyMack stole a partially chewed bone, got on the couch and just started having fun with it. Rita growled at everyone, and tried to be the boss. Hey, they were stealing her nummy bones, messing up her couch, stealing her toys… She hasn’t lived here that long but she’s known me for longer than the beagles ages combined. Far as she’s concerned she’s the top dog. Sadie doesn’t think so. Sadie is the Momma Dog and no 13 lb Brat terrier is gonna be HER boss!

I’d bet my money on the 35 lb Sadie against Rita. Yes, Sadie has gotten rather overweight… I could barely lift her to step on the scale and Ron had to read the scale for me. I think I’d better start buying some diet dog food and making Sadie’s dinner seperate. I think 35 lbs is kind of… well, Sadie is now built like a tank!

Other than a bit of growling here and there, everyone was on good behaviour. Dogkids got groomed and petted and treats and loved on… and I want a new fence and steps so that I can do this with less trouble!

Oh, at work this week, they asked me to stay late… and I said… but who will walk my dogs? Sorry, can’t stay late, my dogs depend on me. I have a narrow window of time when I get home now… if I stay late at work then it’s too dark to walk dogs. People that live in town don’t understand this… I can’t walk dogs down by the pond in the pitch black night. A flashlight is not quite good enough. When it’s dark, it’s DARK out in the country. And I’ve seen a bear only a mile from the house here… heck, in the dark I wouldn’t want to surprise even deer drinking from the pond.

Pretty soon walkies will either be real fast or not happen… thankfully the short days don’t last all that long. I need the exercise, too, lol! I used my new Nano to count steps… Dog walking is averaging 960 steps, and about 40 calories burned, lol! I don’t rein Sadie in like Ron does, tho…. if she pulls, I go faster. Ron stops her and tells her to quit pulling like a plow horse. Me, I want the exercise…. I’d go around again if the dogs would mind as well first time, but they don’t… and we are running out of daylight.

Oh, and the fun with terriers… I almost forgot. Twice this week Rita has gone out behind the house on her morning potty outing when Ron gets home and she’s found something dead to roll in. She came in the first time and had eaten some of it, burped right at us… ewwww. And then I noticed her smell… she got a bath. She hates baths… too bad. So she does it again yesterday, I get home and Ewww dog. Bath time. Two baths in one week… if I say the word she is hiding under the couch. She TRIED to hide last night, but I caught her. I’ve gone out to see if I could find what she’s rolling in to remove it… or rather have Ron remove it… but couldn’t find anything. Ron took Rita out on leash this morning for potty, he wants to avoid the smell, too, lol! Rita wouldn’t potty, just sat at his feet. No treat for sitting there, he can’t stay out all day… and then she was mad at him. I’m not, tho… I’m glad I didn’t come home to stinky dog needing another bath again. :)

One more thing before I get ready for chat time… I don’t know if I mentioned it on this blog or not. My right across the hiway neighbor adopted 2 of our kittens. Her sister lived in the next house over… and was the one that took BuddyMack and then abandoned him, moved away and left him last January. Well, anyhow… the near gal adopted 2 kittens this summer… and her sister was visiting last weekend and took one of the kittens home with her. Stole a kitten from her sisters kids. Well, probably it was her kids that hid it in the car, but still. Grrr. It was the cutest kitten and the one they liked the best. But they still have Cocoa Puff, so that’s okay. Kids will just have to share the one kitten more. Cocoa Puff is more special… he’s an unusual color for a cat.

Time to get ready for chat….

hugs,
Vyx

BuddyMack has been such a sweetie for so many weeks that I forgot that he can be a Bad Dog.

I blame his beagle heritage on it for this time… when he’s got smells to follow, then that’s what he does. Sadie is only good because we keep her leashed. BunBun mostly follows her momma.

Tonight on walkies BuddyMack ran off into the woods. Okay, not a problem… he’s been really good at coming home just as we get to the house again. He doesn’t want to be left behind….

Not this time. He came zooming galloping out of the woods and caught up to us… and then wandered off before we got to the house. NO amount of calling did any good, not even TREAT! Oh, he’d look back, but he was busy chasing that smell. And he knew we couldn’t catch him, the punk.

When I went out to feed them all I was prepared to bring BuddyMack’s food back in, but there he was, waiting. No treat, no “Good BOY!”, just chained up again and got his dinner. Tomorrow, leashes for everyone, even BunBun. Because last night both kids ran off into the woods and didn’t come home until I had Sadie contained and got the treat bag out of my pocket.

There is no way they could hear that treat bag from the woods, but they were JUST in time… heck, so fast that I barely gave Sadie her treat and the kids were home. Speedy when they want to be!

Anyhow, Beagle punks that want to run off and worry me need to be on leashes. We’ll just go earlier on the weekend and walk more. I’ll get more exercise and they will have to be happy with the exercise that they get that way. It’s gonna be tough enough this winter, I don’t know if I’ll get home to walk them before dark. I may have to buy/make a headlamp to wear and walk the dog kids in the dark. Living in the country does have some problems… but if we were in town we’d just be walking sidewalks… and all have to be leashed all the time. The dog kids get more exercise if they can run and zoom around the field. We’d have light in town, but gosh, it wouldn’t be fun. :)

hugs,
Vyx

We don’t actually cut our own hay. Someone else does it, and then they take away all the hay, too. Which is fine with Ron, as he doesn’t have the equipment to do it himself. Not things you need when you only have about 5 acres. He does have a real tractor… but it hasn’t been run in years.

Couple years ago I looked up the price of hay… and figured out that we were giving away about $500 worth of hay every year. Egads! But we don’t have to pay someone to come cut it and bale it and then hope that we can sell it. We =do= get a bale if we want one… last time we picked the smallest partial bale and guess what? We still have most of it! All we ever used it for is dog bedding. Hay isn’t very good dog bedding, it turns to dirt and dust rapidly. We don’t have any farm animals that need it… so we’ve got a partial bale in the barn and really no use for it anymore. Oh, and no way to move it, either… It’s a very small round bale, but those things weigh a ton!

Anyhow. This afternoon the guy who used to own the chicken houses just north of us showed up to brush hog. Nice of him… but he could have picked a better time. Poor Ron, he’d just gone to bed for his before work nap on Sunday afternoon. Didn’t get any sleep at all. Typical of a Sunday sometimes… the neighbor will decide he needs to practice his shotgun just about when Ron is trying to sleep. The hay guy might not know that Ron is a day sleeper, but I =know= the neighbor does.

We only got our hay cut ONCE this year. Usually it gets cut =three= times. But with the first cutting only yielding 13 bales, I guess they figured it wasn’t worth the gas! Normal first cutting will be 25 or so bales. Third cutting might be 19 bales. Weird hay year for us! Dry in the wrong places, plus the poor hay hasn’t been fertilized in a few years now. Pretty lush out there until today, I was surprised that they didn’t come cut it for the hay before now. Brush hogging it is good… it’ll feed the ground so next year the hay should be better and worth cutting.

Gosh, I ramble on alot about stuff, don’t I? I took the dogs walking while the guy was still out with the tractor… we just stayed out of his way. BunBun at one point went to chase him… but she came back before getting close when I hollered. BunBun has been getting a bit unruly lately… not minding, chasing cats, and just basically ignoring me when I want her to mind. BuddyMack has been the VERY best boy… he wants his treat and has learned that he has to earn it.

When I came back from dog walking, I fed the cats. And took the camera out. Camera seems to be working okay again, very strange. It’s hard to photo cats, especially kittens. They see you and then come walking at you. Unless they are too busy eating kibble.

This little guy was actually reaching under other cats to scoop food out where he could get it.

Busy eating kibble, easier for me to focus the camera! Aren’t Ty and Fluffy handsome boys?

Finally, because it is fall, and looking like it here… a picture of a beautiful tree in the yard. Same kind of tree as the one next to it that is still all green!

I’m glad the camera is cooperating some…

hugs,
Vyx

Wish my camera was working right. I’d love to post more kitten photos. Especially of Butter. They are all little darlings, but Butter is special. (updated, got one semi-decent photo of Butter)

Butter followed us on dog walking today. He’s so little that it had to be like a 20 mile hike! Our walk is a bit less than a mile, but Butter followed along, and even chased at the dogs! “I wanna run with the big dogs!”

I picked him up a few times… but he would start meowing for me to let him down. Okay… down you go! He’s pretty wet now, as it’s been raining all day and the ground is soaked. Didn’t seem to care, but I did carry him over the deep water spots, lol!

When we got back up to the house he was going to follow the dogs into their yard. But Libby caught up with us at the last little bit of walk, and she picked Butter up and hauled him away. Being such little kittens, they have no fear of dogs… and the beagle kids can’t be trusted to not hurt kittens, at least when we aren’t right there. (I wouldn’t trust Rita, either, but didn’t worry with Libby right there all the time)

I think he was hungry. We fed the cats as soon as we got back from dog walking and Butter was growling and yowling at any other cat who came near his section of food. Tough little guy! Followed us all that way just for food he was gonna get anyhow. Heh.

Not sure if I’m going to name the other two kittens… They have also been puppy dogging us outside. Right now we have 16 cats, and as cute as these guys are I’m sure I can find homes for them easy. I have taken to calling the fluffy kits Sy and Mees, lol! They look more Himalayan to me… but then I’m not a cat expert, either.

That’s the kitten news for today… I’m going to get my camera out there and hope for the best… then I’ll update this post if I can get the camera to work right. Sigh.

hugs,
Vyx