Raccoon photo c. 1980 by Kris M. Smith. Ask for permission to use it in your marketing materials or for any other private or commercial purpose!!!
This morning Lisa and I took Patches to my Tacoma Vet (Dr. Bob Wright at Lakewood Vet). She hates being in a carrier, so we tried letting her sit with Lisa in the passenger seat on the way in.
She loved it! She wasn’t in the least nervous, upset or flighty during the 20 minutes it took us to get her there and back. So, from now on, we won’t make her stay in a carrier when she goes to the vet, as long as Lisa is along to hold her.
And because she wasn’t kenneled on the way in, she wasn’t at all anxious when we got where we were going, either. She was calm as calm can be, even while Dr. Wright and his assistant Kallie drew blood from her front leg.
It was the easiest vet trip and experience I’ve ever had with a pet.
I won’t hear until tomorrow the results of today’s blood work, but I know it will be a lot better than it was before the treatment. She looks and acts like an entirely new cat (but with the same amount of love to give, as always). I know she feels worlds better.
I have her scheduled for her next checkup in two months and one week. I will be having my panniculectomy surgery on April 10th so I wanted to put Patches’ 3-month post treatment vet appt out an additional week (to May 4th) to be sure I’ll have had a full three weeks to recover from my surgery before I have to drive her in again. Dr. Wright said that was fine and, in fact, to make an additional appointment a week after that, in case I need extra time to recover. Very thoughtful of him.
In Other News…
Tomorrow I get my second Pfizer COVID shot. From what I’ve heard, the second shot can pack quite the punch for some people, so I’m glad I’ll have the weekend to recover if that happens to me. (Chills, low grade fever, etc.) I’m not really expecting to be one of the folks who experience these symptoms (other than a sore arm), but if I do, at least there will be some recovery time before my work week begins again.
I think I’ve found an aquarium shop here in Tacoma who will take baby snails off my hands. Hopefully they will even pay me a little something for them. I have at least 50 baby Apple/mystery snails and at least 20 baby Malaysian trumpet snails right now. My adult snails appear to be very, very happy in my aquarium!!! They’re breeding like rabbits and a nest/pod of snail eggs can contain hundreds of baby snails, so this won’t be the last of them…
Two nights ago when I got up at about 2 a.m. I looked out my back door window to see my backyard covered in a layer of new snow, and a raccoon just outside my door eating the leftover cat food that I put out at night to feed the wild ones during the winter. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He didn’t run, so I said, “Hello, tattoon, let me get you some cookies, too!”
By the time I grabbed the cookies, he had scurried off to some hidden location, so I just threw the cookies out into the snow and said, “Here they are. Come an’ get ’em!”
When I woke up and looked out again after the sun came up, I noticed that all the cookies were gone… and raccoon footprints were left the scene of the dine.
I love wild ones as much as I do tame ones. It’s always a thrill to see coyotes, opossums and raccoons out my back window. There are bald eagles and Canadian geese in the sky quite often, too.
Mother Nature is amazing.
