Tuna

This post is by special request from Jamie at Thoughts Fur Paws and Sandra, Tuna's Mom. Tuna was one of those once-in-a-lifetime cats who touch their human companions hearts so much that the love between them is all-consuming. Tuna was born on October 18th, 1995 and was sent to the Rainbow Bridge on March 23rd, 2007. Even after all this time, Sandra can hardly think about her without crying. The second picture is Tuna and Sandra with the Christmas tree at Tuna's last Christmas. Christmas was Tuna's very favorite time of year. Tuna loved going outside and especially loved chasing leaves and bringing them back to the front door of the house, where she would leave them. One day in 2005, Sandra was playing with Tuna and giving her a tummy rub when she noticed four lumps on her stomach. She was surprised, as the lumps hadn't been there a couple of days before. She rushed Tuna to the vet as soon as possible and soon learned that Tuna had both fibro sarcoma and spindell cell sarcoma, very bad news indeed. Tuna had two operations and two full courses of chemo over the next two years, but the cancer always came back, usually within a few weeks of the end of the chemo course. Tuna fought very hard, but near the end her weight was down to only three pounds. When the vet told Sandra that there was nothing more he could do for Tuna and the kindest thing would be to send her on to the Rainbow Bridge, Sandra was heart-broken. She took Tuna home for two more days to say goodbye. She pampered Tuna as much as she could and took her out in her stroller. Her brother Blackie found a leaf and brought it to Tuna. Sandra found this immensely touching. When the time came, Tuna went softly and gently, in Sandra's arms. Sandra couldn't bear to let the vet take her body away for a long time, but she finally did. Tuna is now buried in a pet cemetery, where Sandra can visit her. Sandra doesn't have a blog, but if you would like to leave her some comforting words, I will see to it that she gets them by e-mail.

                                                Tuna loved Christmas and leaves to chase.
                                                When Autumn winds blew, away she'd race.
                                                           Cancer took her away
                                                           To the Bridge to play.
                                                Leaving Sandra to mourn, with tears on her face.

Whoops!

I apologize for my long absence. My sick modem finally died, but not in an obvious manner. I spent days trying to track down why it wasn't connecting until I finally decided that it just wasn't working, despite all the right lights being on. Then I had to wait for a new modem. It arrived and I couldn't get it to connect. It took more days to find out that the protocol for connecting a new modem to my ISP had changed completely, but I am finally back and will be posting later tonight.

Farewell, Blossom

Gemel held Blossom in her arms for the last time on July 13th, as the vet helped her on her way to the Rainbow Bridge. Blossom was on old cat when Gemel adopted her late in 2005 and she had been getting more and more frail. Something went wrong with her back legs and she was in pain, so Gemel made the heart-wrenching decision to help her go so she wouldn't suffer any more. Back in 2005, Gemel had decided that she wanted to adopt an old, sick or homeless cat. Her husband was against the idea, as they were renting. He wanted to wait until their own home was ready. Just after he had said this, Gemel and a friend of hers went for a walk. Gemel had a definite feeling that on the way home she just had to go down a certain street. She kept feeling that something very important was going to happen. As they turned down that certain street, a long-haired white cat, very dirty and matted, came almost running, but limping, toward Gemel, while meowing very loudly. Gemel picked her up and the cat immediately began purring. Gemel decided that she had to take her home, despite what her husband had said. He was against keeping her at first, but soon relented. Blossom had found her forever home at last. Blossom loved to go out walking on a leash and loved to visit the beach. In cold weather, her very favorite thing was the fire. She would hop in her bed by the fire and stay for as long as the fire lasted. At night, she slept with her humans. As it is winter now in Australia, where Blossom lived, she had been enjoying her fire very much.

                                        Blossom ran to the Bridge through the cold.
                                        She went because she was tired and old.
                                                Although it grieved her,
                                                Her Mom relieved her
                                        Of all of her pain from being so old.

Farewell, Obi-Wan

Life at The Cat Street Boyz just won't be the same without Obi-Wan around. Obi-Wan was a pure white standard poodle with a wonderful personality. He was always full of life and fun. He loved to play with his poodle brother Luke and all seven of the kitties. They have a huge fenced in back yard where they can all run around and play. Sometimes Obi would get a little excited and chase the kitties, but they knew it was all in fun. There may occasionally have been some tail-poofing involved, but I included that line mostly for the rhyme. Obi loved to give the kitties a bath, which didn't take long with his tongue. The kitties liked to use him for a big fuzzy pillow when he napped. It is suspected that Von Willebrand disease is what carried him off. This is a disease which is found in poodles which thins the blood and prevents clotting, leading to internal bleeding and death. It usually runs in families, but no dog in Obi's line tested positive for it. Whatever it was, it was fast. He fell ill Monday morning, July 20th, and was gone that same evening. The vets tried everything, including a blood transfusion from a Great Dane, but it only helped for a little while. The family is devastated. Obi was only four years old.

                                Obi-Wan was a cat-loving woofy.
                                Sometimes he'd chase them and make their tails poofy.
                                                     Then he'd lick them clean,
                                                     Never being mean.
                                He really was a first-class woofy.

Farewell, Hans

It's back to the farewell posts again. Obi should have been first, but Blogger did it again and I couldn't access his blog last night. Luckily, Hans is on Wordpress, so I could research him for a post. Hans was a lilac otter Netherlands Dwarf bunny. His Mom bought him from a breeder as a little guy. He was very happy in his new home, though Buttons wasn't too happy about it at first. From the very beginning, Hans loved to be loved. He especially liked to have his ears petted and his chin scritched. His Mom liked to pet him until he fell asleep. Poor Hans developed problems, though. Before he was a year old, he got an abscess in his jawbone and all four of his incisors had to be pulled. This meant that he could still chew his food fine, but he could no longer nip off bites. He still liked to chew (or gum) his grass mat, though. With antibiotic treatment, the abscess went away, but then it came back again. He seemed to be doing well on a new antibiotic treatment, but then he suddenly hopped off the to the Rainbow Bridge from his Mom's arms shortly after she gave him his injection. As you can imagine, this caused his Mom great distress. She was afraid that she had done something wrong. However, the vet and people on bunny blogs and forums were able to assure her that subcutaneous injections like those she gave Hans every day could not cause such a sudden departure. It is most likely that something else was going on in Hans' body that he could no longer fight off. It is possible that Hans felt so safe and secure in his Mom's arms and he was tired of fighting, so he just relaxed and let go. It's really sad, not least because Hans had just recently celebrated his first birthday.

                                         Hans had lots of trouble with teeth.
                                         He lost his incisors, above and beneath.
                                               In Mom's arms he felt warm
                                               And safe from all harm,
                                         So he hopped off to the Bridge, to look for his teeth.

Maverick

In some ways Maverick is all dog. He loves to go for rides in the truck. Heck, he loves just sitting in the truck. He loves rawhide chew toys. He loves going for walks on his leash. In other ways, Maverick appears to be part cat. One of his favorite places to sit or nap is on top of the couch. He loves to play with toy mice. He likes to play chase with Mr. Tigger and Samantha. He prefers cat food to dog food so much that now Mr. Tigger and Samantha get their food up on the counter, where Maverick can't get to it. He will make a dash at an open door, hoping to get outside. He managed it once and scared his beans half to death when they discovered him missing. A neighbor reported that he had been seen with another neighbor. It turns out that Maverick just went a few doors away to play with some other dogs. Maverick is a rat terrier. He came to live with Mr. Tigger and Ariel, the cat who came before, when he was just a puppy. He is seven years old now. He belonged to the Sonbean. When the Sonbean moved out, Maverick moved out with him. However, now some or all of the Sonbean's family have developed an allergy to Maverick, so last February, he came back to live with Mr. Tigger and Samantha. Mr. Tigger and Maverick seemed to remember each other, so there was little fuss between them. In fact, Mr. Tigger and Maverick often stand nose to nose, as if they are having a conversation. Samantha was a different story. At first, she didn't want anything at all to do with Maverick and hissed at him whenever she thought he came too close to her. Now they get along fine.

                                        Maverick is a dog who acts like a cat.
                                        He sits on the back of the couch, like that.
                                                     He plays with toy mice
                                                     And is off in a trice
                                        If somebody throws one near where he's at.

Award

I am getting so frustrated I want to scream. For the last two nights I have been unable to access any Blogspot URLs when I want to visit or post. My time is very limited and I can only count on being able to blog between midnight and 2:00am Mountain Time. Has anyone else had this problem? The date is wrong on this post, as I started it Friday, then lost access and I don't know how to change the date. I am way behind in my tribute posts, but I wanted to do this post and maybe one other before I get back to them.

Shadow, Molly, Trooder and Jake gave me this award on July 22nd and so did Jana, on the same day. I have read that the translation is "Your blog doesn't stink", but I think it's more like "Your blog is like nectar." The rules are very simple: put the badge on your blog, link back to the person(s) who gave it to you and pass it along to five other bloggers. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I would like to pass this award on to:

Faz
Lorianna
Roxy
Princess and Pierro
LC, Ayla and Iza