Has It Been a Year?

I noticed my last post was around 11 months ago, last August, as a matter of fact. A lot has happened since then, most notably, the addition of two more creatures to our menagerie! We have also, since my last post, become foster "parents" for the Asheville Humane Society (www.ashevillehumane.org), the significant factor that led to the acquisition of our newest Pack Members.

Here's how it happened -- sort of.

In the fall of 2010, we finally broke down and agreed to act as fosters for the shelter, a decision spurred on by the enthusiasm and confidence in us of then Volunteer Coordinator Jim Fulton. We had finally, thanks to help from my brother, Skip, managed to clear the back bedroom/sitting room of most of its clutter (note: the clutter did not actually "go away" as get repositioned for future disposition.). This quickly became my brother's "reading room" and the foster home for Puddin', a little orange and white tabby female who suffered from an upper respiratory infection as well as some skin irritations.

Puddin' quickly became a favorite of my brother and vice versa. Whenever Skip would come over for a change of scenery, Puddin' would scrunch herself up between Skip and the arm of the comfy chair in the back room. We also discovered that she was an incredibly playful little cat, particularly fond of wands with long snaky cloth (see picture).

What also became apparent was that, although her URI was quickly taken care of, her skin issues were most likely allergies -- either to fleas (none were found on her or the other animals) or some other, possibly systemic reaction. The base of her tail and the tail itself had almost no hair and she had large lesions under her front legs and in the region of her neck. Skip had been through something similar to this with one of his cats, so we treated Puddin' (primarily with dilute peroxide and water along with topical antibiotic ointments.

The shelter was holding a huge Thanksgiving adoption event; people could adopt animals for no charge. (i.e. FREE!) Reluctantly, because we had grown fond of her, we brought Puddin' back to the shelter. Pam, the adoption center manager, told us that Puddin' would first go to medical (next door) for evaluation to see if she could be part of the adoption event. At that point, Nicky and I had talked extensively about adding Puddin' to our animal family -- both the pros and cons.

PRO: Puddin' had won our hearts.
PRO: Her skin condition might not make her desirable to potential adopters.

CON: We already had Eve and five cats, and our finances were strained pretty much to the limit.
CON: Her skin problems almost guaranteed incurring of more veterinary expenses.

PRO: We could adopt her for FREE!!! if we did it the weekend of the event.

We decided to invoke Fate, the Divine and whatever other powers and energies put forth by the universe to help us make our decision. We asked Pam if we could adopt Puddin' if she was not adopted by the end of the two-day event, and if we could do so under the terms of the event -- i.e., no charge. Pam agreed. The event came and went, I don't remember if either Nicky or I worked the event -- but I don't think we did.

There were 50 cats and kittens up for adoption; of those, 49 found homes. The only cat that was not adopted was -- yup -- Puddin'. So after signing a few papers and receiving a care package of goodies, including a free wellness check with a veterinarian of our choise, Puddin' became our newest member of Eve's Cat Pack -- and added a bright splash of color to a group of animals that consisted of 2 solid black siblings (Mu Mu and Per Per), 2 solid white siblings (Pooka and Sprite) one black and white cat (Yin Yng) and our glorious dark brindle Plott Hound (Eve).

 ...to be continued...

  NOTE: I've been fighting falling asleep for the last 20 minutes or so, and in the interests of intelligibility, I'm breaking off for now and will bick up whre I left off soon. Thanks for your patience with my very occasional blog. I hope I can do better from now on!