Worming Pets Can Be A Health Hazard

 Winter is here and the dogs are spending their days dozing in any sunny spot they can find, the cats are living in front of the heater and the ferrets have retired to their polar fleece sleeping bag.  This means not much blog worthy is happening at Spring Rock at the moment, so I've dug up a story I wrote back in March 2006.  

I'm feeling very sorry for myself at the moment. I fell down the back stairs yesterday and I'm now sporting the most interesting collection of bruises all over my body. Yesterday was worming the pets day – a day I really dislike. With the variety of livestock I have, the methods for getting the various chemicals down the correct throats are as diverse as they are ineffective.

I began my assault on the “Spring Rock” worm population by worming the cats. I used to be able to buy a tasty paste that you spread on each cat’s paw and then sat back and watched the cats get stuck into it. As they cleaned their paws you could hear them saying, “Yum, yum,” or the cat equivalent anyway. I can’t say that that was the resulting scenario around here, what with the squirming, twisting and turning, the paste ended up all over the cats, but once the stuff was distributed to each cat paw, face, back, tail or whatever, but they definitely cleaned it off their fur and rarely tried to spit it out afterwards.

The co-op where I buy the worming medications has had a change of policy. Farm cats don’t get wussy little paste tubes to deal with their worms any more. Farm cats are tough. Farm cats get a tablet and can like it or lump it. Well my cats lump it. The tablets come with a special little syringe type applicator. The instructions tell you to place the tablet in the holder, put the applicator in the side of the cat’s mouth and push on the plunger. Voila! The instructions don't actually say Voila! but they definitely imply it. One cat thoroughly wormed. Well, I don’t know how the cat test pilots reacted in the laboratories when they tried these new applicators out, but the reality in my kitchen is vastly different to the above scene.  

My cats are very sneaky and will eat around a piece of cheese or meat with a tablet in it and leave the tablet.  I've tried crushing the tablet up and putting it in meat or cheese, but then the cats just refuse to eat the offering at all. So I thought, what the heck, I'll give this modern technology in cat tablet dispensing a go.

First I put the tablet in the applicator, then grabbed the nearest cat (in yesterday’s case it was Lancelot), while Guinevere looked on with deepening foreboding. After a small struggle, whereby I lost a few patches of skin on my left hand, I managed to get the applicator into the side of Lancelot’s mouth and pushed! More squirming and clawing on Lancelot’s behalf and then, phteww, one tablet on the kitchen floor. I repeated the tablet insertion process a number of times trying, to introduce a slightly different technique each time – put the applicator in the other side of the mouth, put the applicator in the front of the mouth, prize Lancelot’s jaws open and go straight to the back of the mouth, throw the dispenser against a wall and use my fingers to poke it down, but none of these resulted in a swallowed tablet. By now the tablet was looking very second hand. I had a little think and decided to give the “wrapping the cat like a mummy” technique another try. I usually end up trying this as a last resort. 

I have to admit that I’m not a dab hand at cat wrapping. There always seems to be more than the standard issue of cat legs and teeth while I’m frantically wrapping, and some of those extra legs always end up poking out with claws extended in my general direction. This time was much the same. After a couple of aborted attempts to get the tablet to its final destination and suffering more skin and blood loss, I ended up with the bits of Lancelot that were sticking out of the towel in a classic half nelson wrestling hold, while I tried to use my left hand to open his somewhat reluctant mouth while still keeping a firm grip on the bundle with that same hand. It wasn’t easy. By throwing my body over the towelled bit of cat, and holding him down that way, Lancelot finally had the worm tablet in his mouth. Various obscene cat threats were being issued through the jaws I was clamping shut, but he refused to swallow. I waited. Lancelot waited. I stoked his throat with my spare hand. He glared at me and issued more threats. Little bits of dissolved tablet dribbled out the side of his mouth. I scooped it up and smeared it on his paw (just like the paste of times gone by). This standoff went on for a while with both of us glaring at one another, until Lancelot finally gave in and swallowed the tablet. I gave him a drink of milk to show there were no hard feelings and Lancelot and I were friends once more. Lancelot has a milk addiction, and anyone (me that is) who supplies his habit is his best friend, no matter what personal insults have gone before.

Guinevere on the other hand, is a totally different kettle of cat. She had been sitting under the table, watching the proceedings and enjoying Lancelot’s discomfit. As soon as Lancelot was tucking into his milk, Guinevere realised that she was most probably going to be next and scooted out of the room as fast as her paws could carry her. I eventually located her under the bed in Justin’s room and from there chased her under various other pieces of furniture throughout the house. I managed to corral her by closing doors as we left each room and restricting her to the small hall we have, and after just as much trouble as I had with Lancelot, Guinevere too was wormed.

Great! The worst job done I figured.  I have a lot of experience with dogs that don't like tablets.  Years ago I inherited a Whippet named Buffy who took not taking tablets to an art form.  Buffy had a hair lip and buck teeth, but I don't suppose that was the reason she wouldn't take tablets.   She could hold on the them as long as you were around and then spit them out later.  I took her to the vet's one day and he said she had Tracheitis or some such throat ailment.  He said that a course of antibiotic tablets were the cure.  

I said, "Buffy doesn't take tablets."  

His reply was along the lines of every dog will take tablets if dealt with forcefully enough.  I just repeated that Buffy didn't take tablets and I was sure I couldn't get a week's worth into her.  With a big sigh he popped the tablet in her mouth, held her mouth closed and covered her nose.  After she began to turn blue and appeared to swallow he let go.  Buffy popped out the tablet on the table.  I just looked at him without commenting.  He then heaved another sigh, wandered off and rummaged in his equipment drawer and returned with a long rubber hose with a spilt in one end and a syringe on the end.  In retrospect, this obviously  worked along the same lines as the cat tablet inserter I described earlier.  He put the tablet in the slit, pushed the rubber hose right to the back of Buffy's throat and depressed the syringe. Buffy's eyes popped out in surprise and he then once again held Buffy's mouth shut until she swallowed.  He let go and was just about to get rid of the syringe when Buffy gave a delicate cough and produced the tablet yet again. 

The vet looked at me as if I'd spat the tablet out.  I returned his look with a very innocent one of my own and said, "Buffy doesn't take tablets."

After suggesting we put the dog down and my negating that option he decided to give her a long lasting injection.  Happily Buffy survived the throat infection and lived for many, many non tablet taking years.

Back to the current worming episode.  The dog worming medication these days is in the form of meat flavoured chews and all but one dog love the taste. It hardly seems fair that the Co-op has no philosophical problems with farm dogs being pampered with meat flavoured worm tablets while farm cats are expected to do it tough, but I digress.  I gathered the chews and headed out the back to administer them to the canine population.

As I said, all except one, Shadow the Silky Terrier type, love them. This pro-worming chews attitude creates its own problems. I have to be very careful that each dog gets it correct dose and the others don’t to steal someone else’s dose, resulting in some very wormed dogs and some not at all wormed dogs.

Billy was first. His chews are the giant, economy size. He needs two huge chews and a medium sized chew. Billy is more than happy to take them, but finds that they are too small for his big, floppy mouth to hold onto. I have to stand over him and supervise his cleaning up all the dropped bits. Unfortunately this means, picking up the slimy morsels and poking them into Billy’s mouth. But in the scheme of things this is easy work, if very messy and I count my blessings. If Billy didn’t like them there would be no way I could keep a tablet in his mouth, with his acres of droopy mouth he’d be sure to find somewhere to spit it out.

So Billy was finally dosed. I then turned my attentions to Shadow. Shadow has a sixth sense about worming and even though she can no longer see or hear, her nose told her I was up to no good. She then retreated to the laundry and tried to blend in with the scenery. I grabbed as much Silky as I could manage, flipped her over and opened her mouth. While she grumbled about the indignity of it all, the chew was popped into her mouth. Shadow glared at me through cataract clouded eyes and swallowed. Well that was easier than I expected, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, or a Silky for that matter, so I turned my attention to my two hyperactive Kelpies.

Juno is the lowest rung of the doggy social ladder. All other dogs keep her in her place, and she’s quite comfortable there. No amount of self esteem lessons on my part has convinced her she’s as good as the other dogs so she stays oppressed and seems quite comfortable with her lifestyle of being bullied by all and sundry. I therefore wormed her sister Dione first, with the intention of giving Juno her chew while Dione was occupied with hers. Billy was behind me, offering to take this chew off my hands and deal with it himself, but he knew if he tried to steal it, there would be trouble, so he waited patiently in case the chew became mysteriously up for grabs. Dione on the other hand, was watching carefully and planning her stealing the chew from Juno strategy as she munched on her own one. Just as Juno tentatively moved in to take her chew, Dione made a lunge for it too. I moved quickly to fend Dione off and stop her eating Juno's share. Almost immediately I knew I’d done the wrong thing. I found myself overbalancing on the edge of the back porch and then tumbling down the three concrete steps, hitting each step as I went. I lay at the bottom feeling very sorry for myself for a short while.

Billy was still standing at the top of the steps with no thought in his head except trying to will the chew to move in his direction through the power of positive thinking. When he saw me lying at the bottom of the steps, surrounded by anxious Kelpies, he took immediate action to remedy the situation. He assumed the Kelpies were responsible for my predicament and in fact on the verge of attacking me.  The fact that neither Kelpie has a nasty bone in its body didn't change Billy's mind.  I was in trouble and Billy is my protector so he

raced to defend me. 

There I was, lying prone and aching all over, while Billy stood protectively over me, drool and all and told the Kelpies a few home truths about their behaviour.   The Kelpies, were all too anxious to explain themselves and try to wriggle out of any responsibility for my difficulties, but Billy wasn't listening. He lives by the credo that if there is to be any knocking down of Mum, he'll be the one doing it, and woe betide any other creature that tries. Needless to say I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and get up before I found myself in the middle of an energetic doggy debate on exactly who was to blame. Thankfully through all this time the worm chew remained untouched by all contenders and I was able to pick it up and give it to Juno while Dione and Billy continued their discussion.

I then painfully climbed up the steps only to discover Shadows chew lying on the tiles in a soggy, discarded heap while Shadow stood by doing her best to radiate an aura of innocence. I had to go through the whole Silky worming technique again and again! I'm in too delicate a condition to recount that worming exercise, but just let me say, it wasn't pretty :)

In Which We Once Again Visit My Toilet Habits

I know I have posted before about the dangers of using our toilet.  It's not that I'm obsessed or anything but just a warning.  This post is going to be cover that topic yet again.


For those of you that are new to Life At Spring Rock our only toilet is located in the laundry which is outside our back door on the porch.   All our dogs have tried to lay claim to it over the years.  Some have been successful, some have had to wait for the another, tougher dog to die of old age, and some are still being kicked out whenever they put a toe over the threshold (Juno and Dione, the Kelpies, will never give up though - they've been trying unsuccessfully for over 12 years now).  You can read about the wars for laundry domination here   http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2009/01/battle-for-laundry-floor.html  and the difficulties faced when using our facilities here   http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2009/04/please-take-care-when-using-our.html

Once gain, it's all about Billy.  I often tell him it's a good thing he's such a handsome fellow (just look at the photo above to see how gorgeous he is) because he certainly causes enough trouble in the menagerie.

Billy is now channelling his Swiss ancestors and enjoying the cooler weather, but he is becoming a bit of a problem in the laundry/toilet yet again.  I suppose it all started when I had to push him out and close the door a couple of days ago while I was dyeing fabric.  The laundry just isn't big enough for fabric, dyes, dye-pots and other dyeing paraphernalia, myself and one large St Bernard.  As Billy has yet to master the art of fabric dyeing that meant he was the one who had to go.  He tried closing his eyes so he couldn't see me pointing towards the door.  Being deaf, this is his supreme weapon in the fight to do as he pleases and Billy uses it at every opportunity.  Since being turfed out  that day he's re-claimed the laundry as his territory and refuses to budge an inch when I want to use the facilities.  Billy sprawls himself out the full length of the floor with the majority of his bulk right in front of the toilet, closes his eyes and assumes the look of an exhausted dog just catching up on some well earned sleep.  

I get up at 6am.  Well my body gets up, my brain takes another couple of hours to join it.  Consequently I try to operate on autopilot until my brain catches up.  Visiting the laundry used to be so simple I could do it with my eyes closed.  Lately I've encountered acres of St Bernard almost wrapped around the toilet base and overflowing out far too far to manoeuvre around him.   I tried, poking him with my foot, pushing him from one end or the other and just grumbling ineffectually to his deaf ears. Nothing worked.  Billy stayed put and feigned sleep.  I knew he wasn't really asleep because he wasn't snoring.  In the end I practically had to do the splits to accomplish my mission - no mean feat when your brain is stuck in neutral.   Billy didn't budge.  At one stage while still trying to position myself so I wouldn't fall off, I trod on Billy's leg.  Of course I apologised profusely - all Billy did was raise his head (giving the lie to being asleep), give me "That Look" and resumed his recumbent and possessive position around the toilet.  


I found myself apologising to Billy and making a bigger effort to not disturb Billy's pretend slumber any further ("That Look" has that effect on me I'm afraid).  One of these days I'm going to get a nasty injury trying to bend myself around Billy's recumbent figure while trying to use the toilet.  I shudder at the imagined scene in Emerency at the local hospital as I explain how I sustained the injury.



All I could do this morning was grumble to myself that this wouldn't happen to Graeme.

Protective Custody Spring Rock Style

Before I explain the title of this blog, Paula M asked: So the battle has been on-going for a couple of weeks now. Any sign of victory...for either side? My money is on the cat.  

Well Paula, we have had some success, but the battle hasn't been won yet by any means.  Ambrosia is jumping up less while we are around to do something about it, but we suspect she goes to town when we aren't in the house and sits on benches just to prove she can.  The over worked water bottle has been brought into use yet again for a new reason though, and that brings me to the title of this blog.

Chocha, my usually very boring axolotl has been placed in maximum security protective custody

That's my very heavy marble pastry board on top of her tank. 

Two nights ago, Ambrosia climbed on the box on the left side of this photo to have a drink of water.  We keep a bowl of water near the cats' food and they get a drink of milk every morning because they are spoiled cats, but Ambrosia and Tristan prefer Axolotl flavoured water.   As a matter of fact all our cats have preferred axolotl flavoured water.  Chocha, knowing her place in the food chain, has always shown good sense and stayed at the bottom of the tank doing her best submerged log impersonation and peace has reigned.  Ambrosia would have her drink and hop down without another thought about why the water tasted so much better than the water bowl water.

Two nights ago Chocha proved herself to be the dumbest axolotl on earth.  While Ambrosia was having her nightly drink of water Chocha could stand it no longer.  She swam to the top of the tank and rubbed noses with Ambrosia.  Ambrosia reacted just the way you'd expect a highly strung huntress to react.  First she rose about three feet in the air, performed a very fine double twist while she was up there and finally landed on the floor with a startled expression that had me regretting I don't keep the camera strapped to my body.  My next thought was that trouble was just around the corner and I was right.

Ambrosia sat down and had a little think about what had just passed.  Her normally calm water tank has sprung to wet, slimy life and touched her nose. Ewww!  Ewww! Ewww!  She stopped thinking in order to give said nose a good scrub followed by a thorough washing then resumed thinking.  Obviously there was something alive in her water tank.  If that was the case it was also obviously prey!  Why you ask?  Because to a young Bengal cat if it moves its prey.  It might be the play with it and stay friends type of prey (Nefertiti, Tristan and her favourite toy, The Christmas Duck)), play with it and feel superior because I am so much better at hunting than they are  type prey (Graeme and me), catch it, wrestle it to the ground and never quite win, but never give up until Mum intervenes prey (the ferrets) or the very, very rare, if you can catch it you can chomp on it prey (mice, moths and other insects).  Ambrosia suspected that this prey fell into the last category.

"Well now," we could see her thinking, "This is going to be FUN!!!"  Ambrosia climbed back onto the box and began her hunt.  This would take a bit of finesse.  She began by just sitting there waiting patiently for Chocha to come back up and rub noses again.  While Chocha may be the dumbest axolotl in the world she is not completely without self preservation instincts.  She went back to her submerged log mode and kept her head low.  Meanwhile, I  removed Ambrosia from the box and told her her fish tank water drinking days were over.  Ambrosia was no sooner on the floor  that she'd jumped up on the box again.  This time she knew she was going to be removed just as quickly so she dove her foot into the water trying to scoop Chocha out before she, Ambrosia, was removed to the floor once again.  Chocha panicked, an emotion of which I thought an axolotl incapable, and swam to the top of the other end of the tank. "Right!!" thought Ambrosia as she was dragged away, "Progress is being made!"

I sacrificed my sandpaper board (used for tracing patterns onto fabric) and placed the Contact covered underside on top of the tank.  This board is only made of sandpaper, cardboard and Contact so I wasn't hopeful that this would keep Ambrosia out.  I advised Graeme to ready the water spray bottle that was closer to him than me (he's a better aim anyway) and the battle began.  

At first Ambrosia inspected the board, sniffed it all over and decided it wasn't going to present much of a problem.  From where I was sitting I too was inspecting it for weaknesses and I was inclined to agree with Ambrosia.  I readjusted the end so that it was under the craft box's little overlap bit in an effort to stop the board simply being flipped off.  Huh!  Ambrosia wasn't going to try anything that delicate.  She jumped on the long edge of the board sending it flying, rushed up onto the box again while Graeme was scrabbling for the spray bottle and tried to scoop Chocha out yet again.  Water was everywhere, the spray bottle had been brought into play and little sprays of water marked the lounge chair, floor and craft box, Ambrosia's feet were wet and Chocha has actually managed to make a small wave that overflowed the top of the tank in her panic.  

This problem was going to take more thought on my part.  We needed either a new tank with a top on it or something heavy and waterproof to act as a top.  We'd only been in town shopping that morning so we couldn't find anything permanent for another week when we go to town for our next weekly grocery shopping day.  I sacrificed my marble pastry board.  Graeme settled in on top of the tank while Ambrosia watched from the floor.  I could see her little brain working out ways to dislodge this prey acquiring obstacle as well.  As soon as the marble board was settled in place she jumped up and tried the same trick she'd used for the sandpaper board.  No luck, also another jet of water streamed her way getting her right between the ears!  Ambrosia eventually called it a night and took up a disgruntled position near the heater while she planned her next move, to be executed at a later date.  Chocha returned to her normal routine of doing nothing and peace returned to our loungeroom.

Ambrosia is still considering her options.  Why she has been adopted by a pair of prey loving humans she doesn't know.  What she does know is that these humans are going to have to learn that this in now her house and all prey are hers by Divine Right.  Until then she'll have to settle for swatting and wrestling the occasional ferret and making jungle cat growley noises while eating her canned cat food.

The Spray Bottle - The Natural Enemy of the Cat

Things have become desperate here. Drastic action has had to be taken and Ambrosia is going to have a very damp time of it for a while. Nefertiti will most likely come in for some squirts too, but I doubt it will take long for her to learn her lesson and remain floor-bound from now on.

You see, Ambrosia is a jumper upper on tables, benches and bookcases. Worse still she is developing into a climber of shear surfaces. Any rock climber would be proud to have Ambrosia on his or her crew. She can climb surfaces that would leave just about anyone one else, not of the insect world, baffled.  I have had cause to mention Ambrosia's, and to a lesser extent, Nefertiti's bad habit of stealing my sewing tools (see http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2010/03/quilter-seeking-quiet-place-to.html ).  Ambrosia has now branched out to kitchen items, food left out and any other object not actually nailed or glued down.  Nefertiti is led astray very easily and not being as fleet of foot as Ambrosia, is often the only one left at the scene of the crime to take the blame.

Ambrosia's predilection to jump up on flat surfaces began almost as soon as she settled into her new home on Spring Rock. At first a stern word from either myself, or an ever sterner word from Graeme was enough to make her feel abashed and have here heading floor-ward once again with a guilty look on her pretty face. There she would slink away and turn up somewhere where the guilty expression had changed to an innocent one that clearly said, “What? I’ve been here all the time. It must have been my wicked twin”

I have been lucky in my more than 50 years of cat owning (I’ve owned cats since the day I was born).  Only once before in all that time have I owned an inveterate jumper upper on tables and benches. This cat was one of the cats I tried to hide in the kitchen cupboard of the flat we were renting (see http://lifeatspringrock.blogspot.com/2008/11/six-into-one-kitchen-cupboard-wont-go.html ).  I found him just two weeks before we were due to leave the flat and move to the Southern Highlands to take up residence in the very first house we’d owned. He was skinny, dirty, very smelly and owing to a street cleaner truck catching him unawares, very, very wet. I found him on the artist Michelangelo’s birthday so of course named him Michelangelo. A very grand name for a very bedraggled cat.

Michelangelo couldn’t believe his luck. From the cold streets of Cabramatta where scraps were few and street cleaning trucks plenty, to a home with walls, ceilings, a heater and food to be had simply by jumping up on the table and helping oneself  – life was definitely looking up. I put my taking in the stray down to the excitement of having my own land around me and being able to reclaim Christie, my pinto pony and fill the acre and three bedroom house with pets. Graeme put it down to a moment of madness on my part. He was to learn as the years passed that if a stray and I were to encounter each other, and Graeme wasn’t there to hold me back, the stray soon became a member of our family.

At the time I already had three cats in residence. Three beautifully behaved ladylike cats who wouldn’t jump on a table or bench top to save their lives. Sapphire, Topaz and Ophelia were often left inside while I had some sort of food thawing out or cooling down on the kitchen bench top. It never occurred to me that any one of them might be a thief and all three deserved the trust I placed in them. Michelangelo took the first opportunity to hunt down a chicken I was thawing out the day after he arrived. He then had a quiet talk to the girls and showed them just how easy it was to claim their own food in a similar way.

The girls were easily convinced to go back to their angelic ways – they felt a bit guilty stealing food, no matter what Michelangelo said about “to the hunter go the spoils”. It just wasn’t worth the stern words and slightly smacked bottom they received when I caught them. (The smack was much more of an indignity than painful.) Of course, once Michelangelo had brought the captured bounty to the floor, the girls had no prick of conscience and tucked in with gusto. Michelangelo on the other hand, who never forgot the lean years continued to be untrustworthy around food. I ended up re-training myself rather than the cat. No food was left out, things were thawed in the turned off oven and the spoils the hunter acquired became virtually no-existent. That was all back in the 1970’s. Michelangelo has long been just a wonderful memory and many cats have lived and sadly died with me since.

As the years went on, I forgot about jumping cats and slowly food began being left out for various reasons. Then along came Ambrosia. Ambrosia has no excuse for thieving. Unlike Michelangelo, she has never known a hungry day. The worst that has happened to Ambrosia is that she may have gone to the dry cat food bowl only to find it empty and had to find me and demand it be filled.

Sadly, removing all food had no effect on Ambrosia’s climbing ambitions. In a house where food in no longer left out she is reduced to jumping up to knock over vases, attack the dried flower arrangements in them, bat ornaments off shelves to see what happens when they hit the floor and of course, that old standard, stealing quilting tools. She climbs vertical surfaces of kitchen cabinets and linen cupboard shelves. Yesterday she hit a personal best in climbing (possibly a cat world record, but I don’t have the details to hand to claim that record as yet). She began the day by climbing onto the bathroom window sill (about six feet off the ground), knocking over the little vase on the vanity on her way down. She then moved into the kitchen, climbed the vertical cliff that is the kitchen cabinets (don’t ask me how I wasn’t there to witness the beginning of this event, just the disastrous consequences), arrived at the top of the cupboards and knocked off one of my decorative tea pots, smashing the teapot I actually use that was sitting on the bench below and chipping a bit off the spout of the decorative, handmade pottery one. She also sent egg cartons (empty thankfully) and a wire chook flying across the room. By the time I rushed to the kitchen to investigate the racket Ambrosia was nowhere to be seen.  She still continues to deny any involvement in the mayhem. Nefertiti was sitting on my lap at the time, so has an iron clad alibi and there were no other pets in the house at the time, no matter what Ambrosia says about seeing ferrets in the kitchen. Ambrosia also suggests that a very localised earth quake (just over the cabinets) must be responsible. From the kitchen she moved to the hall, and finding the linen cupboard door not completely closed, climbed to the very top shelf, right up there near the ceiling and proceeded to move to the back of the shelf, knocking aside the boxes and paraphernalia that we store up there. These of course came crashing down to the floor, once again bringing me hot foot to the scene of the crime. Ambrosia had a hard time denying this one because when I arrived she was standing on the top shelf, looking down at her handiwork.

Later, I moved to the bedroom to have my much needed afternoon lie down and Ambrosia and Nefertiti followed as usual. Nefertiti settled down on my stomach as usual but Ambrosia kept busy finding as much mischief as the bedroom could provide. And the bedroom could provide a surprising amount of mischief for one little determined cat! I spent the first half of my rest jumping up and saving various items around the room, removing an indignant Bengal cat from behind owl collections, on top of a stack of books, inside my cupboard (if she can get a paw in she can slide the door open) and being stuck between the bed head and the wall. Nefertiti joined in the fun after just a short time of watching Ambrosia’s determined effort to reduce the room to rubble. I ended up putting them on their bed in the bathroom and closing the door on them. This wasn’t the end of the trouble though. From time to time I’d hear a muted bang or other noise that needed investigating. I finally decided that there was nothing in there that they could damage and went back to reading my book and ignoring the sounds emanating from the bathroom.

I am now taking action. I have placed three spray bottles around the house in strategic spots, ready to be brought into action whenever needed. Ambrosia first encountered the spray bottle when it was looking decidedly innocent - just sitting on my sewing table minding its own business. Ambrosia decided it was harmless enough and returned to her nefarious ways. She soon found out the purpose of this little bottle.

As of this moment Ambrosia has experienced the effects of being squirted with a stream of water and she doesn’t like it. Unfortunately she has shown no signs of ceasing her dastardly jumping and climbing habits, but I live in hope. Stealth is the supreme weapon in this war. If she sees or hears me coming she is down off whatever piece of furniture she shouldn’t be on and streaking off to hide elsewhere until the spray bottle once again returns to its dormant state.

Now all I have to do is train Graeme in the art of stealth squirting. 

 

Note the alert expression – ready to flee at the first sign the bottle is about to start something.

Morning Mysteries

 This is the scene after a bit of tidying up was done (we had to be able to reach the toilet after all).  And to think that I'd given the laundry a thorough clean up just that day!

Today began with a mystery.  I was woken around 5.30 this morning by the sound of mini galloping.  I lay in my warm bed for a while rifling through options in my head.  Possums on the roof (no, we have a tin roof and this wasn't a metallic sound).  Something that Tristan had caught escaped and he was now chasing it around the house - possibly, but there was only one set of footsteps and they sounded a lot lighter and faster than our large orange cat.  A very miniature horse race being held in my house with fairies as jockeys? - Wake up Rosemary!!!!  As the galloping came close to my side of the bed yet again (whatever it was seemed to be doing laps of the bedroom) I put my hand down to catch whatever it was and believe it or not I did catch it.  I lifted the body up off the floor and tried to figure out what it felt like.  I'm not the best at 5.30am so it took a while.  Thankfully it wasn't a rat accidentally released by Tristan, or a wild possum that had got inside.  It would have been better if these possibilities had gone through my head before I picked up whatever this furry body was.  Then my brain clicked into gear and I realised I was holding a ferret.  Obviously one of the female ferrets because it was a sable ferret.  Whether it was Jocie or Cecilia I couldn't tell.  It was too dark to sort out the slightly different face markings.

Well, that was easily dealt with.  I dragged myself out of bed, mumbling to Graeme who had just come to, that I had a ferret and was returning it to its indoor cage in the kitchen.  Graeme left me to it and and went back to sleep.  I returned the disgruntled ferret to its cage and performed a cursory check of the cage for the escape route but couldn't find one anywhere.  To prove there was no escape route from the ferret cage, all four ferrets are still in there a couple of hours later.  If there was a way out Jocie and/or Cecilia would have used it by now.  That was mystery number one.

I then decided to visit the toilet while I was up.  I went outside to the laundry (where we keep our only toilet) and met the second mystery of this very early morning.  The laundry was A MESS!  Chaos reigned supreme.  No dogs were to be found anywhere - I suspect they'd taken to the hills when they heard me in the kitchen, and I don't blame them.  If they had been anywhere in sight serious questions would have been asked, and one thing my dogs don't like is me asking them serious questions.  They have to go to the trouble of putting on their sorry faces, hanging their heads and trying to look innocent all at the same time.  That's no easy feat that early in the morning.

I surveyed the chaos.  The bin had been upturned, emptied and its contents strewn around the room.  The top of the bin was missing in action (Graeme located it under the rubble when he got up this morning).  The vinyl cover over the dryer had been pulled off and the various bottles and jars I keep on top were in the strangest places you could imagine, three heavy boxes stacked on each other and holding my hand dyeing equipment had been moved out from the wall and the top box was now tottering precariously, threatening to add its contents to the already overloaded floor, the large bag of kitty litter was dragged out from under the sink but otherwise unmolested, the cat food bin was barely jostled.  This is a mystery in itself because all three dogs love dry cat food and if they were going to this much trouble to create a mess, surely they'd take the time to tip the bin over and eat the contents.  It wouldn't be the first time they'd raided the cat food after all . 

And most mysteriously of all the cardboard box of tinned dog food had been dragged to the middle of the room and chewed down to the level of the remaining tins.  Why had the dogs mauled the cardboard box?  Had they had an attack of the munchies during the night and ignored the cat food and had a craving for cardboard?  Had the box in some way offended them and they reacted violently?  Had they taken time out from their nefarious night time destruction and absent-mindedly gnawed on the box while plotting their next move?  It appears that they actually ate some of the cardboard because there wasn't enough cardboard litter on the floor to match the amount missing from the box as far as I could see.  Then again there was so much that was on the floor I might have missed it. 

I stood there for a few minutes trying to get my brain to make sense of this.  Unfortunately I can't make sense of anything during an ordinary morning, let alone all that lay scattered before me!  My brain just whirred with useless ideas like they'd chased a mouse, a possum had got into the laundry and they chased it (I don't know why I kept coming back to possums - we've never had one close to the house in the 13 years we've lived here, but possums kept intruding anyway), there had been a mini tornado, or possibly a very concentrated earth quake isolated to the laundry had struck.  An intruder had come along and looking for our valuables in the laundry rather than the house had created the mess and the dogs were off chasing him - that would explain the lack of dogs on the back porch at this time of morning at least.  But none of these scenarios explained the chewed dog food box.  It occurred to me that maybe I needed to go back to bed and think about this when I could think clearly in an hour or two. 

I returned to bed, told Graeme what I'd found and then lay there wide awake, questions whirling like dervishes in my mind.  He just grunted once or twice, so I told him I hadn't cleaned it up yet because I just wasn't up to it at this time in the morning.  Another grunt greeted that statement.   I get up at 6am anyway, so I got up ready to start my day.  My mind kept going over possible explanations, but other than you never know what my menagerie is going to throw at me, I couldn't find any rational explanation for this morning.

Graeme thinks the escaped ferret (no theory on how she escaped though) ran out the open front door (we leave it open at night so Tristan can come and go as he pleases), around the house, up the porch steps to the laundry at the back, ignoring the fact that it was full of dogs, caught the dogs' attention, they chased it around the laundry (in complete silence!?) until it finally escaped unscathed and then ran back to the front of the house, inside the front door, threw a right into our bedroom and started doing victory laps until I caught it.  It seems Graeme can't cope with two different mysteries this early in the morning and has to combine them to explain both.  He won't be swayed from this theory, even though, once again the chewed box isn't explained, nor the scattered bin contents for that matter.

I am a bit worried about Graeme.  It seems the animals are finally getting to him.

Winter Is Almost Here

Billy and Shadow.  Billy is about to bowl Shadow over so he can sniff her thoroughly. Shadow is not going to enjoy the process.

Looking back through my old stories (the ones I wrote before I began to blog), I came across this one from long ago. Many of the pets in this story are no longer with us, and new pets have arrived, but strangely little else in the story has changed. I now bring the ferrets inside during winter so I don't worry about them feeling too chilly (this has brought about a new set of logistic problems), Mum-Puss and her combative family are no longer with us to battle at dinner time, TOD the duck has gone to ducky heaven and the new breed of chooks are less panicky and therefore less interesting too Billy. Still, I thought you might enjoy reading about the menagerie way back when.

Winter is here at last. The days are getting shorter, the air has that sparkling, icy-misty look that only freezing winter days can produce and the countryside is finally turning green after months of brown. The reason I’m waxing lyrical about the cold weather is that winter is my favourite time of the year. In my opinion the only good thing about summer is the cricket matches. Take that away and all I’m left with is a menagerie of over heated animals all vying for the prime piece of real estate on the kitchen floor under the air conditioning duct.

In winter my thoughts turn to keeping the now decidedly chilly menagerie warm. The ferrets bring new worries as the days grow colder. They no longer lie in their cage looking like they are at their last gasp, rather they hibernate in their quilted polar fleece sleeping bag, coming out only to have dinner, seek the warmer climes of the house or, during one of Billy’s assaults on their cage, threatening to give Billy the thrashing of his life, if only he’d show some spunk and come into their cage and say that! I have now added a hand spun, hand woven woollen table runner I made years ago during my spinning and weaving phase, to their bedding. This entails going out into the freezing back yard, well after the sun has set, quietly opening the cage door, feeling around for the table runner without disturbing the sleeping furry ones and tucking them in for the night. If I disturb them Miette will come struggling out of the sleeping bag to find out what is going on in the hope that it’s Billy coming to start something. When she sees it’s only me, she’s perfectly happy to settle in for a chat. Persuading her to return to bed so I can go back into the warm house, is a lost cause. There’s nothing to be done but, return to the house and have another go in half an hour – when the night air will be even chillier. If I am very careful, I manage to tuck them in without disturbing the sociable Miette and once this little chore has been done, I go back inside with a clear conscience with only the duck and galahs to worry about. So far I haven’t figured out a way to keep these feathered pets any warmer than they can keep themselves. Graeme assures me that the ferrets have thick winter coats to insulate them against much colder weather than any Australia can throw at them. He also says that the quilted sleeping bag with two layers of polar fleece and two layers of batting would be enough to keep me warm should I want to spend the night outside. This could sounds like a veiled threat, but I’m too busy sorting out the cats to give it much attention.

Mum-Puss, Lancelot and Guinevere have different needs when the weather turns chilly. They spend their summer days lying on the kitchen floor within close proximity to the fridge and freezer’s cold blasts of air – always providing that Billy isn’t having an inside day. If Billy is amongst those present, the cats retire to the dining room, an extension off the kitchen with only the metal strip where the vinyl and carpet meet to indicate where the kitchen stops and the dining rooms begins, to poke their collective tongues out at Billy who’s not allowed to put one paw onto the carpet. Their winter days are spent following the sun around the lounge room carpet and cuffing any other cat who seems to have a better bit of sun. I repeatedly tell Mum-Puss that she is in dire need of parenting classes. “No mother worth her salt,” I say to Mum-Puss, “digs her claws into one of her children because it has the softer chair or warmer patch of carpet.” Mum-Puss glares at me with her one beady eye and asks for help disengaging her claw that seems to have somehow become hooked into the body of her daughter or son.

Now don’t imagine for a second that Lancelot and Guinevere are the innocent parties in all this. They have far too much of their mother in them to be above such things as starting fights with mother or sibling just for the sheer hell of it. Their combative natures have led them to developed a very subtle way of letting me know it’s dinner time. For some unfathomable reason, as soon as 4.30 p.m. rolls around, the cat version of World War III begins in whatever room has more than one cat in it and progresses throughout the house until they arrive in whatever room I may be. One minute all three cats are the picture of domestic bliss. Three little furry bodies intertwined in shades of black, white and grey lying on their pillows in front of the heater with not a thought in their heads except familial love. As soon as the clock indicates the dinner hour is approaching the peaceful scene is shattered with snarling, scratching and the most foul cat language you have ever heard. Heavens knows what it is they are saying to one another, but whatever it is it’s guaranteed to be R-rated! It’s times like this that I’m grateful I’m mono-linguistic. All this aggression disappears as soon as dinner is on the table (or in the cat’s case on the floor). Each cat has its own bowl and own space on the plastic place mat. Dishing out the food is an exact science. Others have tried but failed to master the intricate pattern required for all three cats to get their fair share of food while keeping peace in the feline community. I won’t go into the lengthy description of how to successfully feed the family, buy suffice to say it’s taken quite a while to perfect. Once the three tummies are full of the tinned food du jour they return to their fireside pillow, intertwine themselves once again and settle in for the night. Ah peace at last. The Spring Rock Terrors have settled down for the night and won’t return until 4.30 tomorrow afternoon. Now all I have to contend with is Billy’s Winter Pass Times.

Billy, ever true to his Swiss heritage, is in his element in the winter time. This unfortunately means that while the rest of the pets are only interested in finding sunny spots around the yard or house and hibernating until summer, Billy is at his metabolic peak resulting in excess energy and mischief making. He spends his days between terrorising the chooks, stalking TOD, our drake and seeking out other less than desirable (from my point of view) ways of amusing himself.

The chook/duck chasing isn’t too bad when compared to his other pastimes. The hens are safely tucked away in their chook pen with seven or eight feet high wire between them and Billy, but this simple matter of logic hasn’t occurred to them yet. As soon as Billy begins his mad run from the back porch down to the chook yard, ears and jowls flopping as he goes, the chooks begin their crazy, panicked flight to anywhere other than where they are. Given that we have nine hens and one rooster, a fair bit of the chook pen is taken up with chooks when they are as we might term “at rest”. Therefore when these chooks (and rooster) begin literally flapping about they tend to ricochet off each other, the chook wire, hen house and the odd tree in their yard. This in turn causes them to panic further, taking fright at the sight of each other panicking and so on. It’s my belief that one day they will end up bouncing off each other and the various objects in their yard ad infinitum. Add to this TOD’s mini-panic on the outside of the chook yard and our winter back yard is definitely not a peaceful refuge for the summer haters among us.

When Billy’s other winter past time is considered though, I’d choose the panicking chooks and drake any day. With the longer nights Billy has searched for a new form of amusement that can be safely conducted from the confines of the back porch. He’s tried bowling Shadow, the Silky Terrier Type, over and sniffing her from head to tail while she’s in her prone condition. Needles to say Shadow doesn’t take this lying down – well actually she does take it lying down, but as soon as she can get up she takes her little fluffy dog revenge, bailing Billy up against the porch wall while snapping and snarling to let Billy know how she feels about his new found past-time. Billy, squashed against the wall, looking down at the little ball of fury, has all the appearance of a bully brought to book for his sins, promising never to harm undersized little dogs again.

Eventually, Billy turned to other, less risky ways of passing his winter nights. Billy has taken up singing, or in light of his Swiss ancestors, possibly yodelling. Now you’d be forgiven in thinking he’d be a baritone – what with the size of him and all, but no, Billy is a male soprano. He sits on the back porch yipping and howling to his heart’s content, happy in the knowledge that not only is he enjoying his own musical interlude, but he is bringing a little joy into the cold winter nights for his family. It’s obvious that Billy sees us in his mind’s eye sitting in our lounge room, tenderly smiling at each other while commenting on the beautiful musical tones emanating from Billy’s oversized lungs. Billy is so sure that we are as happy about his new-found talent as he is. When one of us goes outside to let Billy know our true feeling about his impromptu recital he turns towards us, leaves off his singing often mid yodel, and invites whichever music lover in his family who has come outside, to join in. The hurt look on his face when growled at to be quiet is truly heart rending. Maybe with a professional’s help, just maybe we could turn those teeth grating yowls to something bearable?

I’m off now to go and look through phone books to try to find coaches for Swiss yodelling.

A Great Visit Was Had By All (Except The Tigers)

 Bec and the boys have been visiting for a few days.  They've gone home now so I get more computer time, but really I'd rather have more grandchildren time if I could.  We filled the days with lots of thing to do and seemed to be busy nearly all the time.  There was so much to do and so little time to fit it all in.

We all had a wonderful time feeding lambs, making interesting things, collecting eggs, going for walks to see the new lambs out in the paddock with their mums and generally enjoying farm life.   Ethan, (aged 3) is almost physically incapable of passing a large piece of farm equipment without getting into it.  Liam (aged 2 and a bit) is happy to follow and Michael (aged 5) likes to keep his options open, sometimes choosing to climb aboard and sometimes content to watch from the ground.  Ethan quickly attaches himself to the wheel of whatever piece of machinery he is in and proceeds to "drive" it.  Unlike a lot of little boys he doesn't bother with revving motor noises, he just enjoy the experience of being the tractor, header or truck driver, inspecting all the levers and pedals, trying them out to see if they can be moved and discussing the uses of most of them with me.  To tell the truth I don't know what half of them do, but Ethan doesn't mind if I don't know, he makes his own speculations about their purpose and we are both happy to accept that they do whatever he believes it is that they do.

 Michael driving the big tractor.  (I couldn't find one of Ethan or Liam too)

On the last visit here Ethan and I were sitting in one of the tractors admiring all the bits and pieces when he asked me if we could start the tractor up.  I said no or course.  Ethan then asked why, of course, and I responded that I didn't know how to drive it.  Ethan looked at me with his serious little face and said, "That's OK, I know how to drive it.  Granddad taught me last time we were here."  Well, how do you respond to that statement?

Meanwhile back to this visit.  On Thursday night Bec offered to cook dinner for us all.  Liam was feeling irritable while dinner was cooking and nothing would make him happy. There was no particular reason for the bad mood, just the general bad mood toddlers seem to adopt the minute Mum is busy cooking dinner. Seeing that Bec had taken over the kitchen, I lifted Liam onto my hip and took him outside to distract him for a while -that was my contribution to dinner preparation.  Ethan decided he'd like to come along too.  Michael was very busy saving turtles on a computer game and couldn't take time out from his mercy mission to go with us.  We put our farm boots on and I switched on the outside light.  We wandered down to the ferrets to get them out of bed so we could say hello.  Horton just raised his head out of the hammock, looked at us for a second out of bleary eyes and went back to sleep.  The others thought there might be a game in this and came out of the hammock ready for fun even though the sun had  gone down a while ago and it was past their bedtime.   Liam and Ethan had a great time talking to the ferrets.  They both like the ferrets as long as they have some bars between them and the little rogues and watching their antics.  The ferrets love all the grandchildren.  They are closer to their size, scream deliciously when pursued by a feisty little ferret and generally add to the excitement level of any play time the ferrets have, so they were very pleased to see the two boys and try to initiate games from the wrong side of the cage bars.

Once Liam had enough of the ferrets we returned to the house, but instead of going inside and finding Liam's bad mood again, we sat on the back steps until dinner was announced to be ready.  Billy was on the top step and welcomed us with lots of paws on the shoulders and sniffing of the back of our heads. Drool was shared too, but we won't dwell on that.  Ethan is fine with Billy but Liam is still a little scared of him, so I kept my back to Billy with Liam on my lap. It worked well.  Liam was happy not to be looking at all that dog and Billy was happy to share some quality time with his beloved short people.  

We sat quietly for a while,or as quietly as you can when Billy is amongst those present, looking at the stars and watching the ferrets make their way back to bed.  We discussed the stars (Ethan estimates there are about 100 stars in the night sky), aeroplanes that looked like stars and how dark it was out there.  After a short while Ethan went very quiet and sort of hunched over a bit.  I looked over at him and was just about to ask what was wrong when he looked at me very seriously and said, "I hope some tigers don't get us."  

The relief on his face when I told him there were no tigers in Australia except in zoos was a sight to see.  He straightened up, smiled and enjoyed the rest of our time sitting on the steps.  We discussed what night time animals lived on the farm and he was perfectly happy to share the night with possums, owls and bats.  When I thought about it later, I realised what a faithful little boy he is.  He honestly thought there was a chance that tigers would come out of the dark and get us, yet he sat on the steps to keep me company.  He didn't cry or carry on in anyway or run inside at the first opportunity to abandon me.  He sat tight and worried about tigers instead.  Now that's love!