All Creatures Great and Small.
Quinn, how many animals do you have?
Wouldn’t you think that would be a simple question to answer? As long as I didn’t go for the cheap “You mean besides the two who walk upright and get mail at my house, har, har, har?” joke, it should be a quick numerical response. Instead, I get the cagy expression of someone being deposed and say something like “What do you mean by have?”
Well, how many do you own?
You’re going to have to be more specific than that. Do you mean how many animals are currently living in my house, or do you mean how many animals do I feed, or do you mean how many animals would I have to evacuate in the highly unlikely event of an inland hurricane on the West Coast? Each one of those definitions would have a different answer.
If you are asking how many animals currently dwell under my actual roof, then the answer is two --or three, depending on whether you count my non-attached garage as also being “Under my roof”. My tiny foster kittens have grown, have gone to adoptions fairs, and gone off to live with loving and wonderful families, many of whom soon will be considering reupholstering their couches. Charlotte, the mother, is a horse of a considerably more challenging color.
Where her offspring were all big eyes and wee little paws slipping through the cat cage bars, begging winningly for attention, Charlotte views an adoption fair as some torturous variation of speed-dating. She wants no part of it. She’s a healthy and pretty tabby cat, more than happy to socialize amiably with people who walk by our front yard when she’s outside having a sunbath. But take her to an adoption fair on Saturday morning and she sticks her head under a blanket and refuses to acknowledge anyone until I come to pick her up again on Sunday night. The entire time, instead of charming potential domestic partners, she exudes a palpable black cloud of resentment around her cage. Unless someone is in the market for a cat who reminds them of a fourteen year-old girl being forced to go to a family reunion, she’s not finding a new home anytime soon.
The remaining five days a week she does not live inside our house because she has terrorized our cat and dog -- or as I like to think of them, the “preexisting conditions”. Our dog is old. Like many older folk, she needs a bathroom arrangement based upon ease and convenience. By the time she manages to stand on all fours, hobble to the back door and bark, we all know she needs to get out there now. However, if I open the door and Charlotte happens to be anywhere in the back yard, the dog turns around and hobbles back to her bed:
DOG (Sadly): Oh, never mind. I’ll urinate another time.
QUINN: What are you doing, you have to go out!
(I grab the dog by the collar and try to drag her outdoors. The dog splays her legs and goes limp.)
DOG: Oh, I’m fine. Maybe you could put in a catheter or something?
QUINN: CHARLOTTE, GET OUT OF THE YARD!
CHARLOTTE: What? I’m just sitting here. Sharpening my nails.
(I tug the dog outdoors and grab for the cat. The cat nimbly avoids my oafish lunge and makes for the dog)
DOG: AUGH! MY EYES!
As far as our family cat goes, Charlotte appears to have taken stock of Lulabelle and decided she likes Lulabelle’s life very much, so much so, in fact, that she would like to live that life, if only Lulabelle weren’t selfishly insisting on living it herself. Unless closely monitored, Charlotte runs Lu off the property every day and then tries to slip inside the house and sleep in Lu’s favorite spots: it’s “Single White Furball”.
Every evening, I go outside and collect Charlotte with a seductive little shake of the dry cat-food container and a lilting refrain of “Kitty stars, who wants kitty stars?”
Once tucked under my arm, I take her into the garage, give her fresh water, and bid her a fond goodnight, closing the door behind me. I then spend the next hour or so cajoling Lu down from the roof, where she sits like a baleful and furry gargoyle, berating me for defiling her back yard with vile tabby terror.
OK. You have two animals and are fostering another one. You have three animals. Kind of.
Kind of, but not really—do you recall the rabbits in my neighborhood? Animal Control was called in to remedy the situation at the breeding house. They showed up several times and had removed the backyard rabbits, but by that point at least a few had permanently made a bunny break for freedom. Within a few weeks of the original infestation, I became aware of a black rabbit which appeared to be living in my front yard under an overgrown hedge. It was very skinny and it wouldn’t let me get anywhere near it. Being as the weather was over a hundred degrees every day that week, I started leaving a fresh bowl of water out for it each morning. My friend Amanda, hearing of my interloper, kindly offered me some rabbit food left over from a pet of hers who was MIA.
But, see, this isn’t pet ownership because I hadn’t actually bought the food, right?
And rabbit fur sends me into anaphylactic shock, so it’s not coming inside anytime soon. So it’s not my pet, right?
After a week or so, I was heartened to see the rabbit gaining some weight. Also, sometimes, it would hop towards me in an inquisitive way, which pleased me. I wasn’t going to touch the histamine-laden beast, you understand, but a friendlier animal struck me as a happier animal. It was kind of confusing, though. Sometimes, the rabbit would look plump. Sometimes it looked peaked. Sometimes it was quite happy to eat near me. Other times, it would regard me as if I were brandishing a recipe for Lapin a la Cocotte. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with this rabbit.
You’re smart. You’ve already deduced there was more than one rabbit. I didn’t get it until I came out one night to leave lettuce tops and saw four of them out there, all black.
I also saw a skunk waddling up to partake of the rabbit food (which I was by now buying in bulk), but under no circumstance am I counting it as one of my animals in any way, shape or form.
After long deliberation, I came to several conclusions:
1) The shelters are full to bursting with rabbits, many of which came from my very neighborhood. No one wants these guys, so
2) I will keep feeding them and giving them fresh water. I will make their lives as pleasant as possible without actually touching them, and
3) Since the odds of them all being the same gender were very small, and since I didn’t want a rippling black furry yard of dependants, I was going to have to get them spayed or neutered. Being as I live in a large city, it will be easy and painless to find a low-cost spaying and neutering program for rabbits. I suspected the greatest challenge of the whole “Getting them neutered” situation was going to be getting them in cages without actually touching them.
(Sounds of the gods who monitor my particular life hooting in raucous laughter right now)
As it turns out, there is no low-cost spaying and neutering program for rabbits in Los Angeles County.
As it turns out, it costs more to spay and neuter a five-pound rabbit than it does an eighty-pound dog because, as someone knowledgeable in the rescue community told me, “All their parts are small and weird”. Wouldn’t you think something as good at breeding as a rabbit would possess parts which were huge and easily comprehensible?
As it turns out, I spent the better part of my free time for a week making calls and writing emails in order to get this information. Does this make these four (at least) nameless creatures my animals, my responsibility or my inglorious new hobby?
Last night, I went into the front yard to give the rabbits their dinner. The friendly one was stretched out on the paving stones, its back legs kicked out behind it in a winning way, enjoying the last bit of absorbed warmth. Not three feet away was Charlotte, her body forming a striped “C” as she assiduously ignored the rabbit and pursued a nap. I freshened the rabbit water and noted how the nearest bush had several pairs of black feet huddled underneath, clearly waiting for Quinn the Unspeakable Predator to leave them their dinner. I served them their pellets, scooped up Charlotte, put her in the garage, coaxed in Lu and forced the dog to go outside and pee.
So, how many pets DO you have?
Oh, shut up.
Wouldn’t you think that would be a simple question to answer? As long as I didn’t go for the cheap “You mean besides the two who walk upright and get mail at my house, har, har, har?” joke, it should be a quick numerical response. Instead, I get the cagy expression of someone being deposed and say something like “What do you mean by have?”
Well, how many do you own?
You’re going to have to be more specific than that. Do you mean how many animals are currently living in my house, or do you mean how many animals do I feed, or do you mean how many animals would I have to evacuate in the highly unlikely event of an inland hurricane on the West Coast? Each one of those definitions would have a different answer.
If you are asking how many animals currently dwell under my actual roof, then the answer is two --or three, depending on whether you count my non-attached garage as also being “Under my roof”. My tiny foster kittens have grown, have gone to adoptions fairs, and gone off to live with loving and wonderful families, many of whom soon will be considering reupholstering their couches. Charlotte, the mother, is a horse of a considerably more challenging color.
Where her offspring were all big eyes and wee little paws slipping through the cat cage bars, begging winningly for attention, Charlotte views an adoption fair as some torturous variation of speed-dating. She wants no part of it. She’s a healthy and pretty tabby cat, more than happy to socialize amiably with people who walk by our front yard when she’s outside having a sunbath. But take her to an adoption fair on Saturday morning and she sticks her head under a blanket and refuses to acknowledge anyone until I come to pick her up again on Sunday night. The entire time, instead of charming potential domestic partners, she exudes a palpable black cloud of resentment around her cage. Unless someone is in the market for a cat who reminds them of a fourteen year-old girl being forced to go to a family reunion, she’s not finding a new home anytime soon.
The remaining five days a week she does not live inside our house because she has terrorized our cat and dog -- or as I like to think of them, the “preexisting conditions”. Our dog is old. Like many older folk, she needs a bathroom arrangement based upon ease and convenience. By the time she manages to stand on all fours, hobble to the back door and bark, we all know she needs to get out there now. However, if I open the door and Charlotte happens to be anywhere in the back yard, the dog turns around and hobbles back to her bed:
DOG (Sadly): Oh, never mind. I’ll urinate another time.
QUINN: What are you doing, you have to go out!
(I grab the dog by the collar and try to drag her outdoors. The dog splays her legs and goes limp.)
DOG: Oh, I’m fine. Maybe you could put in a catheter or something?
QUINN: CHARLOTTE, GET OUT OF THE YARD!
CHARLOTTE: What? I’m just sitting here. Sharpening my nails.
(I tug the dog outdoors and grab for the cat. The cat nimbly avoids my oafish lunge and makes for the dog)
DOG: AUGH! MY EYES!
As far as our family cat goes, Charlotte appears to have taken stock of Lulabelle and decided she likes Lulabelle’s life very much, so much so, in fact, that she would like to live that life, if only Lulabelle weren’t selfishly insisting on living it herself. Unless closely monitored, Charlotte runs Lu off the property every day and then tries to slip inside the house and sleep in Lu’s favorite spots: it’s “Single White Furball”.
Every evening, I go outside and collect Charlotte with a seductive little shake of the dry cat-food container and a lilting refrain of “Kitty stars, who wants kitty stars?”
Once tucked under my arm, I take her into the garage, give her fresh water, and bid her a fond goodnight, closing the door behind me. I then spend the next hour or so cajoling Lu down from the roof, where she sits like a baleful and furry gargoyle, berating me for defiling her back yard with vile tabby terror.
OK. You have two animals and are fostering another one. You have three animals. Kind of.
Kind of, but not really—do you recall the rabbits in my neighborhood? Animal Control was called in to remedy the situation at the breeding house. They showed up several times and had removed the backyard rabbits, but by that point at least a few had permanently made a bunny break for freedom. Within a few weeks of the original infestation, I became aware of a black rabbit which appeared to be living in my front yard under an overgrown hedge. It was very skinny and it wouldn’t let me get anywhere near it. Being as the weather was over a hundred degrees every day that week, I started leaving a fresh bowl of water out for it each morning. My friend Amanda, hearing of my interloper, kindly offered me some rabbit food left over from a pet of hers who was MIA.
But, see, this isn’t pet ownership because I hadn’t actually bought the food, right?
And rabbit fur sends me into anaphylactic shock, so it’s not coming inside anytime soon. So it’s not my pet, right?
After a week or so, I was heartened to see the rabbit gaining some weight. Also, sometimes, it would hop towards me in an inquisitive way, which pleased me. I wasn’t going to touch the histamine-laden beast, you understand, but a friendlier animal struck me as a happier animal. It was kind of confusing, though. Sometimes, the rabbit would look plump. Sometimes it looked peaked. Sometimes it was quite happy to eat near me. Other times, it would regard me as if I were brandishing a recipe for Lapin a la Cocotte. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with this rabbit.
You’re smart. You’ve already deduced there was more than one rabbit. I didn’t get it until I came out one night to leave lettuce tops and saw four of them out there, all black.
I also saw a skunk waddling up to partake of the rabbit food (which I was by now buying in bulk), but under no circumstance am I counting it as one of my animals in any way, shape or form.
After long deliberation, I came to several conclusions:
1) The shelters are full to bursting with rabbits, many of which came from my very neighborhood. No one wants these guys, so
2) I will keep feeding them and giving them fresh water. I will make their lives as pleasant as possible without actually touching them, and
3) Since the odds of them all being the same gender were very small, and since I didn’t want a rippling black furry yard of dependants, I was going to have to get them spayed or neutered. Being as I live in a large city, it will be easy and painless to find a low-cost spaying and neutering program for rabbits. I suspected the greatest challenge of the whole “Getting them neutered” situation was going to be getting them in cages without actually touching them.
(Sounds of the gods who monitor my particular life hooting in raucous laughter right now)
As it turns out, there is no low-cost spaying and neutering program for rabbits in Los Angeles County.
As it turns out, it costs more to spay and neuter a five-pound rabbit than it does an eighty-pound dog because, as someone knowledgeable in the rescue community told me, “All their parts are small and weird”. Wouldn’t you think something as good at breeding as a rabbit would possess parts which were huge and easily comprehensible?
As it turns out, I spent the better part of my free time for a week making calls and writing emails in order to get this information. Does this make these four (at least) nameless creatures my animals, my responsibility or my inglorious new hobby?
Last night, I went into the front yard to give the rabbits their dinner. The friendly one was stretched out on the paving stones, its back legs kicked out behind it in a winning way, enjoying the last bit of absorbed warmth. Not three feet away was Charlotte, her body forming a striped “C” as she assiduously ignored the rabbit and pursued a nap. I freshened the rabbit water and noted how the nearest bush had several pairs of black feet huddled underneath, clearly waiting for Quinn the Unspeakable Predator to leave them their dinner. I served them their pellets, scooped up Charlotte, put her in the garage, coaxed in Lu and forced the dog to go outside and pee.
So, how many pets DO you have?
Oh, shut up.
posted by Unknown at 11:52 PM
8 Comments:
Maybe we should call you Noah instead of Quinn. How's the ark holding up these days?
ah - the same can be said about my Mom...just replace "pets" with "cats." There's the cats THEY own, the cats that they ONLY feed (but they don't belong to them. right.), the dog that comes by for water (and to eat the dry cat food left out for the cats that don't belong to them) AND the opossom. (he's the one that crawls through the back yard from the railroad tracks and also eats the food for the cats that don't belong to them)
No wonder i moved out. There was no room for me.
Are you secretly living in my home? I recent traumatized my 11 year old wobbly dog and 2"mom can we keep him" cats with the most adorable puppy roaming our neighborhood. When I brought him in to call the number on his tag he immediately decided that this was a pretty cool house and wanted to be instant friends with the critters that have lived here peacfully for a long long time. Thankfully his family picked him up quickly but my pets were ticked off at me the rest of the day that I dared bring in a wanderer.As for the more nature type pets, I feed every creature within a 10 mile radius-word has gotten out that I am a sucker for watching cute little fuzzy things eating outside my window. If the feeder is empty those little buggers actually sit there and make annoying sounds till I fill it back up.
thank you so much, quinn, for making me laugh harder at my laptop than i have in a while. what a sweet image, this disparate menagerie growing in your yard. (by the way, i didn't get the fact that there was more than one rabbit until you announced it -- i'd thought the one black rabbit had a multiple personality disorder or something!)
yesterday i took my younger son to a playgroup at a home where cats and dogs wandered amiably in and out, yawning with ennui as preschoolers shrieked and tumbled about. turned out all of them were rescues, and now neighbours routinely leave animals with debbie, the mum, saying, "we're moving to singapore/our kids have allergies/ it's more work than we'd expected/ it's not as cute as we thought it would be, and we knew because you're the animal lady that you wouldn't mind just one more..."
it's been a rough couple of days, so i extra-appreciated your witty prose this evening.
I was fourteen and had an appointment to get my braces off when my mother cancelled it so we could go to a FAMILY REUNION! Twenty nine years later I still remember how awful it was. You are never getting rid of that cat.
LJ
Do you know of any group in Michigan that will spay/neuter mice?
Or, maybe even encourage them to practice abstainance? That would be good too.
I really do not want to keep killing them.
My name is Judy, and I have one old cat who is sick to death of eating mice.
Entirely appropriate post subject, given our encounter today. Thanks for a lovely cat-counseling and margarita experience--shoot me an email so we can repeat it soon. xx P (and J and J and P)
Quinn....you might want to talk to the owners of some golf courses in Portland Oregon. It seems they have become the "haven" for bunnies after many many Easters. They may know of someone who is into spraying and neutering those little babies.....I can't image them NOT taking care of that situation....I mean, people still golf there...sort of.
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