Cat versus...what?

Sometimes scary things happen...and sometimes things happen that are just too embarrassing to talk about, but  maybe I should start at the beginning...and by the way, this post is not about goats.

Those who know me well may realize that while I care for (and care for) Emerson and Elliot, my heart belongs to someone else. For the past nine years, Benny has been so much more than a pet - he is joy and affection and love and companionship all rolled up into fourteen pounds of unfathomably soft fur and the light of my life. Born in a wishing well and abandoned by his feral cat mother, he was bottle-raised almost since birth and will snuggle up with us like no other cat I've known. (And for anyone who is wondering, no, I do not still give him a daily bottle). Benny is gentle, quiet and unassuming, which explains how he came in last evening from his nightly foray into the yard and lower fields and sat silently in the corner of the kitchen, dripping red all over the floor and waiting patiently for someone to notice that his entire chest was covered in blood.  

Frantic, Emily and I tried to clean him up, to find the source of all this bleeding, to know what to do. It took me less than three minutes to realize that we needed to put in an emergency call to the vet. Several years ago Benny was attacked by a hawk, barely surviving the deep puncture wounds of the predator's sharp talons. Another time, a nasty respiratory virus kept him hospitalized for a week. As we bundled him into a fleece blanket and sped the two miles to our local veterinary clinic, I wondered what could have done this to him. My husband had seen a red fox in the field last month, and owls and hawks populate the woods below our house - what fierce creature had harmed our gentle cat this time?

Antiseptic irrigations, injections of antibiotics and painkillers, and the most humiliating shaving of most of the fur from his chest and shoulder, I was finally able to bring him home this afternoon. I spoke to the vet (whom we have trusted with our pets these last twenty-some years and whose veterinary knowledge seems limitless) and I asked him what animal could have caused these grievous injuries. Gravely, he showed me each site, describing tissue depth and wound patterns, explaining how, although the bleeding had been profuse and the area extensive, the cuts were not deep enough to be blamed on a hawk, not large enough to attribute to even another cat. Based on all the forensic evidence and decades of experience, his professional opinion was that our beloved Benny had been bested by...a mouse.

A desperate mouse, to be sure, probably a mouse scrabbling and kicking in Benny's paws and fighting for its life, and possibly even a large mouse, but definitely still...a mouse.  

First, the unilateral baldness and awful scabs, then the humiliation of being sat on to have a pill forced down his throat twice a day for a week...the embarrassment of admitting his foe is almost too much to bear. If you believe in the beasts known as ROUS* which terrorized Wesley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride, stick to that story. We have decided to tell people it was a fierce wolf, a herd of vicious possums, a mountain lion perhaps. He fought off a pack of wild dogs to save a newborn kittten...please help me keep his secret!

   

*ROUS - Rodents of Unusual Size (read the book or watch the movie!)



Happy Goat Day!

Who can understand the mind of a goat? I found this older photo which shows the tiny plastic house the goats lived in until my husband built their deluxe shed - it is hidden behind the higher platform, a yard-sale find which served them well most of the summer. Now that they have much more elaborate living quarters, I moved this lightweight hut up onto the deck, figuring that they could keep warm and dry in it while hanging out by the back door to our dining room...FORGET IT!

They act as though they have never seen this frightening foreign apparatus before - choosing to huddle against the windowsills rather than go into the little house. Even when I put their buckets of hay in it on a rainy day, they stand outside the structure and stretch their necks in to yank out mouthfuls of hay. I have cleaned it, lined it with familiar black mats (which Elliot is also now nibbling, following his brother's example) and even tried sitting in it myself to coax them in. Maybe I should show them the photo. See? You spent many happy months here! Goats!!

We have decided there are two kinds of days - goat days and not-goat days. When the weather is dry and sunny, even if the temperature is sub-zero, those are the days for goats. They will lounge outdoors for hours. Any sort of precipitation, however, sends them frantically hovering inside the shed all day. Not even gentle snowflakes will be tolerated. Of course, all day in the shed means massive clean-up for us...

Today is a goat day. The weather chart says "brisk" but the sun is shining. All is well with their world.

Rubber...It's What's for Dinner?

One of the benefits of having teenage daughters is that occasionally you can pawn off some of the housework on them...Megan, for example, is an awesome laundry helper and often empties the dishwasher without being asked. Emily is a decent cook - well, usually. Tonight she favored us with a new, healthful recipe she's been eager to try - vegetarian black bean burgers. My husband claimed he had eaten a late lunch and wasn't hungry, so the girls and I dined together in the kitchen. I'm not sure whether it was the texture, the taste or the general appearance of these burgers...but for some reason I was reminded of a problem we're having with Emerson lately. (Keep thinking about those burgers...)

Ok, although most domestic goats are housed on a bedding of straw or hay, ours have been raised with their living quarters lined with interlocking vinyl black mats, a situation we found to be much cleaner and less allergenic (to us) than copious amounts of straw everywhere. Since our goats are trained to eliminate their waste only in specific areas, this has worked exceedingly well for us - until now. Two days ago Emerson started eating the mats.

We first noticed a few chewed corners, then I caught him nibbling chunks off the edges of the deck mats. Eight months this has never been a problem - why now? It's like a recurrence of his shingle-eating several months ago. My options are limited here. I could remove all the mats, forcing the goats to sleep (and us to sit with them) on the cold ground, or I could treat the mats with nasty deer-repellant spray. This would likely cause them to avoid all contact with the mats forever.  

As I have recently nursed our scampy Emerson back from the scare of urinary calculi, a fearsome malady few goats survive, it is difficult to be too harsh with him. But really, Emerson?? We finally have a handle on this whole goat thing - Emily and I even custom-cut mats to the exact dimensions of their shed, their driveway house and their deck hut. There are mats on the deck for sleeping, even a mat in their outdoor pen that Elliot uses to pee on when the grass is wet. (Yes, spoiled, I know...) I really don't want to take the mats away, but I'm also fairly certain that large quantities of rubber cannot be good for caprine digestion.

Back to those vegetarian black bean burgers, I'm not sure what made me think about eating rubberized vinyl during dinner...but maybe Emily will bake chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Otherwise I might have to join Emerson for a snack outside; I'm definitely still hungry (since most of my burger "accidentally" fell into the trash can...) Hey - I wonder if goats can eat black beans? We have ten burgers left...

Happy Thanksgiving!

"And what time exactly will you be serving our pumpkin pie?"

Raking Leaves With Goats

Our church sponsors an annual "Community Leaf Raking Day," helping elderly or disabled neighbors with the autumn yardwork. I contemplated having us participate as a family this year but just wasn't sure how the goats would behave...so I sent Mike off with a van full of youth rakers while I stayed home with Em and Ellie. I figured they could help me rake our own yard - a beautiful sunny day ideal for outdoor mother-goat bonding time. As crunchy dried leaves are one of their most favorite snacks, they've been doing their best to graze the yard clean, but there was still a few leaves left for me to gather.

Here's what I learned. Raking leaves with goats is a bit like raking leaves with toddlers. It sounds like a fun idea in the beginning. Both enjoy jumping in the great piles of leaves (undoing all your hard work), and both will constantly pester you for snacks and attention, slightly peeved that you are showing more interest in a wooden-handled tool than in playing with them. Also, there will be frequent bathroom breaks.

If you have a choice in leaf-raking companions, stick with small children. Although they will still bolt for freedom every time you try to drag a heavy tarp through the open gate, escaped toddlers are slower and much easier to catch than runaway goats. In addition, children eat plastic tarps rarely, and rakes, never. (The same cannot be said for goats, who eat nothing you want them to and everything you don't.)  

I wonder if you can teach goats to shovel snow...

Light for the 'Fraidy Goats

When I read in a book that goats are afraid of the dark, I scoffed. These are outdoor animals, native to places like Tibet and Wyoming where surely there is ample darkness - and how exactly would you know this fact anyway? Are herds of wild goats clustering around lone streetlights in the desert, or building little campfires?

Yet, a mere eight months into our own goating experience, I believe this is true. Unlike my nocturnal cats who howl at the door to go out every evening, Emerson and Elliot fear the night, often sleeping outside (illuminated by the moon) instead of in their cozy (but scary dark) shed. Since our outdoor floodlight which brightens their pen also shines directly into all the bedroom windows, I used to turn it off every night before I went to bed, opening the side garage door to reach the switch. Somehow the goats learned to associate the sound of that door with the onset of terrifying darkness, and even after I bought room-darkening shades for the bedrooms and started leaving the light on for them, they still startle when we open that door for any reason, freezing in panic with ears perked up, prepared to bolt for the safety of the tiny solar lights which cast a dim glow around their shed. I have tried to decondition this fear by opening the door multiple times during the day and bringing them fresh hay and treats from it, but the terror is still too deeply ingrained.

Over the weekend the inevitable happened - the floodlight bulb burned out. As this is an expensive and hard-to-find specialty item, as well as being mounted just below the second-story roofline and requiring an extension ladder to change, I mentioned the task to my husband so he could leave some time in his schedule. He peered up at the roof, then got in his car and drove away, hopefully to go buy a new bulb, I thought. When he returned with three bags and several long pipes, I was puzzled. All this to change a lightbulb? Then he got a shovel and drill from the garage, and suddenly we were all drafted into digging trenches in the yard as he drilled through the block wall to run electric to the goat shed. Several hours later the goats were the proud owners of their own outlet (set up high, well out of chewing range) and a lamp mounted outside the shed so bright it can probably be seen from space. Unfortunately the only plug-in nightlight I had on hand was a pink American Girl "Coconut the fluffy dog" light, and they are very embarrassed by that, but it casts a wonderful soft glow in their shed...life is good in the goat world. What's next? Maybe their own TV?

Sleeping in Boxes...

What is it about animals and small spaces? Keep in mind all our pets have soft, comfortable beds available to them... 

Yeah, I bought the pan already but was waiting to get the turkey until next week - maybe I won't need a turkey after all! She's a perfect fit!