Anyway, it all started when Nicky got really grouchy about letting me snuggle up to him at night. He used to always be fine about this, and even though he's kind of bony, sleeping next to him is warmer than sleeping alone. But about a week or so ago, Nicky started growling and snarking at me whenever I tried to sleep with him. So Mom said I could sleep on her bed with her, and I did, and she didn't growl at me even once.
Mom thought maybe Nicky wasn't feeling good, and that's why he was being such a growly-puss. He was having some diarrhea for a while, and he had to take pills. Also his teeth are dirty again, and they need to be cleaned. Plus he keeps digging holes in the yard and eating dirt, and one day his gums were all bloody because he somehow hurt himself while he was chewing on the dirt. My own opinion is that Nicky was just being a bad brother to his sweet basenji sister.
So everything was kind of going along okay, except for Nicky's being grumpy at bedtime. And Mom was worrying about all of us dogs and cats and kittens, and she had to feed everybody and clean out the kitten cage and do all sorts of stuff like that every day. So one thing she did to make life easier (for her) was she started leaving the doors open to the room where Nicky was eating, because she thought Nicky would defend his food dish, unlike Mel, who will let Barry eat his food if Mom does not stand guard over Mel's dish.
Well, this open-door plan was working pretty well, since Barry didn't try to eat Nicky's food because I guess he remembered that time when Nicky bit a chunk out of his ear. But I thought that I should get some special privileges, as Nicky's favorite sister, so I kept trying to sneak in and grab a bite or two out of Nicky's dish. It just seemed to me that since Nicky gets four or five times as much food as I do, he ought to be willing to share a little.
Nicky would always growl and tell me to stay away from his dish, but I didn't really take him seriously, and I kept trying to creep in there and get a little food. So on Friday at suppertime, I was doing this, and Nicky suddenly lunged at me and chased me away from his dish. But that left his dish unguarded, so Barry rushed in and started eating out of it. Then Mom grabbed Barry by the collar and yanked him away from the dish, and then I ran up to it and gobbled a little bit. Mom tried to push me away, and Barry tried to bite me, but he bit Mom instead, right on the finger. Meanwhile, Nicky got spooked and ran out of the room. Finally, Mom got hold of Nicky's dish and took it away and dumped the rest of the food down the garbage disposal, which was a terrible waste, if you ask me.
After that, Mom let us go out in the yard, and Nicky attacked me. Mom ran out there and started yelling at him and pushing him away from me with her foot because she was afraid he might almost kill me, the way those two greyhound foster dogs almost killed Gabe that time. So I guess you could say that Mom saved my life! But Mom told me that if Nicky wanted to kill me, he would have already done it before she could even get there to save me. Anway, the surprising thing was that I didn't have any wounds or blood on me. Some joint or something inside me hurt when I moved, though, and I had to yelp a little, but that was just for an hour or so, and then I didn't need to yelp anymore.
So that was one dogfight that we had here, and after it happened, Mom decided that maybe the reason Nicky was so growly about letting me share his bed was because I had been trying to share his food for several days, too. So he started being possessive about both his food and his bed. This doesn't seem very nice of him, but Mom thinks it might be what is going on. Which means that she has started closing the doors again when Nicky is eating, so I can't go in there and ask him to share his food. And now Nicky is somewhat better about letting me snuggle with him, except for last night, when he wouldn't let me near him at all, and I had to sleep on Mom's feet.
Anyway, Sunday night there was another dogfight, but Mom didn't know about it because it happened in the yard when she was busy cleaning out the kitten cage and doing stuff like that. After we all went to bed, Barry snuggled up next to Mom's shoulder in bed, which he doesn't usually do. Usually, he sleeps on the floor in his own bed, or sometimes he gets on the foot of Mom's bed and sleeps there. So Mom thought it was a little odd that Barry wanted to sleep with her, but she didn't mind it.
Then when we all got up yesterday morning, Mom was petting Barry, and she discovered a bunch of dried blood on his back, and it turned out that he had a nasty bite wound there. Mom figured that Nicky must have given it to Barry out in the yard. Barry wouldn't let Mom clean the wound or even look at it very good because it hurt too much. So Mom took Barry to see Dr. Griswald, and she shaved the hair off around the wound and cleaned it out. And it turned out to be a big, ugly wound. So now Barry has to take anibiotics, and also he has to wear a Bite-Not collar so that he won't lick the wound and make it infected.
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| In this picture, Barry is checking out the kitchen floor to see if there is anything there that he can eat. I am checking out Barry's butt, just because it seemed like a good thing to do. And Chloe is hanging out, waiting for supper. |
Oh, and after all of that, when Mom was at the shelter yesterday, she got bit by a dog there, on another finger of the same hand where Barry already bit her. The dog that bit her is a little shiba inu named Honey Bear. He has some kind of problem with his nerves, so when he walks, his back end does really funny things. Mom was petting him in his run, which he seemed to like a lot, and she asked if she could take him outside, and Aunt Tania, who takes care of the run in the cat room where Honey Bear lives, said it was fine. But Honey Bear is afraid to walk on a slick floor, so Mom carried him outside to the concrete. Then he tottered around in the yard a whole bunch, but he didn't want to come back in. So Mom picked him up to carry him back in, and that's when he bit her finger, and Mom said it really hurt and it bled a lot.
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| That bite on the middle finger is the one Barry did, and Honey Bear made a bunch of wounds on Mom's first finger. |
So now Mom has two sore fingers, but she doesn't have to wear a Bite-Not collar, like Barry does, because Mom doesn't usually lick her wounds. I don't have any bites on me, and neither does Nicky, and neither does Mel, so at least some of us are still in good shape.
Well, except for our little foster kittens, because we just found out yesterday that they have roundworms and coccidia, but that's a story for another day.
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