GLEN OF IMAAL TERRIERS

It's St. Patrick's Day, and you know what that means:  time for my annual blog entry about an Irish breed of dog!  This year I have chosen the Glen of Imaal Terrier, which a lot of people have probably not even heard of unless they have watched some of those dog shows on TV.

County Wicklow is that red spot

There are four terrier breeds that come from Ireland, and the other three are the Kerry Blue Terrier, the Irish Terrier, and the Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, which is what our neighbor, Henry is.  If you're like me, you may be asking yourself "Where the heck is the Glen of Imaal?" and "Why does it have such a strange name?"  Well, I have done the research, and now I know that the Glen of Imaal is in County Wicklow, which is on the east coast of Ireland.  And the reason it has that strange name is because the Irish people used to speak Gaelic, and they gave everything strange, Gaelic names.

Blue brindle puppy

Glen of Imaal Terriers, which are called "Glens" for short, date all the way back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I.  Or at least that's what some people say.  The Irish were being naughty and rebellious, so the queen hired some French and Hessian soldiers to go make them behave.  After the fighting was over, these soldiers decided just to stay in Ireland, mostly in the Wicklow area.  They brought their own short-legged hounds with them, and they bred them to the local terriers.  The result was a type of terrier that was only found in the Glen of Imaal area.

Glens were used as working dogs on farms.  They did some herding, and they also hunted foxes, badgers, and otters.  Like other terriers, they went after these pesky animals by digging down into their burrows and dragging them out.  If the dog got stuck in the burrow, it had a nice sturdy tail that the farmer could use to pull it to safety.  Some terriers do a lot of barking while they are hunting their prey, but the Glen of Imaal Terrier was trained to work "mute to ground," so it kept quiet while it was digging.

The dog is in the wheel up on the wall, on the right.

Another thing Glen of Imaal Terriers did was work as turnspit dogs.  A turnspit dog walks in a wheel, sort of like a big hamster wheel, and there's a pulley that is attached to the spit that holds the meat that is cooking over the fire in the fireplace.  The spit has to keep turning or else the meat will get burned on one side.  Personally, I would eat the meat anyway, burned or not, but humans are fussy about things like this.  Anyway, Irish lore says that Glens were turnspit dogs, but there is no real proof of this because the pictures of dogs turning spits do not much look like Glens.

Nowadays, people have electric rotisseries, so there is no need to have turnspit dogs.  Also, not too many people hunt badgers and foxes and stuff like that unless they live in the country.  So Glen of Imaal Terriers are mostly companion dogs, which is a job they also do very well.  They are gentle and good-natured, inquisitive, spirited, and brave.  But like all terriers, they can also be stubborn and independent.  They are not as hyper as some terrier breeds, but they are still active and need some kind of exercise every day.  Some Glens are dog aggressive, and they might think of cats as prey.  They don't bark a whole lot, unless they are living in a home where there are a lot of other barky dogs.

The colors of Glens are wheaten, blue, and brindle.  Males weigh about 35 pounds, and they are between 12.5" and 14" at the shoulder.  Females are a little smaller.  Glen of Imaal Terriers are longer than they are tall, and their front legs bow out a little bit.  They have a double coat, with harsher hair on the outside and softer hair underneath.

The Glen of Imaal Terrier breed almost died out completely, and then some people started working to bring it back in the first part of the 20th century.  The Irish Kennel Club recognized the breed in 1934, and after that it got recognized by the Kennel Club of Great Britain, the FCI, and several rare breed associations.  Sadly, much of the Glen of Imaal area is now used by the Irish Army as a firing range, so there are no terriers or people living there these days.

The AKC recognized the breed in 2004, and there are about 1,000 Glens in the U.S. right now.  In the AKC list of rankings by registration numbers, Glens were #149 in 2007, #158 in 2011, and #162 in 2012.

Glen of Imaal Terriers don't have a whole lot of health problems, but there have been some cases of Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA), hip dysplasia, and skin irritations.

In my opinion, Glens are kind of cute, with that scruffy-terrier sort of look.  But I don't think Mom would let us have one because it might try to eat our cats.  And also, Glens are probably kind of expensive, since there aren't all that many of them around.  So I guess we will have to wait and get some other kind of dog sometime.

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SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL'S CATS

You've probably heard of Sir Winston Churchill because he was a famous British person who was the Prime Minister during World War II.  What you may not know about him was that he liked cats.  He had at least one dog, but mostly he had cats.  In my opinion, he should have had more dogs and fewer cats, but I did not get a chance to tell Mr. Churchill my opinion because he died before I was born.

The country home where the Churchills lived was called Chartwell.  Several cats lived there during the years, and one of them was named Mickey.  He was a big tabby cat.  Another one was Tango, who was a marmalade color.

Sir John Colville, who was the Prime Minister's principal secretary, told a story about having lunch with his boss and Tango on June 3, 1941.  At that time, a lot of things were going wrong with the war, and here's how he described the meal:

I had lunch with the P.M. and the Yellow Cat, which sat in a chair on his right-hand side and attracted most of his attention.  He was meditating deeply on the Middle East, where he is intent on reorganizing the rearward services, and on Lord Beaverbrook who is proving particularly troublesome....While he brooded on these matters, he kept up a running conversation with the cat, cleaning its eyes with his napkin, offering it mutton and expressing regret that it could not have cream in war-time.

The best-known cat that Mr. Churchill had during the war was a big gray cat named Nelson.  An American war correspondent, Quentin Reynolds, reported that the Prime Minister told people at a dinner party that "Nelson is the bravest cat I ever knew.  I once saw him chase a huge dog out of the Admiralty.  I decided to adopt him and name him after our great Admiral...."  During this same dinner, Mr. Churchill secretly gave pieces of salmon to Nelson whenever Mrs. Churchill wasn't looking.

In August, 1941, Prime Minister Churchill met President Roosevelt on the HMS Prince of Wales for an important war meeting.  Mr. Churchill saw the ship's cat, Blackie, and he bent down to pet him.  After that, the crew changed Blackie's name to Churchill, and made him the official mascot of the ship.  Later in the year, the ship was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Malaya.  Many sailors died, but Churchill the cat managed to make it to Singapore with the survivors.  Then when it was time for the men to evacuate Singapore, Churchill could not be found because he was probably doing catlike things such as exploring or hunting.  So the crew had to leave him behind, which made them very sad.

Sir Winston especially loved kittens.  One day when the Churchills were at Chartwell, a neighbor brought over a basket with five white kittens.  Each one had a red ribbon around its neck.  She was hoping that Sir Winston would pick one of the kittens to keep, but his secretary, Grace Hamblin, thought there were already too many cats in the house.  She took the basket up to the bedroom, and she said to her boss, "Now you are not to have these, they are just here for a visit."

In about an hour, he called her back, and she found kittens everywhere, climbing all over the furniture and tearing up the newspapers and getting into all kinds of mischief.  Mr. Churchill told her, "Take these kittens away, before I fall in love."

With Rufus the poodle at Chartwell Manor
Photo by Hans Wild

When Sir Winston had his 88th birthday in November 1962, Sir John "Jock" Colville gave him a ginger cat with a white chest and paws.  The cat was named Jock, and soon got to be a favorite of Mr. Churchill.  After Mr. Churchill died on January 24, 1965, at the age of 90, the National Trust took over Chartwell.  The family asked that there would always be a marmalade cat named Jock living there.

Jock V

The latest Jock came to live at Chartwell in November of 2010.  He is Jock V, a rescue kitten who was 19 weeks old when he was adopted by Alice Martin, the collections manager at Chartwell.  He lives in the apartment at the top of the house, and he is pampered by the office staff.  Ms. Martin says that Jock V likes water and "jumps into the sink at every opportunity."  The public gets to see Jock when Chartwell is open for tours.

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STOMATITIS

Today I am going to talk about an icky, nasty, very painful condition that you can get inside your mouth.  It's called stomatitis.  Stoma is a word that means "opening," and the mouth is an opening, so an inflammation in the mouth is called stomatitis.  People can get stomatitis, dogs can get stomatitis, cats can get stomatitis, and probably other animals can get it, too.  But today I am just going to talk about the condition in cats, because our foster kitty, Astrid, probably has it.





Maybe you remember (and maybe not) that Astrid is a ragdoll cat, and she was living in a hoarding situation.  The lady who had the cats probably did the best she could, but there were 25 cats, and she couldn't afford to get them medical care and stuff like that.  So Astrid likely never had her teeth cleaned before she came into rescue.  We're not sure how old Astrid is, but Dr. Regan thinks she is maybe 8 or 10 years old.

Anyway, Astrid had such terrible teeth and such stinky breath that Aunt Tania got Astrid's teeth cleaned right away.  Five teeth got pulled, and the plaque was scraped off the rest.  Then Astrid came to our house.  But she kept having a sore, infected mouth and smelly breath.  Also she drooled sometimes.  She liked to eat, though, which was good because she is a tiny little cat like Latifa, and she just barely weighs six pounds.


Okay, so now I will tell you about stomatitis in cats.  Nobody is totally sure what causes it, but when it happens, the inside of the mouth gets really inflamed and red and swollen.  Sometimes it is connected with Feline Immunovirus (FIV) or some other virus such as calicivirus.  Other times it acts like an allergy, where the cat has a bad reaction to bacteria in the plaque on its teeth.


Some of the symptoms of stomatitis are:  not eating, losing weight, bad breath, having trouble eating, drooling, gums that bleed, and not wanting to groom.  A biopsy can be done of the mouth tissue, and this will show if the problem is really stomatitis or if there is something else going on, such as cancer or eosinophilic ganuloma complex.




Once you figure out that the cat really has stomatitis, the best thing to do is usually to take out all the cat's teeth.  Or at least all the teeth except the canines.  It seems like "canine teeth" should be called "feline teeth" in cats, but they aren't.  I can't explain why they aren't because I didn't make up the rules.  I'm just telling you how things are.  Anyway, after cats have had all their teeth removed, and after they heal up, they usually feel much, much better.  About 70%-80% of cats are totally cured of stomatitis after their teeth are removed.


The cats that aren't cured may still have some pain and inflammation, so they have to take steroids and pain killers the rest of their lives in order to keep the stomatitis under control.  It's really not a big deal to be toothless because you can still eat soft food.  And you can even eat kibble if it is soaked first, or if you don't bother to chew it before you swallow it.  At least this is what I have been told.  And I figure almost anything is better than having horrible pain in your mouth when you are trying to eat.


But getting back to Astrid, she has now been taking prednisone for 12 or 13 days.  Mom is going to have the vet at the shelter look in Astrid's mouth today to find out if the redness and stuff looks better.  Mom has tried to look in Astrid's mouth herself, but Astrid does not like to have people messing with her mouth, so Mom can't hold onto all of Astrid's feet and also pry her mouth open at the same time.  If Astrid's mouth looks better, that will mean that she probably has stomatitis and not something else wrong in there.  The rescue group could not afford to take Astrid to a specialist to get a diagnosis and a lot of dental work done on her, at least not in the beginning.

The good news is that Aunt Tania found a nice lady who is interested in adopting Astrid.  This lady rescues Yorkies, and she knows all about Astrid's dental problems.  But she has decided she is willing to try to deal with them.  So she is going to take Astrid on a foster-to-adopt basis.  This weekend sometime she is coming to our house to get Astrid.  Probably, Astrid will have to have x-rays and get all her teeth taken out and stuff like that.  I don't know who is going to pay for that, but I am not going to worry too much about it.


Astrid is a nice cat, but none of us have been very chummy and cuddly with her.  Jason pesters her sometimes and chases her, and they make loud, cat-fight noises.  He doesn't do that as much with Astrid as he used to with Achilles.  We had to get Achilles out of here because Jason bit him on the jaw one time.  So now Achilles is at the Humane Society, waiting there to be adopted.

Mom likes Astrid because she is a sweet, friendly cat who is always wanting attention.  But when Mom goes to bed, then she doesn't like having Astrid around because Astrid keeps walking all over Mom's neck and chest, and she drools on Mom and on Mom's pillow, which Mom really can't stand.  So Mom is not too sorry to see Astrid go to a nice, new home.  And anyway, Mom has all those tiny little kittens to keep her busy.

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PHRASES I AM TIRED OF HEARING

Today I am going to gripe about some words and phrases that I keep hearing humans use, even though there are other, more interesting words and phrases they could use if they would decide to.  In my opinion, people are just too lazy sometimes to think of better ways to say things.  But anyway, here's my list:

• Window of opportunity.  Why is opportunity always outside a window?  Why can't it be outside a door or a gate or in the refrigerator?  I understand that opportunity is something that you might need to grab quickly, like for instance if your human leaves the door of the fridge open, and a nice, juicy steak is inside.  But my point is that there are plenty of things that open and close besides windows.


• It is what it is.  Well, duh.  Of course it is.  I guess the point is you should just accept what it is and also you should realize that you can't change it, and then you should get on with your life (which is another phrase I get tired of sometimes).  USA Today voted "it is what it is" the #1 cliché of 2004, so I guess I'm not the only person who's tired of hearing it.


• On the same page.  It seems like people can't talk about anything these days unless they are all on the same page.  This seems like a phrase that is out of date since people don't do much reading anymore.  Maybe it would be better to say that everyone should be watching the same HD cable TV show or reading the same text message.

• Reach out to.  This used to mean that you were helping somebody by reaching out your hand or maybe just giving them some encouragement.  And a lot of people still mean that when they are reaching out.  But lately, I have heard things like this:  "I will reach out to her and get her opinion."  This is a silly thing to say because reach out to does not mean communicate with, like by calling or emailing or asking somebody a question.  Like for instance, if a person was drowning, you would not reach out and ask "Would you like me to rescue you?"  No!  You would reach out your hand or a stick and pull them to shore.

• The love of one's life.  This is a phrase that shows up all the time in obituaries, where people are always meeting the love of their lives and then staying married to them for 65 years or something like that.  But you don't hear about the people who thought they married the love of their lives, but then they find out they were wrong and they get divorced.  Or the love of someone's life who dies, and then the survivor finds another love of his or her life.  Can you have more than one loves of your life?  It's all very confusing.  But just in case you want to know, the love of MY life is eating!

Devastation after tsunami in Iwaki, Fukushima, Japan
Photo by ryuki_a_g

• Devastated.  This used to be a really strong, dramatic word, but nowadays it gets used so much that it doesn't mean a whole lot.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.  The original meaning of devastate is to lay waste or destroy.  But now it seems like when almost anything happens to someone, that person is described as devastated.  I guess maybe that's the way they feel, but if a girl is devastated because she spills punch on her prom dress, is that the same as people who feel devastated after going through a tsunami or losing someone they really loved?


Well okay, now that I told you my opinion about these boring phrases, I will put them all together in a sad, boring little story.  I hope you will enjoy it.

Sam was devastated when he realized he had missed his window of opportunity by not reaching out to Sue with an offer of marriage.  If only they had both been on the same page when talking about their feelings for each other, but now it was too late.  "Oh well," he thought, "it is what it is.  I must suck it up and move on, even though I'm sure that Sue will always be the love of my life."

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SHIH TZU

This breed of dogs comes from China.  Scientists who tested the DNA of the Shih Tzu found out that it is one of the oldest of all dog breeds, just like basenjis are.  Ancient breeds like us have genes that are close to wolves' genes, and our DNA has been found in skeletons from the same places where people lived 10,000 years ago.  There are paintings of Shih Tzu from as long ago as 1500, which is another way to prove that it is a very old breed.

In Mandarin, Shih Tzu means "lion dog."  The proper way to say it is sheet-soo.  If you say it wrong, you might end up saying a bad word for "poop."  The name of the breed can be either singular or plural, so you don't have to bother putting an "s" on the end of it.  In England in the 1930s, people gave these dogs the nickname of Chrysanthemum Dog because of the way their hair grows up from their noses and around their faces in all directions.  Sometimes they are also called Tibetan Lion Dogs.

Nobody knows exactly how the modern Shih Tzu got to be the way it is.  Probably it was bred to look like the lions that guard Chinese temples.  And this might have been done by crossing Pekingese dogs with Lhasa Apso dogs.  Shih Tzu were favorite lap dogs among the ladies in the Chinese court.

The first Shih Tzu dogs arrived in England and Norway in 1930.  They began to spread through Europe and were brought to the U.S. at the end of World War II by returning soldiers.  In 1969, the American Kennel Club recognized the breed in the Toy Group.  All major kennel clubs in the English-speaking world now recognize the Shih Tzu.  And in international, FCI dog shows, it goes in the Companion and Toy Dog Group, Section 5, Tibetan breeds.

Photo by Mary Bloom

Shih Tzu have a double coat that is worn long for shows.  But Shih Tzu that are just family dogs usually get their coats cut short.  Here are some of the colors that Shih Tzu can be:  gold, white, brown, black mask gold, black-and-white, solid black, solid liver, liver-and-white, brindle-and-white, and gray-and-white.  Also a Shih Tzu can sometimes be solid blue in color.

Shih Tzu are 10"--11" tall, weigh 9--16 pounds, and live 12--16 years.  They are compact and solid, sweet, playful, and friendly.  They are not really meant to be watch dogs, although they may tell you if somebody is at the door.  But as soon as that person comes in, they will likely want to make friends.  Because it is so friendy, the Shih Tzu usually gets along well with other dogs, with cats, and with children.

The AKC ranks Shih Tzu at number 11 in terms of how many registrations there were in 2011 and 2012.  In 2007 the breed was number 9, and in 2002 it was number 10.  What these little dogs do best is sit in your lap and be companions, which is just what they were bred to do.  They are very sweet and very smart.  They do well in obedience classes, and they also are good at things like agility competition.  They don't need a whole lot of exercise, so they make good apartment dogs, but it's best to take them out for a walk every day.

Tashi; dailypuppy.com

Because Shih Tzu have short muzzles, they do not tolerate heat very well.  Also they may snore and wheeze and have other respiratory issues.  Sometimes they have back problems because of their short legs and long backs.  And if their hair gets in their eyes, it might cause irritation and infection.

But in general, this is a very nice breed of dog.  Mom has met some Shih Tzu at the Humane Society, and she says she liked them.  Usually they get adopted soon because a lot of people are big fans of the breed.  I told Mom that maybe we should get one, but she said she does not want any more dogs right now, especially not until she pays all of Nicky's vet bills.  So I guess we will not be getting a Shih Tzu.

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A DOG NAMED MIGALOO

Dogs have been digging up stuff for centuries, but now there's a dog in Australia who was trained to sniff out a certain sort of bones to dig up.  This dog's name is Migaloo, and she is a black lab mix.  She came from a shelter, and she was adopted by a man named Gary Jackson.  Mr. Jackson chose Migaloo because she is crazy about playing with balls, so he knew that he could train her to do anything if she just got the reward of playing with her ball afterwards.

Photo by Darren England, news.com.au

Mr. Jackson had trained dogs to find all sorts of things such as koala bears and cane toads, and he got the idea that maybe a dog could learn to find ancient human bones, which would help archeologists a whole lot with their work.

Migaloo's name means "white fellow" in the Aboriginal language.  It's kind of like a joke because Migaloo is not white at all!  The Aboriginal elders told Mr. Jackson it was okay to train Migaloo by using some bones of their ancestors that were in the South Australian Museum.  Mr. Jackson taught Migaloo that she only got to play with her ball when she found a bone.  After about 6 months of training, she was totally obsessed with finding bones so that she could play ball.

news-mail.com.au

When Migaloo finds a bone, she focuses on that spot and acts very excited.  Then Mr. Jackson says "show me," and Migaloo puts her nose on the ground and starts moonwalking backwards from the spot where she smelled the bone.

An ancient burial site with ancient bones in it

Migaloo has proved that she can find a buried bone as small as the size of a fingernail from a distance of 10 feet or so.  The big test the trainers did with her was at an Aboriginal burial ground in South Australia, where a 600-year-old grave had been found a few years before.  The Aboriginal elders knew where the graves were, but the trainers didn't.  Within two minutes, Migaloo started circling the spot where the oldest grave was.  She could smell it even though it was almost 2 meters underground.

Photo by Darren England, news.com.au

Migaloo can do all this stuff because she is a dog, and dogs have a super-excellent sense of smell, like I have told you several times before.  Cadaver dogs sniff for rotting flesh, but Migaloo is just smelling the dry, bare bones because they are so very old that there is no flesh left on them.

As soon as Migaloo makes a find, Mr. Jackson gives her the ball, and that way she doesn't dig the bones up or hurt them in any way.  Personally, I don't think she would even want to chew on the bones because they are so old that they would not taste very good.  And you might break a tooth if you chewed on something that hard and dry.

Natural History Museum, London

Mr. Jackson hopes that lots of other dogs will soon be trained to find old bones like Migaloo does.  There are many useful things that dogs like this could do, such as sniffing out people who got murdered, including maybe Jimmy Hoffa.  Or they might find the ancestral graves of native peoples, so then those graves wouldn't get dug up by people building parking lots or whatever.  Also there were soldiers who died during some of the wars in the past, and nobody knows where their bodies ended up.  Trained dogs could help find these people, too, and then the people could be buried properly in a real cemetery.

Photo from Gary Jackson
National Geographic Magazine

Before Migaloo found the 600-year-old grave, the oldest grave that any dog ever found was an 1812 grave from the Battle of Snake Hill in Ontario.  The bones in that grave were 175 years old, and they were found by a cadaver dog named Candy.  Now Migaloo has beaten that record by 425 years, which is pretty darned good, if you ask me.

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TINY, BABY KITTENS! WOW!

You'll never guess what happened yesterday morning at our house.  Five brand-new baby kittens got born!  I didn't get to see them being born, but Mom did, and she took pictures and told me all about it, and so now I'm going to tell you about it, too.

First of all, I have to explain why we had a pregnant cat here in the first place, because we wouldn't have kittens without first having a pregnant cat.  On Friday, Mom went to the shelter, and she took Astrid there to get some blood work and some steroids for her sore mouth.  Also Mom was going to bring home a kitten named Stormy for us to foster.  Stormy is an orange tabby who is 5 months old, and he was getting neutered on Friday.

Eliza with Kitten #1

So while Mom was waiting there for Stormy to wake up from his surgery, a man came into the shelter, and he had a black-and-white tuxedo cat.  He said this cat had been left in a house that he moved into, but he couldn't keep her because he is out of town a lot.  Also, he thought the cat was pregnant.

Well, the cat was very pregnant, and she tested negative for FIV and Feline Leukemia, so Mom said she would take the pregnant cat home to foster her, if somebody else could take Stormy the kitten.  And that's how somebody else ended up fostering Stormy, and Mom brought the pregnant cat to our house.  Mom and Aunt Nancy named the cat Eliza, so now that is her name.

Kittens #1 (right) and #2,
looking like drowned rats

At first, Eliza was really friendly and lovable, but soon she started to get all full of mood swings, so that one minute she was purring and rubbing up against Mom, and the next minute she was biting her.  And besides that, Eliza meowed and meowed and meowed, especially the first night she was here.  And she didn't want to eat much of anything.  So Aunt Tania said all these signs meant that it wouldn't be long before Eliza had her kittens.

Kitten #3 being born

Then this morning we got up and Mom fed us dogs and cats.  And she gave Eliza some food, but Eliza didn't want to eat anything.  Then Mom did her email and some other stuff, and when she went downstairs, Mom found out that Eliza already had one kitten.  It was a girl kitten, which Mom knew because it was a calico, and they are always girls.  And the second kitten was mostly white, but it had a calico tail.  Now that the kittens are cleaned up and dry, Mom says they are probably dilute calicos, which means they have kind of faded-looking colors.

Kittens #1, #2, and #3

Mom took her cereal in the room where Eliza was and ate it in there because she didn't want to miss the third kitten being born, but she had to wait awhile before it came.  It was a dark color, so at first it seemed like maybe it was a black kitten with some white or tan on its face.  But when it started getting drier, it turned out to be a tabby-colored kitten.  This was the only kitten Mom got to handle because it had one of the other kittens' umbilical cords wrapped around its middle, and Eliza wasn't biting the umbilical cord off.  So Mom managed to snip it with some scissors, and then she picked up the kitten while Eliza was busy with a different kitten and was not trying to bite Mom.  And she thought the kitten was probably a girl.

Kitten #4 being born

Most of the time, Eliza was not happy about Mom's being there.  And every time Mom left the room and came back, Eliza growled at her.  But as long as Mom didn't try to touch Eliza or the kittens, everybody got along pretty well.  The last two kittens were both white.  Mom got a pretty good view of kitten #4, and she thought it was a boy, but she didn't get to see kitten #5.  At least not that part of kitten #5.

Kitten #4

Anyway, last night Mom went to the Pet Telethon, and then when she got home, Eliza seemed slightly more happy to see her.  She let herself be petted for a couple of seconds before she started trying to bite, so at least that was friendlier than she was in the morning while her kittens were being born.

Kitten #5

Aunt Tania said Mom should change the bedding to keep the kittens warm, but Mom didn't think Eliza would let her do that.  So finally what Mom did was put a heating pad under the box and she also put in a couple more blankies to help make a nest and keep everybody warm.  Mom sort of figured out how to control Eliza with a towel, and Mom was able to check on a couple of the kittens that she was worried about, at least to find out if they were still alive and stuff like that.

The whole tired and happy family

Mom only got about 6 or 7 bite wounds while she was doing all this, but they were not deep and horrible wounds, so she will probably live.

This morning Eliza was really hungry, so Mom filled up her dish twice.  I could have helped Eliza eat some of that food, but I was not allowed to go in the room where she and the kittens were.  Mom is worried about the two calico kittens because they don't seem very active, and Mom is not sure if they are nursing very much.  Aunt Tania told Mom that she should just sit in there for a while and watch to see if those kittens are nursing, and also she should make sure they are warm enough.  Aunt Tania said that when kittens are this little, you sometimes have to let nature take its course.  Which is sad for people to think about, but all of us animals understand that the Laws of Nature don't always work in a nice, happy way.

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