daily dose of dogs (aka cats with your coffee)

Here’s to a New Year of Peace

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Ours was delightful!  Winnie’s Wish was blessed with gifts from some beautiful Friends.

 

June, I know there’s another case on the way but wanted to get this into today’s post.

June – THANK YOU.

 

 

Most of this gift is specialty food that is so expensive but needed every day for some of the Wishers.

 Beth and Mike – THANK YOU.

 

 

 

mr and husband and Felicity and Hershey – THANK YOU.

 

Also Heather THANK YOU  for the Christmas card and gift.

 

Happy New Year to you all!

 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Andrea is home and doing better.  It was nice that so many of you commented about her.

 

I want to thank Karen for her paypal gift.  It’s a huge financial responsibility caring for the cats of Winnie’s Wish and I’m deeply grateful for the help.

Karen - THANK YOU.

 

Also Annie - THANK YOU for your card and gift.

 

A reader of this blog emailed me and asked me to post my Christmas Cat story.  I know you have all read it in the past.  But it really is a great story for Christmas.  You can read it here.

 

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of our Christmas season.  I start with a picture of our tree - if you'll notice, there are no real gifts beneath our tree.  That's because the cats tear the paper, shred it actually.  So I have the lighted glass block "gifts" until actual gift-giving time. 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish all of you wonderful holidays and peaceful times with your furry family members.  And here’s to a New Year filled with love and peace.  We can keep hoping. 

 

 

 

Gifts

Let me start this post with a thank you to everyone who left such kind comments about the loss of our Amelia.  Your comments were truly gifts   She’d been here so long.  It’s very strange for her to not be here.  I found a picture of her from Christmas 2015.  It made me sad.  And it made me smile.

 

 

Speaking of gifts.  I’m sure many of you have noticed that Andrea has not put on her Holiday Auction to benefit Winnie’s Wish.  Andrea has recently been in the hospital and she is struggling to feel better.  Many of you know Andrea.  She is a wonderful person who has literally helped keep Winnie’s Wish up and running over the years.  She’s done too many auctions to count.  Her auctions bring in lots of money that helps me keep going.  She’s been such a part of Winnie’s Wish for so long and she is a DEAR friend.  Please keep Andrea in mind at this time of year when she is usually working herself to death with an auction (SO much work).  She’s such a good person and I know you join me in wishing her well!

 

Now let me share my gratitude for some gifts that arrived via Paypal for Winnie’s Wish. 

William – THANK YOU.

Pam – THANK YOU.

William and Pam – you can’t imagine how much your gifts are appreciated.

 

Finally, let me share my gratitude for the gift that arrived here Monday.  Gifts don’t come like they used to and without Andrea’s holiday auction, all gifts are even more needed and so deeply appreciated. Maria is a friend and long-time supporter of Winnie’s Wish.

 

Maria – THANK YOU.

 

Hope your holiday season is bright and magical.  See you soon.

 

Amelia

I wrote this in March of 2010:

I'm up early in the mornings.  I stagger into the kitchen, get some breakfast, and put on the coffee.  Amelia immediately joins me on the kitchen counter to see if she can assist me in buttering my toast.  How about playing with the vitamins when I dump them onto the counter - surely I would want to play this game with her.  When that doesn't work, she walks around looking for Tory (one of our older cats), and tries hard to annoy her.  Tory is annoyed with Amelia - always.  But she doesn't get annoyed enough to make it interesting.  So Amelia comes and checks to see how far along I have gotten in the breakfast routine.  If the butter is put away, she balances on the edge of the kitchen sink and stares down at the dishes.  Sometimes the water drips into a bowl or cup and this is amazing and entertains Amelia for some time.  If the faucet isn't dripping, she watches the dishes anyway.  You can never be sure.  Sometimes a lady bug dive-bombs one of the dishes.  Sometimes sitting on the edge long enough allows the aroma from the butter knife to waft up and lure her in.  And it's only a matter to time before I'm over there by the coffee pot, messing around pouring things from hot, hissing, scary equipment.  Now she knows she can follow me to the computer and walk on the keyboard while I try to check my email during my daily love affair with my coffee.

Her story is the first one I wrote about on this blog and in my book, so many years ago.  If you remember her story, you can just skip the next several paragraphs.

Last fall (this would have been November 2010) my 19 year old daughter was driving home from her night class at the community college.  She had stopped at the one intersection in an otherwise remote area to wait for two cars to pass.  As the second car approached, she watched as a cat jumped into its path.  The car hit the cat, and she was thrown to the side of the road.  My daughter feared the worst, but hurried over to make sure the cat wasn't somehow still alive and suffering.  What she found broke her heart. 

The cat was lying on the shoulder of the road, still alive but barely breathing.  She knew she couldn't leave her there.  She ran back to her car and got a towel.  (We all keep towels in our vehicles for this very reason.)  She pulled the cat onto the towel, put her on the passenger seat, and started home.  She called to tell me what was going on.  My younger daughter and I met her at the door, and we put this little cat on a folded blanket in the bathroom.  We knew, of course, that she wouldn't live.  She appeared unconscious.  She was breathing, but it was shallow and labored.  We expected the end within minutes.  But at least she was not lying on pavement in the dark and in the cold.  My daughters sat with her, speaking softly to her.  We put two lightweight blankets over her little cold body to try to keep her warm.  We had seen animals in this condition a few times, and all we hoped for was to make her comfortable until she let go.  She seemed to be fading away rapidly.  But at 4:30am, when I peaked in, she was still breathing.  I ran to her side, and when I crouched down to speak to her, she attempted a cry which ended up being a gurgle.  I felt the rush of hope and panic hit all at once. 

I ran to the phone and put in a call to the vet.  Of course, it was voice mail, but they would get back to me.  And they did.  By 8:00am, my daughters and I were on our way to the vet.  We were guarded.  We didn't know what kind of internal injuries we were looking at.  It was entirely likely that the vet would say she couldn't be saved.  After examination, we were told that it appeared that the injuries were only to the head.  Her mouth and sinuses were damaged.  It was possible that her jaw was broken but there was too much swelling to be sure.  She couldn't breathe well because of all the facial trauma.  The vet said we could give it a try.  We were ecstatic.  We left her, hoping for the best, but trying not to get our hopes up too high. 

Two days later, we picked her up, named her Amelia, and made her part of our family.  The vet said she was very young and way too thin.  She needed to eat, but her mouth wouldn't close all the way.  She also still couldn't breathe well.  We fed her three to four times a day - a sort of porridge made of special canned food mixed with warm water.  She sort of lapped it up (and then had to be cleaned up).  We had to squirt a saline solution into both sides of her nose three times a day and she was on pain medication for a while and antibiotic.  For days and days, she seemed shocked that we were there, talking to her, caring for her, loving her.  Slowly, she began to heal.  She can completely close her mouth now. Her jaw wasn't broken after all.  She did lose some teeth on one side.  Her nose is crooked to this day, and she doesn't breathe perfectly.  But she is healthy and happy and constantly into something.  Looking at Amelia reminds us that every now and then, you get to witness a little miracle.  

Amelia died this past Wednesday.  She was at least 15 years old.  She died of organ failure.  I cared for Amelia like a hospice nurse for the last few days of her life.  My huge concern, of course, was suffering.  I never want any of the animals in my care to suffer.  But I was able to keep her comfortable right up until the end.  Amelia died curled up in her bed, and she’s buried with all of the many many animals who’ve called our place home over the years.  She had been with us for 14 years.  I miss her so much.  But I’m extremely grateful that she didn’t appear to suffer.

 

One of the last pictures I took of her, in a little box she loved to squeeze into

 

 

Amelia – Farewell.