Our Rescue Chihuahua, Sadie Mae

 Sadie Mae's Story

 Sadie Mae

Sadie Mae joined our family on November 18th, 2013, after I answered a free ad on Craigslist for a female chihuahua. The ad included pictures. She was so adorable and I wanted her so badly. It was love at first sight.  

It was late in the evening but I sent a text anyway.  The chihuahua owner, Nancy, answered almost immediately.  After exchanging a couple of texts, we ended up on the phone. Nancy had adopted this chihuahua girl eleven months earlier.  She said the two just had not bonded.  She wasn't sure why, but they just didn't click so she had decided to rehome her.  

She had placed her once already.  It was a home with several small children.  The dog was terrified.  The family returned her to Nancy because she would not come out from under an end table and was snapping if the kids got near her.  To me, this did not seem like the ideal chihuahua home.  Something about a five pound dog and a house full of small kids just doesn't seem like a wise choice.

I was told some history on the little dog.  Evidently, the first three years of her life were spent on a breeding farm. I know she has had puppies, but have no idea how many times. Eventually, she was sold.  That buyer kept her about a year and due to a hardship situation decided to turn her over to a shelter. She stayed at the shelter for three months before Nancy adopted her. Eleven months later, Nancy no longer wanted her. She was five years old and we would be home number five.  How sad is that??

She loves the sofa pillows.

I told Nancy I wanted the little dog.  I told her all about my husband & myself.  I offered references from my vet who has known me for more than twenty years.  I assured her we are a forever home.  Our pets are NEVER up for adoption.  Once they move in, they are here for life. Nancy said she thought I was the best home for the little girl.

After a month of phone tag and cancelled appointments, (on Nancy's part), we were finally able to meet this sad little chihuahua.  Nancy had told me of two  previous names this little dog had been given. I was also told she did not answer to either one.  Before I met her, i had already decided her new name for her new life would be 'Sadie Mae.'  

Hangin' out with dad at Christmas time.

Now, Sadie Mae is in her forever home.  She will not be homeless again. She has fit in amazingly well with us.   She has been wonderful with our four cats and both dogs. She is rarely at home alone.  She goes everywhere with me, including my work.  I can't wait for her first camping trip in April. Sadie Mae is such a good little dog. It's heartbreaking that it took so long for her to find a forever home.

There are thousands of chihuahuas out there desperate for a home.  They are everywhere and in every shelter.  They are the number two breed, only behind pit bulls,  currently being euthanized in our shelters.  If you have room for one more little family member, please consider rescuing a chihuahua.  You will truly save a life.

I'd love to hear how you adopted your pets.  Please share.

Thanks for stopping by.

-Jan ♥♥-

Camping Cats and Geocaching Dogs

Meet our Motley Crew

Abigail

Abigail

Abigail is the only female out of four cats and is quite the little princess.  She and her four siblings came to us in June of 2010, as a litter of kittens we emergency rescued.  She's been with us since she was four weeks old. She  started camping four days after joining our family and has been camping with us ever since. She & I have an especially close bond.  She follows me everywhere and never fails to answer when I speak to her.  She is definitely ALL girl and likes to be treated accordingly. I absolutely adore her.

To read about their rescue, please visit HERE.

Abigail at 6 weeks old.

One of her favorite places to nap

Muggle

Our beautiful boy.

Muggle is Abigail's littermate brother so his story is very similar to hers.  He's a gorgeous Lynx Point Siamese Mix.  He's our other camping cat.  Muggle is the cool cat in the house.  He's tough, but not mean. He's kinda like 'The Fonz' and has an amazing personality.  He's a great cat and we love him very much.

Resting on the bed in our travel trailer.  He's tired from a hard day of camping.

Muggle at 5 months old on a camping trip to Oregon.

Their favorite thing about camping is bird watching from the travel trailer.
They never, ever leave the house without their harnesses and I.D.  All our pets are microchipped.

People often ask about camping with cats,  To read how WE camp with our cats and how careful we are to keep them safe, please visit this Blog post.


Cache

Our daughter, Tracy, rescued our 'two brothers.'  Cache & Willie were born in a litter of five to a feral mother. They were found when they were tiny, under a shed, in June of 2008.  

Tracy and her friend were visiting a co-worker and were told that one kitten had been killed by a raccoon.  When my daughter left she took two kittens home with her and her friend took the other two.  They were worried the raccoon would return for the remaining kittens. Tracy couldn't keep the kittens in her apartment so my husband & I took them.  We've had the brothers since they were about eight weeks old.

Cache is our 'Man in Black.' He is our "pretty boy."  He always seems to feel the need to be neat and tidy.  Whatever he's doing, he often stops to groom  and straighten his hair.  He's a good boy and minds well. If we scold him for something, he scolds us right back and lets us know he doesn't appreciate being spoken to that way. He gets along well with the others, but seems to feel he's a class above them.  He doesn't play directly with them.  He sits back and watches them when they play. Sometimes I don't think he feels their behavior is dignified enough for a good cat.

His favorite thing in life is a laser pointer.  He lives for it. 

His favorite spot on hot days.

Willie

Willie is Cache's litter brother.  He is the sweetest cat ever, but he's also my mischievous one.  If I turn my back, he is in to something. Most of his antics are cute.  I do have to watch him with Abigail.  He's a bit of a bully with her.  She runs from him, so....he chases her. He thinks it's a big game.  He thinks it's fun.  She DOES NOT!!!!  When we're not home, they are separated.

Sadly, we didn't start traveling with Cache & Willie when they were kittens and now they want no part of it.  If they liked it, we'd take them all.

I call Willie our $1000 cat. In Oct., 2010, Willie had an episode with struvite crystals.  That's a urinary blockage.  They literally can't urinate. This is extremely painful & can be fatal. I rushed him to the vet immediately.  Our vet said we caught it at the very beginning of the blockage. Thank goodness because otherwise he would have been much worse off.  After several days at the vet clinic, with an I.V. and catheter, he was well and back to his old self.

I have always blamed this problem on dry cat food.

Our cats eat only high quality wet food.  I rotate between quality brands to help insure balanced nutrition.  Occasionally, I give them a small handful of dry food as a treat.  I only do this because they love it.  Dry food is NOT part of their regular diet. 

I don't believe dry food is healthy for cats. Cats have a low thirst drive.  They don't drink nearly the water they should.  A natural feline diet has a high water content.  A cat fed a diet of dry cat food is often slightly dehydrated.    

Urinary tract problems, kidney disease and Diabetes are all common problems seen in our cats. I believe the constant state of slight dehydration and the high carbohydrate intake of a cat on a dry diet causes many of the health issues our pet cats suffer with.  Many vets feel this way.

I always try to share Willie's story with other cat owners in the hopes they will avoid feeding dry cat food to their babies.  Our vet bill to save Willie was $993.45.  We could have easily lost him.  He absolutely would have died a painful death without good vet care.  He was so worth it.  We love him. 

For more information on cat nutrition, please visit The Cat Info Site.  It's a wonderful site for cat lovers.

Willie & Cache at 8 weeks old.

Britt

  

Britt is actually another of Tracy's rescues.  In 2002, Tracy was shopping at a Walmart store with her grandmother.  There was a woman standing in front of the store with a four month old Lab/pit bull puppy.  The woman told my daughter the puppy would be going to the pound that afternoon if she wasn't adopted before then.  

Tracy immediately got in contact with Don & I and begged us to let her bring the puppy home.  She figured I could find the puppy a home.  After all, she is only a "little" puppy.  Imagine my surprise when she showed up with a four month old puppy who was already forty pounds.LOL 

Britt lived with us for a total of two days before we were all attached to her.  She had found her new home.  She truly is the best dog ever.  It breaks my heart that dogs this great die in shelters everyday.

Britt is a true geohound.  She lives for camping & geocaching.  That's what life is all about.  Don, Britt & I all started caching in 2006. She loves all the hiking involved.  She even has her own geocache.  It's called, 'Britt's Dog Day Afternoon.'

For anyone wondering about Geocaching.... It's a outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS device.  Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. It's super fun and you meet a lot of nice people.

For anyone wanting more information about Geocaching, please visit this site.

Britt camping in Eastern Washington.

Laya

Laya is fairly new to us.  She's been with us about a year. 

She belonged to my mother-in-law. When my dear mother-in-law passed away, nobody wanted Laya so Don & I brought her home with us.

We've had a few issues to overcome, but things are going well. Her biggest issue was snapping at the cats in a pretty aggressive manner.  There is no way that can ever work out in our home. Everyone must get along.  I EXPECT it. She consistently got corrected for that.   Luckily for all of us, it's been a long time since that has been a problem.  She does very well with the cats now.  

In the back seat of the Tundra & ready for a road trip.  

  

When Laya first joined our household, she was afraid of absolutely everything. I think the camping and geocaching has done a lot for her issues.  She's been more socialized and has gained some self confidence.  She loves traveling and hiking.

She has her own camping chair and loves it.

 She had never seen the beach before moving in with us.  She loves it.  She never stops running when she's loose on the beach.

She is fitting in well and enjoying life.

 We also live with three really beautiful cockatiels.  Two are Lutinos & one is a Pied.  They're fun and we enjoy them. 

Well, that's the gang. I hope you enjoyed meeting them.  Please send me photos and stories of your camping or geocaching cats & dogs.  Or, send me stories about any pets at all.  I'd love to see and hear about your fur-kids.

Thanks for stopping by.  -- Jan♥♥

Scrapbooking, Geocaching & our dog, Britt

This project combines two of my favorite activities, scrapbooking and geocaching.  This scrapbook page highlights some of the adventures of our four legged geocaching team member, Britt.

Many members of our family are involved in a game called Geocaching.  Geocaching is a world wide outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS unit.  The  coordinates are posted on the internet, usually at geocaching.com.  The GPS is used for navigating to the coordinates where the participant then tries to locate the hidden geocache.  It's a really fun activity.  Geocaches are often hidden at a beautiful view point or some other point of interest. Our hunts often lead us to interesting places, historic sites or famous buildings we would otherwise be unaware of. Some geocaches require a hike to reach the cache location.  We often geocache in a family group along with all our dogs.  Our dogs love it. It's the perfect hobby to combine with camping.  We call it geocamping. It's a lot of fun.

Geocaches are often containers filled with trinkets and small inexpensive items for trading.  Cachers are free to trade their own small item for one inside the geocache container. Trading is optional.  Each geocache contains it's own log for the cacher to sign.  The log is then returned to the cache container.  The found cache can also be logged at geocaching.com.

Britt has been geocaching with the family for several years.  She loves it.  She lives for camping & geocaching.  She has her own geocache named, 'Britt's Dog Day Afternoon," hidden in a very dog friendly area of Port Orchard, Wa.

Ammo cans are often used as geocaching containers.  Others, called Nano caches, are  really tiny and sometimes hard to spot.

Dog parks are a favorite place for geocachers to hide caches. 

For anyone looking for further information about Geocaching, please visit the geocaching.com website.  You won't be sorry.


Thanks for stopping by.


I submitted my geohound scrapbook page to the following challenges.

Top Tip Tuesday's -- Challenge #81--It's all about Circles

Divas By Design -- Challenge #44 -- Anything Goes

Scrap Fit Blog -- Workout #72 --Color Inspiration

One Stop Craft Challenge #192 -- Olympics or Sports

A Year in the Life of an Art Journal -- Summertime

The Pink Elephant Challenge --TPE 158 -- Summer

Camping & Geocaching by beautiful Lake Cushman.

We were looking for a quiet place to spend the 4th. of July.  We decided to stay at Big Creek Campground by Lake Cushman.  That turned out to be a great choice.  It's a beautiful, well maintained county campground.  It's one of our favorites. We spent five wonderful days there.

The area is breathtakingly beautiful.

Lake Cushman

We heard very few fireworks. It was nice and quiet.  We enjoyed it.

Don, my mountain man.

If we ever decide to sell our house and move, this is the area we would like to go to.  That my happen after retirement.

A pretty little waterfall on the way up to Mt. Eleanor.  There are a couple of geocaches on the hiking trail up to Mt. Eleanor we had hoped to find that day. Unfortunately, the trail is currently closed due to aggressive Mountain Goats.  The goats have approached & challenged hikers.  They can be very dangerous.  You can drive up, but posted signs warn people not to hike up.  

We were visiting with Mart Twain while finding a geocache at the Hoodsport Timberland Library.  It's a beautiful little library.

Geocaching -- Did we find it????

There it is.

Britt & Laya are all tired out after a long day of geocaching.  They live too cache.

We spent the week, geocaching, reading, garage saling & we visited the cute little town of Hoodsport.

Muggle & Abigail
Our camping cats think the best part of our trip was bird watching.

Laya is fairly new to the whole camping & geocaching thing, but she loves every minute of it, including her own camping chair.

I hope everyone had a happy & safe 4th. of July.

Thanks for stopping by.

Rebel's Memorial Scrapbook Page

This scrapbook page was made in memory of our sweet little seventeen year old, five pound miniature Dachshund, 'Rebel.'  Sadly, we recently lost our little guy. We love & miss him.

Shorewood's Rebel Red ML
 (September 27th. 1995 - March 9th. 2012)

Rebel has been with us since his birth on Sept, 27th. 1995.  He traveled with us often and loved camping.  We'll be taking our first camping trip without him next month. He always rode in my lap as we traveled.  How strange it will be. 

 We love & miss our little Rebel.

To make Rebel's page, I used a sketch I borrowed from Liz at, 'My Little Sketch Book.'   I love her sketches.  Thank you so much, Liz.

I have submitted our Rebel's scrapbook page to the following challenges.

Lasting Memories CB #80 -'Pawsatively Sweet' challenge -- Anything pets

All That Scraps - Wednesday Challenge - 'Anything Goes'

Frosted Designs - Fabulous Friday Challenge - 'Grids'

The Poodles Parlour - 'Anything Goes' Challenge

MilkCoffee Stamps - Their first challenge - 'Anything Goes'

Flutterby Wednesday Challenge #195- Should include, a butterfly, fairy or angel

Thanks so much for stopping by.

In Memory of Rebel Red

In loving memory

Shorewood's Rebel Red

(September 27, 1995 - March 9th, 2012)

Our little five pound camping companion hanging out on the bed in our travel trailer.

On the road again.

We love and miss you, sweet little Rebel.

Our little Miss Pandora has gone to the Rainbow Bridge.

We love you, Pan.

Shorewood's Pandora ML

Oct. 14, 1996 - Oct. 20, 2010

Pandora was always a happy, energitic, spirited little gal.  She loved camping and hiking trips,  As a young dog she was quite the little hiker.  Regardless of her short little Dachshund legs, she had no trouble keeping up with the group on the trails.  Logs never stood in her way, she just hoped over them.  She loved it.  I always call her our little trooper.

As Pan got older she began to slow down a bit.  The hikes got shorter as she would tire more easily. Otherwise, she seemed in excellent health for a twelve year old Dachshund. Two years ago, Pandora developed a cough that gradually got worse. During a visit with Dr. Reed, Pandora's veterinarian, she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure.  Pan was started on medication that day and we knew she would be on it permanently. 

She did very well with her meds for almost two years.  She did have an additional medication added at one point but overall she did well. She enjoyed many more camping trips and even short walks.

Sadly, several weeks ago, her cough returned.  Once again, we had a visit with Dr. Reed.  He wasn't pleased with the way her lungs were sounding. After a complete physical, Pan's meds were increased again in the hopes we would see improvement.

We watched her closely but with each passing day she seemed a little worse.  The meds were not helping her the way they had in the past.  If the meds were not longer working, it was just a matter of time before she would begin to be uncomfortable.

After a talk with our vet, the heartbreaking decision was made to have her peacefully put to sleep.  It was a very sad day in our home, but I believe it was the best thing to do.  She was too sweet and good natured to allow her to suffer.

Run free my little Pandora.  We love and miss you.  We'll see you again someday.

Her geocache, 'Pandora's Box', will live on in her memory.

Camping kittens

At 5 weeks old.

What do you do when suddenly and unexpectedly end up with five tiny rescue kittens five days before an eight day camping trip? 

Here's how it happened--

My mom's neighbor had a litter of 4 1/2 week old kittens.  Mom had made arrangements with this young man for my husband and me to stop by and meet the kittens.  Our long time friends were looking to adopt a pair of kittens.  Knowing these kittens would be offered an outstanding home, we planned to meet them and call our friend with more information about coloring, etc.  We also hoped to trade telephone numbers between the two so they could get together when the kittens were a bit older.

As soon as I saw the kittens I realized they were sick.  After handling one of them I could see they were sick because they were crawling with fleas.  Hundreds of fleas were all over these five tiny kittens.  Their gums were paper white because they were so anemic. Another day or two with those awful fleas and I believe they would have died. I asked the young man if I could take them home and clean them up.  He said I could.

I left his house and returned two hours later with a small dog crate to transport the kittens and a Frontline for the mother cat.  It took three hours of bathing and constant combing with a metal flea comb to get the fleas off these baby kittens.  We started them on kitten formula mixed with Wellness canned cat food.  By the following day, four seemed much better and their gums were already healthy pink.  One little tortoiseshell girl took a couple of extra days, but by the third day she was doing great, too. 

Tippy

By this time I had already grown very attached to the whole litter and did not want to return them to the owner.  I knew the house was crawling with fleas just waiting to attack "my kittens."  So.......I struck a deal with the young owner.  I would keep the litter and make sure each kitten went to a forever home where they would be spayed or neutered.  In return, I would pay to have the mother cat spayed so there would be no more kitties.  He was happy,  I was happy and  Mommy cat has been spayed.

Abigail on the bench in the travel trailer.

So, again I ask.......
 
What do you do when suddenly and unexpectedly end up with five tiny rescue kittens five days before an eight day camping trip?

We took them with us.

We have a twenty-two foot travel trailer with a bathroom.  I set up a kitten play area in a large popup dog crate.  It fit perfectly across the top of our bathtub/shower.  I added a small cat box, a pillow and tons of kitty toys.  We carried a second medium sized dog crate in the back seat of our truck for traveling.

Mocha on the back of the bench.

They had a blast.  Each day we moved their playpen outside with us for part of the day.  We set it up on top of one of the tables.  Each night the whole setup was returned to the bathroom.  The first half of the week was fairly quiet with my husband, myself, three dogs and five kittens.  After the fourth day, we were joined by twelve other cat loving family members.  Needless to say, the kittens were a hit and added a whole new fun element to our family camping trip.  They got tons of attention and everyone loved them.

After we returned home, our long time friend visited our home to meet the kittens.  Karen was immediately drawn to the two little sisters. but her husband wanted the little black and white boy.  I'm thrilled to say they adopted the three of them. 

Yuki, (means snow in Japanese.)

I don't believe we could have found a better home for those three little guys. Karen adopted two kittens from us about 15 years ago. Those kittens were born to a cat we had rescued toward the end of her pregnancy. Karen and her family offered those kitties a wonderful forever home for many years.  Unfortunately, both cats have passed on over the past couple of years. the second one recently.  Karen and her husband decided it was time to adopt two more kittens.

Muggle

Don and I have decided to keep the other two.  They are now known as Abigail and Muggle.

Yes, that makes four cats. 

Yes, we are crazy.

Our two will be joining us on another camping trip in a couple of weeks.  This time it will be to a beach resort.  They are defnately too young, (and too destructive), to leave home alone.

For now they're known as our 'Camping Kittens.'

Muggle & Abigail