Wordless Wednesday: Francine Proves She Helps Snoopervise

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Saturday Blog Hop and It's hard to Snoopervise

 Hello everybody!  It is Karma, most excellent snoopervisor to the mom, here to talk about my job.  Mom has a business making cute collars and leashes for other cats and dogs (and, of course, us!) and I have to work as her top snoopervisor.  She makes everything herself, so snoopervising everything she does is a full time job!

 Here you see one of my snoopervisor duties.  I make sure to test every fabric Mom buys to make sure it is comfortable enough for collars.  After all, we have to wear these things all the time, so they need to be as comfortable as possible.  Fortunately, these fabrics all passed my rigorous inspection.

 As you can see, my snoopervisor-in-training is not as dedicated as I am to her job.  She insists on taking breakfast breaks, brunch breaks, lunch breaks, afternoon snack breaks, dinner breaks, evening snack breaks and midnight snack breaks!  I know she is a growing kitten but that is a bit excessive.  Of course, I take breaks but my dedication to my snoopervising often comes before that!

Sometimes Mom forgets that I deserve the most fantastic rewards for my work so I have to take matters in to my own hands.  Silly Mom has this idea that cats shouldn't eat any people food but I generally ignore her when she starts talking crazy like that.  After my long day of snoopervising, I decided my reward should be some of my mom's powdered doughnuts.  If you other cats have never had these, you are missing out!  Of course, Mo caught me this time so I only got a quick nibble of my reward but don't worry, I'm planning to get some more when she is distracted.

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Wanna learn about Mom and her disease?

Obviously, a lot of our lives revolve around Mom and consequently, her illness.  We try to keep most of it off the blog since this is, after all, us dogs and cats' blog and not hers.
Mom has started a new blog about her and her journey with her disease, CRPS.  If you want to read about it, you can got to http://thecrpsgirl.blogspot.com/

We''l be back to our regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow :-)

Taking Care of Mom is a 24/7 Job!

Y'all know that I still take care of Mom even though I'm retired.  Sometimes that means in the middle of the night, since Mom's disease isn't predictable at all!
Lately, Mom has started having ouches in her stomach and the doctors don't know why yet.  Mom thinks it is the same thing Grandmom has called Chron's Disease but they don't know yet.  It has been waking Mom up at night and nothing helps except her heating pad.

 Of course, I wake up with Mom and keep her company until she feels better.  Sometimes the pain sets off one of her pseudo-seizure attacks (which she is seeing a new neurologist for Monday to figure them out!) so I have to tell her before that happens.
But lately, I've had some extra help when Mom isn't feeling good!  Francine always knows when Mom is sick or sad and comes to make Mom feel better.  For a cat, she has remarkable instincts and will come from anywhere in the house to sit with Mom and make happy purr noises to her.

She is only a little baby kitten but she is pretty smart!  I think she heard about me being a service dog before I retired and decided to be a service cat at home.  She is pretty cute and Mom says her fur is very soft, so I guess those are good qualities in a service cat!  In all seriousness, it is nice to have a helper who knows when Mom is getting sick or sad.

Of course, once Mom is feeling a little bit better, Lola and Karma come to cuddle with her to so they can make sure we took good care of her!

Vaykaytion by Lola

This summer I hav lerned about somefing called vaykaytion. When Mommy sayz that she is gunna go on vaykaytion, it means that I get one too!
Really, I think Mommy just goes away to make sure I gets vaycaytions. She packs up my noms, bed, pink monk-e stuffie, braided giraff and says I get to go to Camp!
See, Camp is my daycare, Camp Bow Wow, where I gets to play wif ALL my furends there! I get to see a lot of my favorite peoples too. I play all day (well, except for my nap time) then gets to eat my noms, cuddle with Pink Monk-e and go night-night after I get my medisin.
Mommy said I have to get a b-a-t-h while I'm here, but that is kind of ok since I get extra time with Miss Erica who is one of my favorite hoomans there! Her dog Indigo is a Standard Poodle just like Mommy's new Service Dog will be and he is very fun to play with.
My vacation will be overs on Saturday, but that is ok cuz I gets to see Mommy then.
ok, I gots ta get off the computer before the Camp hoomans see me!
~Lola

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100th Post-Looking Back and Ahead

It is pretty amazing that we have reached 100 posts in the blog!  When I decided to start this, Mom wasn't sure if anyone would read it or how it would go.  We've met so many awesome people and pups and cats through this!  We thought we would look back at what has happened through the past 100 entries first.
Mom got sick before we started the blog and had continued to get sick.  She had first discovered my ability to alert and was starting to learn about service dogs and if I could become one.  She had talked with my old trainer and started my service dog training.

A crazy little black puppy showed up.  She was 5 weeks old, dirty, skinny and dehydrated and the perfect addition to our little family.  Mom named her Lola and she grew in to a smart, crazy little sister for me.

We did a lot of traveling while Mom was trying to find a doctor who could diagnose her.  We went to Atlanta and Florida.  While we were in these places, we got to go do some fun stuff, like visit the fort at St. Augustine in Florida.

Mom finally got referred to her aesome doctor who was able to diagnose her.  He did a test that confirmed his diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and gave Mom and hour of relief (and an hour to pet me with what was at that time her bad arm).  Mom's CRPS had started to spread in earnest through all this and soon after moved to her entire upper body, including her right arm.

Our newest member of the family was left in a box in our driveway a couple months after that.  She was a scared, fluffy little kitten Mom named Francine.  After she got over her scare, she warmed up to me and Lola, obviously LOVED Mom and adored Karma.  Karma adored her back and Mom knew she was the perfect kitty addition to our family.

Soon after that, Mom's CRPS spread to her legs and that meant she needed a service dog who could help her if she fell or get her to her wheelchair.  I have a bad knee and poor hips, so I can't do that stuff and Mom decided to retire me.  Retirement has meant that I get extra spoiled by everyone and I get to hang out with every body more and I get to sleep more!  I still help Mom around the house and tell her before she gets sick when she's home.

Now we are waiting on a new service dog for Mom from CARES in Concordia, Kansas!  She will be getting a male Standard Poodle.  In the next 6 months we should find out exactly who my new brother is!
Mom's business, which she started in January, has really taken off and she has been busy with that.  Of course, that means that I'm busy supervising and modeling Mom's work!  We even get to test out the beds Mom is thinking about making!
Mom is working towards getting me certified as a therapy dog so we can go visit hospitals, nursing homes, schools and the local Victory Junction Gang Camp!  She is working on agility with Lola so that she and Lola can compete next year.  And of course, the cat sisters are getting in to everything.  Mom is making sure that Francine knows some tricks (yes, Mom trains the cats) and that Karma keeps up with hers.  We are hoping she gets her implant trial soon and that it helps so she can start doing more and maybe walking a little bit too.
Here's to another 100 posts!

Dixie's 3rd Gotcha Day

 May 31st was the third anniversary of the day Mom adopted me!  We celebrate this every year since I love Mom so much and she loves me and is so thankful that she adopted me!  She got me a really yummy cake and it said Happy Birthday since she couldn't find a Gotcha day one (she is going to special order it next year).

 It was really yummy!  Of course, Mom made me pose with it before I ate it and this was after she had taken like 5 pictures.  Enough is enough Mom, especially when special treats are involved!

 It tasted so yummy!  It was grain free, so it didn't make my tummy upset.  Mom always tries to do something special for my Gotcha Day and this cake was awesome!

 I even shared some with Lola.  Of course, she only got to lick the icing because she is allergic to so many things.

I thought that I would share the story of how Mom adopted me.
Mom and Aunt Jennifer had just signed the lease on a new apartment where pets were allowed and Mom knew she wanted to adopt a dog.  She also knew that she was leaving for Australia to study abroad in a week, so she thought she would just go to the shelter with Aunt Jennifer and get some dogs out of their kennels to play (at that shelter, dogs only get out if they are taken out by an adopter or volunteer).
They walked through the shelter and made a list of what dogs they wanted to take out.  I was the first dog on that list.  Mom said I was happy and she had never seen a dog like me or even heard of a Catahoula!  When she and my aunt got me in the room, they both thought I was a great dog.  After 45 minutes, they taught me to sit and Mom had totally fallen in love (Aunt Jennifer too!).  They agreed that I was the right dog for Mom but weren't sure about adopting a dog right before leaving for a month.  A volunteer came in and said that I had been there for months and that someone had sponsored my entire fee.  Mom decided to call Grandmom and see if she would mind dog sitting me until Mom got back.
Grandmom said yes and Mom grabbed my papers and ran up to the adoption counter.  Mom officially adopted me but they said she had to wait until the end of the week to pick me up because the spay schedule was full until then.  Mom and Aunt Jennifer stayed with me for a little bit more but then they had to leave.  Mom spent the rest of the day getting everything she needed for a dog.
The next day she got a call that she could pick me up 2 days early!  They got me in for my spay early.  Mom came to visit me after my spay and then picked me up the next day.
In the 3 years since we have had so many adventures together.  I've been a service dog, I'm going to teach the new service dog what to alert to, I've taught people who didn't like dogs how to love them, I've got to meet so many awesome people and dogs.  I can only imagine what the future holds!