Need Your Help!

My kitty Ginger and I are fans of a great organization called All Aboard Animal Search and Rescue in California run in part by my friend Valerie. They work very hard to rescue and find homes for animals, particularly pit bulls who have been mistreated by their past owners.

Please read the story below (originally posted by my friend ) and consider making a donation in any amount you can to help this wonderful organization.

Ginger and I thank you!
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Dearest Readers:

I am posting a special story today and asking for your help. This week, a reader asked for my help with a dog case (out of Leland, Mississippi)  she’d heard about, wondering if there was anything I could do for this animal. Our rescue policy prohibits taking dogs from out of state because we operate with the spirit of saving the dogs in our community as a #1 priority. Six million dogs die every single year in America, put to sleep due to over over population, and Sonoma county is full of homeless dogs. I told her I would look into it, but in the back of my mind, I knew, taking on a dog that wasn’t local was going to be a hell of a job.

Once I read April’s story, and saw her picture, I sent in on to Mary, our director. In an instant, we knew, we had to act. We’ve been in constant contact with the rescue authorities in Leland, Mississippi, and they’ve agreed to let us take April. Ladies and gentlemen, here is April and her story:

April, the burned Pit mix, on death row!!!!  April survived a fire, rescued from a burning building, as she tried to save her puppies, who all perished. April spent months at the vet’s recovering from her burns which was a painful and difficult process. She suffered permanent disfigurement to her back and feet from the burns. April has been cared for by angels in the Mississippi Delta, who operate with almost no resources. After 8 months, nobody has come forward to adopt her so she was about to be put down. The rescue ladies at  arrf-arrf.org did not give up and fought like gladiators to get help for this dog. April survived heart worm, the fire and losing all her puppies.

All Aboard Rescue, my rescue, agreed to take April. Once she arrives, we will hold her at our ranch until suitable foster care can be found (like my house after Kitty gets a home) and we will ensure she is adopted by the best family possible, no matter what or no matter how long, it takes. We will insist on an adoption contract that allows us to follow up on April’s progress, in person, for the rest of her life. April is going to California, for permanent security and care.

I am asking for donations for the considerable transport costs and for money to take care of April. I want her seen by a vet at UC Davis to evaluate her skin. April’s days of suffering are over. Period.

As a mother, I could not let this dog die in a shelter like a piece of garbage. Life is not black and white and sometimes, rules need to be broken. We have a rough website that isn’t even finished yet, but the PayPal link works. Any donation you make will go 100% for April. Stuff we need for administrative tasks, like envelopes and pens, we steal LMAO! BUT ONLY FROM OUR FRIENDS. We need to get her here and that’s my first concern. Anything you can do, whether it’s give money or send her a prayer for wellness and strength, is appreciated. Also, I am begging on my knees like a money whore so this is what my life has come to.

My first Live Journal dog rescue! Donation link is below.

http://allaboardanimalsearchandrescue.com/index.html 

THANK YOU! Please re-post if you can and I wish you a great weekend. Things are looking up for April. Many thanks to Linda and Ann from arrf-arrf. You are fighting the good fight sisters…. and the only way to win is never, ever, give up.

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Pre-weigh-in Wednesday

Well, the braces are on as of last night…all five brackets.

With red bands.

I feel sort of silly for making such a big deal of it for only five brackets, but this is pretty important for me. For the next year, I’ll be wearing these things, and thanking my lucky stars I don’t have a whole mouthful of them!

I must be PMSing because I’ve wanted to eat the house out again this week. My scale showed me down about two pounds this morning, so we’ll see. I will have worked out four times this week (strength training of some sort in all four), so that should help me a little.

Someday I’ll write about more than Weight Watchers in this thing again, I promise! (Though the page hits have gone up since I started writing about it, so who knows?)

In non-WW news, my cat made me a little late for work this morning.

I had my closet door open while getting dressed, but always make sure it’s closed in the winter because the cold air just pours out of it.

She went inside to poke around, as she sometimes does. Usually she will come out when I tell her to, but this morning she didn’t. She wove her way into the back of the closet, until her body was essentially inside my shoe rack, all the while sniffing around.

My little Miss Curious.

“Ginger, come on out, Mama has to go to work.”

*Ginger stares*

This went on for about five minutes. I’m a pushover Mama, so of course I didn’t yell at her to get out or bring her out by force.  Eventually she wandered out of the closet, and I was able to get to work, about ten minutes late.

Thankfully I have a great supervisor who doesn’t worry about it.

As I have said before, she’s lucky she’s cute.

Adventures With Ginger (The Cat, Not the Root)

I finally started cleaning my cess pool of a kitchen. Counters scrubbed, dishes washed, floor swept. I dried Ginger’s water bowl, filled it, and put it on the floor in its spot under the sink so she could have some water.

I left the room for about 10 minutes, came back in, and there’s a lovely wet spot next to the bowl. I tell you, this cat is a flipping slob. When she eats, her food is all over the place.

She’s lucky she’s so damn cute.

Sweet Freedom

Ginger the cat tasted fresh air for about 10 seconds yesterday. I was moving some things from my car to the apartment, and she decided to hop over my foot and down the stairs. I made sure not to run, because I know from experience that makes her run. So I walked down the stairs calling her name, and saw her turn the corner and go out the door (thankfully to the backyard instead of the street) as I got to the bottom of the stairs.

I followed her around the corner as she walked over to sniff the garbage cans, and snatched her up when she wasn’t expecting it. Boy, did I yell at her — more out of my fear than anything else, I think. She wouldn’t come near me for about 10 minutes after we got back into the house, and would run away every time I walked in her direction. Immediately afterwards I went online and applied for her rabies license (something I’d been putting off because I thought I had to go downtown to do it) in the off-chance she gets out again and I can’t catch her.

Now I know why some say pet ownership is good practice for being a parent.

Moving News, Holiday Weekend

I’ve finally made more progress on packing. I’ve pretty much finished everything I can do in the living room (TV obviously is still operational, and pics are still on the wall because I want to be able to move a few things that don’t have cat hair all over them). I’ve now moved onto the bedroom.

(Ginger is guarding the boxes from intruders.)

I have had a nice holiday weekend so far. My friend R and I went to South Shore Park in Bay View, which is about two blocks from his apartment, to watch Milwaukee’s lakefront fireworks. It was a beautiful night, though a little on the chilly side. I’d rather have that than be dripping with sweat. The lovely view gave me some opportunities to take photos.

(These are the rocks we sat on by the beach —
the comfort level after my training session of
20 minutes spent on a hard bike seat? About zero.)

R and I like taking “self portraits,” with him taking the pic because his arms are much longer than mine. So we spent our time before the fireworks doing just that.

Yes, the photos were nice at first, but everything pretty much went downhill from here.

(This is R’s “Crazy Serial Killer” face. It works for
him, yes?)

(I look terrible in this one, but it makes me laugh
because R looks like he wants to kill me. This
one made us almost pee our pants when we saw
how it turned out.)

Finally, the fireworks started. They were pretty good, although I was not too impressed by the finale (I guess the economy is hurting every sector, including fireworks displays). We were a ways away from the fireworks themselves, so the majority (well, all) of the pics I took didn’t really turn out too well, but this will give you an idea of what they looked like.

(Those really are fireworks. I swear.)

Friday I went over to my Dad’s house to do laundry and spend the day. We had a traditional midwestern Fourth of July holiday meal of brats, potato salad, and strawberry shortcake.

Today I went to the gym, packed a little (see above) and took a nap. I woke up to see Ginger laying across me on my side, from my shoulder to my hip. She started using my cheek like a scratching post (thank God she doesn’t have claws) and was licking my nose and forehead. I guess it’s no different than early in the morning, when she goes from one side of my bed to the other by walking over me, usually stepping on my boobs so hard I want to scream.

She’s lucky she’s cute.

Another night of not packing

This time it was raining, so I couldn’t bring any of my boxes in. (Three days in and I’m already coming up with excuses.)

I did do some straightening up around the apartment in case my landlord wants to show it. And I took a video of my cat giving the fireflies outside my front window a what-for.

Sorry for the image quality, I took it with my digital camera.

Adventures in Cat Ownership: The First Trip to the Veterinarian

Ginger had her first visit to the “V-E-T” tonight! She did very well. Didn’t fight me when I put her in her carrier, but yapped at me the entire drive there.

We got there and they had me put her (inside her carrier) on the waiting room scale, and she and the carrier weighed something like 13 pounds. When we got into the office, we tried to coax her out with a treat, but she wasn’t too interested. It took her about 15 seconds to come out, and then she hopped off the table and started to explore the room. We finally got her back up on the table and the vet looked her over while the assistant gently held her in place. She squirmed for the rabies shot, but not too badly.

All in all, my little Ginger is very healthy, and the assistant commented a couple times on how sweet she is. The vet said I should cut down on her food a little more (from 1/3 c. to 1/4 c. a day) to help get her weight down (without being in the carrier she weighed in at 9.8 pounds, which is slightly larger than he’d like to see her, but nothing to worry about. He also suggested I bring her in to get her teeth cleaned once a year, but otherwise she doesn’t need any of the vaccinations that outdoor cats get, so that’s good.

Then I put her back in her carrier, went out to pay for the shot (only $28 — the exam was free thanks to the WI Humane Society, as part of adopting your pet), and saw on the counter a picture of a cute little cat, whose name I think was Stuart. The poor little guy has only three legs (he was being abused) and had tested positive for feline leukemia, so he could only go to a one-cat home (or a home with another cat who tested positive). They were asking me if I wanted to take him and I said I couldn’t because Ginger is negative. Some of this can be attributed to PMS, I think, but not all … I was almost in tears reading about this little cat. He had such a sweet little face, and while I never understood animal abuse before, now that I have a pet of my own, I can’t even fathom hurting her like that, or imagining someone else hurting her. Maybe animal abusers are similar to child abusers — weak cowards who only prey on things smaller than them and defenseless. When I got to the car, I did cry, it was just so sad. I get like that sometimes, it’s a weird quirk about me — I over-identify with a complete stranger or strange situation, and get way to emotional about it. I guess I’d rather cry at the drop of a hat about something like that than not care at all. 🙂

I was going to take pictures of her during her vet appointment, but I figured the vet (who was kind of cute) would think that was weird. So I waited until we got home to photograph the “aftermath” of the vet trip.

Ginger replenishing her fluids after the vet trip

Because I am now a “new mom” pet owner, here are some more photos I took of her over the weekend.

I’m on ur bed, stealin ur coverz

Being lazy on the couch

The menacing huntress watching for birds

New Addition

Last night I welcomed a new addition to my family.

Meet…Ginger Snap!

I adopted her from the Wisconsin Humane Society last night. Her original name was Yolanda — don’t think so. Ginger Snap it is!

My friend R went with me. The whole process took about two hours. I originally found her online, and when we got there I couldn’t find her at all, so I was worried that she had already been adopted. Turns out she has a bit of a cold, so those animals are kept separately from the healthy ones.

The adoption coordinator brought her into one of the vet exam rooms in a carrier, and she climbed right out of it and started “marking” R and I, along with everything else in the room. R and I both looked at each other and said, “This is the one!” So they got her ready to go, and sent me home with my “cat starter kit” (litter box, litter, scoop, food, food bowls, toy, brush and lint catcher) and her antibiotics and we were off for home.

She yammered at me the entire 5 minute car ride, it was pretty funny. R prepared me for her probably being freaked out, and said she probably would hide under my bed for a day or so. I put the carrier in the living room and opened it up to let her out. She immediately started exploring the house. We put her litter box together and R suggested I carry her to the litter box and put her inside it so she knows where it is (R has a cat, he’s not just a cat genius, lol). She has discovered the top of the sofa, where she can look out the window at the cars going by. When I was uploading the pictures of her last night she was on my bed, head-butting me and being generally affectionate. Last night she slept in bed with me the majority of the night, her little paw and head on my hand. So cute!

So now I am officially a cat lady! Guess that seals my role as a spinster, lol.