Oh, the Shame!

Before owning dogs, I didn't realize how disgusting animals could be. Not that I was completely naive when I adopted them. I mean, I once saw a puppy do his little puppy business, eat it, throw it up, and then eat that... 

But that was a one off, right? Just a confused little puppy.

Then we adopted Willie, our old, blind German shepherd, and... well, let me just say I thought our kittens needed a trip to the vet because the litter box was empty the first entire week we had them. But then Willie came up to me for a rump scratching and wouldn't you know it, there were flecks of kitty litter stuck to the wet of his nose. 

DOGS EAT POO.

It's true, folks. They really eat poo. 

Along with EVERYTHING else -- everything dead and smelly and disgusting, like telephone line-fried squirrels, and entire bags of potting soil that have been enriched with chicken manure. And when it makes them sick... well, they eat that, too.

Honestly, after five years with this dog, I didn't think there was anything left for him to eat that would gross me out.

Ha! Naive, I certainly am! Because today, folks, Willie reached a new low:

Yep.

Half a bathroom-sized trash can full of 'em.

SHAME ON YOU, WILLIE.

Though, I suppose to be fair I should shame the cats, too. And I would, if they'd hold still for two seconds.

Their sign would say something like, I feed the German shepherd by barfing up hairballs under the kitchen table.

Shame on you, cats.

(Hannah, the resident chihuahua, doesn't get a sign because it would probably scare her, and then she'd pee on the floor. Again)

Have you guys discovered PetShaming.net? Yeah, it's kind of hilarious, and quite possibly my new favorite site. I'll spare Willie the world-wide humiliation by not submitting his photo.

Also, I'm a little glad I have my 4 dysfunctional pets, because man, some of THOSE pets are just too naughty.

Have a great Wednesday, folks!

Unless you are in Australia. In that case, enjoy your Thursday! 

 xoxo,

(Almost) Packed and Ready to Go!

Our Grand European Adventure begins tomorrow, and Sophie decided to help us pack this morning, as I am taking waaaaay to long filling the bags.

And what did she think we needed to take with us for our two-month long vacation?

 Let's go in for a closer look, shall we?

 Yep, it's our cat Somer.

Gracie's favorite, so I don't think she'd mind.

I'm sure my ATC MIL (allergic-to-cats mother-in-law) would, however. Time to vacuum the suitcase before filling it.

I might blog a few times while we travel, but I also might not. So. I wish you all the happiest of summer vacations, and I'll see you all in August (or maybe sooner!)!

xoxo,

The Hopkins Family Furballs: An Update and In Memoriam

 Somer's a total Daddy's boy

Soooo.... recently I had a comment from a reader curious for a kitty update, and...

well...

I've been avoiding blogging about cats for about a year now because we had quite a lot of heartache in a very short span of months. See, the last post in which I blogged about my pets was on New Year's Eve, 2010, and incidentally that was the last time we saw our kitten Ollie.

 

After hoping he'd merely run away and found another family happy to have a rascally little stray, we learned that he wandered into the yard of the vicious dog next door.

We were all so heartbroken, so when a sweet little grey kitten followed us home from the bus stop about 2 months later, and waltzed right into our living room - to be perfectly well received by all four of our other pets - we figured we had another chance to help a stray kitten with a warm home and tons of food and even more love. She instantly decided Annelie was her mama, and the two of them were inseparable.

 

Boooo. Just thinking about our kittens makes me cry. These little cats were the BEST CATS IN THE WORLD.

Josephine was nothing but gentle and sweet. After Ollie died, we wanted her to stay an indoor cat, at least until she was a LOT older and faster. But she wanted to be with her mama Annelie, and after only having her for a couple of months, Josephine sneaked out the back door when the girls went out to play, and the next day our neighbors (after lying profusely when I asked them if they'd seen her) admitted their dog got her, too.

I'm not sure if the neighbors moved because they wanted to buy a bigger house or if they couldn't handle Gracie and Annelie bursting into tears whenever the girls saw them and their dog... but I wasn't at all sad to see them move away, that's for sure.

Nowadays, we're stray kittenless, but we still have all these guys!

Willie the blind German Shepherd
Hannah the neurotic chihuahua
Sophie the calico
Somersault the tabby

Sophie still thinks she's a tiny baby kitten who needs to be personally escorted to her food dish any time she's hungry, even though the food dish has been in the same spot since we adopted her in '09.

 Our cats both adore all visitors, especially curious babies.

Somer can be found wherever there is food. Or a roll of toilet paper or paper towels to shred. We call them Somerpaper - and wouldn't you know it, the girls prefer their paper cat-shredded to not.

Sophie is determined to keep me from folding laundry at all times so clearly she's high on my list of favorites.

And that's our cat update! We don't plan on adding to our household.... but if a stray kitten walks through the door and makes itself at home - like Ollie and Josephine both did - well who knows. We might find there is a little extra love to share.

xoxo,

Getting Ready to Partaaaaaay!

This is what I woke up to today. Willie, the family German Shepherd, getting ready to ring in the new year with his usual exuberance, donning a crown fit for the King of the New Year, made by Gracie.

Hannah, too, her crown made by Annelie (and I think stuck on with double stick tape - sorry, Hannah.)

Our three cats all have crowns, too, but I interfered with the partaaaay plans and forced the kids to decorate their dolls instead.

Besides, Little Orphan Ollie is already all partaaaaay'd out.

Happy New Year, from me to you, folks! Hope 2011 is the best year EVER!

xoxo,

I Can Haz Kleen Klose?

In an effort to get my daily NaNoWriMo words written, I've had to leave the housework for the other members of our household to attend to. I'm hopeful that Sophie will stop being lazy and actually get the laundry sorted correctly. We shall see.

xoxo,

Little Orphan Oliver

A couple days ago, we opened the front door to the doormat surprise our cat Somersault brought home with him.

Usually cat surprises left on the doormat are of the dead bird or mouse variety, but this surprise was Somer's new BFF - an eight-week-old scrawny, half-starved ferocious wild kitten. And when Will opened the door to let Somer inside for some breakfast, the kitten followed and made himself right at home.

Now, I'm happy to be crazy cat lady but even I had reservations with this kitten. First of all, with 4 other pets and 2 pet-like children I wasn't really sure we needed another cat. Not to mention, this kitten is FEROCIOUS and FEARLESS and picks fights with any animate or inanimate object he comes across - including our two adult cats and our two adult dogs.

And Annelie's arm.

But then he curls up next to our cats and dogs as if he's been a member of the family since birth, and for some reason, they don't mind... and he purrs his little brains out, and Somer licks his head and Hannah yips for him to play with her, and seriously, how can I possibly take him to the pound when he's so little and happy here? Plus, our local pound terminates, and we're not really the kind of people who want to wrap up a kitten and hand him over to his possible death.

So off to the vet he went for a de-worming, ear mite removal and some shots...

And now the Hopkins family has a new member - Little Orphan Ollie!

Awwwww... isn't he just so darned CUTE?!?!

xoxo,

LOLhannah

U wahnt puppeh Hannah nit swetur fer u, too?

xoxo,

Hannah Tinkerbell Hopkins

Something to know about me and Will: we are ridiculously impulsive. Also, when we see a pile of rescue pups in the shelter's last ditch effort to find homes before termination, we tend to go, "Awwwww... we can't let them DIE!"

So we bought Gracie a dog for her birthday.

Haha, just kidding.

Sorta. We did technically buy a dog (if you can call a chihuahua a dog) and she does looks like a hyena, but a smaller-than-a-cat version. Gracie picked her out and named her Hannah. And then Annelie gave her the middle name Tinkerbell.

So, here she is: Hannah Tinkerbell Hopkins

And she's really, really tiny, which was a huge surprise. She was in a little cage and Gracie pointed and said, "Awww, I want that little doggie!" The shelter people pulled her out and put her in my arms and Will filled out the adoption papers and when that was done I put her down on the ground... and stared at her.

"Wow. That's a really small dog," I said. The shelter people only smiled their smug little smiles.

When I brought her home and set her down next to the kittens, I stared again. "Wow. She's smaller than the kittens." Will only raised his eyebrows as if to say, duh Marisa, its a freakin' chihuahua. What did you expect?

I'm sure my cat-loving friends are like, *gasp* "A chihuahua? WHY??!!"

And my dog-loving friends are like, "That's not a dog. What the heck is that?"

And my small-dog-loving friends are like, "Whoooo! Welcome to the world of being followed 24 hours a day by a shivering, little four-legged shadow! Have fun!"

But I do have to say Hannah is pretty cute.

Cute like a cuddly Gizmo.

But I'm also a little nervous that I'll accidentally get her wet and she'll turn into the scary gremlin.

Honestly, though, she doesn't seem like a dog. She's two years old and full grown, and sort of reminds me of a martian. Like, if she were to suddenly sprout antennae and command in a high-pitched squeak, "Take me to your leader," I probably would take her to my leader without question.

Does anyone else feel this way about chihuahuas? Please say I'm not the only one.

But Hannah likes me. I guess that is okay. And she doesn't bark, and that is definitely okay. Life with two kids, two cats, a German Shepard and a chihuahua should be interesting.

xoxo,

All Growed Up

My kittens are all grown up and ready to enter the big, bad world, which is a struggle for me, as I want them to remain itsy-bitsy little baby cats forever.

Oh man, I'm dreading Gracie's first day of kindergarten this upcoming fall. If it is this difficult watching the cats step from the front door to the front porch, I can't imagine how I'm going to cut my apron strings and let Gracie get on a school bus and enter her kindergarten class without me.

Although Gracie is a little braver than my scaredy-cats, who might act like big grown-ups sometimes, but were truthfully too afraid to leave the front porch. After only a couple of minutes of shivering and shaking with fright, the kittens were happy to be back inside.

And of course I had to document it, because I'm Crazy Cat Lady, and that's the sort of thing Crazy Cat Lady does.

First steps!!

It took a good five minutes before Somer the Hermaphrocat even left the front door. Sophie took a little longer. They think they are so brave, but they're really not.

This is as far as Somer got before
he turned around and high-tailed it back inside.

And a video, which is a little on the boring side, but features me talking in baby-kitty voice.

FYI, yes I did blame the cats for the boringness of the video. What can I say? I am a blame-placer.

And if you want to admire my roses a little more, I blogged about them at my homey blog yesterday, {HERE}

Happy weekend, folks!

xoxo,