Back to Normal

Packed up Lulu and the kittens today and brought them back to the shelter. Poor little guys, they looked so shocked. Tomorrow they’re off to be neutered, which is not going to be fun either, but then hopefully on to their new homes. Kittens, of course, should be easy to place – Lulu may take longer. She appears to really hate other cats and dogs, and is naturally flighty in temperament, so that’s a lot of restrictions. She is such a sweetie though, and she’s SO into people food, it cracks me up. Doesn’t matter what it is, she wants a taste.

I’m going to miss that little family, they’ve been with me for 6 weeks now. We had some worrying moments during our time together, but for the most part it’s been a wonderful experience, and SO much easier than the Sunshine kittens! Lulu was a wonderful mom, and the kittens were so … smart. Just crazy that kittens were totally housebroke at 3 weeks. Why can’t dogs do that? Loved watching the kittens grow, and two was very manageable. The set-up worked out really well, I felt like they had plenty of room yet my other animals didn’t feel at all affected. Kittens are awesome, so much fun to play with – yet not have a 20 year commitment.

They tried to get me take another litter when I dropped these guys off, but we’re all ready to get back to some normalcy around here. I’m open to the idea of fostering again during my winter break. I’m also open to the idea of adding another kitty to our household in the future. I miss having a lap cat, the Maine Coons are awesome, and we do have our cuddles, but they are not lap cats. I miss that. Lulu and kittens were also not lap cats, and also very TINY. One of the reasons I ended up leaving the Sunshine Kittens with Bruce is that the Maine Coons just overwhelmed them, they’d try to play and the SS kittens were just crushed. Hence why I ended up with Dragon, so Fizban would have a buddy – and they do great together. So I contacted a Ragdoll breeder up in Washington that I’ve heard lots of great things about, and she seems really nice and very open to helping me find a ridiculously cuddly lap cat to add to our family. Ragdolls are big cats, like the maine coons, with that same easy going, get along with everyone personality – but floppier and snugglier. I think the right cat could fit in really well here, so that’s a possibility for next year as well. We shall see.

In the meantime, apparently Oregon doesn’t have seasons anymore, we have Summer and Winter, and that’s it. We had that very cold Spring that suddenly went into our very hot Summer and now we suddenly went from 94 degrees last week to pouring down rain for days on end and 55 degrees. Yesterday a thunderstorm parked on top of the arena while I was teaching, and we rarely ever get thunderstorms here – it was nuts! So that’s been a bit of shock, but I’m not complaining. I am so not a fan of summer, I’ll take this crazy rain any day.

There has just been a lot of out of the ordinary stuff this summer, I’m so happy to be back teaching agility – I’ve missed my classes! Happy to have my bathroom and closet back and not managing the fosters (fun though they were!). Happy to be back doing agility with another trial this weekend. Happy to have the weather back to reasonable and able to take the dogs with me. Just getting back to our normal routine. Which still isn’t quite ‘normal’ yet, even though we’re coming up on our one year anniversary of moving out here in November.

I even turned on the fireplace today, just for a bit – loving the sudden cool weather!