Animals – Page 3 – Nutshellcity.com

2019 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

The great porch cat infestation

April 10, 2019 No Comments

Great! Porch cats! Oh man, how in the world did it come to this?

When our good neighbor passed away last year, her two cats, who had themselves adopted her years before, went in search of a new place to eat and lay their heads at night. Porch cats are funny like that: Kind of nomadic. Never bitter or too down about their luck. Resourceful and enterprising. Unfazed and upbeat.

Most of all, they can always spot a sucker.

Exhibit A: My front porch.

I have my daughter to thank for this. A lot of people left food out. Offered to help. Pitched in.
That’s what neighborhoods do. They pull together and help those in need. They take each other in, and care for everyone. Porch cats included.

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Holidays

Giving thanks … for the little things

November 21, 2018 No Comments

Thanksgiving. Little known fact: Some historians have argued the holiday was started when the Pilgrims got together to give thanks for their turkey defrosting in time. Their microwave was on the fritz, and there was great concern they wouldn’t be able to pry loose the little bag of frozen giblets. (Boy, do I know that feeling!) But too often we forget it’s not just the big things (health, frozen giblets, employment, Powerball, that our children haven’t been incarcerated for Bitcoin scams) that we need to give thanks for. No, sometimes it’s the seemingly inconsequential things that we often take for granted, and forget deserves our thanks, too. So, this week I’m taking a little time to give thanks for a few things that don’t always register on the big chart, but that I should show gratitude for all the same: • I’m thankful for my dog. And I have to remind myself of that sometimes. Because she sheds more hair than, frankly, she has on her body. Which could only mean that she is collecting other dogs’ hair, bringing it home and scattering it around the house in some kind of weird K-9 ritual. But my daughter has been playing videos of dog owners catching their animals doing pretty naughty things and videotaping it. (Real examples: “Lenny, did you eat the entire sofa down to the springs?” or “Petunia, did you poop in the refrigerator AGAIN?”) Yowza! My dog sniffs too much on walks and it makes me cranky. Whoop-de-doo! […]

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Family

Dog-sitting, and restoring order to the chaos

October 17, 2018 No Comments

We get pretty set in our ways. Used to our lives. Like them just the way they are with their set patterns and rhythms and schedules. That’s the way we like our home life and our houses. To the guy who came up with the saying, “the only constant in life is change,” we blow you a raspberry and say, “Yeah, well, when was the last time you dog-sat for your brother, you old philosophical coot!” Nothing makes you question whether the world will ever be the same again like dog-sitting. “Oh great deity, please restore order to the chaos … I have a dog towel with muddy footprints on my kitchen floor!” My brother went out of town this week for his son’s birthday, and his part-dog, part-cow named Ella came over for her regular re-orientation of the Thompson house. It’s not the dog’s fault. Human houseguests at least have some awareness that they are in someone else’s home. They realize they need to TRY to adapt their ways to your ways in order to keep from getting kicked to the curb. A dog has no concept of this — no situational awareness. No clue that there is such a thing as three strikes and then they spend the night in the shed because they kept hopping on the sofa.

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Technology

Hey dog, I can see you on the spycam!

September 19, 2018 No Comments

There are great mysteries to be solved in this small world: Is there anything prehistoric swimming around in Loch Ness? What size shoe does Bigfoot wear? Why does a calendar reminder keep popping up on my computer telling me to drain the hot water heater tank? (Yeah, like I’m going to do that!) And the biggest of all: What does your dog do when you’re not home? Turns out the last one I’ve finally solved. Glory be! It’s thanks to the proliferation of these tiny home cameras you can install for security purposes, or keeping up with your animals. My brother calls it the “doggie spycam.” Mind you, I’m not spying on my dog. It’s setup more for home security. And if the dog would just stay in her bed, and not stroll through the camera’s frame, I wouldn’t know anything about it. But the minute she does, a little alert pops up on my phone.

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Travel

The dog-owners’ emergency vet conundrum

August 8, 2018 No Comments

To vet or not to vet. That is the question you ask when you’re out of town and you have your dog and your dog inexplicably — I don’t even know how this happens! — gets stung by a wasp between her toes. And this prompts an insect-induced stupor that makes you think she is either having a serious allergic reaction or joined the zombie corps. There is no better way to start a family reunion than with a dog injury and a moral conundrum: Do we take her in or not? Because every pet owner knows that if you take your animal to the emergency vet on a weekend, you’ll find out you over-reacted and your wallet is now thinner. But every pet owner also knows that if you don’t, something will be seriously wrong, your dog will die a horrible death and your daughter won’t speak to you until she’s 35. Whew! Talk about pressure. It’s a conundrum. My sister was down from Chicago, and a mass of Thompsons had converged upon my dad’s house on the lake in Tampa. There were dogs. Many, many dogs. And when dogs get together, they do stupid stuff that inevitably injures someone in the most preposterous way. “Dad!” my daughter said. “Something’s wrong with Lily.”

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

No fowl, the chicken victory is mine

May 16, 2018 No Comments

I win, chicken. I WIN!!! Or at least, I think I do. I hope so. I can’t be sure. She’s beat me before. Many times. Many months. Shoot, who am I kidding. It’s been a year of trying to coop her up. To keep Phoebe – the Houdini of Hens – in her little chicken yard. This great escape artist. The hen who couldn’t be penned. But I think I’ve got her. I think I’ve done it. I think I’ve won. Hoorah! A year back I nicknamed Phoebe the Bomb Crater Chicken because she had a knack for jumping the picket fence to her area, rooting around in my nicely manicured backyard and digging holes like a B-52 had made a bombing run. Pine needles would be strewn about. Plants devoured. And I risked breaking an ankle as I ran about trying to corral her while yelling, “Come back here you dang-blasted Bomb Crater Chicken!” It was quite a sight to see, and some tourist trains considered adding this spectacle to their itinerary.

2017 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Holidays

Lessons from Thanksgiving

November 29, 2017 No Comments

It was a time to give thanks — to be mindful, take stock in all that we have and show gratitude. That is the meaning of Thanksgiving. But along with it, the holiday brings a lot of other lessons for us to learn and ponder. Lessons not quite as significant, but just as important. Like how dogs would sooner be thrown into a pool of hot lava than go out in the rain. And if you’re in a hurry – because it’s Thanksgiving morning and there’s a turkey in the oven – they’ll fight you even more. My brother and his family traveled north this year to visit my sister-in-law’s family. We took care of his dog, who I affectionately refer to as “Meat Chunk.” It’s because she resembles a side of beef. She runs around the house with my dog crashing into things, dislodging structural support walls and crushing toes. Because my dog and his are like dueling tornadoes, Meat Chunk was going back to her house Thanksgiving morning. The rainy morning. The morning when everything was flooded. The morning I had a 15-second window that didn’t include time for scrambling around the car trying to get her out and yelling, “Damn you, Meat Chunk, it’s just a little rain!” That got a few stares on the street.

2017 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Travel

The California mountain emergency chicken call

June 21, 2017 No Comments

This was the phone call I received. It was from my mother. I was in the mountains of California, and it was early morning. I answered it, worried something might be wrong. I was right. Something was wrong … I answered the phone. This is the call I received. Mom: Brian! Me: Yes, mom. What’s wrong? Mom: I hate to bother you on your vacation, but this is really, really important (long pause) … There is a chick in the backyard! Me: Hold on, say that again?!? It sounded a lot like you just said, “there is a chick in the backyard.” Mom: What? Me: A chick in the backyard! Mom: That’s what I just said … how did you know? Me: I didn’t know. That’s what you just said.

2017 Nutshells, Animals, Family

The perils of dog sitting

May 31, 2017 No Comments

It’s day number five with Ella, the Meat Chunk. Meat Chunk is a specific breed of dog that is native to my brother — large in stature, dense, the mass of three imploding suns and likes to sit on small children while riding in the car. The aforementioned child no longer has any feeling in her thighs. My brother and his family went on vacation for, well, close to eternity, and we’re dog sitting ye ‘olde Meat Chunk while they’re gone. It hasn’t been a bad experience — for the most part she’s a good dog. It’s just that dogs have their own quirks, and this one especially. Partly because my brother believes dogs NEED quirks. That they should be uncivilized and unruly, and that these eccentricities should be on display like a neon peacock. You know, like a dog who can’t walk in a straight line. I swear I thought she was drunk the first time I walked her. She darted left and right on the leash, like a divining rod swerving from water source to water source. I was dragged behind like a rag doll, my knees all skinned up and the circulation to my poor hand long since cutoff.

2017 Nutshells, Animals

A letter to the household critters

May 18, 2017 No Comments

Dear critters of the Thompson household, I thought it time I sit down and put into writing some concerns I want to address with you. One or two incidents, I agree, do not constitute a trend. However, we have now reached the point where there is a pattern developing and it’s time to talk. To put it simply: We’re starting to look like a crazy house! I’m asking you all to pull it together and make some changes. Let’s start with you, the chickens. And, in particular, the scrawny (but pretty) brown one who goes by Phoebe. Thanks to your inability to stay within your ample enclosed area, I have had to further “enclose” it … stringing ever taller nets around your “land” so that my backyard now looks like a poor man’s batting cage, or some kind of third world fishing village. Not the look I was going for! Please stop hatching wild escape attempts so you can go eat my butterfly bushes. And you, the dog. What’s with the shedding? I get that it’s turning hot and you think leaving five inches of fur across my living room floor will make you cooler. But guess what? It’s making me hot! At least vacuum once in a while.