I saw the strangest thing on the way to work; in the grass alongside Shiloh Road there were three dead adult raccoons, laid out side by side. Besides the fact that roadkilled animals always make me very sad, I was puzzled as to why there were three, all laid out next to each other like that. Did they all get hit together and someone moved them there? Was it a raccoon murder/suicide? Or perhaps the racoon mafia was involved, and left them there as a warning to other raccoons…very odd.
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The weekend didn’t quite go as planned. Lilly was sick all weekend so we stuck close to home, and we didn’t feel much like going to a movie. She is feeling better now but is in for an ultrasound today to see if the possible abdominal mass that was detected two years ago still shows up, and to see how far some of the other lumps she has have invaded — I didn’t know they could do that with ultrasound. She’s had more bad days than good lately, and we want to find out if it is more than just her arthritis causing her so much discomfort. Our animal luck has certainly been bad lately. Once again this year the mountains around Tucson, where we used to live, are having terrible forest fires. The biggest one is the Aspen fire, which has burned over 13,000 acres and destroyed half the houses and businesses in Summerhaven up on Mount Lemmon. It is hard to believe that places we have been to up there are just gone now. We got an email from someone in Tucson that said the whole top of the Catalina mountain range looks like it is on fire and you can see the flames even in the daytime…how sad, and terrible. There are pictures and updates on this fire at the Arizona Daily Star page. We got a Costco membership the other day. I think this will save us a lot of money in the long run — as long as I remember to use a bit of common sense there; just because I can buy two gallons of pickles for almost the same price as a small jar doesn’t mean I can actually eat that many pickles before they go bad (or I get sick of them and never want to see them again). Things like paper towels and laundry soap are so much cheaper there if you don’t mind buying in larger quantity at once. So much for ”weekly’ updates…where to begin? Guess I’ll start with Fiona: she was with us for over a week and what a week that was! At one point were were ready to pack her off to a rescue group, between Lindsy hating her, the cats hiding, and a few random acts of destruction, but by the beginning of the second week things had settled down and I think even Lindsy was warming up a bit. Then–just when we had given up on finding her family–her owner turned up and Fiona got to go back home. It was a bittersweet moment as we were happy to get her back to her home, but sad to see her go. Suddenly our house was empty again…it had been nice having a young, exhuberant dog in the house. Anyway, her page is still up, with the whole story of her visit here, and we put a link to it on our Critters page. Next bit of excitement is that Joy has a new job with Canine Commissary, a local chain of pet supply stores! She starts on Tuesday and I hope it turns out to be a great place for her to work — and I am not just saying that because I am looking forward to her getting a pet food discount … The dogs, who are now 8 and 13, just had complete blood panels done and they are both in great shape except Lindsy is a wee bit hypothyroid. She goes in to the vet to get some medication for that tomorrow because, you know, no week is complete without at least one vet visit. We are going to go see The Matrix Reloaded tonight. I have some free tickets I’d gotten back at my previous job that I can finally use (my former company, in their infinite wisdom, had rewarded everyone with free tickets for a movie theatre chain that didn’t have any theatres within 150 miles of Tucson) and we haven’t been to a movie in months. Last matter at hand is the strange bumps we seem to have developed after walking the dogs in the vacant lot up the street. Joy got more of them, probably due to the fact that I often use bug spray because I have a large flashing neon sign over my head that says “mosquito food.” They weren’t really itchy, so at first we weren’t sure what they were, until we realized that the appearance and location was classic for chigger bites. Eeeeewwww… I am glad Joy rescinded her threat to “never, ever go outside again” and bug spray seems to be keeping the little devils at bay. I found a great article on chiggers that I have added to our links page. We found a lost dog yesterday. She was in our neighborhood running frantically from house to house trying to get in…we think she must have moved here recently with her people and gotten out. She had a collar and rabies tag, but unfortunately the number for her owner has been disconnected. The clinic did tell us her name is “Fiona” and we are hoping that someone looking for her will call one of the shelters or see our flyers in the neighborhood. If you are in the Richardson/Garland area and think you might know this dog, please contact us. |
 Chris and Joy's Critterweb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. |
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