I am still trying to wrap my head around what has happened recently regarding my beautiful boy. All this time of tests and speculations. The multiple diagnoses about what was going on with him have all accumulated into one thing. The final determination on what is wrong with my dog is epilepsy.

Kota has what is known as focal seizure epilepsy. This was a long time getting to this point of finding a diagnosis that made sense. Based on symptoms that were slowly forming over this past year, reinforced by videos, I submitted to my vet last week of his seizures. All of the signs and symptoms were slowly accumulating, and now they have manifested themselves into these vocal seizures.

The consensus right now from the vet is that for now, the seizures are (according to them) mild in nature. They are something to watch. I was asked to keep a log on when they occur, how long they last, also to record how many he has in one day. They do not currently want to put him on any anti-seizure drugs, pointing out to me that he could very well develop harsh side effects to the medication. They believe that at this time it would cause more harm than good.

My very first dog that my parents gave me when I was growing up was a cocker spaniel. I had been bothering my parents for years how much I wanted a dog. When I got home from summer camp (I was 14 years old) here was this beautiful black cocker spaniel puppy waiting for me in the car! We bonded instantly. Sam had epilepsy. His seizures were grand-mal. I was the only family member who would sit with him during his fits. They were horrible to watch. He was on medication for life. For me right now it’s hard to acquaint the fact that Kota also has epilepsy because Kota’s seizures are nothing close to what Sam suffered with.

So far the longest seizure he’s had was 10 minutes. Afterwards he just goes flat. He does not tremble, he doesn’t defecate, or pee all over himself like Sam did. His limbs don’t go rigid, he doesn’t flop on the floor, he doesn’t snap at the air. I don’t have to put a padded stick in his mouth so that he doesn’t bite his tongue. So in that respect, yes, these episodes are mild.

They begin with no pattern or warning. He will start to rapid pant, his eyes glaze over. He loses all recognition of where he is. He will not even respond to my presence, my voice. Drool will start to accumulate in his mouth. It will either drip steadily out the right side of his mouth, never his left side. He yawns repeatedly. if the seizures go longer than just a few seconds, then the drool will start pouring out of his mouth, down his chest, on his legs and onto the floor, or the blanket, or whatever he happens to be laying on at the time. The panting becomes so rapid I am unable to count the breaths.

Afterwards, he can go flat anywhere from two hours to 12 hours. He generally chooses his couch to crash on. He will not eat, or drink. He just sleeps, you can tell he is completely exhausted.

This journey to this discovery has caused great concern, fractured sleep, frayed nerves, along with mass confusion as to what in the world is going on with my dog? Now that I know, I have started him on 30 mg of CBD/melatonin right before he goes to bed. Although he has seizures during the day, he has them when I am asleep as well. After these seizures hit. He will prior to going flat, completely lick both sides of his body from neck to rump until he is wringing wet! It can take up to four towels to dry him off. Perhaps this is his way of getting rid of all of that drool that is suddenly cascading out of his mouth?

Ever since that initial dog attack, and all the health issues that followed. I have been keeping track with my own journal and my own charts. So the vets asking me to do this is really a moot point because it’s already been done. I think that, part of the reason it took so long to get to this diagnosis is I never thought that this was epilepsy? I was drawing on my own experience with Sam without realizing, and I know now because I’ve been doing the research, how many different ways epilepsy presents itself. I was told that if the seizures get worse, or longer or present different symptoms. I am to immediately call the vet and come in. So that’s the stasis we are in right now.

During the seizures, when his eyes glaze over, his mind travels to a place that I am not allowed to visit. No amount of coaxing or talking to him, putting food in front of him. Bringing in his kitty friend, rattling my car, keys, or saying, the magic words will bring him out of it. Just suddenly out of the blue he will raise his head up. He will jump off the couch, and he will be my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed dog once again. He acts like nothing has happened. I wish I could pretend nothing did.

here is an example of what happens when he goes flat. You can see by looking at his eyes that he has checked out temporarily.

Backing out of my driveway, I glanced over to Molly’s resting spot. All the daffodils I planted awhile ago are blooming. I planted them in a circle around where she lays. It was so wonderful to see this beautiful pop of yellow surrounding her grave. She would’ve loved that!

In memory of Molly:

Once again, I have reached a stumbling block with Ashley. I believe this setback occurred because last month she was so matted, I captured her up and put her in a carrier. We went inside, and I proceeded to remove every mat she had. Although Ashley looks strongly like a Maine Coon mix. I suspect that she has Persian in her because of how easily she mats. She gets these horrible mats at the base of her ears, and when I go to try to get them out gently with a seam ripper, she will bite me, growl, hiss, and show her claws.

Although I returned her quickly back to her established domain, she has not trusted me since. Yesterday I made a decision, and during a rare moment when God afforded me the opportunity, I scooped her up and put her inside the introduction cage. I will start working with her gradually. She will only tolerate mat removal for about 10 minutes max before she starts getting growly and hissy and very aggressive. I did manage to get her ear mats removed. I also checked her ears to see if perhaps she had ear mites and that’s why she was developing mats at that site. She does not have ear mites.

What she does have right now is a deep distrust of me, so over the next few weeks, months, however, long it takes, I will work slowly to try to reestablish my relationship with her so that she doesn’t feel the need to flee quickly every time I go out there.

Magoo on the other hand is doing great. He is out and about with the other cats,he sits on a ledge allows me to pet him whenever I want to or whenever he wants to be brushed he will come and give me a head bump.. that’s my cue to grab a brush, he  just loves it. I told him yesterday he needs to talk to his sister because she definitely does not like being brushed. Hopefully by the end of her quarantine, she will have a different reaction to being groomed. That is the plan anyway. Whether it evolves that way is really all up to her, as well as how I handle her aggression along the way. She ican be a formidable kitty.

I learned years ago, not to work with cats with PTSD or stray cats with feral tendencies with gloves..I found that it erodes the trust. They don’t get used to your smell, they come to fear the gloves and attack them. Right now I am feeding her canned food (tasty stuff that I normally don’t buy because nutritionally it’s not that great, but it is kitty crack. Once she loses the fear of my hands, I will gather up my courage, and I will start to pick her up, pet her, take note of the mats she has that I need to remove and make a plan.

Although Spring is showing on the pages of my calendar, when I look out the window, I don’t see the sun. We were just placed on another Winter Storm Warning yesterday! Snow is expected to fall by tonight. I know it’s crazy weather everywhere right now. I just really miss the sun right now.we are also supposed to get gusty winds tomorrow, I’m hoping we’ve had enough rain in the recent days to keep my trees rooted in the ground.

The good news about Ashley’s recent confinement is, she’s not screaming her head off in distress being inside the cage. This morning when I went in to feed, her brother, was sitting on the shelf near the cage, and she was on the top level next to him. They take comfort in each other. Magoo has turned out to be strikingly beautiful. His flames are getting deeper as he gets older. This summer I am going to have to put sunblock on his ears. Once the sun does return, it will raise the risk of him because of his light color, getting cancer from the UV rays. This risk also increases because that beautiful tree is no longer in the ground providing much-needed shade for the cats.

No, my cats are not uprising against me. They aren’t conspiring to take over the house because I don’t open cans of food fast enough for their liking. They’re not staging a walk out because their litter boxes aren’t clean enough. I’m talking about a new movie that’s out called The Jesus Revolution. This was a local event in the 60s and 70s which spread all over the world. It focuses on Pastor Chuck Smith, his church in Costs Mesa, CA ,Lonnie Frisbee, and Greg Laurie. This church was a very large part of my life back in the day.

We were known as Jesus freaks back then. I was volunteering at a Christian coffee shop in Stanton, California and weekly. We would pile into vans and head for the beach. We would have Greg Laurie’s tracks in our hands and we would pick up hitchhikers. I saw a lot of miracles, take place both within the church, as well as the Fire Escape, which was the name of the Christian coffee shop. The Bible studies, the afterglows, all the Maranatha music groups, it was such a blessed time. And now they’ve made a movie of it. I went to see it.

Thankfully, they didn’t get to political within the context of the movie. However, for me, the payoff came at the end of the movie when they showed the actual clips of the members gathered on the cliffs of Costa Mesa over Pirate Cove with mass baptisms. Clips of Chuck Smith during his sermons, his beautiful smile, just brought me right back to a time we need again as a nation.

I did hear afterward that there is a new Jesus revolution that is stirring up out of Texas? I heard it didn’t start inside of a church, but actually inside of Texas A&M and it’s spreading rapidly. I haven’t been able to substantiate the rumor but it’s certainly, God knows it’s something that we need right now.

On another note, we are still in winter. It has been snowing for several days, but not sticking. We are not getting hit as hard as other areas of the country, and this latest storm which hit last night is headed out to do its damage elsewhere. I hope winter is truly over but I have a feeling it’s not quite done with us yet.

Yesterday, because of the increasing frigid temperature, we ran out of canned cat food. But thankfully received a donation that night, so we were able to order the food which will be here in a few days. The wet food helps keep them hydrated during these cold temperatures.

here’s to a nice warm, spring, waiting around the corner!

We have been dealing with pretty brutal temperatures lately. The other morning when I went out to feed it was 12°. That afternoon the temperature got up to 68°. By 8:00 PM, we were back down to 19°. All the kitties are doing well. I have not caught Slip. Both he and Goblin vanished after the last ice storm. I hope they both will return soon.

last week early in the morning, my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I saw one of my neighbors who has recently moved in. She wanted to know if I fed stray cats? I told her that I rescue, I also added that if a stray cat shows up at the table, I don’t turn them away. Turns out her daughters eight month old kitten during the move into the new home got out of the house and they can’t find her anywhere. She showed me a picture of this tuxedo cutie. My heart sank when I saw the photo. I had seen this kitten a few days prior across the highway. How this kitten got across this highway without getting squished is beyond me.

I told her that I’d send her kitten and told her where. But I also told her that the railroad has been taking their passenger trains out on the weekends  The train track is across the highway. With all the noises from the train and the whistle blowing to show people, near railroad crossings that they’re coming. I told her I’m sure her kitty is probably somewhere else by now

I did offer to let her borrow one of my traps so she could set them out in her backyard in case kitty comes home. Oh, so far, kitty has not been seen. I think two part of the reason that the kitty isn’t coming home is because my other neighbors, which is the house between the two of us, they take horrible care of their dogs and leave them outside on chains at least 10 hours a day. It’s constant barking, even when the people are home, they just seem to ignore these dogs, which makes me nuts. So I’m sure if the kitty is close she’s terrified to even show her self because she could get eaten. These dogs are not friendly by any way shape or form. I will keep my eye out for this kitten, and I told her if I do see her and I can get close to her I will let her know.

Speaking of dogs, Kota continues to have his challenges.I would say in the last two weeks I’ve maybe gotten two hours of sleep at night. I always know when he’s going to have a bad night because he won’t come in and sleep on the bed with me. In the morning, when I go to check on him, he is always on his couch, but his sides are just saturated because he’s been licking himself all night. I keep looking for patterns as to what might prop this type of action on his part. I don’t see anything that makes any sense showing up. I’m getting to the point where I really feel like his days are numbered and he just now turned five years old. I can’t shake the feeling . But I’ve had a lot of German Shepherd’s in my life and I’ve never had one displaying so many different types of health issues at once. It’s quite maddening and frustrating and I know that he is also in pain. He is taking the medication on a daily basis. He is still eating and he’s staying steady at 95 pounds. Thankfully, he’s not as lethargic has he’s been in the past, and I finally found a dog ball that actually was made in the United States so when he sees this ball outside, he wants to play. My signal to know that his quality of life is really suffering will be the day that he ignores this ball and stops eating.

My well pump has been fixed  It’s so nice to have water back inside the house and have pressure along with it. The pump is so nice I can barely hear it. Unlike the last pump which was quite noisy, because as it turned out, it was on its way out.

Today we are supposed to have pretty nice weather  I need to go outside and finish cleaning up the last debris from the storm. We are supposed to get another storm on Wednesday. We did get snow on the weekend but about an inch and a half stuck, everything else melted. I know winter is not done with  us yet  l

Hope all of you are safe, happy and healthy.

Last week I noticed Magoo was frantically pawing at his left eye. He has integrated quite well with the rest of the cats out in the main enclosure. I see him and Ashley both daily anytime I visit out there. They no longer hide or become completely invisible. There have been no conflicts between the cats inside the enclosure. The only conflict seems to be from Twist, who is outside the enclosure. She frequently will visit and challenge the cats inside. I have even observed her, sticking her paw into the wire and batting at the kitties. I also noticed when she does that her claws are out.

I easily captured Magoo and noticed that he looked like what was the beginning of conjunctivitis. The outer rim of his eye was red, and I could see fluid clear leaking from his eye. I took him inside to the bathroom to get a better look at him. That’s when I noticed that his third eyelid looked quite abnormal.

The entire third eyelid was swollen, red and irritated  this was on Saturday, so I called the vet. I couldn’t get in until early Monday. In the meantime, I used some Terrimycin ointment to help him out

The vet numbed the eye, you stained it and looked at it through magnification looking for scratches on the cornea, a hole in the eye, or anything that would explain why the third eye was so inflamed. Not seeing anything, jumping out at him, he did a complete saline flush on both the eyes and sent me home with different medicine. Instead of ointment, these are drops that contain steroids. I was cautioned to not use them with any other cat unless directed by a veterinarian because if a kitty has a scratch or a hole in the eye or near the eye, the steroids will damage the eye further.

I was going to put Magoo back into the introduction cage for the duration of the run of the medicine 6 to 10 days. However, I haven’t done that and I haven’t been sorry. He isn’t hiding when I come into the enclosure, he comes straight up to me. He allows me to pick him up sit down in the chair and put the drops in. When I think of how he acted inside the house when it came to medicine. The difference between those two cats is night and day. I thought I was doing the right thing and keeping both him and Ashley inside and this just proves that when it comes to rescuing stray cats. Sometimes they don’t read the rulebook. Sometimes they make their own rules.

I also was recently alerted that I have been placed in the number two spot on Feedspot’s Top 25 Cat Behavior Blogs  i’m grateful that there are people still out there who are reading this, even though I’m not writing in it on a regular basis.

l have been a bit absorbed in other issues here at the house, including Kota, who now has other health challenges ahead of him  Currently, he is doing better, then he was a few weeks ago. But I know that could change at any time. It’s been determined that he has an abnormally large spleen, (which as I found out) is fairly normal in two breeds: Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds. What is it common is the mass they see at the tip of it. He also has started eating better, and he is gaining weight again instead of losing so much  he has gone from 85 pounds to 93 pounds in the last month.

Slip, is still giving me the slip every time I try to approach him. I was hoping this heavy rain that we’ve had recently, which has caused by creek to even overflow a bit would bring him closer inside to the other kitties. But he still beats a hasty retreat back to the creek, every time I try to approach him. He is a male, thankfully, the other day, when he was running from my presence, this time is tail was up, and I was able to see he has been neutered! That’s why there’s been no fighting between him and the other cats.

they are supposed to finish my well today, and I will finally have water leak pressure inside the house when they’re done. Then I won’t have to listen to Harry Potter’s snake that is living in my drains recently.That’s the only way I can describe the noise that happens when I flush the toilet or take a shower. The guys tell me that it’s because of air and the fact that the water is coming from such a large distance inside of a hose instead of inside the pipe. They promised me that by 10 o’clock this morning I will be up and running on both wells!

All of us here, both two-footed and four-footed, we hope everyone is now safely home. Not stuck inside some airport, waiting to return home while searching for your misplaced luggage. Or dealing with severe weather conditions.

We are currently doing well as far as the cats go here. We had a bit of a hiccup over the holidays when my pump in the well house decided to melt! I had no idea that was even possible but apparently it is. My neighbor was kind enough to allow me to draw water from her hose, so all kitties were able to get plenty of water. The pump apparently is so old. It is now obsolete. A new pump will be delivered on the 12th. Since I have two wells, two of the workers from the recent build, were kind enough to come over and do their magic. They connected my irrigation well to my house well and I have both hot and cold water now. We were without water for four days because of the holidays. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. They did this all for me free gratis for which I am over the moon thankful.

I am also extremely grateful for those of you who opened up your hearts and donated last year to what we do here. I can honestly say if it weren’t for you, I don’t think we would still be afloat. But we are still in the fight, and I am still trying my best to trap or bond with Slip my newest black cat arrival. (He doesn’t get that name for nothing! LOL) however, I am nothing if not persistent.

For those of you who donated, I will get your receipts to you as soon as I can. I am hoping next week I can actually have enough time to sit down and write out the emails and send the receipts. If you need it sooner than that please let me know, and I will do my best.

Right now we have been slammed with several of the storms which are hitting the West Coast. Thankfully, we do not get the front of the storm, but we do get the residual. I did learn last week on the news they announced that we are no longer considered a drought state. But we still do need to maintain steady but not over bearing rainfall until winters end. The weather has been so unpredictable. Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s all really in God’s hands.

I noticed this morning, when I was feeding. There is quite a bite to the wind. I’m hoping that doesn’t mean that we will be getting freezing temperatures. Speaking of freezing temperatures, I’ve reached out to several weather organizations in the Pacific Northwest about my bubble dance that I experienced a few weeks ago. I finally got an answer most of the weathermen were puzzled. None of them had ever heard of anything like that. So I went larger and contacted the Pacific Northwest National Weather ServiceThey told me that what I experienced is extremely rare. But it is fog bubbles from fog that due to atmospheric issues fails to form. They appeared to be quite excited that I had this experience. So at least now I know I don’t have fog on the brain, that I wasn’t hallucinating from lack of sleep. There actually is a rare phenomenon when fog is beginning to form and for whatever reasons in the atmosphere cannot do so.

I wish all of you a safe and sane start of the new year. I hope all of you are well, happy. Please  make sure that in your day you spread at least one or two acts of kindness around you. That could make a real difference in someone’s life. I know recently it has in mine

Here is the Calico that has been lurking by the creek. I finally was able to grab her up and get her out of the freezing cold. Turns out she has been chipped! Ironically, the chip comes back to me. I had her as a kitten and adopted her out to an elderly woman. The woman did not follow up with getting information transferred back to her so there is no way to contact her. It has been quite awhile, but I think I remember where she lives. I am going out this morning to see if my memory serves me correctly.

She is scared and a bit skittish with me, so hopefully, her owner is still available to take her back. If I am correct, her home is 6 miles away from here. Did she come back on her own? I don’t know, but stranger things have happened. I am just glad she is inside and warm and safe. Currently, we are sitting at 21 degrees F. We are also now sitting at 12 rescues here. One more stray Slip is still lurking in the shadows, however, this morning when I went to feed, he had straw all over his backside. This tells me he has integrated into the group and sleeping in a straw bed- instead of in the woods behind our property.

***Update:  I just got back from Priscilla’s house. There was no one home when I knocked. A neighbor came out and told me that Priscilla had passed away two weeks ago. She said when the ambulance came out, the cat ran off and she’s been looking for Bella ever since. I looked over on her front porch and saw a cat bed, and several bowls of food. I introduced myself..I told her that Bella had shown up on my property recently and that I had finally gotten a hold of her. She seemed really excited and relieved and asked if she could adopt Bella! She said that all of Priscilla’s family was gone, so if the cat did come back, they would likely take her to the pound.

So I ran home and got Smuckers/Bella and turned her over to her new home. Here’s the strange part, (not like the other part wasn’t strange) but when I got home, it was still really cold. It was 22° as I walked through the back gate into my backyard, out of the sky came all of these minuscule bubbles? I’ve never seen anything like it. I would’ve not even noticed them because they were so small, except I walked right through them. The way the sun was reflecting at the moment between the trees, I could see these clearer tiny circles coming down out of the sky. At first I thought maybe they were insect eggs or bugs? But closer examination of them, they were crystal clear and they looked like soap bubbles, only they were tiny? They didn’t last very long, just a few moments. But as I just stood there, with my hand out and watched these bubbles fall all around me, I have to say it was pretty magical. Perhaps some sort of crystallization in the clouds above, transforming into a bubble dance of some sort? Or maybe, Priscilla was sending me a message and thanking me for still caring about Smuckers? Don’t call the loony bin on me. I’m really not crazy. But it was truly a moment. I won’t soon forget.

We are in the process of signing on with chewy with their giving back program by becoming a member of their non-profit program. In the meantime, our Christmas wish for our cats. Here is simple. We just need food. Dry food, wet food, doesn’t matter at this point we just need food. We have another new stray here that showed up. She looks quite young and she looks quite skinny. She is a beautiful calico, but right now her coat is dirty and unkempt. I am calling her Brooke because she was back by the creek. That seems to be a entry point into our property for a lot of our rescues. So again, we just need food. Purina Friskies fancy feast. Nothing is off the table right now because the table’s about to be bare here in just a few days.

2022 will soon be wrapping up. As I look back on this past year, I reflect on the losses of some incredibly wonderful felines: Dash, M.K. Molly, and Gadget. Thankfully, Old Girl did not join the Bridge Club this year. Not only is she walking stronger each day, but she no longer flees in terror every time I come into her sight. In the mornings, when I enter the shop to feed, she actually shadows me, staying near my rear legs. Quite a contrast from her past behavior.

But that is feral cats and that is how they roll. They hide their pain so effectively, and when it finally overwhelms them, their feral instincts kick into high gear. Anything bigger than they are become instant predators. Since they know they are low on the food chain, they do all they can to stay off the menu.

For so many years, she kept hidden under the house with her own clowder. Now with Gadget gone, she is the last of the “Under the House Gang.” Thankfully, when they sealed off the house, she did manage to merge successfully with the shop kitties. It took time, but it did happen.

With our temperatures slated to start plunging into the frozen zone soon (I have already dealt with a busted pipe in the pasture) I have stuffed as much straw as possible in the back rooms of the shop. The kitties, should they desire to, could build some impressive tunnels now to keep warm. The new black kitty, who I am temporarily naming Slip is still quite elusive. He slips quickly under the fence when I go out to feed and takes off to the creek on a run. I can’t even guesstimate how old he/she is at this point. I suspect once the snow and winds kick up, he will find his way into the shop joining the others.

Because of the burst pipe, I shut off the pump at the well house. Now all the water for the cats is being carted from the house. I am grateful we have two wells here. Speaking of water, the house well has been tested and nothing alarming has been discovered. It is hard water, which I already knew, and there is some acidity to it, but it is within normal ranges. The testing was tricky when you are looking for health issues. They have a huge list and each portion of the items are grouped according to the health issue they are testing for.  Each group carries its own individual pricing.  I had to be very selective in what they tested for as it could have been spendy to test for everything. This year, we only made a fraction of what we usually bring in for CATS. Testing for everything going on with Kota wasn’t possible.

I received quite the blessing this Thanksgiving. I discovered quite by accident, a cassette tape Mike made for me many years ago. By the time we got married, we had quite a collection of letters, photos, cassette tapes and phone bills (remember those?) He made the tape after I flew to Alaska from California to meet him for the first time. We had a wonderful 8 days together, camping, fishing and discovering ourselves along the way.

I listened to the tape twice. I thought I had gathered all the letters and tapes about two years after he passed and burned them on the pile giving them all back to him on his birthday that year. I missed one. God meant for me to miss one. This was the one to miss and one I will not burn. I had an Epiphany after listening to his message to me. I am weary of being sad. He would not wish for me to be sad. It’s time now to move forward—

So here’s to a Better Year in 2023 for ALL, on all Fronts.

May Peace and Love follow you through the upcoming Holidays-