Just in time for Halloween, he has found a place of safety and sanity away from hands that may do him harm being that he is a black cat. Twist was in an awful state this morning. At first I attributed it to the fact that I had overslept for the first time in many weeks. I was behind a couple of hours. (Kota and I had a pretty rough night together.) When I got closer to the feeding platform and saw the feline welcoming committee,I did a double-take. Instead of three black cats to greet me there were four!

For the first time since his arrival, I was able to see Goblin clearly. Similar to Crazy Eyes, Goblin is cross-eyed. Unlike  Crazy Eyes, whose pupils do this frenetic constant dance ( hence his name). Goblin’s gaze is steady, one can clearly see that he is cross-eyed.

He met my gaze, so I slowly blinked my eyes, lowered my head to reduce the threat and continued my walking. Before today I have only seen glimpses of him seconds in the night. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was still stationary and hadn’t fled yet. As  I walked, my mind was processing all I had seen. Goblin is short-haired  he is pitch black, he is extremely skinny, his ribs are pronounced. I knew he would flee the moment I returned to look at him  But I took the chance that he wouldn’t. It failed. As he turned to run away from me, I could clearly see the unmistakable signs that he had tapeworms. It was time to return to the house and form a plan of action.

The next time I returned, I was bearing individual plates of food instead of trays. Each dish contained wet food, diatomaceous earth, L-Lysine and ground up pumpkin seeds. The diatomaceous earth was for the fleas, the L-Lysine for general health and the ground pumpkin seeds for the tapes  At the last moment before I left the kitchen, I had broke open a few pouches of donated fancy feast tuna and broth and dribbled all of the juices over all of the offerings as a final temptation.

Using ground pumpkin seeds to kill both the adult and the eggs of the tapeworm has its drawbacks. First it doesn’t magically kill them overnight as Drontal or Pro-fender would  Secondly, when you deal with outside cats who want nothing more than staying as far away from you as possible. You have no way of monitoring who is eating how much food. I have learned over time using this process and working with it, that if you start with a very small amount of canned food and add the seeds mixing well. You have a better chance of success that all the cats will eat only out of their individual saucers instead of getting more than the others.

I have also learned, the finer you can grind the seeds the better you are with the cats accepting them  The seeds don’t appear to have an odor, but the texture can be off-putting to some of these carnivores  Once the plates have been licked clean, more canned food comes out along with dry.

The pros are: It works! I will admit I was skeptical when I first learned of this process, but working through it and tweaking it has shown me that it can indeed work. It is so inexpensive compared to the chemical route, not to mention so much better for the cats overall. If one cat gets more than he’s given, it won’t hurt him  It’s a micro bacterial fiber but it doesn’t even produce diarrhea. The powder passes through his system easily. Yes, the preparation is a bit arduous for the human. But the human doesn’t have to donn on their Hazmet suit, set-up traps or try to barehand-catch and medicate their clowder  This method is a win-win for both sides. So much less invasive.

Goblin will be pampered with good food, clean water and a safe harbor to ride out his days  Looking at him I estimate he’s probably just over a year old? Hard to tell unless you can see the teeth, I’m not anxious for that experience, thank you very much. He’s right on time too- not only to escape what sometimes happens to black cats on Halloween, but he’s also landing on his choice of a variety of heated cat beds when the temperature outside is reading 34°F. Welcome to my world, Goblin  I am so pleased to meet you.

Mr. Goblin has finally decided to join the group.I have been seeing him more often in the last two weeks than ever before. This could be because the weather which they’re calling the “atmospheric bomb” has frightened him into deciding that joining the group and sleeping out of the elements is preferable to sleeping outside.

This morning I was able to get close enough to him to see that he has indeed been neutered. Doesn’t come as much as a surprise to me, because if he was a Tom, there would have been fights for dominance in the night. All has been peaceful. He is still a bit skittish around me, but his love for canned tuna dissolved his apprehension of me checking to see if he was a boy or a girl. Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to flea treat him and deworm him.The only kitty that is upset with him being here is Twist  They are both the same size and they are both black cats. But Twist is a female and she is very dominant.

The heavy rains are affecting my trees and not in a good way. They are so thirsty from not having moisture for so many years, the limbs have dried out and become brittle. With all the added rain that’s been falling in the last 48 hours, my limbs are falling down everywhere.

We are supposed to have continued rain for the next week or so. I think at the end of it, once I do clean up, my burn pile is going to turn into a bonfire. Although we are allowed to burn right now I feel very uneasy due to all the recent fires. I may just wait for the next burning season to open up before I attempt to burn again.

It’s quite interesting to me is that my  creek is still dry even with all this rain. I was looking at pictures the other day when we first moved here and the water was coming clear up to the bottom of the house. That hasn’t happened for about seven years now. I remember how confused my horses used to be, when the fish and salamanders would be swimming in their pasture. Racer would look at me and cock his head as if to say “But mom I don’t eat sushi!”

A few days ago we had an unexpected frost. I believe that Fall is going to be a short one this year and Winter is planning to hit hard. My outside cats are at a bit of a disadvantage. Before they did the build, I had electricity to several outbuildings which were turned into cat enclosures. That unfortunately is no longer true. So I have piled on the straw inside these buildings and made them as weatherproof as I possibly can while still leaving access to the cats to get out 24/7 if they need to. Misty, although she does still appear to look quite scraggly, she has more energy and is eating better.

This year my vet debt is such that I will not be able to pay it in full at the end of the year which makes me sad. This will be the first time in over 30 years that this will happen but times are hard and Covid has not helped things. I will just take it a day at a time

I am also going to be mixing dry food with canned food through the winter. Just to stretch the food out longer and hopefully get the cats through the coldest stretches without issues. Buying canned food locally is becoming a bit of a challenge. They tell me there’s an aluminum cans shortage which I’m not sure I buy, I think more it’s just a supply and demand problem. I know I have washed out and recycled over 1 million cans during my time in rescue.

I had to take Magoo into the vet last week. His eyes were looking really strange. It didn’t look like conjunctivitis, he didn’t have a cold, he just had these severely swollen eyes rimmed in red. His eyes were so swollen that they were slanted when you looked at him. The vet was really puzzled and tried him on several different eye ointments  which made him worse  Finally I decided to just stop putting the ointment in his eyes and instead put warm compresses on his eyes as tolerated. It must’ve felt pretty good for him because he would lean into it and sit there for at least 10 minutes or until the wash cloth got cold.

his eyes are doing much better and yesterday I believe I solved the mystery of what was wrong with him. He and Ashley have been sleeping together recently. Something that they haven’t done since being returned. As kittens they were virtually inseparable. Ashley has been licking his face in an obsessive manner. She did that when they were kittens and they were always together. But she was honing in on his ear. She would lick it until it bled. Now she’s doing the same thing to him with his face and his eyes

I believe he’s had enough because now he sleeps in the dog kennel and she sleeps on top. I try to split them apart every time I see them together. Yet they still don’t groom on their own  Ashley just sometimes gets this obsessive licking PTSD behavior. I’m just glad I figured it out because we didn’t know what was going on.

I am relieved to say that after more testing they have ruled out Cushing’s on Kota  There are now two lanes of thought for him  Because of his passion for water. (He is always jumping into rivers, lakes, streams you name it he’s in it if there’s water involved). They believe that he must’ve picked up some sort of foreign organism in the water  I was given a broad-spectrum pretty intensive de-wormer to give him for three days  they also gave him a shot to help alleviate the hair loss and the itching. Unlike prednisone this medication had no side effects. It was prohibitively expensive but it had no side effects.

The other theory behind his ill health is that because he is such a mixture of breeds and not just pure shepherd that he is inheriting something genetically from one of those breeds. He is Siberian husky, boxer, black lab, Dutch shepherd and German Shepherd according to the AKC in Portland when I sent his DNA in.

When I’m talking about the vet debt, I am not talking about his treatment. I’m talking about the cats. It’s been a hard year because of the burn kitties and all their issues, the loss of my seniors and other health care  What is going on with Kota is on me  The vets tell me that if this current treatment does not work they want me to take him to see a specialist. The only problem is she’s booked until mid January. So I’m hoping that what we are doing now. New medication’s, adding supplements, vitamins and another change in diet will turn the tide  I am so relieved and grateful that it is not Cushing’s as first feared

well the day is waking up. We are supposed to have two weeks of solid rain starting tomorrow. Boy do we need it. I need to go out and harvest the walnut tree before the rains hit. We have been without rain for so long that the walnuts are not good this year. Most of them have turned black and mushy because of the vinegar fly invasion. So I want to rake them up and put them in the burn pile before the squirrels come  they can get really sick on spoiled walnuts. For some reason they don’t have the instinct to not eat these mushy black walnuts. I have a friend coming in a few days and he’s going to take my walnut tree completely back. He’s going to take all the firewood and all the salvageable walnuts in payment for the job. I’m good with that because this tree is probably 100 feet across now and taking over my backyard.

Those of you who might still be reading this blog that I am not that consistent with these days. Thank you for still visiting. I worry about those I no longer hear from  I almost wish I could do a roll call to see who is out there. But I imagine most everybody is now on social media platforms and it is my personal preference to stay off of those. I have my reasons. At any rate stay safe, love each other and give your furry ones a hug. When you can spare a prayer, throw it my way  We can always use them.

This morning, when I woke up, I realized that the challenges that face me ahead are unlike any before, that I have encountered. It’s simply a challenge to go out in public these days, for it seems as if some of the public have lost their minds. Or, perhaps, I have lost mine? On this path since Mike left,  I have had to face I was never alone. The obstacles at times that seemed  unsurmountable, became bearable because of Kota. He was there by my side helping me cope with the crazies. Right now, looming before me is the very real possibility that my wonderful friend and companion does not have very long to live.

He started getting sick immediately after the first dog attack, about 9 months ago. He was losing his hair gradually, he was licking, itching and feeling quite miserable. Kota was panting, much like the engine in the beloved storybook I grew up with “The Engine that Could” did going up that steep mountain. He would climb on my bed at night and it would shake in rhythm with his rapid breath, as if we were caught in a minor earthquake, until I couldn’t deal with it anymore and would ask him to please get down.

He couldn’t get enough water. He has large milk pail size water buckets in the house. At that time, there were two. He would drink them dry several times a day. Today,  there are six total and he drinks them all dry regularly. He would pee like a racehorse and several times, he would have accidents in the house. Something he hadn’t done since his first night with us.

My vet swore it was a flea allergy. Kota does not have fleas. I don’t allow that. In rescue, I have seen the damage those tiny black parasites can do to animals and it is extensive. I spray my yard every year, I feed (food grade) Diatomaceous earth crystals to the outside kitties..

Kota started getting hives all over his body, his hair would fall out simply if I petted him. Not just individual hairs but clumps. After that initial attack, he has since been jumped (unprovoked) six times now! I knew something was wrong with him that was not an allergic reaction and all the prednisone he was on during that time was not helping. My vet was insistent, it was fleas.

Two weeks ago, Kota vomited up blood. A lot of it. He had a vet appointment a few weeks out, but when I called the clinic in the morning and told them this new development, they asked me to do a drop-off. They couldn’t do an actual appointment. I cancelled an appointment I had in town and immediately took him in.

I have seen him go from a bright, vibrant loving dog to a couch potato with no energy left in his body. From a dog that loved to walk with me in the forest for hours, exploring all scents he follows with his nose, to one who cannot walk 30 minutes without lying down and quitting. He is three years old! He has weakness periodically in his rear legs. He can’t at those times jump up on the bed or into the truck. I bought a ramp, but so far he won’t use it.

I started thinking about all the unprovoked attacks. Some so incredulous that they defy logic. The homeless man in Sweet Home with a black lab that tries to jump into the back window of my truck when I am driving, to attack Kota! Kota does not provoke these attacks. I know people who own aggressive dogs that say “their dog will never hurt anybody” right before that dog goes to attack another dog. I am not in denial, Kota is the most easy-going loving dog I have ever had or even met.

I thought about the attack from a “service dog” in Walmart that jumped out  of his “bed” at the bottom of the shopping cart and went right for Kota’s legs! It was a small terrier,. The pitbull in Bi Mart without a vest who wanted to kill Kota. He was, according to his owner, “an emotional support dog” but she “forgot” his vest at home.

That’s when I realized that the vets were wrong. Kota was not being attacked because he was “big and black” or because the dogs who attacked him were the equivalent of a “schoolyard bully and saw an easy target” but because he was sick and his smell was different, off-putting, challenging to the other dogs who all had one thing in common, an aggressive streak. So after all the training that I have put into this dog, I have retired him from service. He is just my dog now.

The vet kept him and observed him. He called me and told me that Kota looked really “rough.” (That was an understatement). He said that Kota was dribbling urine almost continously and they had discovered his urine was dilute and full of bacteria. He said the x-rays did not show any obstructions. I told him the vomit had also contained a lot of Kota’s hair and would hair show up in a film? The answer was no. His best guess at this time was a severe UTI. He wanted to run bloodwork. I gave my consent.

Kota’s kidney and liver rods are off the chart. He is on a pretty powerful antibiotic (I also started him on a probiotic). He is getting worse and not better. Cushing’s Disease was mentioned. Cushing’s is a disease of the adrenal glands. It can be caused by dog fights, over-use of pred, and various other factors. When the dog is stressed, it will rear it’s ugly head and the dog will pay in misery. The test to actually determine Cushing’s is prohibitively expensive and stressful. The dog has to stay at the vets for four days and endure repeated bloodwork and urine tests.Cushing’s  is not curable and the meds to manage it range in the thousands of dollars. (They are the equivalent to what cancer victims have to pay for for their meds.) The cheaper “off-label drugs” are not that much cheaper and again, there is no cure.  The only symptom of Cushing’s that Kota does not currently display is the pot-bellied appearance as the liver becomes so enlarged, the abdomen swells.

So I have started him on Melatonin to reduce the panting and anxiety. Some other holistic herbs and oils  are recommended to keep him steady. I am looking for a holistic vet, but unfortunately, Delta is rampant here and no one is taking new clients. We are in a wait and see moment. Are we going to see the excessive shedding stop? Will all the flaky skin he is losing stop happening? He could qualify easily for a Head & Shoulders commercial. Will his appetite come back? Will he stop panting like a steam engine? Will he just continue to be a couch potato disinterested in the activity and energy around him?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do pray to God a lot more now than I ever have. I pray for healing, I pray for knowledge that I do the right thing to alleviate all the stress in his life. It is unfortunate that the last attack on the 14th of Sept was perpetrated from a new neighbor’s dog. I cannot let my dog outside unsupervised. (Not that I ever did anyway). I am not the type of dog owner who just leaves a dog outside all day to run, or sticks them in a small kennel in the hot sun, or puts them on a chain run. This dog, when she sees Kota (no matter where he is  on our property, she goes into prey mode. She wiggles and tries to escape the collar that is attached to her run, or she charges her fencing in her small cement enclosure.

Yesterday, I made my neighbor aware of his dog’s actions. I told him (and I meant it) that if his dog gets out and goes over the fence to attack Kota, it will end badly for her. Not a good way to start a neighborship, but I am over hearing my dog scream in panic and pain. Kota has not ONCE in all these attacks bitten the attacker or anyone trying to get them apart.

So now, the challenges become deeper. Not only do I have to go out in public occasionally , but now I have to do it alone. My best friend, my companion the part of the glue that has kept me together since Mike left, is no longer at my side. He is either waiting in the truck, or he has been left at home alone waiting for my return.