Friday Furries - The dogs and cats of home

my cat, Mab     

Let's talk about ...
cats, dogs, horses, bunnies,
hamsters...
or  anything with fur!
(or feathers, not sure about scales though)

Let me introduce you to my lot who live indoors with us here in Devon...

(us being me, my husband Ron, my daughter Kathy and my son-in-law, Adam.) (Indoors meaning the household pets - the outdoor animals, horses, hens, geese etc will have their own slot later in the summer!) 

This is Baz. He came to us in March 2013. He's a 'rescue' dog from Ilfracombe Dog Trust. We'd just lost our old boy, Rum, so Kathy and Adam went to the Trust to find another dog to fill the gaping hole. (You can't live on a thirteen-acre farm without a dog). 

The viewing kennels are set out a bit like a shopping mal - a central, wide isle with glass 'shops' (or in this case glass panelled 'compounds' one for each dog.) Kathy and Adam walked in and slowly went down one side of the aisle, inspecting each inhabitant. At the end they came back down the other side. Back at the  door they realised that the black collie/lab cross had not taken his eyes off them, even shuffling around too keep them in sight as they walked up and down.

Baz had very firmly chosen us.

His history is - we don't know. He was found wandering in Ilfracombe. Obviously dumped. The centre reckoned he was about two years old, he'd been wandering for two to three weeks. 

Baz is a very loving, homely 'people' dog. Those weeks of lonely fear must have been hell for him.

He still gets anxious when anything changes (even moving furniture around) and he's always sick and upset in the car. Fortunately, he doesn't need to go in it that often as we have plenty of walks here. 

Meet Eddie, another 'rescue' from the Dog's Trust at Ilfracombe. We had him from a young pup of only a few months old. He'd already had three homes! Someone had bought him as a young puppy off the Internet. After a couple of weeks they realised that a collie was not suitable for an indoor life in a flat, so they gave him to a friend. We don't know what happened but after a short while they also realised that he was not suitable as a house dog and gave him to their parents ... who did the sensible thing and took him to the Trust.

We were looking for  another dog - we'd had a nice little Staffie from the Trust for two weeks, but she was obsessed with chasing the small animals - when she almost caught one of the cats one day, we realised that she was not for us, so took her back. On the day we did so, we got there and the Trust said 'Oh that was superbly timed - do you want a collie pup...?"

Eddie became ours.

e has the collie obsession with rounding anything up - including running water. He is always on the go... Eddie confined to live in a flat? The thought is cruel and unbearable.

Elfie isn't a rescue - to be honest, we need rescuing from her! We got her as a pup in December 2019 - which is why she is called 'Elfie'. She's a PatterJack - part Patterdale, part Jack Russel. And as far as she is concerned she's as big as a Great Dane and in charge of everything and everyone!

The Cats

That's my Mab right at the top of this page, and here she is as a kitten in December 2010. She's not a rescue as such, but the people who got her discovered they were allergic to cats, so we had her instead.

Mab is the 'Upstairs Cat'. She lives upstairs, going out only a night - through my open bedroom window (I can, therefore, rarely close it) and jumping down onto the porch roof, or she jumps onto the roof via the adapted bathroom window. Adapted: we fitted some Perspex on the inside with a cat-flap sized hole, through which she can come and go. I put a carboard box (with cat-flap sized openings) on the window sill inside the bathroom in order to stop some of the gale fore winds blasting in.

Fortunately we use the downstairs shower room,  not the bath...

Mab likes to hunt and bring back her trophies. Which she eats beside my bed during the early hours... crunch, crunch. She doesn't eat tee rats though. I have to dispose of those myself... (They get chucked out the bedroom window)

This is Sybil. She came to us in the summer of 2010. She had been left on a doorstep, shut in a suitcase with several other kittens. When the case was opened the others ran off (I doubt they survived) but Sybil was caught. The finders couldn't keep her, so we had her.

Sybil is the Downstairs Cat. She lives in my study and goes out during the day - in at night, sleeping in a basket on the windowsill directly above the radiator. 

She and Mab hate each other.

And this is our old boy, Rum. He moved with us from London in January 2013, but we lost him to old age in the February.

He too was a rescue. For the first four years of his life he was deliberately beaten and kicked. He had never been out of the house because his paws were still soft. When he came to us he discovered what cuddles - and love - was, and the delights of chasing rabbits in a corn field. 

He went everywhere with us and slept on the comfiest doggie bed next to my bed. One of the best dogs ever. 

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