RIP Nickels

May 1, 2011 - February 2, 2016
Adopted July 30, 2011

Nickels was our sickly cat. He had a kennel cough when we adopted him that escalated into a full blown chronic rhino-virus type thing that he had for life. The vets diagnosed him with FIP (which we don't agree with as he only had two of the many different indicators) and asthma.

He never knew he was sick and supposed to be lethargic. He hunted laser dots, feet and ankles, and anything that moved.

He was always skinny, no matter how much we tried to stuff in him!

Last week, he started turning down chicken. Sunday night he started throwing up. By Monday it was projectile vomiting after drinking water until his belly swelled like crazy. Mind you, for the last 6 to 9 months, it has always been a little swollen.

He stopped eating and all he wanted to do was drink, which would make him throw up. I was able to get water to stay down by letting him have tiny sips every 15 to 20 min. He's tried but been unable to poop for a day. Made a vet appointment for 5pm.

The vet was very concerned about his belly and did an xray. We thought he had some kind of bowel blockage, turns out we were wrong. Instead, he had a liver tumor about the size of a baseball. What horrible pet parents we are. How do you miss that in a 5 lb cat? The tumor was squeezing his stomach and pushing his intestines ask the way back in his body cavity. They were both empty.

Please, if you see something different, don't share.

The vet didn't give him more than a day or two to live - his temperature had already dropped to around 98. Our options were to schedule an appointment for an ultrasound, where they could confirm, and we could decide if surgery was an option, or we could put him to sleep now.

We opted to put him to sleep tonight. If it was even possible to do surgery, his body condition wasn't the best to operate on, so Husband and I had decided beforehand that we were not going to put him through that.

Nickels had a wonderful last day - lots of sunbathing without his sisters bothering him, very little throwing up, and he found his purr motor (I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard this cat purr).

A last picture. Very comfortable and relaxed. 

Nickels outlived his life expectancy of about 2 years, so I don't see this as him dying young. He had a rough life health-wise, and we tried to make him as comfortable as possible. So long little buddy, I know you're finally comfortable and at peace. We love you.

Snow Storm Activities

I'm just going to bombard everyone with pictures from the last couple days.

I worked from home Friday. Migraine + Snow Storm = Work At Home. My coworkers for the day were great.

Nickels was extra active and perky.

Penny slept in a fish.

Sophie slept next to me on the couch.
She sleeps extra soundly and that means I can mess with her, hehe.

Then I went to the barn at the start of snow storm Jonas. When I left, I debated if that was a smart idea. My Mom went with me. 28 years old, and I'm still dragging my mom to the barn like a little kid.

About an hour into the snow fall, on my way to pick up Mom.

I had a good ride! It's the first time I'd ridden Penn in about two weeks since I've been sick and then it was just too cold to ride. His trot work was excellent, there wasn't too much to nit pick. His canter needs work though- it was particularly bad- not through, tense, not going to the outside rein, rushy. I'm going to have to work it quite a bit before the show next weekend. Hopefully it was just bad since he'd been off for 5 days! I'm sure the below didn't help:

I have no idea how he did this. He's sound and not swollen. It is quite tender though- he didn't like me wiping/dabbing it and then spraying it with Aluspray.

The only thing I can think of is that his blanket hind leg surcingles got tugged on or pulled by another horse and the metal buckle that determines the length of the strap dug into him. The fields are very clean and tidy, I can only assume it was his poor social skills at work.

I'm glad I bought a blue version for horse shows.

Mom and I headed home. The roads weren't too bad, but they weren't great. I dropped Mom off and got back to my house in one piece! Or the same number of pieces we started with, haha.

Waiting at a traffic light.

In front of my house.

I woke up to this face Saturday morning:

Penny Snugglepus!

Husband and I cleared the driveway, but first we took Sophie outside for her first snow walk!

Not a fan.

I say Husband and I... meaning I cleared enough to get my car out and went to the barn while he finished up with the plow!

Fiction and Penn digging for grass. Well they were when I got my phone out. Fiction was like, "Human! Food for me?"

I opted to take Penn for his first snow ride instead of doing real work inside. We still did work, but we did it in the outdoor with the snow. I kept it short because I still insisted he work over his back and I know slogging through the snow is hard work... which was the point- he has to lift his feet and he has to lift his back too- so absolutely no sitting the trot. I let the snow slow his tempo and I focused on keeping our balance because I didn't want him to accidentally biff it and then both of us eat snow. Walk-trot-canter each way. He found an awesome trot to the right- I saw his knees lifting out in front of his shoulders and he had a great feel. He had a hard time supporting the left lead canter and his balance in the snow- however that could have been because it was the last thing I tackled.

A great view!

Walking around the track we wore in the outdoor.

Trying to make him round up so I can get a nice pic of him working.

I ventured out to the grocery store after the barn (I know, you're supposed to go BEFORE the storm. I do things backwards). I decided to get some chocolate chips (in addition to other staples) because Husband really likes chocolate chip cookies, and since he finished my trailer, I figured I'd bake him some cookies.

She begged the whole time. Like a dog.

Husband and I are taking the trailer back to the barn Sunday. I've got a bunch of pictures, but I'm missing some shots of it in the dark. I'll have to get pics of it lite up like a Christmas tree next weekend when we park it in the dark after the next horse show! :-)

A Non-Riding Week (Picture Dump Again!)

So this week is a non-riding week for me- I don't have vacation to use to this week to ride. So here's what I've been up to instead.

I went to get the mail and several packages (Amazon, SmartPak, MeowBox) Wednesday from the front porch and the tree lights were on and the cats were watching me through our big picture window.

I had to wave my hands around to make them look in the same direction,

I read an article a while ago about how if house cats were lion sized they'd probably eat us.

The face of destruction.

Let's zoom in on that face.

Yupp. If that face was lion sized, she'd eat me.

Anywho, the exciting bit is that my truck parts got here and so did Penn's Hanukkah/Christmas present- Smart Pak's Ultimate Turnout Lightweight Hood! Penn now has the complete line because Jan = Blanket Hoarder. But first:

Husband does the work. I am the tool gopher.
The truck is about 2" too tall to make it through the garage opening, but putting just the bed in is effective too.
Husband added a ton of lights to the garage so it's actually brighter down there than any other room in the house.

First was replacing the exhaust hanger while the spare tire was out of the way. Note the large break in the original one.

New solid rubber exhaust hanger!

Look! It's the gooseneck trailer ball that came with the truck! Except the mechanism that releases it so you can pull it up through the bed and turn it around is broken. It's stuck in this non-useful position until we get around to fixing it.

New spare tire hoist and hanger.

All done! I learned a ton about how to fix the two issues Husband fixed Wednesday night, and I think I could do it myself next time. Let's hope there isn't a next time though!

Wednesday night, Husband also helped me with another project made from leftover Aluminum blanks.

Blanket tags!!!!!

I saw a set advertised on Facebook a month or so ago that were round dog tags with the horse's name in the middle and the blanket weight wrapped around the bottom curve of the tag. I could NOT for the life of me find them again on ether Facebook or Etsy (I found others though that I didn't like as much).

There is another horse in the barn who has the same set of blankets as Penn, and all the blankets get hung in a communal blanket hanging area. Awkward! The other horse's owner wrote her horse's name in her blankets, but I'm afraid to do that and somehow void the 10 year warranty. Another thing, it's hard to tell which weight blanket Penn is wearing at a glance. They're all EXACTLY THE SAME. Come on Smartpak, why no color choices?!

Enter these blanket tags! Husband had the aluminum blanks for some past project, and he offered them to me since he didn't need them. He punched a hole in each one, and then used letter stamps that he got from his Pap (who was a tinsmith) to stamp Penn's name and the blanket weight. We got some key rings and voila! Cheap blanket tags instead of the $5 per tag plus shipping that I was finding online!

I'll put the turnout tags on the metal chest clips, and the hood rings on the whither clip (that's the only metal on the hood!).

I felt the need to label turnouts and hoods. I don't know why, haha.

We had some fun first with the different sized letters. Cam + Penn = Campin'

Matt's sister sent us a Meow Box for the cats for the holidays. They loved it.

It was addressed to Nickels, but the girls quickly took over.

Everyone found things they liked. Penny got the box, Sophie the paper, Nickels the Smelt toy and the cat treats.

Love this shot. Penny had one of the "Pet Candy" toys and Sophie wanted to see it.
The girls play rough in our house. Plus they were high as fuck on all that catnip.

This weekend, I'm hauling to our winter barn for a lesson with Trainer, then I'll ride Sunday and go back to the winter barn for their Christmas party. Next week I have a half day on Wednesday to ride, an early out Christmas Eve, then Christmas to ride, and all Christmas weekend. Then it's only 4 short days until Penn moves to his winter barn for 3 months and I can ride during the week again!

National Cat Day

Nickels, Penny, and Sophie get their own post today. So here's a bunch of pictures of the creatures that converted me into a crazy cat lady cat lover.

First up, Husband's picture of Sophie carpet faced. Fresh from last night.

And now just an obscene number of pictures of my favorite at home furry friends.