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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Cats and Cows.



Knowing adventures are hard to come by while lounging in my La-Z-Boy chair, I set off to look for one.  Stuffing my pockets with survival gear such as mints, mobile phone, and my unloaded  .38 (I don't know why) I set off up the north face of the bluff behind our house.  I sang the 'going walkies song' I made up to get the dogs excited.  Teddy herded me by barking at my feet.  Biskit jumped and barked all over Blondie and Blondie pretended to bite Biskit.  It was an awful racket.  Firmly gripping my hiking poles, I started off.

I didn't even make it out of base camp when I realized it was impossible for me to walk up hill.  My muscles were burning, cramping and locking up.  Even my hands and forearms hurt from holding the poles.  To think I would walk/run up that bluff almost every day!  When I turned around the dogs were so busy herding me or jumping and barking they didn't even notice there was to be no bluff adventure.

Later that day William was kind enough to help me take Maxwell, our cat, to the vets.  Five years ago he had a nasty tumor removed and now he has another tumor.  Max was in fine form as he sang all the way to vets.  Biskit went back to his cage and told him to shut up a few times.  Max is 17 years old now and enjoys a good cat life.  He lay on his back like a good boy and let the vet look at the big growth on his chest.  The vet said this one didn't look malignant, but we decided to have him operated on because the thing was open and ugly looking.  He stayed overnight and boy was he glad to see us the next day.  He sang all the way home.

While I was talking to our vet I told him about something that was worrying me.  I said to him, "Do you remember that old cow you came out to put to sleep?  She had a prolapsed uterus and her hip was displaced.....well her calf is 23 years old now and not doing too good".   He actually chuckled a bit then got professional.  Afterwards thinking about it - 23 - not doing too good, lol.

I told him she has stopped chewing her cud and has lost a lot of weight.  He explained that her front teeth have been gone for years and now she has lost her back teeth that she chews her cud with.  Then he worried me by saying if she has one tooth in there, with nothing to grind and wear it down on, it might keep growing until she won't be able close her mouth!   I questioned him about floating her tooth, if that happens, and it seems there are issues with floating a cows tooth.  Let's hope all her teeth are gone.

I put DandLyons on long grass and she couldn't handle it and went to the shorter stuff.
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The dogs were on stand-by in-case Dandylyons needed to be sorted out.
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Here's Max after his operation.  A few days later he went outside and murdered and ate a large gopher.  Just as the gophers thought it was safe...
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Max is a Manx.
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Biskit is jealous of all other pets and likes to be in the spotlight.
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When DandyLyons was a youngster, we would walk for miles.  For old times sake I took her for a walk.  We both walked very slowly.  She had some long grass in her mouth she didn't know what to do with.
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The horses were going crazy calling her.
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She uses her tongue to pull the grass up.
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I have been picking alfalfa by hand and cutting it small with scissors ...it takes hours.  William is feeding her lots of rolled corn and I'm happy to report she's putting on weight.  Picking huge buckets of alfalfa is killing me and we have to find a better way of chopping it.

2 comments:

Andrea -Mustang Saga said...

Glad to see you've been able to get out in the nice weather! I hope Dandylyons continues to thrive. Now I'm intrigued about why a cow can't have her teeth floated.

Katkrazy23 said...

Since I started reading your blog I have come to love Dandylyons. I really enjoy seeing photos of her. (All the furry ones really)