I am a cat person, not a dog person...

...although you'd hardly be able to tell that these days. Not that we still don't have a million and one cats (er, 46 between me and my mom and three different properties...) but I seem to be acquiring dogs rather a lot recently. Mom and I took a stray shihtzu/lhasa mix away from a yardsale last weekend, as the person having the yardsale kept kicking at him and saying, "get out of here, you damn stray!" and he was just too cute to allow that to continue. Luckily, we were able to find a home for him, and took him there this evening.

Of course, at my house, in addition to Duke and Koala (and the multitude of kitties), I now have two chihuahuas! Can you believe that? I've never really been a fan of small dogs, but I love these two.

Twitter is six months old. I found her in mid-October, huddling against the door of a closed business on State St. here in Waycross. She was riddled with fleas, scrawny, terrified, and obviously had mange. Luckily it turned out to be demodetic mange, which is not contagious to people or to other animals, and she is being treated for it. Her skin now looks much better, and her hair is starting to grow back. She's also no longer scrawny and much braver.

The Old Man showed up in my neighborhood last week, skinny, freezing cold, and riddled with fleas. He is obviously quite old. He has old dog teeth, grey hair, and arthritis. He also looks rather pathetic. He's very calm and sweet, and mostly just wants to sleep in front of the heater.

The Old Man, wrapped up in blankets.

Twitter and The Old Man

Another update on Big Guy

Big Guy is doing well, although he is not yet completely healed. After having the drains in his one wound for a week, he had them removed, and the wound was re-sutured. He got all of his stitches out a week later. That night (this past Monday), the wound where the drains had been popped back open. I took him back to the vet Tuesday morning, and they decided that at this point the best thing to do would be to let it heal on its own. (Apparently, too much flesh and skin were lost during the removal of the necrotic and otherwise damaged tissue for it the wound to successfully close.) Anyway, I now clean it and coat it with medication twice a day. It doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. Additionally, he no longer shows any traces of having been feral. He wants to do nothing more than play with and be petted by me :-)