By the time I went downstairs after I’d written and posted my last message, Whit had eaten all the food in his dish. But then the next morning when I went down to the basement to clean his litterbox, I discovered that he’d vomited what looked like all he’d eaten. Because the food he’d vomited was the first I’d offered him that contained actual chunks of fish or meat (which I thought was a step up), I then made an emergency run to the store to pick up some more of the less expensive, store brand pudding stuff. I
Read more →This has been a week of ups and downs. Until noon today, I could have reported that Whit was doing well, showing sufficient enthusiasm for life that I felt encouraged. But then today he showed no interest in his lunch. It’s a miserable hot and humid day here and, had he skipped a meal when he was younger–or if any of the dogs skipped one now–it wouldn’t bother me. But now he’s OLD, and that changes everything. Part of me wants to race down to the basement and dig out the empty cat food cans from the recycling bucket
Read more →Yesterday I picked up an assortment of canned cat foods for Whit when I went grocery shopping. He’s always eaten dried food and was such an excellent rodent-hunter that I tended to think of what I offered him more as supplemental feeding. Even so, I always provided him with what I considered the best, although I admit that I’ve made adjustments several times over the years when new data about feline physiology made it clear a particular era’s best wasn’t as great as we thought it was. But when I went shopping yesterday, the cardinal rule of nutrition was
Read more →This post inaugurates a new blog category, the Whittington Journal. Ironically, in March of this year, I wrote In Praise of Whittington, a commentary that described my feline companion of almost 14 years. At the time, I did this because he was doing very well for his age and I didn’t want to wait until he was gone to write about him. I say “ironically” because two weeks after that commentary was posted, I had to euthanize my old dog, Watson, a loss I’ve yet to put into words. Wats and Whit were so much like an old married
Read more →Below are links to the show I did with Drs Kim Bloomer and Jeannie Thomason on June 17th about human emotions as they affect animal health and behavior. But as always happens with these two great folks, the conversation strayed to other areas, too. For the written/streaming version, click here. For the mp3/download, click here.
Read more →It’s that time of year again in New England when the fireflies flash their distinctive calls as they court members of their own kind. On clear, moonless nights, they look like low-lying twinkling stars. On foggy ones, the tiny points of light become fuzzy golden globes zipping around the yard and garden. Although we humans with our complex relationships might find their simple on/off form of communication simplistic (or even enviable!), when it comes to courting, it’s not without its unique twists. Each firefly species has its own distinct flash pattern to avoid breakdowns in communication, but as we
Read more →One of the wonderful things about working with companion animals is that I get an intimate view of how behaviors change as the animals mature. The puppy and kitten toddlers we get at 8-12 weeks give way to adolescents, young then mature adults, and then senior citizens, with each life stage adding its own unique spin to the basic canine or feline behavioral repertoire. It’s unfortunate that as our society has become more remote from animals as animals, we no longer recognize these changes as normal. Quite the contrary, when these occur, and sometimes they may occur as suddenly
Read more →Do you ever get the feeling that your dog or cat is trying to drive you crazy? I’m not referring to the way you feel when your dog rolls in maggot-infested dead animal guts 5 minutes before your boss arrives, or when the cat pees on your $75 French bra just because it’s new. I’m referring to more subtle behavior of the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety that makes you think neurons are leaking out of your brain when you’re not looking. Such has been my experience for the past week or so. At first I attributed it to the fact that
Read more →Human and animal perception, particularly as it relates to the same event, always fascinates me and last night’s events gave me a good example of this. It’s been extremely hot and humid, the kind of heat and humidity that has me leaving key pieces of clothing at strategic locations so I can grab them and put them on as I race between the office and the front door if someone arrives unexpectedly. Because the nights are also exceptionally hot and humid, I dragged the large fan out of the closet, aimed it right at the bed, and turned it
Read more →The Baby in this post is my 2-year-old granddaughter, but for alliterative purposes, I co-opted the name her cousin Lauren calls her, Baby Geneva. BeeBee and I stayed with Geneva last weekend while my son and his wife took some much needed time off and I saw a side of Bee I’d never seen before. Even more interesting, I didn’t realize its full meaning until after we were home again. When we first arrived, Geneva was still at daycare so I wasn’t paying as much attention to what was going on as I should have been. Consequently, I didn’t
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