I suppose it could be worse.

I suppose.

Today Sam got hit by a car. He’s ok. He was lucky. It only tumbled him about 50 times. It didn’t smoosh him or squish him or pop any internal organs (that we know of) or any of that fatal crap. But it scared us. And we knew it would happen sometime because he can be unpredictable when you allow him to get off the leash. And the last three days, with all this rain, he’s been trapped inside with no walks. So he was all wound up and very excited to run around like a maniac. Which he did.

So he got tumbled by a car, and now we are on smooshed internal organ watch (no evidence yet) and we are giving him an anti-inflammatory for all his many bruises and we need to keep his road rash clean.

It’s clear the poor dog feels like shit. And my hope is that he does learn that being near cars can make one feel like shit, or worse. I hope he learns that.

Here are some long-awaited photos of the street cat I rescued a couple of weeks ago. When I found her lying in the street she was so dirty that she could not hope to clean herself and she was listless from undernourishment.

We cleaned her up and have gotten her spayed, and she’s had her first round of shots. She’s had several weeks of eating regularly and of getting lots of attention. And now she’s strong and healthy and thinks everything is a toy!

This cat is tall and “leggy” and has a loooong tail.

We’ve gotten to know this kitty pretty well and she is one of the most loving cats I’ve ever known. She LOVES to be kissed, in fact smooching her is about the best and most sure way to get her to start purring.

This cat stares right at you, and her eyes are so pretty that you want to fall into them.

We’ve also noticed that this cat is STRONG and she’s a great jumper. She slim and a little tall and doesn’t have an imposing presence. She doesn’t look especially strong, but looks can be deceiving.

Purring - You can see she’s missing part of her left ear.

This kitty has been around the block. She’s already had a litter of kitties and can’t be more than a year old yet. She’s missing part of an ear. And her tail has a small and endearing little kink in it from some unknown trauma.

I absolutely hate to part with this cat, but I must find a home for her. So if you know of anyone who wants a loving and wonderful cat please let me know.

On Monday I walked past a parked car with two pairs of dirty kitty cat paws sticking out from under it. There was a cat lying under the car, it seemed to be in one piece, but it didn’t react to me when I talked to it.

Most of the time when I talk to a street cat it will either bolt and run quickly away or start meowing at me, begging for food. But this cat did not react to me at all. And that worried me.

So, fool that I am, I decided I was going to catch the cat. First, I casually mentioned to my husband (over the phone) that there was “this cat you see”. And when he gave me that knowing here-we-go-again “uh-huh” (as opposed to the “no more cats in the house” lecture) it strengthened my resolve to see what was what with this animal.

I dumped my purse and cell phone in the car and went back to where the cat was lying. I reached down and grabbed her and she tried to run, but she was too slow and weak and I was able to grab her easily. She spent a moment trying to convince me that she had claws and was actually ferocious, but it was just a ploy. She was weak and not very committed to fighting me off.

Once I held her I could see that she was absolutely filthy. In fact she was the DIRTIEST street cat I’ve ever picked up, and that’s saying a lot! So I decided that a bath was in her direct future.

I manhandled her into my car where she immediately start running in circles around the entire interior. During the drive she jumped from my left shoulder to the dashboard, ran across the dashboard and then to the back seat and back to my left shoulder AT LEAST 8 TIMES. Clearly this was a cat that had never been in a car before.

The good news is that this cat is basically healthy. She’s been malnourished for a while, and part of one of her ears is no longer there, and her tail has been broken, and she’s already had a litter of kittens even though she’s barely a year old, but besides all of that, she’s fine!

But the best thing about this cat? Once we got her home and fed and cleaned and pampered she became the sweetest and most loving cat I’ve even seen. She’s more affectionate than any of my other 9 cats have ever been! Most of my cats have been super-affectionate as kittens but by the time they reach a year they become uppity, picky, self-centered and hard-to-please. But not this new kitty, she’s managed to grow up with her heart wide open! She’s going to make someone a very nice companion.

We’ve just gotten her spayed. So she needs a couple of weeks with us before we can put her up for adoption, but soon I will be actively looking for a home for this most affectionate of all kitties!

And then, when I find her a home, I will start missing her! What a total love!

This afternoon I could be heard saying to my daughter “If I find any more bubble gum on the dog you are in big trouble!!”.

The dog, it seems, adores bubble gum as much as my daughter does. And when she discards her gum in an easy-to-raid (meaning lower than dog height) garbage basket, the dog gets the gum back out of the basket and attempts to eat it.

Now Sam doesn’t find it all that easy to eat gum, you see, he ends up trapping it under a paw and then pulling at it with his teeth. The effect of this is that he ends up with strings of bubble gum all up and down his forelegs.

So now my daughter is under strict orders to discard her bubble gum only in the tall kitchen basket (which Sam has actually learned NOT to knock over), or in the basket under the sink (which is has a cabinet door in front of it).

We will see if I can train my daughter to dispose of her gum properly. And if not, then we will see if we can train the dog not to eat bubble gum. Yeah right.

Dear Sam, My Lovely Dog -
Thank you for coming into my life and teaching me that:

- Dogs don’t need to actually eat dog food, in fact dogs can subsist on nothing for days, or on cat food, or on Cheerios, or raisin bran, or chick peas, or tamales with hot chiles in them, or on licking the front (outside) door of the oven (the clean part), but truly, there’s no need for me to buy dog food because it won’t get touched. Ever.

- And that the cats need to be taunted until they scratch your nose, every time. There’s no actual need to leave them alone when they hiss at you just once. It’s better if you bark at them and lunge at them for 15 whole minutes in a row, while they are hissing at you, that way they get plenty of time to aim right at your nose so they don’t miss when they finally do scratch it. And just because there are 9 of them and just one of you, and just because they ALWAYS win, that’s still no reason to back down. None at all.

- And that dogs don’t need to be walked because why on earth would you want to pee anywhere but INSIDE your own yard? Even though the grass is getting all yellow where you always pee on it, and even though we would love it very much if you would just pee on the nasty neighbor’s car tires, you insist on peeing in your own grass, in your own spot, because that’s the way it’s done. I mean really.

- And that cars were made for dog naps, that every time I open my car door to get out you HAVE to get inside the car and lie down. I now know that if someone leaves their car window open you are likely to jump inside and stay there until they drive off with you in the car. At least then you might pee somewhere besides your one yellowed-grass spot, right?

- And Sam, thanks for teaching me that it’s possible to want to please someone so much that it hurts. You are often so deliriously happy to see us, when we return from our journeys, that you crash and trip and step on us and run into things and even almost knock us over, all because you love us. You must be full of bruises from all that love, you poor guy.

- And thanks for teaching me, and anyone in earshot, what a great toy a plastic bottle is. I never knew one could occupy your time for that many hours, and I never knew that a plastic bottle, when chased and chewed on and batted about could be THAT LOUD! I mean really. Really.

- And thanks for teaching us your best trick ever, that trick you use when you need to go outside (you KNOW you need to, your spot is calling) but instead you LIE down and show us your belly. This forces one of us to either pick you up, 34 pounds of dead weight, OR we have to try to scoot, roll or drag you out the door in your lying down position. Why can’t you just WANT to go outside, like a normal dog?

- And mostly, thanks for teaching me that there’s so much LOVE in the universe. I truly had no idea that it was just packed this full of love; just like that raisin bran you love to eat is packed full of added vitamins and minerals, right?

Love, Mom

Well, Sam the man, the damn perro loco, the lovely sweet crazy dog managed to rip a huge gash in his hip. We’ve hunted all over our property and can’t determine on-what he impaled himself in such a dramatic way. But I came back from my run one morning, a bit over a week ago, and found him with a deep 3-inch long wound.

I took him to Adriana-the-Wonder-Vet, and she knocked him out and put in 2 internal stitches and 4 external ones. Everything was fine for 4 days. Then, one-by-one, Sam ripped those stitches out. And there we were, back to open gross icky wound again.

And so back to Adriana he went. And this time she needed to cut away more skin, so it would properly knit itself together, meaning the wound got BIGGER (dumb dog). And then, insult of insults, Adriana issued strict orders that Sam must (drum roll please) wear an ELIZABETHAN COLLAR for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Gak!

So now the wild and crazy guy, Mr. Discombobulated, Sir Chaos Boy, Mr. Bucket-Head himself, the Royal Racing Reverse Conehead careens headlong around the house wearing his upside-down lampshade, crashing into EVERY SINGLE corner, wall, windowsill, chair, table and being that dares to remain in his willy nilly path.

It’s pure lunacy.

That is, when he’s not completely sad and depressed by his new found stature as a walking light fixture sans bulb, as in this photo:

Poor Sam The Bucket-Headed

Two weeks ago tonight we found an orange tabby kitten next to a busy street here in Cancun. At first we couldn’t catch it, it was yowling like no one’s business, and was clearly starving, but it would not come out of the thicket. So we went home and armed ourselves with a nice smelly can of tunafish. When we returned the kitten complied by creeping up to the tuna, warily. We had a few near misses and finally I caught the little guy by the head and picked him up. Fortunately his head was firmly attached.

We brought him home and cleaned him up and determined that he was simply dirty and very hungry. So we fed him and we fed him some more and then we started on the annoy the kitten with too much love campaign. Within 24 hours he was completely attached to humans to the point of falling asleep without notice anywhere on any human. And he understood what to do with his litterbox from the get go. So we set about finding a home for him.

It took a little waiting but yesterday he was welcomed into the home of a gringo doctor who just moved here. I miss him terribly, but he seemed comfortable and the doc is a “cat guy”, so is was all good.

Below is a picture of this little guy:

But wait, there’s more. One week ago,as I was leaving my daughter’s school, and as I was passing the exact spot where we found our dog Sam, I saw a kitten in the road. The car ahead of me swerved way around it, and in so doing forced on-coming traffic to stop. When I got there and saw the kitten I put on my flashers and got out of the car and picked up the little screaming wretch of a cat. The traffic going both ways was still stopped and I got some clapping and some shouts of approval from the waiting drivers when they witnessed my rescue in action.

And so I ended up with another kitten. This one is part Siamese. Also male. Same approximate age as the other guy (about 6 or 8 weeks). And this one is also a total love. This one eats a bit more like a pig than the other one. And this one seems to purr a bit more. This one had a LOT of fleas when I found him, and a tick and he was super stinky. So my first task, after feeding him, was to bathe him, poor guy, he hated that. But then he smelled like roses, or rather Pantene 2 in 1 shampoo from Costco, but hey what’s the difference?

Here’s a picture of this newest kitten:

I’ve been really enjoying the kitten energy in the house. Kittens are all about play and sudden intense naps (on your head) and discovering toys where they really aren’t (my computer mouse is a toy, as is the button that fell off my new jeans, as is the bottle of blue nail polish that lives on my desk, it goes on). And kittens are about love, unconditional love, and purring and demanding to be petted and DEMANDING to be fed. And they are certainly about pooping up a grand poop storm. I swear they poop more than the big cats, which makes sense because they eat WAY more than the adult cats do.

Here’s another picture of mega-pooper number 2:

And so here I am again with another kitten that needs a home. In a day or two I’ll send out some emails and nag all my friends to take him. But for right now I’m just enjoying the little guy and am calling him Fuzzbucket, for no reason at all except that it pops into my head when I see him.

Today Sam (our maniacal dog) ATE one of my brand new Teva flip flops! Freshly imported from the U.S., I had had them shipped to my mom who then lugged them down here when she visited a few weeks ago.

I’m pretty neurotic about shoes. I’m not into the fashion of them too much, but I want them to be good quality, I want them to be comfortable, and I don’t want to overpay. Every single pair of flip flops I’ve seen in Mexico is cheap and uncomfortable OR wildly overpriced while being of suspect quality.

Meanwhile my last pair of Teva flip flops lasted me more than 9 years, including 3 years of near-constant use. And I paid only $20 usd for them. When the strap finally wore through on them a month ago I actually broke down and cried!

Naturally I wanted to repeated this success story.

But these new flip flops seem to taste too good, they were doomed from the start, in fact I should have just fed them to the dog, on purpose, and saved myself all this grief.

Sam has been sneaking away with one or the other of these flip flops since I got them. But normally I am right on top of things and rescue my shoe before more than a few holes are punched into it by those razors he calls his teeth.

But not today, today I had my US phone line, my local phone line and my cell phone all ringing at once, all while I was chatting with one of my fast-typing friends in Messenger. It was pure chaos and every phone call was important.

I didn’t even notice the flip flop was missing until he’d been chomping away at it for more than 10 minutes.

Now my flip flop has a huge bite taken out of the heel. Now it looks like the only surviving wreckage after a vicious shark attack. That dog will be the death of me, and especially of my flip flops. I might add that I cannot FIND said bitten out part, I’m quite certain it’s inside Sam’s tummy right now! And I wish him much indigestion for his fine effort, the little wretch…

I wonder if Teva will give me a discount on a new pair if I complain they made them taste too good?

Please, Teva, please, make me a pair of flip flops that tastes like something my dog will hate, broccoli or lentils or oranges, or medicine, he hates all those things. Just don’t make them taste like cat shit, because he LOVES to eat cat shit!

Life in flip flop land is depressing with no flip flops, I’m telling you, I don’t know how I’m going to force myself out of bed in the morning.

Moopie in the Window

Sam Upside Down

People have been asking for a recent photo of Sam. So here it is. Mr. Heart of Gold. Certainly the sweetest creature to walk the earth, after my last dog, Jasmin, who was also the sweetest creature to walk the earth. Sammikins, Sam the Man, Sammy Double Whammy. Poor Sam, who needs a walk right now, but I sit here blogging about him…

Sam

Sam is learning not to climb on our bed, which is always home to several napping felines. He’s learning not to sleep on the couch, which doesn’t need anymore animal odors in it. He’s learning that my daughter is the softy in the house, that she will always give a treat, will always welcome him to sack out on her bed. He’s learning the rhythms in the house, he’s learning how to sneak cat food when no one’s looking and he’s learning not to fuck with the cats. And we are learning his signals. Since he barely barks it’s hard to know when he needs to go out. But we are all getting it.

We have a friend who is an animal trainer. And we are considering asking her to help train him, and to train us too. Since we have a bilingual household the dog gets yelled at in two languages. I’m actually thinking that training him with hand signals might be best. Then the words won’t matter so much, and the hand signal will reinforce the word. I will let you know how that goes. But for now he’s a happy dog and we feel honored to have him living with us.