Pets

Katrina enjoys cruising around the backyard in her walker!

On Christmas Eve morning, Josh, his mom and his sister Jodi went for a walk.  They happened upon 2 baby kitties on a burlap sack and took them home to see if they could help them.  Jodi fed them with a syringe (similar in method to a dropper) until she left about a week later, then Josh and Spencer took over.  For a while there it looked like they were going to make it.  They were getting perkier, and every time I turned around they were in my kitchen.  They were scampering around the backyard, chasing each other and anything that moved. 

Cocoa in her last days, didn't really fight the daily baths she got.

 Then one day Josh noticed a big stray cat leaving our backyard.  A little later when I went out I came across one of the kittens in a corner, whimpering.  When she tried to walk it was obvious her front leg was broken and she was in a lot of pain.  Long story short, by the end of the day Josh had to put her down.  Shortly after that Cocoa started going downhill.  She wouldn't come out of her bed, didn't want to eat, her fur looked all scraggly etc.  She got worse and worse in the weeks following (one person who'd had experience with it said that she had distemper) and eventually died.  

Josh doing a feeding 

(and a necessary bath - Cocoa wasn't "going" in the litter box).

For me, it seemed like they were too much work to be worth the time invested in the kittens, and originally I'd objected to them being brought home.  (I'm not really a pet person anyway, so that wasn't a high priority for me.) Josh thought it would be a good experience for the kids to be responsible for the kitties so they stayed.  I was sad that the kids didn't really have a chance to snuggle and cuddle them and play with them.  They were always too little or too sick.  When Cocoa was dying and we knew it was just a matter of time, we told the kids they could say goodbye to her.  It totally broke my heart to see my Mitchell sobbing as he sat and watched her struggle to breathe.  I think as a parent it's normal to want to shield our kids from as much pain as possible for as long as possible.  

What did our kids learn from this experience?  Maybe that life is short, that in the animal world survival of the fittest is the rule of the land, that there is pain in loss.  What I learned is that it's worth it to get my kids a pet - a healthy one this time - for them to enjoy, love on, and most of all, help to train and be responsible for.  Josh was right - and I won't let my lukewarm feeling towards owning a pet stop my kids from enjoying what I enjoyed throughout my childhood - the devotion of... a  DOG!!! Cats don't really go for the adoration thing, unless YOU're adoring THEM! :)

No pictures yet, but our colleague's dog had puppies around mid-February so we should be bringing "Pepper" home around the 18th of March or so.  We went as a family to pick this puppy from a litter of 7.  He's white with black spots and some brown on the head as well - the mama was red and named Ginger.