In an earlier post, I told you about a Web site, freekibblekat, that offered opportunities for us to provide free kibble to shelter animals.

Here is another one: The Animal Rescue Site.

Their Mission Statement

The Animal Rescue Site focuses the power of the Internet on a specific need — providing food for some of the 27 million unwanted animals given to shelters in the U.S. every year. Over 10 million animals are put to death every year in the U.S. alone because they are abandoned and unwanted.

Each click on the purple "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button at The Animal Rescue Site provides food and care for a rescued animal living in a shelter or sanctuary. Funding for food and care is paid by site sponsors and distributed to animals in need at the Fund for Animals' renowned animal sanctuaries (including Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Texas and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in California), pet shelters supported by the Petfinder Foundation , North Shore Animal League , and other worthy animal care facilities supported by the GreaterGood.org foundation.

100% of sponsor advertising fees goes to our charitable partners.

How You Can Help In Mere Seconds — Every Day

The Animal Rescue Site provides a feel-good way to help promote awareness and prevent rescued animal deaths every day — through easy and quick online activities.

Please remember to click every day to give help and hope to those most in need. Every click counts in the life of a rescued animal.

You Can Help Even More

In addition to clicking the purple "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button, visitors can help more by shopping in The Animal Rescue Site store . With each item purchased, shoppers generate funds for the feeding and care of animals in shelters and sanctuaries. The store offers a wide array of items to show your support.

So here is another site that I hope you will bookmark and visit daily! Thanks! :)

[Personal Note: My condolences and prayers to the family of Kelly Jo Cain, who was found burned to death in a pickup truck in White County. Kelly was a former student, and I cannot imagine anything more horrible for her and her loved ones. Hold your loved ones close each and every day, for some day will be your last chance to say, *I love you.*]

A message worth passing along for the sake of *ALL* pets!

This isn't my kitty. Her name is Roadie, and she owns neighbor Elly. Roadie and Elly have been together 16 years since Elly found her as an injured kitten that someone had thrown beneath a bridge. Roadie had bounced off the concrete, but fortunately survived to have her happy ending. She had some damage to her back legs and still walks like a coon, but she's a happy, healthy coon. :)

Yesterday I rode shotgun when Roadie had her annual trip to her vet in Flora ~ a wonderful lady named Dr. Deb, who saved the life of my third kitty, Elly Fae, in 2004. The clinic was in a bit of chaos yesterday because of a power outage, but the vets and staff were soldiering on and Roadie got her check-up and allergy shot.

Yep, poor Roadie is allergic ~ to flea meds like Advantage ~ so each season when she gets dosed for fleas, she also has to be dosed for a reaction to the med. This kind of allergy, called a *contact allergy,* is not that uncommon in kitties. Last summer, my own ~ my oldest ~ Melanie had a *seriously* negative reaction to a new flea med called ProMeris. Trying to save money since I have so many kitties, this summer I tried flea collars, but they were so potent that *I* had an allergic reaction to them. Usually for contact allergies, you just have to remove the irritant. In Melanie's case, I had to give her a bath with Dawn dish detergent. Sometimes the irritant isn't chemical. It can be something like fabric used in bedding.

The fleas themselves can cause allergies of their own. Again, I have a personal example because my second oldest, Chelsie, has this problem. Good ol' flea spit caused severe itching to the point that Chelsie was scratching herself hard enough to leave scabs and biting and licking her fur enough to leave bald spots. Consequently, each flea season, April to December, I try to be vigilant to nip any flea problems in the bud. I have learned to stick with Advantage despite the cost. It gets the job done without being so toxic that my kitties can't handle it. Last year Chelsie had to have a series of allergy shots to get her straightened out.


Like their purrsons, kitties can also have food allergies. Melanie can't eat ocean whitefish at all. She likes it well enough, but within minutes she hacks it up onto the carpeting. Elly's Roamer responded the same way to salmon. I can't offer mine too much variety because Melanie responds with digestive problems if I deviate from what she's used to. On the other hand, some allergies do arise from foods that kitties have eaten for a while ~ a reaction to the protein component of the food. Sometimes a simple change in diet ~ to a hypoallergenic diet ~ will help. Sometimes allergic responses to food involve respiratory and/or itching problems, too, so your vet will have to become involved.

The fourth kind of kitty allergy is an inhalant type. The same things that can bother us can bother our kitties. However, where we may respond by sneezing, kitties may respond with serious itching. Treatments can involve everything from hypoallergenic shampoos to allergy shots to desensitizing treatments.

A helpful article from Pawprints and Purrs, Inc., will give you additional information on all these kinds of allergies. However, I wish an itchless future for you and your furry loved ones. :)

[A personal note: In the right column, you may notice some links to certain shopping-for-pets sites. I am affiliated with these sites and earn pennies if you browse or shop there. Please click my links if you need something? Thanks!]

*Scruffing* is the topic for today, as per the suggestion of my close personal friend, Emmie Jean. :)

One of my vets explained the process to me last week when he was clipping Deuce's toesies, but I also did some supplemental research online before mentioning scruffing here.

A scruff is the loose skin on the back of an animal's neck ~ any animal, though I will be focusing on kitties since I am the Crazy Cat Lady, after all. :)

Scruffing is *GENTLY* pinching or gathering this skin between your fingers and lifting. As Dr. Bailey explained it to me, it is used for calming or desensitizing your pet. However, my online reading also mentioned using it as a training technique and/or a method of establishing dominance.

You really don't want to use it as a means of exerting your dominance because all kinds of behavioral or emotional problems can arise. You don't want your kitty to be afraid of you or to become aggressive either to defend himself or exert HIS dominance, right?


As a training technique, scruffing should be saved for the especially bad no-no behaviors. Again, *GENTLY* scruff your kitty and press him to the floor ~ *NOT* roughly ~ as you either hiss like his mama or firmly say the word, *NO!* Hold the kitty against the floor until you feel him relax. Speak to him softly then and pick him up for cuddling so that he knows that love will not be withheld because he's been a bad kitty.

Do not, do not, *DO NOT* lift your kitty by his scruff. Kittens might not be affected so much since they are not so far removed from being held and carried that way by their mamas. However, older kitties could be hurt or injured if you don't support their body weight as you lift.

What Dr. Bailey and I discussed was simply using scruffing to soothe a kitty for something like claw clipping ~ or administering medicine. By first massaging the scruff, you will release endorphins that will tranquilize your kitty. Older kitties who have not been scruffed since kittenhood may not be affected. Dr. Bailey said regularly massaging a kitty's scruff will keep his system responsive to the process.

After you have massaged the scruff, then you may *GENTLY* pinch the scruff and tug or pull up on the kitty ~ again remembering not to lift a kitty entirely by his scruff.

I *KNOW* this calming technique works because I used it on my older kitties, Joey and Elly Fae, when I had to apply their Advantage. Previously, both of them had fought me like wildcats at Advantage time ~ to the point that I had to call neighbor Elly for back-up. Using Dr. Bailey's suggestion, I was amazed by how miraculously easy applying Advantage on both of them was this time. Joey is 20 pounds of kitty muscle, and I had no struggle with him at all. Elly Fae may be the smallest of my adult kitties, but she is also the alpha kitty in this household, inclined to being a bit of a you-know-what about things that don't please her. The most resistance I had from her was the faintest little prolonged growl as I administered the Advantage ~ but, again, no struggling!



In fact, since then, Elly Fae has been especially loving and cuddly. When she is on my lap now, I will massage her scruff and tug ever-so-gently on it. She purrs all the more deeply and looks at me with dilated, half-closed eyes. I think I may have an endorphin junky on my hands! :) So long as she is a happy kitty, I don't guess it matters so much, huh? We can't have the Terrible Two harshing her mellow. :)

[The first two pictures in this post were borrowed from HelpWithPetTraining.com. The third picture is of my tranquil baby girl, Elly Fae. :)]

Except for the summers when I lost my daddy and mama, this summer has been the worst and most disappointing ever. I won't bore you with the reasons why, but I will tell you that having the Terrible Two around in addition to their big-kitty siblings has been the salvation of my summer.

No matter how dismal and worrisome things have gotten, I find tremendous joy in watching my fuzzy family play and romp and interact. And when I need a hug or some loving, I don't have to look too far before I have a lapful of furry, purring affection.

I realize that I have reached my limit of kitties now. When my friend Patty has accused me of being a kitty hoarder, I have always said that a person isn't hoarding so long as she can afford to care for the kitties that she has. Well, I have reached that limit ~ my budget has stretched as far as it can go with six kitties now. However, I had planned to stop two kitties ago. I'm glad I didn't. Though the Terrible Two have required more attention, care, and expense than most new kittens, I wouldn't trade either of them for a bajillion dollars now.

One of my friends has also been coping with blues wrought by a crappy summer and even crappier economy. She and her husband already have two pampered kitties, and I recommended to her what I am recommending to you now: Visit your local animal shelter and adopt another kitty or two ~ or a dog if that is your preference. Shelters are bursting at the seams now because so many people are surrendering pets because of money problems. However, my thought is to open your pocketbook and your heart a little wider to bring another pet or two into your household. *Love* is the most powerful force in the universe, and goodness knows we need as much of it we can get. I can guarantee that watching your pet play and receiving his/her expressions of love will do more to perk up this dismal time in our history than all the other therapy in the world.

Your new addition doesn't have to be a kitten or puppy if you're not into that intensive training thing. Older kitties and puppies need love, too.

Give what I'm saying some thought, okay? My animal rescues happened to be in my own back yard, but you will probably need to make the trip to a local animal shelter. Many animal shelters will help you with costs of shots or neutering as part of the deal for your taking home a new loved one.

Then send me pictures and your pets' stories, and I will post them here.

We may not have much money these days, but we always have love to give, right? And it's an investment that will *always* give you huge dividends in return. :)

Warning: Obsessive, Doting Mommy Alert!

Yep, I just had to share some of the absolute adorableness of one of my baby boys, who apparently has inherited his mommy's passion for baseball. :) A couple of nights ago, as I was working at my computer and keeping an eye on the Cardinals' game, the Terrible Two were napping next to me when Deuce awakened and began, first, to watch the game and then to participate. Those pictures are shown here. Trey preferred to remain a spectator. :)

By the way, Deuce had an appointment for his booster yesterday. He is up to 3.1 pounds! When he was in my ICU kennel, he weighed in at only 13 ounces, so he has made tremendous progress! :) He's still on Amoxicillin through the weekend, and I had to buy Advantage for six kitties ~ can I get a stimulus package payment, y'think? ~ but I am hoping and praying that we are rounding the corner to better health in my kitty M*A*S*H unit here. :)

Next up: convincing Trey not to poo on the shag carpet!

In the *Crazy Cat Lady Faves* area, you may have noticed a link to help feed shelter kitties: freekibblekat.com. I check into this site every day to answer ~ or try to answer ~ the kitty trivia question there. Besides being a quick bit of fun, each visit also means free kibble for shelter kitties. There is a corresponding page for puppies, too.

An article by Mia Carter at PetcareSuite101 highlights the young lady who is helping so many shelter animals:

With the difficult economic situation, more and more cats and dogs are landing in animal shelters, but many animal welfare organizations are in trouble. With more homeless pets to care for, the bad economy has put animal shelters and animal rescue organizations in a difficult position, as they've seen fewer donations due to the economic downturn - all at a time when the animal shelters must care for more homeless pets.

This has many dog lovers and other pet lovers wondering "How can I help homeless pets?"

For these animal lovers looking for a way to help hungry dogs and cats in need, there's a solution: FreeKibble.com.

What is FreeKibble.com?

FreeKibble.com is a website designed to gather food for homeless dogs living in animal shelters.

The site is the brainchild of 12-year-old Mimi Ausland, of Bend, Oregon. Ausland came up with the idea for the website as a way to help the homeless animals at her local animal shelter, and the site is now benefiting animals in shelters from Oregon all the way to Florida.

The website works like this: Visitors to this pet-friendly website answer a dog-related trivia question. Regardless of whether the FreeKibble.com visitor gets the pet trivia question right or wrong, the website donates 10 pieces of dog kibble to an animal shelter to help feed hungry homeless dogs.

FreeKibble.com makes one donation for each website visitor who plays the pet trivia game, called Bow Wow Trivia.

Freekibble.com's primary mission is this: "To provide good, healthy food to dogs and cats to those shelters who are working so hard to see that none of them go hungry - they need our help. In addition to providing free kibble to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, we've added 10 new shelters to the program (from Oregon to Florida!) and plan to expand the program to many more!...every piece of kibble counts!"

How Will I Remember to Visit FreeKibble.com Every Day?

Can't remember to visit FreeKibble.com every day? Dog lovers can sign up for an e-mail reminder to answer the daily dog trivia question, which means 10 more pieces of kibble will be donated to a hungry dog.

It does not cost website visitors any money to donate pet food to homeless pets. The website is supported by an array of pet-related businesses, so FreeKibble.com visitors are urged to support the pet companies and websites that make it possible for the website to donate food to help homeless animals.

From April, 2008 to January 2009, more than 680,000 meals of Castor and Pollux pet food were provided to homeless animals.
Is there a Website to Help Hungry Homeless Cats Too?

FreeKibble.com helps provide dog food to animal shelters, but this has many friends of felines wondering "What about the cats?"

FreeKibbleKat.com is the solution; this cat version of FreeKibble.com works in the same way. Website visitors play the cat trivia game - Meow Trivia, as it's called - once a day. And for each person who plays the cat trivia game, FreeKibbleKat.com donates 10 pieces of kibble (for cats) to an animal shelter....


Please bookmark both kibble sites and visit often! :)

Would you believe that today I want to talk about pumpkin power? And it's not even Halloween or Thanksgiving. :)

However, in my Internet ramblings, I have discovered that pure pureed pumpkin is an almost miraculous digestive aid for kitties ~ and puppies, too.

This tip is from www.pets.ca:

Tip 75 - Pumpkin for cats - pumpkin for dogs - Pumpkin for diarrhea or constipation

If your dog or cat is having the occasional case of constipation or diarrhea, one of the things that might help is canned pumpkin. Yes canned pumpkin in its pureed form (NOT pumpkin pie filling) is a fantastic stool softener which makes it a good natural remedy for constipation. It often helps with upset stomach or indigestion for both cats and dogs. It is very rich in fibre and adding just one or two teaspoonfuls to your pet's food often gets the system moving in no time. Dogs will occasionally want to eat it directly and that's fine too. Sometimes though, finicky cats and dogs won't touch it no matter what you do.

On the opposite end of things is diarrhea. Since the dietary fibre in canned pumpkin absorbs water, it can be a great help to a cat or dog that has diarrhea. Some pet owners report that it firms up their pet's loose stools or diarrhea within a few hours. Again one to two teaspoonfuls is all that is needed.

N.B. It should be noted that both diarrhea and constipation can both be very serious and require immediate veterinary care depending on the cause. Whatever the cause, diarrhea or constipation lasting more than 24-36 hours requires vet care.

Since Trey has had some serious pooie problems, I have used the pumpkin successfully. Another site said that the pumpkin, administered weekly, also deters furballs, so I plan to add it to all my kitties' food.

Yet another tip recommended freezing the pumpkin in usable amounts by making pumpkin twisties out of plastic wrap or using baby food jars for larger amounts.

Who would have thought that something that looks amazingly like orange poo itself could be so useful? :)

Lately I have been living a bit of a lie.

The sign on my shed says *Strays Welcome Here.* However, somewhere along the path of good intentions, the neighborhood has been inundated with strays and strays having kittens. Three stray mamas gifted us with a total of 14 kittens in my shed, in a kitty house on Elly's carport, and under her house. Deuce was one of those strays; Trey was a fifteenth kitten that just showed up from who-knows-where like so many of the other strays that mysteriously appeared here. Elly and I have pondered and pondered how this happened because several years ago, we were feeding only *two* strays, and they were males.

We have managed until this year when so many kitties have created both budgetary and emotional problems for us. Elly couldn't even get out her back door because kitties swarmed there at feeding times. You can imagine how devastated I was when I failed to see a kitten, Deuce's sibling, underneath my car and ran over him. Though I rushed him to Dr. Britt, he was gone before she could do anything. Everyone consoled me with the usual *These things happen when you have so many kittens,* but I still feel terrible about it. Where Elly and I previously drove oh-so-slowly in the alley, we now inch along until we're sure there are no kitties anywhere close to our cars.

We had to do something. Then we heard about a lady named Cheryl and her Southern Illinois Pet Rescue that has a no-kill policy. Cheryl managed to round up one mama and four of the kittens, and she left with promises to come back for another round-up. But then Cheryl suddenly passed away from a heart attack the very next day.

We were both saddened and stunned. Cheryl's friend called soon after, however, to assure us that the mama and her kittens had already been placed with a lady on a big farm in Nashville, IL, and this same lady will take as many other kittens and stray adults as we can round up.

That particular project is on temporary hold, though, until Elly recuperates from a tummy virus. Since neither she nor I can get around so agilely these days, we are hoping for some help from the local animal control in the gathering process since we do have a new home for the kitties.

In the meantime, Elly and I continue to feel bad because we can't welcome so many strays anymore. Being so poor you can't care for what you want to care for is a frustrating feeling. But we know our first responsibilities are to the kitties we have inside.

Please keep us in your good thoughts!

Today belongs to my other special-needs kitten, Trey Baby Wader Cleveland. The *Wader* is in tribute to the sweet, little gray kitten that was born in my shed a couple of springs ago. Male hormones guided him away from here, but he eventually returned only to pass away here because in his journeys someone had been mean to him. That's another story, though, and one that breaks my heart ~ so I will focus on Trey.

Neighbor Elly and I were flooded with kittens from strays this spring ~ a subject for another post. However, Trey was not among those kittens. He showed up suddenly one morning, huddled into a teeny, frightened ball. I watched him for a day and a half, but no mother showed up to care for him. I knew he had plenty to eat if he wanted it because I set out breakfast and suppie each day for the strays. However, even the kittens of those strays were bigger than this little guy, so I couldn't be certain he was able to get through the gauntlet of bigger kitties.

The next evening Elly called to tell me that this kitten was still huddled outside, and we had some major storms on the doorstep here. Having brought Deuce inside the previous month to bring my household total to a fuzzy five, I definitely didn't need another kitty inside, right? But how could I leave him outside?

He didn't make the bringing-inside process easy for me. He was too weak to run, but he scooted faster than I was able to scoot beneath my bushier lilac. These days arthritis in my back keeps me from maneuvering too smoothly, but eventually I was able to gather him up and bring him inside, where I kept him inside the *ICU Kennel* I had used for Deuce for a while. Since I had one kitten named Deuce, Trey seemed like a good name for this one. :)



Trey continued to huddle in a corner of the kennel. Whenever I reached for him, he hissed at me or flinched, so goodness knows what his life had been like previously. I took him to my wonderful vets at the Douglas Vet Clinic the next day. Besides being emaciated, he had a belly full of worms. Dr. Bailey told me he would need a huge amount of TLC ~ was I sure I wanted to proceed? I had to give the little guy a chance.

He required a lot of medicine and milk replacement as well as food, and his pooie problems persisted for several weeks to the point that he couldn't always get to his litter box. He had to spend a day at the vet clinic, too, before he finally started to come around.

During the night, he sometimes emits this mournful meow until I call to him to let him know that I am close by. He is the aforementioned kitten that peed on my bed during the night, but I *think* he was marking his mommy because of his abandonment issues rather than the problem being behavioral as Chelsie's was. Time will test the validity of that brilliant insight.



I do know that he has stopped hissing at me and flinching away from me. In fact, he seeks out my attention and loves to cuddle. He and Deuce have become energetic playmates and loving buddies ~ much to Joey's relief since Deuce doesn't bug him quite so much now. Joey takes his big brother duties seriously and will protect the Terrible Two from their sisters or help me break up wrestling matches that become a little too rambunctious. :)







Trey had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Britt yesterday. He had gained over a pound in just two weeks and received a clean bill of health along with his shots. He has quite charmed his favorite vet tech, Karen. :)

You already know that he had me from the dance at the lilac bush, right? :)