Mammals are like mammals

July 30, 2015 • 4:43 pm

by Grania

Why rescue pets are awesome.

You rescue one of your cousins, you win every time.

I believe we are closely enough related to understand the faces without resorting to anthropomorphism.

From Deveoh who have a post devoted to animals rescued and given caring forever homes. There are many more happy cats and dogs at the link.

 

 

I’m Batman.

 

 

 

 

59 thoughts on “Mammals are like mammals”

  1. Yep. My daughter rescued a d*g from the Humane Society… an older one who acquired the name “Mabel” on the way home. Mabel went from a really sad and disoriented old lady to a very happy friend.

  2. My daughter-in-law is a veterinarian and rescued a barn kitten which was brought into the clinic. It had been born with many of its internal organs outside of its body. Apparently you could watch the food going down its digestive system. There was no way the farm family was going to pay for the expensive operation.

    So she did the operation and she and my son adopted the kitten, now named “Eviscera Corpsegrinder” and nicknamed “Eve.” Their other two cats also adopted her: one quickly and the other one grudgingly. Given how active the kitten is, you’d never know it was born with a pretty serious condition. Lucky, happy kitty.

    3. My daughter is a vet as well. It seems to be an instinct with vets, the rescue instinct. She has, over the years, collected a few unwanted pets with significant physical or neurological damage. They make wonderful companions despite the issues. Her two cats stagger and limp about oblivious to their handicaps just as blissful as can be. Which makes everyone around feel great too.

        1. Well of course. All my other kids (who exist only in the fantasy world of my worst fears) are prostitutes and drug addicts.

          3. Our d*g was her sibling. In kindergarten she preferred the company of the terrarium to the other kids. I guess we could have guessed her career path back then.

  3. Both of our cats are rescued and that is the best you can get and money can buy. Would never go to a breeder as there is no need. Go to your local humane society or vet.

  4. I got a new horse in January.

    When we went to check him out on Saturday, he was very quiet and subdued, but basically calm and OK.

    Monday morning my vet went to do a pre-purchase exam. He called and gave the OK around 10:00 am. We picked him up at noon, and were home by 1:30. I put him in his new corral and fed him. He was still quiet and subdued.

    He was the same Tuesday.

    Wednesday morning when I went out to feed him, he stuck his head over the fence and greeted me with a loud, happy whinny. He has done the same every morning and afternoon since.

    A total transformation. L

  5. well done! Fostering and rescuing is needed, fun, rewarding, educational, good for morale and I am sure leads to a long and happy life. And, at the right hand of the cat god is a dog. Or VV.

  6. I still remember my dogs sad picture in on petfinder. It takes a lot to make my dog look sad but that high kill shelter seemed to do it. I’m so happy we found each other as she is a dominant dog that is 100 lbs. she needed someone who could understand her and obedience train her.

    She has taught me a lot too. For one, she has a lot of confidence and when she walks in a room, everyone wants to see her because she is happy and friendly to everyone. I’m not like that at all and I often say that I wish I were more like my dog.

    1. I like Petfinder, isn’t their motto something about how you don’t go shopping for a pet, you adopt them, or something like that?

      both of my dogs are “pound puppies” (anyone else remember them from childhood?) although one I got second-hand (actually 3rd hand, i’m his 4th owner)from my sister who picked him up from jail. literally. he was picked up by the animal control but they didn’t have room for him in their facility so he was locked up in the human jail. My other dog was adopted by my son, a little pomeranian-pekinese mix, at a time when I had been searching Petfinder for a very manly Irish Wolfhound…I have no regrets though, he’s a great dog, even if he’s a fluff-ball.

      1. Yeah petfinder is great. What a great idea as it puts you in touch with a lot of rescue groups.

        I took today off and not only am I getting a migraine but I just spent over $100 at the vet this morning because my dog got an eye infection. Oh well, it’s a small price I pay for all the love she gives me.

          1. Just spent $150 on Carmen Dingle’s antibiotic eyedrops a couple of weeks ago. Hope the second run of them cures the problem and we don’t have to go on to anti-viral eyedrops. Apparently kitties can be born with herpes type viruses which affect the eyes. Hasn’t slowed her down from keeping an eye on the Bell repairman and the visiting Dober Man (one of my daughter’s boardees) a couple of days ago.

            Hope your migraine subsides, Diana.

          2. Luckily the stuff I got only cost $31 but the vet visit made up the rest. Probably got off easy.

        2. A couple of weeks ago I spent over $800 on arthritis, incontinence, and dermatitis pills on my two senior rescue dogs. With the exam and vaccinations, the total was over 1K. Thinking of looking into pet insurance…

          1. Maybe I’m cynical, but I doubt that pet insurance wouldbe worthwhile for older pets with “pre-existing conditions.” I don’t think that insurance companies ever come out behind…

            Good of you to treat your old guys so well🐺

          2. Like I have a choice. 😉 (Heart-wise.)

            I’m very luck to be able to afford to, of course.

          3. Pet insurance would be most highly recommended…but most companies won’t write new policies for senior animals. You want to insure them as kittens and puppies; that way, you get (and typically lock in) low rates for the life of the animal — which, of course, gets made up for by paying those premiums for many more years.

            You could probably come out better on average by putting the money into a savings account instead and drawing on it when needed…but, if something really expensive happens, your savings account likely wouldn’t cover it but the insurance would.

            Check with your vet and possibly some others for recommendations. All the plans are written so there’s no network; you just go to any accredited vet and jump through whatever (typically truly minimal) bureaucratic hoops are called for. But they also have different definitions of terms like, “incident,” such that it can range from a given visit to the vet to that condition for the animal’s entire life.

            b&

          4. Thanks for all the info, Ben! Yes, I was thinking of the insurance for the future…which I don’t want to think too much about now–feels like betraying my current mammal-family–though I have to admit there will no doubt be future critters at some point.

          5. Yeah…I really wish we could get more than a mere couple decades from our cousins. I keep telling Baihu that, if he’ll stay with me for at least another half a century, I’ll do the same for him….

            b&

  8. I observe that cats are less good at expressing happiness than dogs. In fact I am tempted to think that cats are only truly happy when asleep.

    1. You’ve never seen a cat blissed out by a full-body massage after a favorite meal plus dessert, or triumphantly trotting away with a just-caught treasured toy, or being simultaneously relieved and scolding and apologetic when you get back after being gone for too long, or…

      Cats are truly dynamic animals with as full a range of emotions and expressions as any.

      If you’ve never lived closely with one, it might not be apparent…but that would be more because cats tend to be quite wary with strangers. All strangers typically get the same cautiously withdrawn treatment from most cats, which is where I think the “cats are emotionless and aloof” meme comes from. Once you and the cat have won each other over, though…there’s no question whatsoever about just how much passion lives behind those eyes.

      b&

      1. I will second that. All you need to do David is get to know one up close.

    2. I’m sure that dogs do actually smile when happy. An evolutionary pressure exerted by humans? Cats don’t bond with humans the way dogs do. There was an experiment measuring heart rates and oxytocin levels when pets saw their owners. Cats were fairly indifferent but dogs.. Lions do take to us though. This has probably been posted before. Lion meets the man who raised her.
      http://tinyurl.com/kuy5kn7

  9. Yeah rescue pets! Both of ours came from shelters.

    I have some qualms about the statement, “I believe we are closely enough related to understand the faces without resorting to anthropomorphism.”

    True, most of us do understand the expressions of d*gs, and the understanding is usually mutual. (Exception: that guilty look isn’t guilt, it’s “I’ve learned that if I behave like this she will stop being mad at me.”) Many of us communicate reasonably well with cats. However, that’s because we have experience with our main pet species and because both (especially d*gs) have evolved to communicate with us and so they won’t get thrown in the cooking pot.

    I’ve seen people seriously misinterpret animal signals (yes, even dog signals). (Even human signals like “Don’t pet him! He will bite!” followed shortly by an astonished, “He bit me!”)

    It’s worse with other animals. Is that bull going to retreat or charge? Is that cow warning or curious? Is that fawn orphaned or hiding? Is that squealing pig momentarily disturbed or seriously injured? Will that bear attack or eat a sandwich out of your hand? Are those young raccoons happily greeting you or expressing distress? Does that Panda want a hug? If you haven’t dealt with that species a lot before, you don’t know. (Except that no, that panda doesn’t want a hug. Not from you, anyway.)

    With more distant animals, people fantasize about vengeful rattlesnakes and deeply loving pairs of house wrens.

    Readers here are probably better than most, but lots of people seriously can’t read expressions of even animals they interact with.

    1. In the species context Grania’s post deals with, I suspect ten thousand years of co-evolution has upped the mutual understanding considerably.

  10. Just wanted to add to the resounding chorus of praise for rescuing animals that there’s also absolutely nothing worng with giving a loving home to non-rescue animals.

    They all need forever homes. If you can give a forever home to a street-born feral like Baihu, that’s awesome. But it’s also wonderful to give a forever home to a purebred!

    b&

    1. Yes I agree. The important thing is if you decide to keep a cat or a d*g from whatever source that you recognise you have a lifelong responsibility for it.
      The flip side of the great and inspiring stories of the people who rescue pets and give the a new start in a loving home is that there are still far too many people out there who abuse their animals either through neglect or direct and spiteful acts of cruelty or both. It would be nice if the only way a need to rescue pets arose was when an owner died or became unable to care properly for their pet e.g. through illness. Sadly we are a long way from that still.

    2. I have two cats and one d*g; two pure breeds and one rescue moggie. They are all wonderful animals, but one of the pure breed cats hates everyone except me and my eldest son. They are all happy to have a home.

  11. Yes my cat loves me and only me .She is almost a year and the only problem is she still likes to bite hands and arms.Other then that a lover.

  12. We rescued our d*g, Jac(ques), right off the street after returning to New Orleans from our Katrina exile. He was starving, flea-ridden, had full-blown heartworm, but was young enough to withstand the course of treatment… still thriving ten years later!

  14. I can recall making a comment along the lines of “Why not adopt older shelter animals?” to some otherwise fairly liberal friends and being met with silence. They are strangely attracted to expensive breeds purchased as kittens or puppies. I don’t know if there’s any kind of actual correlation to political leaning and pet proclivities, but I have always thought it was oddly uncharacteristic for anyone who cares about social justice to seemingly be averse to shelter animals.

  16. Every beastie I’ve adopted (except fish) has been a rescue kitteh (Humane Society or other rescue org.) About 30 years’ worth.

    However, we are finding being petless is a superior state. For us. Your mileage may vary.

  17. We adopted two feral kittens from the same litter just last weekend, via a local vet. They had already spent a month in her care and thus were well cared for and relatively used to humans. To be able to adopt them we had to go through what at times felt like a job interview with the vet. From deeply mistrustful on day 1, to purring when petted on day 4, to feeling safe enough to play in our presence on day 6, it’s been a joy to see them slowly getting used to us. The smile on my son’s face when holding and petting a purring kitten for the first time in his life was priceless.

  18. Once you get the rescue bug there’s no going back. Forty-plus years ago while an undergraduate in OR I was found (not simultaneously) by both a cat and a pup–probably student-abandoned, owners unfindable. They went home with me at the end of their respective semesters; a good home was found for the cat and the dog attached itself to my not-really-a-pet-person mother and broke her heart when it passed away over a decade later.

    Meanwhile I’d gone to grad school in NY where I adopted my first pound mutt; she moved on with me to TX, where we gained a pound kitty, to MA where we gained another pound kitty, and ultimately on to MI, where we’ve subsequently had a couple more pound mutts, 3 more pound kitties, plus a number of volunteer cats, as we live in the country.

    (Is there a record for pound adoptions from the most states, I wonder? 😀 )

    Somewhere in this process I made a couple of kids, now grown, the daughter of which still lives close enough to come home now & then with her volunteer-cat rescue, pound-rescue pup (actually rescued as a 7-year-old “senior”), and pound rescue senior cat (something in double-digits–around 12 yo, I think…) who is huge and mostly toothless.

    When she comes home with her crew I’m sometimes blown away watching the 4 cats & 3 dogs peaceably eating their din-dins in the kitchen, among them my 2 now quite geriatric dogs and special-needs cat.

    Currently, Phoebe, Louis, Winston, Halle-Bear, BB, Cheley, & O’Malley; most of whom would not be here were it not for people like us. And by us, I mean everyone on this thread with similar stories to tell.

    Over the years we’ve also had rescue chickens and goats.

    1. What wonderful rescue stories!!
      I sometimes drive for a dog rescue organization which brings abandoned dogs up to Ontario from the States ( kind of a legal underground RR). We must bring 5-10 up per week, mostly from Kentucky and Ohio. Many were abandoned during the 2008 recession, but they just keep on coming. Most seem to get adopted by kind Canadians. I don’t drive them as much as i did a few years ago, as they’ve chsnged the routes to be quite a bit out of the way for me. Have transported some wonderful dogs, including Great Dane Margaret and her son Marmaduke:-)

      1. I’ve always wanted to do that but the logistics haven’t worked out as yet. Kudos for your efforts, and I’d love to have seen those Danes…trying to picture two of them in a car… 😀

      2. My dog was from Ohio in a nasty high kill shelter. What rescue do you drive for? I got Kala from Four legged love & my parents got their dog from Ugly Mutts. Both dogs were from the same shelter & it was a vet associated with Ugly Mutts who spayed Kala (I learned this from her paperwork).

        1. Mostly OpenArms Transport. I think I subbed once for another one. I used to drive from Grimsby to Mississauga, which was only about an hour or hour and a half round trip, but now it’s often from Guelph to Brampton which takes me forever. I’ll do it if they really need me. We probably did 25 runs a few years ago. Drove some real sweethearts. Wanted to keep them all…Love the name Ugly Mutts. I wonder why the people in Ohio and KY can’t get their acts together to neuter their animals…

          1. I think some of the areas in Ohio anyway are very poor and people get animals and then can’t afford them or lose their homes and need to move. Yeah the 2008 recession was really bad and yet they still are coming. Kala was a stray I was told. I suspect someone got her as a puppy then she grew to a giant size & had no training so they just didn’t want to deal with a big puppy (she was called this when they rescued her since she had no name & acted like a big puppy). She was only 8 months old so it is a common time for dogs like her to be abandoned.

  19. It would be misleading if I had before and after photos of our rescue staffy; they’d look the other way around. We got her 12 years ago and she already looked crazily happy, because she’s a staffy. But now she’s 15.

Comments are closed.