Saturday, January 3, 2009

Shadow

A few weeks ago Jasper hurt his toe; the nail seemed to be split and it was really hurting him. We didn't know what to do but Jamie sent me some information from the internet and we saw some things to watch for. Yesterday his foot seemed to be really hurting him and last night we saw that his toe was really warm, so today we called the local Kabwe vet to see if we could get Jasper in to have his toe checked out.

Before noon we put Jasper in the van and drove off to find the office of the Dr. Geoffery, the vet. The vet had to come in especially for us, and we arrived at the gate at the same time. As we were walking into his office a little kitten was following the Dr. like she owned the place. It was not making it any easier to bring Jasper in, and I wondered why there was a stray cat being welcomed into the office.

It turns out that the stray cat was kept at the clinic on purpose to help keep the rat population down. she had cut her leg and had stitches; but she was a very friendly kitten; the kids were petting her and playing with her.

Jasper, on the other hand, was being quite a handful. We haven't taught him to walk on a leash and we were paying for it today. He was interested in the kitty, and interested in the new building, and the vet, and everything. Once we got into the examining room the doctor calmly told us to lift him up and put him on the table. Well, the table was really, really tall. And Jasper is really, really big. It took both Joel and me to lift Jasper up onto the table. I honestly didn't think it could be done! After some shots for antibiotics and some cleaning of the toenail we were good to go home. Well, we were told to take an old bucket, saw a hole in the end and put it over Jasper's head to keep him from licking his wound. Ummm...I don't think so. We feel bad just making him wear his collar in this hot weather. Can you imagine a big, bulky bucket around your neck? I suppose this is what you use when you don't have those funny, clear, lightweight, plastic thingies that vets use in the states to keep dogs from scratching or whatever. We had to get Jasper off the table which was almost as hard as getting him up on it. He is sooo strong; I think he must be as strong as Jamie's late dog, Jackie, who was so strong that Jamie and I together could not put ear stuff in her ears. Well, Jasper doesn't mind his ears being looked at, but he wasn't crazy about having to sit on a table with a stray cat walking around the room near his kids.

So, Joel asked the vet if we could take the cat home. We need a cat, and Joel thought it was a stray. This is when we found out that it belonged to the vet place; but still the vet seemed happy to find a good home for it. He said it had already been vaccinated, would need to come back on Tuesday with Jasper to get the stitches out (yay; another ride in the van with two animals who are not crazy about each other), and was great at catching rats. Just what the doctor ordered!

We went through a bunch of names and finally decided on Shadow, in honor of Mom's old cat. This Shadow is black and white. I think that she and Jasper will become friends eventually. But at this point, all I care about is that she will kill rats! I am hoping she does anyways!

Tomorrow is Sunday and the kids are all singing in church. Well, Andrew is not singing because he isn't crazy about his voice at the moment. And Anna is only going to pretend to sing since she just came down with a very bad cold the last few days and can barely talk, let alone sing, today. We will see how it goes!

3 comments:

asplendidtime said...

Dear Darcy,
So nice to find you again. I met you on MOMYS and then at Sonlight and had bookmarked your blog, but then we moved and I had forgotten all about it. I am so sorry.

We will be praying for your family. Take care.

Rebecca in Alberta, Mom to 8 gr8 kids!

Darcy said...

Hi Rebecca!

Amy said...

The kids have just "introduced" our cat to Shadow by showing her the picture.