Injured Cat!

So I was really complaining yesterday about the cats getting into our Christmas trees. Logan came home from school and found half the ornaments, and the NEW tree topper from my pink & white tree, in a trail down the stairs and throughout the house. I was SO mad. They have already messed up the dining room tree and pulled half the garland off! I was furious.
Then I get home and find out that somehow Frosty has injured (maybe broken) his leg somehow yesterday. He can barely walk. He takes two steps and lies down. He howls in pain. We spent most of the night holding him in our laps and trying to gently probe around to see if we could feel a break or a knot. We couldn't find the exact source of the pain. Artie thinks it's in the hip area.
So off to the vet this morning. Artie's new schedule will give him a couple of free hours this morning before classes, so he is taking Frosty to the vet to see if there's a serious injury.
I'm still mad at the cats, but I don't want them to be hurt THAT bad!

The Cats

I am really an animal lover, but I am so much more a dog person than a cat person. I could have 10 dogs in the house and be happy as a clam. My husband, however, is definitely a cat person. We have my precious doggie, Lucy (who is about to celebrate her 5th birthday!) and we have two cats, Tiger & Frosty. The cats are about 8 months old, and they are brothers. We took them from Patti (my sister-in-law) when her cat had kittens this spring. They were so cute and cuddly as kittens, and they are growing into beautiful cats! They have soft fur and beautiful eyes and are loving and playful. But they are TROUBLE!

I cannot tell you how many vases or pictures they have knocked over and broken with their incessant jumping. They have broken one of my Jim Shore pieces in the scrap room by knocking it off a shelf. They have broken some of the sand dollar ornaments I made by dragging them downstairs and playing with them. I always drink with a straw, and they try to steal my straws and bat them around in the floor like hockey sticks. They have "misplaced" several of Logan's pairs of earphones. They try to eat off our plates when we're having dinner. We can't keep them off the kitchen counters no matter how hard we try, and that grosses me out! And to top it all off, at least one of them has started using the bathroom in our house, on the carpet! Not in the litter box! On our brand new carpet upstairs in Logan's room and the extra bedroom! So frustrating!

Logan loves the cats, and they sleep with him at night. I don't want to get rid of them because he loves them, and Artie likes them better than my Lucy; plus they came from Patti, so they're like "cat cousins." :) It's just really frustrating to see all the damage they can cause. Maybe they will grow out of it soon and calm down. I certainly hope so!
Meanwhile, Lucy & I will just observe from the recliner.

My Beloved Lucy

Lucy is my dog. She is a 4-year-old Papillon, and she has been mine since she was only 5 weeks old. I formerly owned her father, Scrappy, but I gave him away at Artie's insistence because we could never get him housetrained. He was a little doll! The couple that I gave Scrappy to promised me that I could have one of his first pups, so they called me when he sired his first litter. I chose Lucy right away. She was the smallest and was so cute with her "mismark" (only having one eye covered in brown fur instead of both eyes). I would never be able to use her as a show dog because of this. She is considered an imperfect Papillon for that reason, but I think it just makes her more adorable.

The first week I had her she almost died. Apparently toy breeds can have very low blood sugar when they are puppies, and she had a very scary bout with that. She became almost comatose. I called an emergency vet (it was Thanksgiving weekend) and they told me to try giving her honey. I put honey on my fingertip and put it in her mouth. After a few attempts at this, she finally started coming around again. It was scary!
She has lived in 3 different homes with us, and had a brief stay (for a few months) with my high-school friend, Robin, when Artie gave a "doggie ultimatum" and forced me to get rid of her. After he saw how very sad I was and how much I missed her, he eventually called Robin and got Lucy back for me. Robin was such an angel to let me have her back!!

Lucy is not a perfect dog. She begs for food constantly, goes crazy at the first sound of a crackling package (hoping for food), and still occasionally goes pee-pee in the house. She can't sleep in the bed with me because she has to stand on high alert at the foot of the bed and growl at any night sounds. She is a total pest anytime food is around. She jumps and begs and pleads and cries and will take food right off your fork if you accidentally, say, wave it around during conversation or such.
Artie really does not like Lucy. He has nicknames for her that are best not included in my blog. Her very presence in a room irritates him. But he puts up with her because he loves ME, and he knows I love HER.

And I certainly do LOVE her! She is waiting at the door for me when I get home from work. She jumps and dances and whines like I've been gone for days. She practically leaps into my arms when I bend over to pet her or pick her up. She follows me upstairs to change out of my work clothes. She follows me to the bathroom. She follows me everywhere I go for the rest of the night. She sits by my side in the recliner or on the couch, and if I sit outside, she is on the ottoman right in front of my feet. She licks me and wags her fluffy tail and generally just seems happy that I'm alive and present. If I'm sad, she can sense it and looks at me with her little beady brown eyes and wags and licks and wags and licks until I smile. She loves me, no matter what kind of mood I'm in or if I'm having a fat day or if my makeup is all rubbed off. She just loves me, and she is my beloved Lucy.