I know, that’s a good thing!

Stopped out to stick Ace on the longe line and see how he was moving, even took my camera so I could video him and show all of you – but there was nothing interesting to see other than the fact that he was nearly fine. No more head-bob, no more obvious un-soundness.

Jeanine thought he looked all the way better. And really, there was very little issue that I could detect. I wouldn’t give him 100% yet. I know him better than anybody and while he didn’t look lame any more, his stride still wasn’t exactly normal. But nobody else in the world would even notice but me.

So, the official report as of last night is:  97% sound.

I fully expect that he will be back to normal tonight. I plan to stick him on the longe and watch him, and if all is well take him for a light ride.

I’m not at all sorry that this appears to be an incredibly short blog series.

PS – Luna is apparently jealous that Rooney had a great outdoor adventure, as she continues to try to dart out the door every time I leave the house. Someone please inform her that we are once again in wintery weather, and to trust us that it’s better to just stay inside.

It all started with Luna and Rooney, my two cats. They are pampered, well-loved indoor cats who are typically pretty happy with the good life of house kitties. They were my first “kids”, and I’ll admit, I’m rather quite attached to both of them. Luna is the typical diva cat who climbs in boxes, only lets you pet her when its her idea, and lives to eat and play. Rooney is really a dog trapped in a cat’s body. He comes when called, would spend every hour of every day in my lap if he could, and sits on command. Here’s how it all went down on Sunday …

The Cats Conspire Against Me

The weather was nice this weekend and we had the windows and doors open to let the spring in. L and R have been planted by the kitchen window smelling the smells, riveted on the activity of the birds and squirrels in the yard.

Luna: “Hey Rooney! It’s soo nice outside. We should figure out a way to escape so we can go have an adventure outside in the neighborhood.”

Rooney: “That’s a great idea. We’ll need to create a diversion so we can sneak out when mom comes home from the barn tonight.”

Luna: “What if one of us distracts her by pretending to run out the door, and when she chases us away, the other can slip out behind her? She’ll never even notice! I’ll take one for the team and be the diversion. You’re black and will be better camoflauged, and you were a street cat before so you can handle yourself better.” Plus if you get out for a day, that’s a whole day where I can have the entire house to myself.

I’m convinced that was their evil plan. I came home from the barn late Sunday evening, and Rooney must have slipped out when I came in unnoticed in the dark.

Monday I was getting ready for work, and suddenly realized I hadn’t seen R all morning. I flipped. I ran through every room of the house calling for him, opening doors, checking cupboards. I didn’t think he could have gotten outside without me knowing it, so I was convinced he was near-death curled up in some hidey-hole – the only reasonable explanation for why he wasn’t coming to me or meowing his head off about being trapped.

Luna: “Good morning world! What a nice night it was without my brother to annoy me. I had a leisurely breakfast all to myself, and some play time with the milk bottle ring after that. This is really kinda nice being an only cat again. …. Uh-oh. Mom isn’t taking this so well. Oh no! She’s crying.  A lot. And totally messing up the house looking for Rooney. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I better pretend like I’m helping her look for him. Oh Rooooooney, where are you! Are you in the suitcase? How bout under the stairs. Shoot. I don’t think mom is convinced. This is getting bad. I had better go find Rooney and tell him to get his tail back here because mom is totally losing it. Crap, she blocked me from getting out the door. Not good. I guess I’ll have to be cuddly and try to cheer her up in the meantime. He had better come back soon …”

Luna is right, I was a hot mess about my missing cat. Rooney is always at my feet and has never gone missing for even a few minutes. It was very out of character for him. And Luna really was totally ignoring me at first. She started to catch on though, and spend the rest of the day following me around, trying to dart out of the house every time I opened the door, and cuddling with me on the couch.

Eventually we realized that Rooney had to have escaped the house, as there were tell-tale pawprints on the hood of my car in the garage.

We went to bed, left the garage door open a tad, and a bowl of cat food in the garage. Tuesday morning I woke up to my hubby walking into the dark bedroom, telling me he had something for me, and setting my wayward cat down on the bed.

I hope Rooney enjoyed his two nights and a day out on the town. I sure didn’t.

Ace Is In On the Conspiracy Too

Either Ace is in on the conspiracy to make me crazy so that I appreciate all of my animals more, or he’s just jealous that the cats stole all of his attention … because he was lame when I went to ride last night.

I tacked him up, hopped on and walked around for a few minutes to warm up. I asked him to move into a trot, and immediately felt the unmistakable signs of a mysterious lameness. His head was bobbing and his stride felt horrid. I hopped off so I could watch how he was going on the longe, hoping maybe I’d just put the saddle on weird and it was pinching his shoulders. No dice. I saw the slightest evidence of a hitch at the walk, but he was unmistakably lame at the trot.

For the first time, it looks like his lameness is originating in a front leg. It was the first time I’ve seen him with a head bob. And the first time he’s been perfectly even and normal in the back end when he’s not sound. He’s only ever been lame in the back since I’ve had him (related to some hoof issues). It was clearly a front leg.

He wasn’t so off that it was obvious which leg was causing the problem. His head was bobbing down with the right front, making us think the issue is in his left leg. Even though he was off, Ace was otherwise feeling good. His ears were up, he was offering to canter, and he was generally happy.

Jeanine (trainer and day worker) said Ace and his buddies played really hard in the pasture yesterday, so hopefully he’s just feeling that.

So he got a gram of bute with his dinner last night, and is taking today to rest in his stall. I’m going to stop out after work to see how he’s moving. I’ll give him a few days to either get better or worse before I get too worried. In the meantime, he can hang out in his stall and get spoiled by everyone who comes into the barn throughout the day.

Typical cats, refusing to do what you want them to do … or even what you expect them to do based on past behavior.

While my friendly, cuddly boy Rooney acts more like a dog than a cat, Luna is all diva kitty. We’ve had her since she was just eight weeks old. It’s been fun to watch her grow up and change and develop.

When I first saw this video last summer, I just about died. It has Luna as a kitten written all over it. If you’ve ever raised a kitten, you’ll get a huge kick out of this.

The Mean Kitty Song

But one surefire way to get both of them to shadow me is to take a bath. And I loooooovvveee taking baths.

From the day we brought each of them home, they both come running when they hear the water start to pour. Usually, Luna has the “throne” and Rooney is curled up on the bath mat. Today, Rooney beat Luna to the coveted spot on the toilet. But I think she’s happy has long as she maintains a higher position. What a diva.

Luna learned a hard lesson when she was young: the edge of the tub is slippery and dang, that water is wet! She used to walk around on the edge while it was full. And it took her falling into the tub three times before she learned her lesson.

Rooney on the other hand, still walks on the edge, laps at the water, bats at my toes, and tries to climb on me.

Until today when he too fell in. Head first.

He was quite shocked. And rotten mom that I am just laughed at him.

I figure that anybody who loves horses also tends to love animals in general. We’re typically surrounded by a menagerie of pets, whether it cats and dogs or llamas, alpaca, goats, chickens, cows, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish, whatever.

So knowing that, I’m going to subject you to a non-horsey post about my kids, er, I mean my cats. I don’t live on a farm or in a house with enough room to harbor lots of animals, or anything bigger than a chihuahua, which is why I’ve taken in several intriguing (and sometimes really annoying) felines. And if you aren’t convinced about their place on a horse blog, I got my kitties from Dave and Tracie, my friends who so generously share their horses with me (and their two dogs and 11 cats, 8 of which live in the house).

Luna

Meet Luna, my 2.5 year-old diva cat, who thinks by looking really cute and showing me her soft belly I’ll go feed her. Don’t let that sound-asleep look fool you; she peeks through a small slit in her eyelids periodically to see if I’m noticing how cute she is.

Luna (I’ll admit, my hubby and I picked her name out of a baby name book), is your traditional, stand-offish cat. She is incredibly friendly and is always right in the middle of things when we have company. But she hates, I mean hates, to be touched. She never cuddles, fights if you hold her, and will only let you stroke her once or twice before she runs or tries to bite.

She crawls in boxes, bags, holes and any small cramped space she can squeeze into. She will fit every inch of her body on a scrap of paper on the middle of the floor and go to sleep. It’s very difficult to put clean sheets on the bed because she gets under them. I’ve made her into the bed on several occasions.

When she was still an only child we used to take her with us when we traveled. Once at my in-laws, we took the mattress off the bed to adjust some supportive boards underneath. After we put everything back together, I heard this muffled meowing. I looked in the closet and under the bed trying to find the silly cat. Suddenly, Ben jumps off the bed where he had been relaxing and threw off the mattress. Out comes Luna, who had crawled underneath the mattress as we replaced it and gotten squished inbetween it and the box springs. Not to worry, she was fine.

Rooney

Rooney, on the other hand, is a rescued stray who acts more like a dog than a cat. He follows me around and wants to be in my lap at all times. He sits on command. All he wants is to be loved.

Which is a very good thing, because he’s also very very very bad.

The first week or so he was here, Rooney still had stray cat mentality. He didn’t realize he was getting fed regularly and didn’t have to fight for food any more. I was eating dinner on the couch one night, and before I realized what had happened, he darted up, grabbed half a chicken breast off my plate and was across the room. I forgot my lunch one day, and he pulled out the sandwich, chewed through the plastic wrap, and ate all the lunchmeat. He pulls over the trash can, and grabs food out of the refrigerator if I leave the door open too long.

Rooney always has be to in your face. He is also down to his few remaining lives due to his curiosity. These traits make it very difficult to take his picture. Every time I pull out the camera, he sticks his nose in it.

Luna and Rooney have your typical brother/sister relationship. She was not at all happy when he came home with us last fall and invaded her territory. It didn’t help that he never ever left her alone. He’d chase and tackle and bite, and she try to run away. Now that she’s used to him, she acts like a typical girl. She’ll torment him, and then as soon as he chases her she gets mad and growls and hisses. Such a little whiner.

But that’s just the beginning. These two are so crazy that I always have great new stories to share on them. So move over Marahute, you’re now sharing space with the cats.