Anticipation...Even Dogs Feel It

When you have a house with two dogs and two cats, and almost none can be in the same room at the same time and your house is not very big. Well, what you have there is a houseful of trouble.

With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for "Pet."

It also rhymes with the "T" sound in kitty and puppy and doggie.

We've got one old dog and one young dog, one old cat and a kitten. Only the two dogs can be together in the same room, and that's a recent development. The old dog is most likely not long for this earth and then we'll only have three pets. Things may get easier by a factor of one.

But two of these animals we hope will become friends. The problem is, the big one could eat the little one...literally. We're waiting for the kitten to get a little bigger before he meets the poodle. Right now, the kitten stays sometimes in our bedroom and the dog knows where the kitten is. The dog spends hours sitting in front of the door and when the kitten comes close to the door, the dog really freaks out.

We're hoping the kitten can come out and play with the dog to save our sanity (and the door..). We know it'll happen. It's just a matter of time.

And patience.

Meet..."He Who Has Yet To Be Named"

Two weeks and two days ago we said goodbye to a family pet. She was loved and she's definitely missed. Since she was the first pet our children lost, we knew it would be traumatic...and it was--for all of us. Since we have an outdoor cat that basically keeps the property clear of mice and other unwanted things, we knew we wanted to have an indoor cat for companionship.

We knew getting another cat would help ease the pain.

Today is the day we found a new family member.

And he's so cute, it hurts.

There are many reasons not to bring home a kitten, especially in our house. Our other cat has not warmed up to any cat it's ever met. And our big dog has not been raised around cats. We're going to have to work on that and pray it works out.

But the biggest concern I had was the kitten's size. All kittens are small, but this one is most likely at an age where it normally would still be with his mother. Except there is no mother. This kitten and its sibling were abandoned. He's eating solid food and we're giving him formula, but normally, it would have been better to wait a little bit before we adopted him. This time, that wasn't an option.

The last indoor cat we had was basically a prisoner in our bedroom, due to cats and dogs and other things. We're hoping this little guy can roam the entire house. Time will tell, of course. And this cat is not my wife's, nor is he mine. It's my daughter's. We're hoping she can do most of the work of raising him herself.

I told my children, as we drove home with a new kitten in the car, that when their kids want to look at an animal to buy or adopt, they'd better be prepared to be okay with bringing him or her home with them. I knew, the moment we made the call and told them we were coming, that we'd be getting a new cat. Just a little fatherly advice to a couple of my kids.

Yes, we have a newbie in the house. We'll have challenges, but hopefully the victories will outnumber the defeats. Now, if my daughter can just think of a good name for the little guy...