Life in a Petting Zoo

Life in a Petting Zoo A page dedicated to chronicling the antics of four big fluffy dogs, four resident cats, and one human fostering orphan kittens in Memphis, TN.

Imogen needed a fren, so last weekend, I went back to and picked up two singletons. The first pic is of Teegan, and he ...
10/26/2019

Imogen needed a fren, so last weekend, I went back to and picked up two singletons. The first pic is of Teegan, and he is juuuuust on this side of spicy. 🌶 He’ll approach me only so long as I don’t move a muscle, so he’s still getting purritoed and snuggled every day. His fear is waning, though, because he now protests the purrito a little more each day. My favorite thing about Teegan is that when he goes into stalker mode, he looks just like Toothless. 🐉 One day, I’ll get a photo of it, but since he worries when I move, I’m just motionlessly watching for now.

Maddox, the tabby boy, is Teegan’s complete opposite in that he’s ultra-over-the-top-lovey. He’s currently rocking upper respiratory symptoms, but he’s not super snotty anymore, so hopefully it’s just viral, and hopefully it’s improving.
The will be with me for a month or so until they’re all big enough to be spayed/neutered, and then they’ll be ready for their forever families.
Teegan 👉
Maddox 👉
Imogen 👉
@ Memphis, Tennessee

The world’s cutest little alien potato ❤️👽🥔 @ Memphis, Tennessee
10/19/2019

The world’s cutest little alien potato ❤️👽🥔
@ Memphis, Tennessee

🐱🧩📦 🤦‍♀️😂
10/15/2019

🐱🧩📦 🤦‍♀️😂

Imogen is precious. 💖
10/13/2019

Imogen is precious. 💖

10/12/2019

This is Imogen, and she is a little different. In addition to some mysterious hair loss on her tail and back legs, her front feet are turned inward, and her front legs are a little shorter than her back legs. As a result, she isn’t part Velcro like other kittens. (She can’t jump and attach herself to stuff.) Also, she is shaped a lot like a potato. In other words, she is perfect.
She’ll be staying here with me until her fur grows back (into a luxurious, long-haired coat) and she is big enough to be spayed.
Having a foster kitten without my faithful kitten nanny around hurts my heart a little more than I expected. would have loved this utterly fearless little kitten. 💔

To know was to know that she loved to have her paw held. I actually worked toward getting her certification, but I c...
10/08/2019

To know was to know that she loved to have her paw held. I actually worked toward getting her certification, but I could never get her (1) comfortable going with someone who wasn’t me and (2) to stop hulk-smashing people with her paw. I used to think she did it when I wasn’t paying attention to her, and it might have been an attention thing, but she would be perfectly content if you’d just hold her paw. 🐾👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩
@ Memphis, Tennessee

I shared on my personal page but didn’t have the heart to share here until now. My beloved Alice crossed the rainbow bri...
10/08/2019

I shared on my personal page but didn’t have the heart to share here until now. My beloved Alice crossed the rainbow bridge on Sunday, October 6. I am incredibly grateful that I got to spend five and a half years with my girl, and I miss her with every fiber of my being.

It’s a two bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit day.
10/05/2019

It’s a two bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit day.

Alice bit me once when she was about a year old. On purpose. And she was serious.My first thought was “Unacceptable. She...
10/05/2019

Alice bit me once when she was about a year old. On purpose. And she was serious.
My first thought was “Unacceptable. She doesn’t get to do that. I’m the leader. She needs to be submissive. I can’t have a dog who bites; I won’t be able to trust her.” That’s what Cesar Milan taught us, right?
Then I looked at the situation I had created: I had accidentally given her two rawhides stuck together. (This was before I knew not to give them at all.) I only wanted her to have one of them, though, so I tried to take it back so I could separate them. While she was effectively trapped in her crate. Even though I knew she guards her resources. (When she was much smaller, she once brought a dead fledgling into the house, and I tried to take it away, so she swallowed it whole.) Even though she gave every indication that she was going to bite me, like going whale eyed and growling a little bit. I chose to ignore her warning because I was supposed to be dominant.
I created the situation, and then I didn’t respect her wishes, her personality. Dogs have so few methods of communicating with us; she couldn’t sit me down and talk about how vulnerable she was feeling when I tried to take her high-value resource away. So, she used the tool that she had.
That incident changed our relationship in such a beautiful way; I learned to respect her, not because she can inflict injury but because she is a sentient being with feelings and needs.
I’m not condoning biting, but a bite is the result of a breakdown in communication. The beauty is that dogs whose boundaries and limits are observed and respected don’t need to bite. Alice taught me that.

Flashback to when my neighbor snapped this photo of 5-month-old trying her level best to squeeeeeeeeeze under the fen...
10/04/2019

Flashback to when my neighbor snapped this photo of 5-month-old trying her level best to squeeeeeeeeeze under the fence. This photo still makes me laugh out loud five years later. 😂😂😂

10/03/2019

Back when The Greatest Pyrenees was The Greatest P U P P Y 💜
and I have always been super connected, and I feel like this video from when she was just four months old demonstrates it. Her interest and understanding of humans and our silly activities has been innate since Day 1. What a special dog she is. Even while my heart is breaking, I’m indescribably grateful to have been her hooman. 💔💝.

It seems that Alice’s time here with me is drawing to a close. I can’t begin to describe how hard that is to reconcile, ...
10/02/2019

It seems that Alice’s time here with me is drawing to a close. I can’t begin to describe how hard that is to reconcile, either, because she has been almost totally fine. Granted, she’s been on heavy duty pain meds, but for the last month, her gait was barely even off.
When I first heard her diagnosis, I hoped beyond hope for just one more good month with my girl. And I got it. And now, I’m just trying not to be greedy.
Toward the end of last week, she started groaning a bit more when she laid down. Yesterday, she started limping more significantly, and today she held her paw up and was non-weight bearing for the first time. I’m increasing the frequency of her pain meds in hopes that might give her some relief.
I can see now that deciding when it’s time will be one of the hardest decisions of my life.

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