News from the animal front

All Things Bright and Beautiful

By Cecil F. Alexander

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

This is just a small portion of the poem or hymn written by Cecil F. Alexander. You can read the entire poem here.

I have quite a menagerie at my house. I grew up around animals and have had a pet of one form or another as far back as I can remember. I just love animals.

I have a bit of news concerning a couple of my pets. Firstly, a bit of sad news. My parakeet, Bluey died today. She was very old, at least 10 years, if not a little older. That is pretty old for a Parakeet!

This is a picture of Bluey and her mate Spock. Bluey is on the left and Spock is on the right. (Kind of obvious because of her name. LOL) It is a comfort to know that she died of old age and not of some disease or from neglect.

Bluey had quite a life, and the word that would best describe her is "fighter". She and Spock were given to me around 7-8 years ago. I'm not sure how old they were when we got them. They lived happily in our dining room for around 5 years. Then, in 2007 we finally finished our basement, and I moved their cage to the family room downstairs. All the time they were upstairs, she never laid an egg, but within a couple of months of moving them downstairs, she laid 2 eggs and successfully hatched them on the floor of her cage....I was surprised to say the least!

At the time of her first clutch of eggs she was at least 6 years old, that is advanced maternal age for a budgie!

A few months later, she laid 7 more eggs, 5 of which hatched (this time in a nest box). She was an excellent mother, and she became a "single mother" when the chicks were around 2 weeks old. Spock literally worked himself to death caring for Bluey and the chicks.

With the addition of so many birds (now a total of 9) Scott built me an aviary.

A year of so after Bluey was in the aviary, I notice that one of her legs was swollen and she wasn't putting any weight on it. I just figured she had gotten it caught in the wire on the aviary and had sprained it. I watched her closely for several days, and then she started putting her weight on it again, so I thought all was well. I did notice, however, that the swelling was still there.

A few months later, I noticed that same leg was bleeding, so I took her out of the aviary and put her in a hospital cage. The leg looked really bad. I medicated her as best as I could. I cleaned the leg, and administered antibiotics. She didn't seem to be suffering at all. I kept her in the hospital cage for several weeks, but the leg just wasn't getting any better, in fact it was getting much worse, but Bluey didn't seem to mind at all! She was eating good, and was quite cheerful. One morning I went to check on her, and her bad leg was GONE! What I eventually figured out was, the swelling was actually a tumor, and Bluey "self-amputated" her leg. She literally pecked the skin off all the way around just above the tumor. So now I had a "peg-legged" parakeet. After a few more weeks, when her stump was completely healed, I put her back in the aviary with the other birds. She lived a normal, happy, parakeet life with the flock. She learned to balance on her stump when she was eating, and she perched with one foot.

About a year ago, she started having more problems. She was losing strength in her remaining leg. During the day when she was awake she was fine, but at night when she fell asleep, she would literally fall off of her perch to the bottom of the aviary. So, I set up a "retirement" home for aging parakeets in a separate cage. She had food and water within easy reach, and she had a special perch that she could rest her entire breast on to relieve the strain on her weakened leg. Her cage was right next to the aviary, and it was so sweet, the other parakeets would fly down and hang on the side of the aviary to visit Bluey every day.

Friday afternoon I was working and Olivia came in and said "Mom, Bluey's on the bottom of the cage, and her feathers are all fluffed out." That is NEVER a good sign in birds, and I knew her days were few. Today, while we were at church, she died.

I will miss her....

Now for a bit of news that's a little more humorous. Our third dog, Pepper, has not yet been spayed. We got her when she was a year old, and her previous owner had not spayed her when she was a puppy. We've been planning on getting her spayed, but as with everything else, we had to wait until we had the money. Well, finally last week we decided we were in the position financially to get her spayed, so on Wednesday, Scott called and set up an appointment. Well, guess what? Wednesday night......she went into heat! So, now we have to wait for 3 weeks until she is out of heat to have her spayed.

Since she sleeps in our bed at night, we have to put a diaper on her, for obvious reasons. They actually sell doggy diapers for this very purpose, but in our small town none of the stores carry them. So, we bought some size 1 baby diapers and cut a hole in the back for her tail!

The only problem is, because she is such a slender dog, she has no hips to speak of, and she is such a smooth haired dog, the diapers kept sliding off. So, my very ingenious husband figured out a way to make doggy suspenders using mitten clips and elastic attached to her harness. It works really well too! So the following few pictures are of Pepper sporting the latest fashion of diaper suspenders.

She actually really hates them, and refuses to walk when she has it on, so I wait until just before bedtime to put them on her. She's very patient though, and doesn't fight me when I'm getting her rigged out.