Pet Trouble

Who ever said you need kids to be parents? Or that you don’t know what it’s like to be a parent until you have kids? Hogwash! Just get a couple of pets and you will soon, very soon know…if you get Don Quijote de la Mancha and Chimini Cuarta that is. Our dog and cat are most definitely in their adolescent stage. Paaagh! Let’s just start with Don Quijote: Jason and I noticed a while back that Don Quijote had a large lump on his right forearm. I thought it was a worm, but Jason thought it was a bug bite, because something had bitten Chimi a few days earlier. We let it be for the time being thinking it would go away. Well, it grew. And grew. So one day Jason put salt water on it and it began “breathing!” He squeezed it for a while and one of THESE popped out! Yaaaaack! I looked at the lump and decided there was a second one still in his arm. More squeezing, a little bit of Don Q bucking and yelping, and finally the second, and much larger worm popped out. Ugh. Those little black things on the worm are most definitely spikes. Disgusting! As you know by now, Don Quijote has been battling against chicken chasism, and we have him on the chicken schedule. When the chickens are out and about during the day, Don Q is tied up (with a very long rope so that he can run around, of course). And at dusk, when the chickens are put into their coups, he is released to wander off wherever his heart leads. One night before going to bed, Jason couldn’t find Don Quijote and he did not get tied up for the night. Wouldn’t you know it, the next morning he was waiting by the door with his grand prize: a DEAD chicken. He was well aware that he had committed a crime too, because his ears were down and his eyes were full of remorse/shame/fear at what our reaction/punishment for the crime would be. A very wise friend of ours had advised us to, in case a chicken would ever be killed, tie said chicken around Don Quijote’s neck and put him in isolation with his catch for a few days. We felt awful doing it, but we were at our wits end with the whole ordeal. So, for Don Q’s own good, we tried the anti-chicken chasism therapy for a day and a night. The isolation area REAKED by the next day so we gave up waiting and hoped the therapy worked its magic. This picture was taken right before the therapy was over and by that time, the chicken was no longer attached to its feet, so only the feet were left dangling. We don’t know whether it worked or not, because he’s strictly back on the chicken schedule, but I can’t say I’ve seen his head perk up as much when a chicken pecks by. = )
And now for Chimi: Chimi has acquired the knack for rolling around in the dirt and romping through grassy fields. The result? He comes home dirty and coveeeerrred with briars. The briars go from the cat to the couch, to our clothes, to our bed, to the washer and the dryer, on our towels, in our socks, on our shoes…you name it, it has briars. I spent 15 extra minutes on laundry today plucking briars…not to mention the hours of my life I have devoted to plucking them off the cat, all the while dodging his indignant claws. It seems that during his nightly adventures he has picked up some highly contagious and allergy-rash-causing something. That something has embedded itself on our couches where he loves to sleep the day away. Jason and I are both battling this something very uncomfortably. My rash went away after I got a cortisone shot in my toosh, but Jason, who did not get the shot, breaks out every time he lounges his bare skin on the couch. We have set the couches out in the sun for a full day, beat the dust off of them, practically drenched them in Lysol, and kept the cat off as much as possible. Hopefully “it” will go away.
So, all of you newlyweds out there who are wondering what parenting is like, get some pets.