The good and the bad of this week

The good - I took a day off work and got to go with Thomas on his class field trip to the zoo:

The bad, we had to have our sweet cat Ally put to sleep - she had been hit by a car and had too many injuries to fix. We are just happy we found her and were able to say goodbye, even though that was very sad. We will miss her so much.

Ally was a good and loyal cat, she was wild and loved the outdoors and eating lizards and more, but she was also very loving and followed us everywhere - down the road to the mail box, walking with the kids to the bus stop, and she was always here waiting for us when we came home, so it is so different to drive up and her to not be here anymore.

Thank you Nana!

Thomas was so happy with his birthday packages - all the new clothes, especially the spideman stickers! He is pretty good about posing to have his picture taken now. And usually Molly never sits still at all so this is a rare picture with her too! The flowering plant in the background I got last week as one of my gifts for teacher appreciation week.

wildlife rescue in suburbia

Last Thursday our dog Molly was barking up a storm along with all the other neighbor dogs.
I go outside to find an injured possum on our back fence. Our back neighbors have a very big and mean looking Boxer dog and he is jumping up on the fence trying to take another bite of this critter. Then the big dog rocks the fence, the possum falls down and gets under some branches we had stacked behind the shed. So Molly has it cornered - barking and within a few inches from the possum which is now getting mean and aggressive snapping back at Molly. So I finally retrieve Molly and get her on a leash and call my husband and he calls around some places trying to get someone who would come and get an injured animal. Finally he finds the Houston SPCA does rescue wild animals and they will send someone out.

The guys gets here in the afternoon and looks for the possum under the branches, and then gets his flashlight and it is under the shed. First we try to get the water hose but it wasn't long enough, then he tried to get his with his animal catcher - noose on a pole type thing, but the possum keeps moving. Then I ask him, would it help if I just let Molly off her leash and chase it out - so we try that, but it just involved about an hour stand off with Molly cornering the possum in a corner under there. Thankfully beagle or possum were not injured in this experiment.
Molly comes out and I tie her back up, then I remember we have another water hose in the front yard, so I bring that back and with two water hoses the guy is able to get water under there and then I see the little white nose poke out and possum starts scurrying out towards the back fence. Meanwhile Molly is so excited she pulls herself out of her collar and takes off after the critter, but not before SPCA guy gets his little animal catcher and grabs the possum and puts it in a little cage.

So we were very thankful for the SPCA guy - and they do animal rescues for free, but do accept donations - so I did give a donation. And if the critters injuries we not bad they treat them and release into the wild somewhere.