12/10/2015: My poor (lace) heart

Sorry I haven't written in a long time.  I've not been feeling all that great, and Clinchfield has been a relatively good kitten.  He still has his crazy streaks, but usually they're short-lived and non-chaotic.

Then came today...

We have Cappuccino, my mother's dog, again for a few days.  I think Clinch is excited, because he kept trying to play tag with her when they first arrived yesterday.  This morning he was frisking around the pup trying to play as well as running all around the house.

When I took my shower, I decided to close Cappuccino in the bathroom with me.  I latched the door (which we usually don't do), so Clinch was reaching in under the door and playing under/with/around it.  A few times he got pretty loud, so I yelled out, "Clinch, knock it off!"

I guess he took me literally, because when I opened the door, this is what I found:

This is the stiff lace heart from the bathroom door.

"You did tell me to knock it off, Mama!"

Here's how the bathroom door is supposed to look:

See how high up the heart is?  Clinchfield is quite the jumper.  I have a video of him jumping that I'll have to show you soon.

"Honestly, I was just following directions."

And here is poor, beleaguered Cappuccino trying to hide in the bedroom:

It's quiet in the house now, so I'm hoping Clinch has gotten it all out of his system.

11/03/2015: Cappuccino forced off of the couch

I have a very short report for you today.  Not much has been going on.  Cappuccino (my mother's dog - see previous posts here and here if you haven't read about her yet) has been very reluctant to eat or drink, but we think she's okay.  She's not starving or dehydrating.

Clinchfield has continued to be very interested in everything Cappuccino does, especially when we take her out.  He's been hanging around the door, and once yesterday he nearly darted out.  I screamed, "NO!" and half stepped on him in my (successful) attempt to keep him inside.  I'm hoping that will stop him from trying again.

I left Cappuccino on my couch to come into my studio, and after a while Steve called me back in there so he could Air Drop a video to my phone from his.  It seems that Clinchfield was batting at Cappuccino, and Steve got the tail end of it:

Clinch isn't being aggressive at all, but Cappuccino is having none of it, the poor dear.

11/01/2015: Living Room Water

A few days ago I told you about Cappuccino's problem with drinking water on her own along with her difficulties with eating.  Here's a picture of Steve holding the bowl of water out for her:

Sometimes she needs to be on a lap before she'll finally drink, but this time we got lucky.  Do you see who's lurking there in the background next to the toy basket?

Clinchfield is very interested in everything the dog does, so Steve sometimes plays with him while watering Cappuccino so he won't interfere:

We have a leather string that is really supposed to be Fe's, but Clinch loves it, too.  He drags it around sometimes, and Fe trails along after.  I'll try to get better pictures of that for you.  In the above picture, Steve is moving the string around to distract Clinch from the oh-so-interesting drinking going on.

When we're not actively trying to get Cappuccino to drink, we leave the bowl on the floor.  Everyone likes to partake in the "living room water."  I don't know if it's because living room water tastes better or if they're just all too lazy to drag their feline butts to the kitchen.

Since this is Clinch's first experience with living room water, he is the most intrigued.

He drinks:

He sticks his right paw in:

He sticks his left paw in:

And he lays there just looking at the bowl, poised to attack it once again:

Most of the time after he dips his paw in the water he'll lick it off.  Sometimes, though, he just twitches his paw a few times, flinging droplets far and wide.  I've even felt drops while sitting on the couch a few feet away.

Update:  Steve just wrote a comment on this post: "So you're saying... he sticks his right paw in, he takes his right paw out, he sticks his left paw in, then he shakes it all about?"  I audibly groaned then said, "We should rename him to "Hokey Pokey."  Steve disagreed.

I hope he doesn't wander around looking for the bowl once Cappuccino goes home!

10/29/2015 - 10/30/2015: Cappuccino Days 1 and 2

Let me tell you about my mother's and stepfather's dog, Cappuccino.  She's a Shih Tzu, 13 years old, and a bit high maintenance.  By "a bit" I mean "a lot."

She was born with problems in her eyes, so I don't think she sees very well.  We have to put drops or goop in her eyes every night or they look really cloudy and red.

I don't know if it's because of her eyes or something else, but she has problems eating.  John feeds her out of his hand, but I refuse to do that.  I hold her and the bowl of food and wait until either she eats or falls asleep with her little head half in the bowl and half on my arm.  Yes, I know I should put the food down and just wait for her to eat when she gets hungry, but the cats will eat it.  So I sit on the couch with Cappuccino tucked under my arm and wait.

Last night was the first time Clinchfield witnessed this.  He was riveted:

I look really fat in this picture.  I'd like you to know that, while I am fat, I am not sitting up straight on the couch.  So please take that into consideration when you view the following video:

I trimmed some stuff out, but this will give you a really good idea how it went.  Oh - you'll have to turn the sound up a lot to hear her grunting and our comments.

I regret to inform you that as soon as Steve stopped filming Cappuccino promptly stopped eating and refused to eat the rest of the night.  She wouldn't eat this morning, either, even though Clinch pretty much left her alone.  She did finally eat early this afternoon after I switched her food out.

She also doesn't want to drink on her own.  We have to hold the water bowl up, and sometimes she won't even drink unless she's on a lap, too.  I'll try to get a picture of that to show you.

Sleeping last night was very interesting.  I got up around midnight, and when I came back to bed, Cappuccino refused to lie back down.  I thought she needed to go out, but I discovered the reason was that Clinch was in the bed.  I took her out anyway, and we eventually went back to sleep - Cappuccino at my legs and Clinch up by my head.  They both were in the bed all night long, leaving me with little room and not enough covers.

This morning I was able to get a few pictures of what was probably going on last night:

Cappuccino didn't like that very much.

After she finally ate this afternoon, I wrapped her up in my blanket so she would hopefully go to sleep and let me do my own thing:

Shih Tzu or ET?

Even though she didn't stay wrapped up, she did let me have peace.  I appreciated that, because everyone else wanted attention from time to time all afternoon.