Deputy Dawg

Full Name:  Charlie Brown Bear (It's an homage to his predecessor Grizzly Bear)


Nicknames:  Chuck, Chuckie, Chuckie Doodle, Bonehead, Doofus... Doesn't matter, he pretty much answers to everything anyway

Birthdate: 2006-ish (making him roughly 6 years old)

"Gotcha Day":  September 4, 2011

Favorite Activities: Toy Hoarding, Fetching a tennis ball, Playing tug-o-war, Chasing a laser light, Looking for bunnies in the backyard

Profession: Deputy of Teeny Tiny Tabby Town


We adopted Chuckles from Last Day Dog Rescue over Labor Day weekend.  As the rescue's name implies, he was sprung from animal control in a rural county in the northern lower peninsula on his last allotted day.  My average sized chocolate lab weighed just 50 pounds at the shelter.  He also has two large fatty lipomas (one on his rib cage and one on his belly)

On the way home from the rescue... Giving me the eyes of love and contemplating how to jump over the seats of the mini-van to reach me.  He figured it out.  ;-)

I couldn't possibly be more grateful to the folks at Last Day Dogs.  They looked at an emaciated dog with tennis ball sized lumps on his body and saw him as a life worth saving.  Today, he is a healthy 85 pounds and worth the world to us.

We were looking for a mature dog to replace our Grizzly's place in the household.  Charlie was 5 years old and supposedly arthritic.  The rescue called him "Mellow Fellow" in his pet listing.  I spent the first week with him wondering if they gave us the wrong dog.

While I suppose Charlie is mellow in comparison to a puppy, there's a ton of play left in him.  In fact, he insists.  If he's in the mood to play and you're ignoring him, you very well might get a tennis ball bounced off your body until you relent.  He might squeak a squeaky toy for hours at a time with a huge smile on his face.  Far and away, his favorite game is chasing the laser pointer.  I bought it as a cat toy, but the cats won't go anywhere near it for fear of being bowled over by the dog.  His laser light adoration borders on obsession.

This NEEDS to be remade with a photo of a chocolate lab.

Charlie loves the cats.  They are mostly indifferent to him.  But when they scrap, Deputy Dawg runs straight into the fracas to break it up.  

Mighty Mutt... saving our household from one cat fight at a time.

Make sure you come back on Monday.  There's only one permanent resident left and I hear he has a bit of a fan club hanging out on the interwebs.  

Meet the Mayor

Full Name:  Simba Nemo (I know, I know... My kids were 6, 4, and 2 years old when we adopted him.  We're lucky the name isn't worse!)

Nicknames: Sim, Simmy, Beans, SimbaBubbles, Chunky Thunk

Birthdate: August 14, 2003 (making him nearly 9 years old)

"Gotcha" Day: October 8, 2003

Favorite activities: Eating, Birdwatching, Sunbathing, Destroying catnip toys, Sitting on pizza boxes, Knocking said pizza boxes on the floor, Napping with Duckie (the pillow pet that he stole from younger daughter)

Profession: Mayor and Sheriff of Teeny Tiny Tabby Town


We adopted Simba as a "playmate" for Einstein in 2003 when she was 10 years old.  Einstein made it quite clear she wasn't interested in a playmate, but the kids were thrilled.

Please note that the child in the photo is now 15 years old, looks nothing like this little girl any longer, and will be driving in a month.  For all of these reasons, I am sad.

Simba took on the role as pesky little brother to Einstein.  For years, he hid around corners to pounce on her as she walked by and tapped her tail while she slept.  Grizzly was his best friend by default since Madame Einstein wanted nothing to do with either of them.  Simba loved to wash Grizzly's head for him.  They hung out in sunbeams together.

I don't have many photos of him looking at the camera.  If he knows I'm paying attention to him, the photos often turn out like this:

Our big boy loves his food.  If you're ever in our kitchen, be prepared for Simba's version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.  The words in his version have something to do with "starving to death".  He has lost three pounds in the past year and weighs in at roughly 15 pounds.  We're still working on it, but he's healthy and happy.  Even if we are starving him to death.

When we moved last summer, we had a full month between closing the sale of our old house and closing the sale of our new house.  So I left Traverse City Michigan and headed off to my parents' house in Florida with 3 kids and a cat.  Neither Mom nor cat were tranquilized for the journey.

I cannot see this photo without hearing Kermit and Fozzie singing "Moving Right Along".  You're welcome for the ear worm.

Turns out that our Simba is a very good passenger.  He would let us know during the first half-hour of each leg of the trip that he would prefer to be elsewhere, but then settled in quickly... either on someone's lap or on the tray table between the front seats.  He kept a paw on my thigh while I drove.  It was adorable right up until I took a turn he wasn't ready for (claws + dressed for July heat = you do the math)  He also taught us that drive-thru windows were pretty much out of the question after he tried to join the lunch shift at McDonalds.

He has accepted our recent permanent and foster additions to the family relatively gracefully, although he has assumed more of an alpha role than he did with Einstein and Grizzly.  Simba is unquestionably in charge, although he rarely fights to prove it.  He will raise a paw if someone gets too close in the kitchen, but that's about the extent of it.  He prefers people to other animals, which is why I was thrilled when this happened:

For all the Norman fans... Here's your first look at the old man.  Please note Simba was there first and Norman joined the party.  It would have never happened any other way. 

Welcome Wednesday

Welcome to my new adventure in Teeny Tiny Tabby Town!   The name Whiskers in the Window represents the first view that my foster kitties have in my home... the front window of our new house in the northeast Detroit suburbs.   This gorgeous girl is Penny, my first "official" foster.

My name is Kelly.  I have been an Air Force wife for nearly 17 years.  During that time, we've lived in Texas, Idaho, Germany, Ohio, and Michigan.  We've been in hotel rooms, apartments, duplexes, townhouses, and stand-alone homes... in the city, in the country, in the woods.   Our animals have lived in every one of these places with us.

To truly understand me, what I'm doing, and where I'm going, I feel you need to meet a couple very special creatures first...

Einstein Marie... queen of the heating pad, ruler of all she surveyed, my first pet as an adult.  I met her before I met my husband.  I adopted her out of a cardboard box in front of a Glen's Food Market in northern Michigan.  One of my 7th grade students had been left there by her father with instructions to get rid of the kittens before she could come home.  I left with the scrawniest runt and ended up with the queen.  Stein was an absolute dictator who ruled with an iron paw.  She had a deep yowl that could strike fear into the most experienced veterinarian.  She also purred whenever you even thought about looking at her and never, ever raised a claw to one of my kids (even when they deserved it).  She slept in the crook of my knees for 17 years.  It's been just a touch over a year and a half since she left us and I'm still waiting for a full night sleep.

 

Grizzly Bear... the light of our lives, the dog that my husband came home begging for with a child-like "Can we keep him?" during our first few months of marriage, my first dog ever.  Afraid of men with facial hair and anyone wearing boots (You can imagine that our attempt to introduce him to Santa our first Christmas together didn't go over well), Grizzly also feared riding in the car... and yet he was my protector.  Griz slept across my bedroom doorway almost every night for 15 years.  He helped raise my children.  You have never seen a dog more panicked than when his first baby cried, or a dog more joyful than when that first baby got off the school bus in the afternoons.  Bone cancer robbed me of my boy just over two years ago.  There's a special place in hell for cancer.

Sometime between Grizzly's passing and Einstein's just a few months later, we learned that we would be making yet another military move.  House selling time is no time for new pets, so I spent countless hours looking at rescue pets on the internet and wishing that I could bring them all home.   If there was a touch of gray on their faces, I wanted them even more.  It was during my time of grief that I discovered the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, Pitter Pats of Baby Cats, and Love & Hisses... and my new dream of fostering was born.  Now that we're settled and I've nagged my husband into agreement, the foster room is open for business.  I'm hoping for kittens because I'm pretty sure that I could never give the seniors away.

There currently are no teeny tinys in Teeny Tiny Tabby Town (T4!), but we have an assortment of permanent residents and fosters who are excited to meet you.  Starting tomorrow....