Friday, November 22, 2024

Feline Friday: Snow Before Frost

We hadn't seen frost yet at the Cat Sanctuary. This is very unusual; we usually get frost in the last week of September or first week of October, but this year it was as if Old Man Winter was feeling sorry for the people in North Carolina who are still living in tents. Day after day, the sunset came earlier and the sunrise later, but the temperatures stayed at mid-September (which is to say, from humans' point of view, perfect) with lots of sunshine.

This couldn't last as long as some people in North Carolina needed it to.

Earlier in the week I was near a TV set on which MSNBC was confidently saying that downtown Gate City would get "a trace" of snow, the Cat Sanctuary would get an inch, and the top of Clinch Mountain might get two or three or even four inches, because the ground temperature even on the lower ridges would be warm enough to melt snow. I had to smile. Weather forecasts have become much more detailed than they were fifty years ago, when it would have been "chance of snow," and by becoming more detailed they've remained often wrong. Local meteorologists make different guesses so that people can have favorites, but they're all often wrong. The Blue Ridge Mountains are where northern and southern weather patterns meet. It's always anybody's guess which weather pattern we'll actually get, except that rain will almost always be involved. 

I dug up blankets and shawls, brought in things that might freeze outside, and settled in for a day or two of rain. Not that I mind snow, as long as the computer works. 

So, early this morning, I was out on the screen porch putting the finishing touches on today's Link Log and assuring readers that a Petfinder post was forthcoming. And I had just scheduled the Link Log, hit "Publish," and reached to open a new tab with Petfinder in it, when all the lights went out and the heater stopped. About two inches of snow had fallen. Much of it had fallen directly on the ground and melted, but relatively mild temperatures only meant wetter, heavier snow clinging to trees. Somewhere there must have been one last dead tree that hadn't gone down in the Edge of the Hurricane. 

No use sitting on the screen porch if I wasn't computing, was there? So I went home to bed. No electricity there, either. I lay down under a blanket and had a nice nap. It was about time for one. I'd been up all night, sending out feelers about a novel and contending with Microsoft's endlessly annoying updates to a program I had not planned to open again in the foreseeable future. 

Then I woke up; the sun was bright, the house was chilly, the lights were still off. So the most useful thing to do was to come into town and report the power outage. 

Most of the snow had melted but even McDonald's was closed, due to the power outage, until one o'clock.

On days like these we think how much everyone loses by having "power grids," how badly we all need to be generating our own electricity instead of paying companies to build big, dirty "plants" and dams and abandon them ten years later.

Anyway, about the animals. In honor of the weather, can we find snowy or frosty white animal photos? I tend to neglect white animals because Petfinder's sorting mechanism does not separate animals with really white coats from animals with a white spot here and there. For both dogs and cats, the gene for just a few small white spots is dominant. More animals than not have a white spot somewhere, so a Petfinder search for white animal photos is almost the same thing as an unsorted search. Growlgrowlgrowl...

Zipcode 10101: Duchess and Glow from New York City


They're spring kittens, rescued from different alleys. Like our Serena and Traveller, they recognized each other as the siblings they had been missing so badly for so long, and bonded on sight. Duchess is the white one. Both kittens are female. I'd be greatly surprised if Glow hadn't been spayed, too, but I didn't check. Duchess has been spayed. They should fill your house with bouncing and pouncing and racing and chasing for a few years. They are recommended for people who don't want shelves cluttered with breakable objects, who keep plants in heavy pots on the floor. The photo showing what a lapfull they've become by now caught Glow at the sort of angle MSNBC favors for Republican politicians, but at Duchess's web site there's another photo showing that Glow has a normal adorable kitten face too.

Zipcode 20202: Snow White from DC


Snow White is not a social cat. She's a rather small cat, her apparent bulk mostly fur, and likes to sit around posing and looking down on other animals. She's being sheltered in a foster home, where she reportedly doesn't acknowledge that other cats and dogs are there. She is thought to be about six years old, healthy, spayed, friendly with humans. 

She looks to me like the sort of would-be Queen Cat who'd sprint a mile if Serena looked at her, but she might do very well as an only pet.

Zipcode 30303: Polar Bear from Atlanta


Move fast! Polar Bear and his mother and four siblings will be on display at a shopping mall tomorrow! They're all pure white, though their coats may show silver or gold undertones in some lights. Not much is known about the kittens' individual purrsonalities; they'll probably develop some as they grow up. If you're in Atlanta you'll have a chance to meet them.

And now the dogs:

Zipcode 10101: Sinbad from Puerto Rico by way of New York City 


Remember Sinbad and Me? Kin Platt's bid to create an iconic dog character may have helped some real Old English Bulldogs find homes, but Sinbad here is believed to be mostly retriever. Nobody knows for sure. Anyway, somebody thought he looked like a dog who'd be the perfect baby-sitter and bodyguard for a teenaged boy and girl who fancied themselves detectives. Nobody knows for sure how well he'd do at that, either. Kin Platt's dog hero's competence, like his humans' adventures, had a hint of the supernatural. Retrievers are not usually as intelligent as herding dogs or terriers. 

This real-world Sinbad is five years old and weighs fifty pounds, and they want $550 for him. That's to include transportation from Puerto Rico to New York or New Jersey. If you can meet him in Puerto Rico the adoption fee should be more reasonable. 

He is described as a well-meaning, lovable pet, but almost completely uneducated. He belonged to people who just tied him to the fence to be a watchdog--in one case, while they moved up to the mainland! Then he was rescued by someone who lived with a bunch of other dogs, and they chased him back onto the street. For his size he seemed surprisingly afraid of the street; it was a new experience in his short unsatisfying life. He is said to be very demonstrative of gratitude for a foster home where he has a chance to lead a normal dog's life, with walks and runs and suchlike. He would probably love to run at the heels or the bicycle wheels of a teenager, but he's big and rambunctious enough to intimidate a small child. 

For a large dog he's getting on in years, but he's still full of pent-up energy from his misunderstood puppyhood. Ask about adopting this dog only if you are serious about fitness. He'll provide all the workouts you need to maintain a good figure.

Zipcode 20202: Cotton Ball from South Carolina 


She's just a spring puppy. Readers who've watched Dave Paulides' Missing Persons Project videos will remember Executive Producer Huck, the big fluffy pale-colored dog Paulides usually pets and calls a good girl at the opening of each video. Huck is a Great Pyrenees dog. Cotton Ball is a Great Pyrenees puppy.

Cotton Ball (and a sibling called Q Tip) were typical shelter pups: nice, cute, well-meaning dogs dumped out of the homes of humans who didn't want puppies and couldn't find the time to have their dogs fixed so that puppies wouldn't arrive. This web site is not fanatical about neutering pets because all of us hate that "any domestic animals are too many, people must be herded into tiny apartments so that the population can keep on exploding and the Social Security Ponzi scheme can keep rolling" mentality behind the chant that "Neuter and spay is the only way." We are, however, very judgmental about people who don't make the time to have simple operations done and then dump out their unwanted puppies or kittens. If you want your dog to be a natural unaltered animal, you need to plan on giving her pups a loving home until your friends claim them. 

Well, Cotton Ball is already spayed, so no worries about that. She is very large for a nine-month-old puppy because she's probably going to be an oversized dog. Oversized dogs need a lot of food, a large doghouse (or just give them a whole shed), at least one positively athletic person who can run at big-dog speed, at least one person who is big and strong enough to lift them if necessary, and a large yard with probably an eight-foot fence. That is why they tend to be put in shelters. For people who can supply what they need, extra-large dogs can be great pets. Their worst quality is that they don't live as long as smaller dogs and cats do. They can live ten years, but, realistically, they're senior dogs at age five.

If you have what it takes to adopt a big dog, visit Cotton Ball's web page to work out where in DC, SC, or any point between would be best for you to meet her. 

Zipcode 30303: Athena from Atlanta 


Lazy people should not adopt Australian Shepherd puppies. These beautiful, photogenic dogs make good pets for people who want to stay slim and fit with lots of walks and adventures, and a large yard with a high fence. Athena unfortunately got stuck with lazy humans who didn't teach her anything, and she is yappy and excitable and hard to manage. They recommend not taking her to dog parks. If you can be a kind, firm, responsible trainer, this six-year-old, 65-pound dog might still learn to walk around town on a leash, eventually. She has languished in shelters longer than any dog should, but they say she's still a well-meaning dog, just excitable and uneducated. She likes running and playing and catching balls, and would probably be good at a responsible dog job if offered one. She should probably be an only pet.

Visit Scenic North Carolina


Noah is currently in the Burnsville shelter, on the North Carolina - Tennessee border, which has very reasonable adoption fees. He is thought to be young, and has been vaccinated. That's all they're saying.


Nobody calls anything Loki unless they expect it to play lots of tricks, some more fun than others. In the Old Norse legends, Loki started out as an amusing younger brother whose pranks made everyone laugh, but eventually he created so much ill feeling that he was cast out of the family. If you want to live with kitten pranks like pushing china plates off shelves or bounding across a perfectly decorated cake, this may be your kitten. 

I've said less about people losing homes in contiguous States, too, because the unprecedented flood in Asheville did so much damage, but the hurricane itself did abundant damage in Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia too. If you're going to be a hurricane tourist, Johnson City is not far out of the way from North Carolina. 

(Four billion dollars' worth of damage in Virginia? Well, yes, we did lose some bridges, and people could easily have lost houses to the Edge, but I hope we don't have any people in Virginia who are mean enough to inflate claims and thereby take money away from people who are still living in tents.)
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