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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas from the Fuzzlebutts!

Merry Christmas to all our friends! It has been a shamefully long time since I updated our blog. Lucy has become an adorable plumped up lady now who has no desire to step foot outside. Her babies are now 6 months old. How fast time flies by. We wanted to make sure to tell you THANK YOU for giving us our first Christmas together as a family! Santa brought lots of homegrown catnip!

For real? Santa Paws is coming? Shut up! No way!




Move your spotted butt over!




Tubby Bailey




Don't hog it all..share




Mine




Better if I hold it in my paws...Lucy




Nom Nom Nom...Lucy




Bailey and Gabby




Lucy




Bailey kicking Gabby




Itty bitty Chelsey..one third the size of all the others...but is the biggest troublemaker




Zoey and Bailey




Lucy has gained weight lol




And obviously happy :)




Poor Joey wasn't sure if Santa would find him for his 1st Christmas




YEAH! Santa did find me and brought lots of frozen noms for me and Sofy




We will end with a beautiful poem we found . Merry Christmas our friends!
Love,
the fuzzlebutts


On the night before Christmas all the homeless animals prayed



“Give us a voice Lord on this Christmas day”


Let us speak to the world


That turns a blind eye


To our misfortune, our pain, and our sad lives






We live in the streets, in the woods, and out in the cold


With no shelter, no food, and no one to hold us tight


Alone in this world as we grow old


We give up sometimes; many of us have lost the fight






Our dreams fill our minds with visions so bright


Of food, soft beds, and a safe place for the night


Of a family to love us and keep us safe


Someone please pick up this small waif






Our fur may be matted, our eyes filled with fear


Thin and ragged to the world we appear


Many people only want us to disappear






We have no home to go to


No family to care


No one to love us


No one no where






No soft voice do we hear


No loving pats


No one to calm our fear


As days turn weeks, to months, and to years






We ask only that people open their heart


To give us a chance, a fresh new start


We promise to love them


And guard them through the night


If only they will give us a chance at a new life






The Lord gave them a patron, a saint, and a cause


Rescue groups worldwide heard their sad calls


They came to their aid and found homes for them all






The animals’ prayers were answered that day


A voice they were given


Their fears swept away






They were given new homes


And families’ to love


Lots of toys, soft blankets, and hugs






The animals have only one final wish


To share with one and all


Please remember that love is the greatest gift of them all





Friday, September 17, 2010

Bonanzle, Blogs and NOT Censored!!! All is well

We are back and unsuspended on Bonanzle. Someone jumped the gun and reported this blog as soliciting charity only. Now if we had been directly asking for funds on the forums that would be a violation. However that was not the case.

Here's the final word on blogs from Bill Harding himself :  "There is no rule against posting links to blog, even if they have donation buttons. What we specifically don't allow is for users to solicit donations on Bonanzle, regardless of where they are soliciting them from. Saying "I have this great blog where you can learn more about my kitty" is fine. Saying "I have this great blog where you can donate money for X cause" is not.
The reason we have this policy is that, prior to it, we were inundated with spammers and scammers that would try to use our forums for various nefarious causes. Obviously we like Mary a lot more than those people, but we need to apply our rules consistently for them to be fair & meaningful."

Of great importance to many of us is the issue of shipping calculators that work properly. Bill suggested that we look for a third party provider that he could possibly use. Several of us found Auctioninc. When asked yesterday Bill stated : "AuctionInc looks like it will be possible. The tech lead there has been in communication with me, just a matter of finishing up my tasks in progress before I can delve into it more deeply. Stay tuned." We're counting on you guys to make this happen sooner than later :)

And back to Lucy and her band of maniacs. Either the weather change to cool or someone spiked their water..it's turned these somewhat mellow kittens into wild cats. LOL They go beyond the normal kitten play. They are body slamming each other, running and jumping off of everything, shredding every little piece of paper they can find, jumping into garbage cans, dragging around shoes, socks or even tools from the basement. About the only thing they haven't done is grab the ceiling fan and swing. I suspect that will happen any time soon.





Who would have thought such sick little kitties would rebound so fast! And growing like weeds!
 
This is Lucy and one of her boys, he looks so much like her, all the spots and almost her size. Funny to see Lucy with a bit of a tummy considering how emaciated she was!
 

and the rest of the babies




We'll end here for today. Thanks again to all our friends for the unreal support shown in the past few days. You are the best!

Kitty Kisses,
Lucy and the Babies


Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Bonanzle, Blogs and Censorship... A word to the wise

Well I guess the Lucy and her babies blog has now fallen to an all time low. As many of you know there was a chip in page created for Lucy and her Kittens, upon the advice of many well intentioned people. I was so very careful not to post it on Bonanzle as it is a violation of their forum policies. Throughout time, a very well meaning friend who did not know it was a violation posted it on a forum thread. The posts suddenly began being deleted. My husband not knowing the exact rules re-posted the thread. I immediately notified support at Bonanzle and I thought they might have the common sense to realize the mistakes. I am not a newbie to the rules but my husband is.



On Bonanzle we have had a lot of fun posting pictures of Joey and Lucy and all the kids. We shared so many antics all in the spirit of giving back to all those pet lovers and especially to those that showed us so much support. There is one thread that I will assume will be pulled shortly that has nothing but discussed and showed pictures of Lucy http://www.bonanzle.com/forums/10/topics/128289 it alone has had almost 6700 views and is on the 24th page. It is now in the drama section of the forums



I now find out that our blogs are censored by Bonanzle. The night before last, I responded to a new seller that I was following her and stated :

I'm following! I need something for beyond dry sensitive skin! here's my blog http://lucyslovesong.blogspot.com/

This resulted in my being dmv'd for solicitation of charity. I'm assuming there's a witch hunt of non-pet lovers that have decided to make it their mission to follow my every move. Management has decided to censor my blog citing :


"The reason why your most recent post was disemvoweled is because the link to your blog which has a donation which ties in with the thread in Drama that we have discussed before. I know that from our earlier emails about this that that was not your intent but we need to be consistent with our forum guidelines so that we can remain fair to all. "



So be advised to pick and chose your words ever so wisely. A link to my blog has cost me a one month suspension on Bonanzle.com. Granted it is only a suspension to the forums however I suspect that this will not be the end of it. I can live without a forum..it was cute and it was fun. We were some of the first people to ever join Bonanzle and have stuck by them thru thick and thru thin. Defended and offered excuses when things did not seem right. When they said they wouldn't be doing advertising, a group got to together to try and do some advertising at our own expense..my contribution was to do 7 videos advertising Bonanzle. When the shipping calculators have not worked I have stuck my neck out as an advocate of those who's sales depended on them. I could go on and on but why bother. Bonanzle wants to be the friendliest and most social e-commerce site out there..but only at their discretion as to what you can say or think even outside the walls of their site, which is so disheartening.. So that you know, this is the Bonanzle policy that in is not listed anywhere until it hits you:

"Please keep in mind that, per the Bonanzle forum policies, your forum privileges may be temporarily or permanently disabled for repeated forum violations. Number of violations in 3-month time window Consequence

1 Warning email

2 Warning email

3 Forum posting privileges removed for 24 hours*

4 Forum posting privileges removed for one week*

5+ Forum posting privileges removed for one month*



Your current count of violations in the last three months is 6. This translates to your account being disabled from forum posting through 10/13/10."



We never received an email warning, much less a 24 hour suspension or even for a week. We got slammed for a month yet they cite they are being fair? Do they read everyone's blog's? Or have we been singled out? 


I encourage any comments on this. Feel free to sign in as anonymous as I know many are afraid of voicing their feelings out of fear. I now know how that really feels. I expect this blog will only get me in further trouble with Bonanzle and will probably be told I might be happier elsewhere.


To all the special Aunts and Uncles on Bonanzle, our Facebook followers/supporters and those on Pet Finders, again we thank you from the very bottom of our hearts. You helped to give Lucy and her babies the care they so desperately needed and without you they would have been going to a shelter with a very uncertain future. We will be continuing with this blog as it has become so popular. Bonanzle doesn't want it..so be it, it's their loss.

Monday, September 13, 2010

It didn't rain, it poured !




By the end of last week all 9 cats and kittens had signs of upper respiratory infections and possibly pneumonia. So last Friday we journeyed back and forth to the vet with the 9 of them. All did have an URI and were in various stages of developing pneumonia. Apparently it is a common bug that kitties can pick up at any veterinarian hospital. $583.00 later, we were home with 9 bottles of antibiotics, each got a shot of antibiotic, each got a vitamin B shot and we came come with 2 IV's in the event someone got too dehydrated. We're hoping the mortgage company really loves cats and understands why we didn't pay this month!

Sammy the 20 yr old wasn't looking so good for a few days. This is now Monday and all have showed signs of major improvement. Between little steam bathes, cleaning snotty noses and yucky eyes, passing out meds, special diets and just holding them..we need a vacation lol. Yesterday, all of them just slept day and night. By this morning it was like someone flipped the switch back on. Woke up to a cat fight on my head, someone lunged at Sammy and scared the P actually out of her and on to me..and so life has returned. And it better last!!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

When it rains it pours.....9 sick kitties

Wouldn't you know it. Just get Lucy well healed up and start re-integrating all the kitties and adult cats together. Then the dreaded sneezing begins. Within 3 days all the babies, Lucy and my other 3 adult cats all have an upper respiratory infection. When it rains it really pours! Just got caught up on vet bills and now this. Just can't treat one and none of the others so it's all or none. Short of re-mortgaging the house (I'm kidding somewhat) this is becoming a financial nightmare. They will all have to be taken to the vet. My oldest Sammy is 20 years old and if she gets too dehydrated it's all about doing the subcutaneous IV fluids as well as whatever other meds are needed. $35.00 per cat for an office visit plus meds.

Some days I question my own sanity, we just wanted to help this momma and her babies. To give them a home they never had..warmth, food, toys and lots of love. Were we wrong to take on this major project? We really didn't mind giving up the last 11 weeks to devote time to them. To putting ourselves even more in debt despite the kind and generous gifts offered by many of you. We have achieved all the goals set out for this young furbutt family and now this........sorry I just needed to vent. Now back to my nursing duties...warm food, warm milk supplement, cleaning runny eyes, wiping clean snotty little noses and giving them little steam bathes so they can breathe easier. Keep a good thought for all of us would you? It would be so appreciated
                                                
  Kitty Kisses,
          The family of Lucy and her 5 babies, Jessy, Billy and Sammy

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Mug Shots of The Bengal Five

Lucy is doing so so much better! After a few terrifying days, she's back to normal although her activities remain restricted. Her incisions are healing well, even though she's been caught pulling at the sutures. Until Lucy is out and about, I'll handle her blog duties but I'm sure not as good as her. Thought maybe you'd like to see the mug shots of The Bengal Five up close and personal.

Bailey (male)

The king pin. Thinks he owns the house and the other kids. He's quickly becoming Russ' shop assistant and in the middle of anything and everything. A little over 4 pounds at 10 weeks he demands food! Only kitten that does not look like Lucy. He has a black nose! and strange looking eyes.





Yoda Ears (male)

The sneaky one with the speed of a wildcat! He has overly large ears that I personally thinks he uses to detect capture. He's the only one with slanted eyes. This poor boy has fallen in love with Joey. He races to find Joey and latches himself on to the dog's leg or tail and won't let go. Joey puts his paw on him and the little devil weasels out and re-attacks





Little Face (female)

This was the runt of the litter and still the tiniest at under 3 pounds. Don't let her cute, petite face fool you! She runs with boys and plays just as rough as them except when she wants attention. Then she's all love and rumbling





Baby Face (female)

This one will steal your heart and your food. She was the baby that had the hard time after surgery. She has the loudest purr for such a tiny baby, also under 3 pounds. Second in line for the biggest mouth in the bunch. She knows how to demand attention and is priming herself to be the little princess around here.






Gabby (male)

Another demanding ruler of the roost and the dinner plate. Gabby is my assistant, who is quite the kisser and huggy one. He's the same size as Bailey, and the 2 of them pound the daylights out of each other. Loves to be cuddled and has the biggest mouth of all. As a matter of fact he never shuts up. Even makes growling noises when he eats.




Until next time...Kitty Kisses from Lucy and her babies

Sunday, August 29, 2010

We almost lost our Lucy.......

Being as I'm not feeling so good I'm having my human mom write for me

On Wednesday, Aug 25th, Lucy and the kittens were all scheduled for their sterilization. The babies are just about 10 weeks old and weigh between 2.5 and 4 pounds. As expected we were a nervous wreck for our new little family as we dropped them off at 8am and couldn't pick them up till the following morning at 7:30am. Bright and early Thursday morning we were first in line to pick up our crew. Couldn't understand why they kept avoiding us and left us till last.

They came out with all the carriers except Lucy's. Babies were all being sent home but there had been a problem with Lucy. Briefly told that she had ripped out her sutures overnight and that they were stabilizing her for a return to surgery to see what happened. Spent most of the day making call after call to see what was going on. If it were not for all of you dear friends we would have been even more more upset than what we were.

Finally got thru and was told we could pick Lucy up at 3pm. When spaying they cut or separate the uterine horns and the uterine body

Once the cuts are made they are closed by what they call ligatures.

After her surgery all seemed well with Lucy. Staff is there very late at nite and return early in the am with a few hours of no staffing there. When they returned in the morning they found Lucy in a pile of blood and in critical condition. Took them 8 boxes of gauze pads to just soak up the blood pooled around her, put her on oxygen, IV fluids and a heating pad with a tech holding a pressure bandage on her incision.

Apparently the ligatures on the 2 ascending cuts were fine. However on the descending cut, the ligatures knots untied and she began bleeding in to her belly. When the pressure in her belly became too much, Lucy ripped out her sutures, inside and out, to let the blood drain out and she continued to bleed until they found her. Once stabilized, which took most of the day, they took her back into surgery. Again another incision to find out the problem, re-tie the ligatures, double check the other ones, and close her back up. I think they knew we would not let her stay there another night alone and unsupervised.

Back home on Thursday evening, our poor Lucy was an absolute mess. The anesthesia and pain meds for 2 days in a row really took it's toll. She was so dazed and almost confused, any slight noise just startled the daylights out of her. In between we were also monitoring the babies and trying to console our other pets who had no idea what was going and why they weren't allowed in certain rooms.

That night, Lucy was frantic and the only way to calm her was to hold her. She wanted nothing to do with a cage or an elizabethan collar. So I stayed up and held her for 4 hours straight just gently talking to her. She let her self relax. Managed to try the cage one more time for about 20 minutes, but went back to holding. So the entire night I just held her to my chest with her head tucked under my chin and let her sleep.

By Friday morning she was still groggy but very anxious about her kittens, we periodically took her in to see that they were ok and sleeping. By this time all the kittens had rallied around. Only one of the little females was a bit shocky at first, but holding her most of Wednesday night calmed her down. She was the only one that seemed to experience any pain but that seemed to subside by Thursday nite.

This post has taken me days to get completed..it's now Sunday morning and things are beginning to look up. Last night Lucy was just kind of blank and staring into space. We wrapped her tummy in a towel and sat her on the couch beside me and let the kittens out. 4 of the 5 just kind of zipped by as they were more intent on just running themselves ragged. The 5th kitten, was the little female who was initially kind of shocky. Her and Lucy just seemed to melt in to each other. Nuzzling and bathing her baby till she was soaked, Lucy seemed almost back to normal. Normal will take time as she is still run down from blood loss and tires very easily but at this time the things are finally looking up.



I'm tired but oh so much better







This is Lucy's belly today, 4 days after the double surgery. She is still quite swollen and bruised. She may not appear swollen but she had lost so much weight that it almost makes her look normal. Unfortunately it's all swelling on her tummy and inner legs


    



Here's the babies resting up





except for this guy who's feeding his fat little face again. He's the biggest at 4 pounds



Our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all our extended family on Bonanzle and the Pet Finders Forum for their many prayers and good wishes for Lucy's recovery. If it had not been for you all, we would have never survived ourselves much less Lucy. Such a great and loving bunch of people that it is our pleasure to call them part of our family. So many, many thanks and undying gratitude for those that sent donations to help with the mounting bills, mainly food bills now. Just this family is consuming 18 cans of Fancy Feast per day!....may God bless you all for helping raise this family of felines..these are your babies too! We love them all to death and have only wanted the best for them

On Lucy's behalf...many heartfelt kitty kisses and hugs to you all,
Mary & Russ
Lucy & her Babies
Sofy & Joey
Sammy, Jessy & Billy

Sunday, August 1, 2010

I am in love and with the wrong person?

This has been a rough week! I have been out mixing with all my new brothers and sisters and WHAM, something went askew. Mom says I'm in heat. I was all cranky then suddenly became all lovey with everything in site. I loved all the furniture, I rolled all over the place, even down the basement stairs. Do cats get PMS? I kinda think so. I tried loving the boy cats, but Jessy and Billy just look at me all dumb and bewildered and sit like lumps. I have been screaming my little lungs out for over 24 hours non-stop. My little bum just stays stuck up in the air and no one is interested except for one. My new bestest friend.

I have found my new soul mate, Joey. I have been trying to seduce him too but it just isn't working! Darn it! Joey just follows me around nuzzling and licking my head. However, no one informed me he has this drooling problem, so he is quite messy. And he has this annoying problem with wanting to shake paws with me all the time...his paws are as big as my head.

So mom and dad are trying like crazy to raise some money to get me "fixed". Guess if Joey could do it so can I. And the babies all have to be done at the same time if we want the discount deal. Mom says I absolutely cannot even think about looking outside, although I go back to the window well where I came in from and yell for help! I'm telling you, us cats get PMS too...I'm acting so wild and crazy. I'm grabbing my babies and just dragging them around for no reason. Then I have to meow as loud as I can..dad says I can out scream any Marshall mini stack..what ever that means. Wonder if they make Midol for cats?????

So here I am with my new Bonanzle ranch hat on..think I would do this if i was in my right mind?


And oh my, here's my new bestest guy pal that I'm in love with. OK I know you think he looks a bit goofy with his cowboy hat but oh he can turn my head with his good looks and charm. He's a younger man too! He's only 8 months old..does that make me a cougar now?



And the babies..what can I say

Mom says edumacation is very impotant, I'm halfway thru this seesaurus



Got my ranch hat and ready to do my chores. Got the mouse! Who would ever name a mouse Dell? That is just so lame.



You sure you don't need more help? Honest..I really want to help. I can unplug the keyboard again for you..would that help? Did you know how pages you can open at one time plus install wizards at the same time. What's a wizard by the way?



Mom says that you have to to take a bath every single day....personally I think it's overkill. Besides my tongue gets tired.



Can we puhleeezzz go shopping now? Look at all this cool stuff on Bonanzle  I'm sitting on all the right buttons so lets go find cat tree, and some more foods, some treats and some toys and, and, and ....



How could someone not wuz me? or my mom? I don't understand......



Dad says I've been on the computer long enough. Says he has to try and make some money to take care of all 11 of us! So gotta go for now, I have this incredible urge to keep screaming and meowing as loud as I can.

Kitty Kisses,
Lucy and the Babies

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Hello Friends!

It's been hard to keep up with my blog! The babies are now 6 1/2 weeks old and growing like crazy. They weigh between 1 pound 6 ounces and 1 pound 13 ounces. I wasn't feeling so good for a couple of weeks. I had bad diarrhea and was losing weight, not like I had any extra to spare. We went to the vet for our first parasite testing about 2 weeks ago and we were all negative. Still got a dose of icky tasting deworming medicine and have to get another dose on August 10th. Vet said she had no clue as to why my tummy was so upset. But hey, I got to have lots of fresh chicken and rice, yogurt and cheese...think I'll be sick more often.

Me and the kids have been keeping mom and dad really busy. The babies have learned to play really well and jump up on everything. Mom's office desk is pretty cool to play hockey on..everything gets thrown off on the floor lol. And then there's the shelves of china to get lost in..so many places to check out.

This past week I've been going out to meet my new brothers and sisters. Samantha is a 20 year old kitty that tolerates me pretty well but is not exactly enthused about the kitties pouncing on her. Billy is 11 years old and Jessy is 8 years old. I pounded them good a couple of times and they are afraid of me...showed them who's boss! Then Sofy is an 7 year old Black Lab/Chow who loves me and the babies. Joey is the 8 month old Great Pyrenees/St. Bernard..boy is he a handful! Joey loves all of us but we have to watch him with the kittens because he gets so excited. The babies just love to crawl all over him and nest in his fur, especially that big ol tail.

Mom has to update our ChipIn page because she says we need some help to get the next round of parasite medicine and then to get us us all spayed/neutered. Before they could take us anywhere we had to get a pet carrier for me and a much bigger one for all the kids. Plus we are running out of food again. Guess we eat an awful lot lol

I am so happy in my new house! I just feel so comfortable here. I can lay down where ever I want, there's always food, water, toys and lots of attention. Thanks to all of you who helped me get here...it's the bestest ever. Here's some pictures of us! Enjoy!
















Hope you all have a fabulous week! We got a new kind of litter box and we have to go try it out! Mom says it's great. It's called the Breeze Litter System by Tidy Cat   No more litter all over the place and no more perfume. We'll see you later!

Kitty Kisses,
Lucy and the Babies

p.s.  feel free to tweet us or facebook us, it would be really appreciated!