Tag: Pets

It never rains but it pours

So another digression from the planned post which was “more on the money stuff”. I wrote about pets in retirement, as we had found out that dear old Merkin had a fair whack of cancer in his wee body and wouldn’t be lasting very long. So today is the day that I have to take him for the blue injection. Blue you say, yes the fluid they give is a lovely blue colour. How do I know this, well this is the reason for the digression……..

So two or three weeks ago our retriever Charlie had started being a bit fussy with her food. At the time we put it down to her essentially staging a protest as we had put her back on her normal sensitive skin biscuits which I did have to admit looked quite bland. We had to change her biscuits over lockdown as the shop had run out of the bland but apparently good biscuits that we had been giving her over the years.

She still went for walks with us every second day but was still not eating her usual food, which for a retriever was very unusual. So off to the vet we went and did some bloods and an exam but couldn’t find out anything obvious. Next was an ultrasound scan and X-ray (we were well-rehearsed in this process as we had gone through this for Merkin a few weeks before). The bloods came back and showed issues with her gallbladder and liver, with the scan showing the same thing. So off to surgery we went, and she came out of it okay but unfortunately, two days later we got the dreaded early morning phone call to tell us that her vital signs were not good.  

So we had to make the very very hard decision, the staff at Massey Vets were amazing. Charlie was in their animal ICU and they had music for her, sent us photos of her looking comfortable after her surgery, photos of her having cuddles with the staff as well as regular updates. They also gave you all potential outcomes (which for dear Charlie were all bad). We visited Charlie and she became quite agitated and it looked as if she was trying to get up to come home with us, it was heartbreaking. 

So that’s how I know about the colour of the injection. We are okay with that. Our dear furry family members have been part of our lives for 11 and 14 years and we don’t want them suffering any more pain coupled with a quickly diminishing quality of life. We know that they have had good times and lives with us, so that does in some small part go towards easing the gaping hole that they do leave in our lives.

A few cool photos of Charlie and Merkin 😎

Next time……..

More on the money stuff and what have I actually completed from my checklist.

Pets in Retirement

I thought I would change tack slightly and talk about Pets in Retirement. You will understand why as you read on.

We have always had pets and currently we have two dogs; a retriever, and a rough collie and two cats Lily and Mr Merkin. All the pets as you can imagine have so enjoyed Ms S being home during lockdown especially the dogs and have now become “inside dogs”. The cats, well they just do what they want anyway as humans, as we know are just staff 😂.

As I write this Mr Merkin (or just Merkin) has just been diagnosed with cancer and has a very short lifespan left. We took him to the vet as he had lost weight and wasn’t eating. Is very sad as he has a fantastic personality, hangs out with us, follows us to the neighbours and around the property. Let me tell you a bit about him.

Merkin is a ginger ex-tom, and was around four years old when we got him from the SPCA cat. Silly me though that when you buy one it would be relatively cheap as you are essentially doing everyone a favour. Not on your nalley. $150 thank you very much. But when I roughly add it up there is the cost of neutering, chipping, worming, de-flea treatment and then staff and building costs. So all in all it is all worth it as you do get to re-home a pet.

You may be thinking Merkin is an interesting name for a cat. Well the story goes like this…….. When we got him in 2010 he was named Icon by the staff (really what sort of name is Icon). Anyway we were reading a newspaper back then and Lucy Lawless a NZ actor was starring in a TV production called Spartacus: Blood and Sand. She was commenting on the costumes they had to wear or actually lack thereof, as there was quite a bit of nudity. She discussed that she and her fellow female actors had to wear merkins. Now we had never heard of this we read on, and essentially they are fanny wigs or wigs to cover your shaven pubic area (Google this I dare you – but not on a work computer).

So we thought it would be a hoot to call our new cat Merkin. Was all fun until we were building our new house and we were living with friends at the time when Merkin went missing. Ms S pushed me out the door early in the morning to go call out for the cat. She gave me further instructions that in the event that I still couldn’t find him, I was to go house to house asking if they had seen my Merkin. You can imagine that when she was saying this, she was roaring with laughter just at the very thought of me doing this 😂. But luckily for me, oh and Merkin cat, he came back to the house in his own good time, he had just been out scoping out the new neighbourhood.

But thinking about retirement and pets, I suppose the question out of this post is; do you still have pets? Then if the answer is yes, at what point do you say no more? It may be when you can physically no longer care for them, or can’t afford to have them or you go into care. Perhaps all of the above. Something to ponder.

However unfortunately for dear old Merkin his ventures around the property with us will soon cease. We will find a nice place to bury him and plant a tree, perhaps an olive or plum tree to always have this reminder around the property where he used to walk and hang out with us.

Merkin enjoying the summer sun on the back deck (Dec 2019)

Next will be back on task with – what will retirement look like for us.