tenaya | Varmit report (Reply)

Cutiepie and her 6 pack just came by for the first time tonight (one hour before dawn which is *extremely* late for them.) Lately, since the coyotes have been around a lot more, the raccoons may not show up for 3 or 4 days. Tonight, they were ravenous and skittish. I threw food out to them and they were so skittish they obviously wanted to run, but their hunger kept them near. After I backed off, they wolfed down the food. They ate and drank for nearly 15 minutes before they ran off in a near panic. When I looked out, all I could see was Brindle in the courtyard, looking stark, too. Either I missed it, or the coons ran off because the cat came close, and the cat was alarmed because the coons ran off.

About a week ago, the troop came by when they hadn't been by for about four days. As I approached the door, I was stunned to see momma laying flat out on the porch, her nose an inch from the screen and her kids standing uneasily beside her. As she didn't lift her head, I fear the worst. But, as I slid the door open to feed them, she wearily pushed herself to her feet and stared at me. Food was accepted and the good news is that after a few hours of eating, drinking and loitering in the elm tree, they were back to being their usual bouncy selves. I think momma just had a severe case of low blood sugar and dehydration. It must be tough out there, but it's amazing she's kept all her brood safe for this long.

They've not come back as I write this so I imagine they are far away already. Brindle has decided to stay in so maybe the silent killers are lurking about and I just don't know it.

We had a biopsy done on some of Brindle's skin and it came back negative, confirming his skin issues are truly allergy related. They put staples in him to close the biopsy sites. It's been a week and they are working themselves out and he isn't helping them either. He's been very good about not messing with them. I'm not pleased with the vets because at first, they were saying the staples needed to stay in for 2 weeks, though now they say ten days. I think it's ridiculous. It's been 7 days and the site is completely healed (except for where there's blood at the staple entry points that wasn't there until yesterday. Let's see: healed, coming out by themselves and irritation caused by the staples themselves but nooooo, they can't take the staples out yet. It seems unwise to be so inflexible.