http://www.thestar.com/News
http://www.thestar.com/Busines
And in the little microcosm of critterhood that Dearest and I call home, it's not been a good day. Fortunately, the bees seem to be doing fine. (Although we had to install a birdbath to keep The Ladykins from drinking from the neighbor's birdbath the neighbor is honest-to-Pete allergic to stings.)
In this case, it was our third cat with a blocked bladder. We were scheduled to go out of town today, so if he hadn't made his troubles known, he'd probably be somewhere en route to dead right now, instead of being tranq'd and catheterized at the vet's.
Not long after arriving home, we discovered that one of the finches (Bella) has gone blind. That's a definitely a new one in nine years of keeping birds. At the moment, we're not convinced that blindness is her only problem. Regardless, she's in her own cage right now, and we're closely monitoring whether she's eating/drinking. Hopefully she can find her way around (particularly to the food and water dishes) in the small cage, something she may not have been doing so well in the big aviary.
I pretty much grew up having cats and assorted other critters around, but I am trying to harden myself against the assumption that I will always have them. It's not so much the ball-and-chain of the awesome responsibility that they place on one. It's mainly the cognitive dissonance of spending that much money on Science Diet, vet. bills, etc. when so many arguably better contributions to the planet-at-large could be made for the same money.
