Caturday Saturday

A couple of cute pix of Spike & Soc (fka Spot and Dot)

A Disco weekly weigh in report and Nulo diet update:

Disco is under 15# now (just barely...14# 15 oz) and while Teri skipped a couple of exercise sessions...the battle of the bulge will go on til he's down to 12#...good thing the holidays aren't a problem for cats and their diets, hahameow!



Part of the benefit for completing the Nulo 'Fight Against Obesity' campaign is that Nulo will donate $250 to the pet related non-profit of each of the participants choosing. That was hard to pick only one, but two that have a special place in Teri's heart are:
Tabby's Place in Ringoes, NJ

CLICK HERE TO VISIT TABBY'S PLACE

and

Blind Cat Rescue and Sanctuary in St Pauls, NC
CLICK HERE TO VISIT BLIND CAT SANCTUARY

Both places are actually close enough for Teri to visit and she has plans if she stays in this area when she retires, to volunteer there from time to time. Blind Cat Sanctuary has been getting a lot of publicity and donations through The Animal Rescue site's $100,000 Holiday Shelter Challenge (they are in third place).

Tabby's Place, who Teri found out about via the CB and this blog we follow, A Few Good Cats, is a fabulous place, that does everything from to adoptions to hospitalizing to hospice care and who's facility is so cat friendly they have been shown on TV and in magazines, is also featured on The Animal Rescue site, but they are way down at 401st place and the voting ends on December 12th.

So, Teri decided to give the Nulo donation to them, and it will help all the kitties there, including Bellis, a blind kitty that Teri has her eye on to maybe be able to give a furrever home to once she stops breeding Cornish Rex next year and she can keep Sammy company...


here's a link to Bellis' story:
CLICK HERE TO MEET BELLIS

As soon as she finishes helping us with this post, our Teri is gonna start bustin' butt cleaning the upstairs today with hopes of working on our birdy viewing area tomorrow! She promises all the birds won't be gone by the time we get to go down there again!

She saw both TomTom and Mama Katz yesterday, but they still won't go in their little shelter--she is going to take the bedding out and put the food in there and see if they will become comfortable with getting inside of it. They are both fat and sassy so they must have shelter and food elsewhere, too, but still she worries with winter coming on...she never sees Mama Katz in the daytime, so we don't have as many purrty pix of her like we do of TomTom, but Teri will keep trying to snap some more photos of her and maybe catch her in the daytime one day so she won't have laser eyes!



And we couldn't end this post without saying Fare Well to Inigo...such sad news to know he is gone now after such a brave battle with HCM. We will hold his memory close to our hearts as we know so very personally how HCM can take away a beloved kitty, and know the sadness and empty place in the heart that loss leaves behind forever...Fly free, handsome Inigo..


and to Miss Patches, who fought the tough fight with AID. Her family was their with her when she went peacefully into the light. Hearts are broken now that all but memories remain...may they comfort and heal...

Teri's Tired...

So, what's the problem? When we're tired, we find a sunny spot, & nap...

She says she has to go out day hunting, to keep us living in the style we are accustomed to...but she dreams about napping! She was away from home the past two weekends, and that's usually when she tries to let us on the computer to blog, so our CB friends haven't had much news from us since Halloween---except for a few pix and a Disco Rotundo update!

And since daylight savings time ended, she has actually been coming up to bed way early, and we like that though it has cut in to her blogging time and she wakes up a few times during the night thinking that it must be time to get up, hahameow!

Sometimes, our furry memories aren't so good (well, we remember the important stuff like where our food is kept) but we'll do our best to catch you all up with what we've been up to, so pull up a chair and grab your favorite beverage, hahameow...

Remember us talking about the Sphynx kitty that our Teri helped rehome after it was surrendered to a shelter? Well, happy ending there, though it took 2 tries for her to find her 'forever' home.


The first family who adopted her had a problem with her biting one of the kids and since they also have an infant, they said they couldn't trust her (ahem, could be it wasn't her fault...) so Teri contacted a couple with no kids that already have a Furrydance cat, and they added her to their family about 3 weeks ago and Abby settled right in.


Picchu decided that having a companion cat again (she lost her companion earlier this year sadly) was maybe not too bad. After a few hisses and growls, they are becoming nice ladycat friends.

Then on November 5th, Teri, along with Brighton, drove up to Brant Beach NJ to deliver Spot and Dot to their new home and she had a nice relaxing weekend at the beach with their new family.


Brighton is a great traveler, and surprisingly so were the kittens! By the time Teri left on Sunday, S & P were quite at ease in their new digs, and she knows they will have fun watching the shore birds from the windows, following sunpuddles around and having 2 humans that work from home, too! Here's some pix of the weekend!






And last weekend, Teri and Brighton, Ambassador Cat Extraordinaire, were off to a local cat show where Brighton got to schmooze with his adoring fans, and Teri got to have fun talking to people about Cornish Rex cats. Here's some photos of them at the show:




And last but not least, Lil Fifi is now 12 weeks old, and getting used to life without her playmates Spot and Dot (or Spike and Socrates as they are now known--I kid you not!). She goes into work with Teri tomorrow for her next exam and vaccination, and she got to meet her new pawrents last weekend, too! They came to visit her for the first time, and there was lots of oohing and awwwing from them. Here's a few pix of Ms Fifi, for your squeeeing pleasure!




They also helped Teri with her computer, since the Mr is a whiz at such things and Teri is not. He tightened up her security, got the desktop and laptop talking to each other, and offered to help train Teri to get more edumacated about such things. Nice to have smart friends like them! He said he has 8 computers at home, and is an artist, as well as a techie. Here's a link to his website and awesome illustrations!

CLICK HERE TO BE WOWED!

Well, we are kinda tired too, after thinkin and thinkin about everything we've been up to the past few weeks! So we are going to see if we can get Teri to finish up this post and maybe she'll come take a nap with us, too?

Never Forget...Veteran's Day 2010

When I was 14 years old, my favorite uncle was shot down in Vietnam, and the missing him is as strong today as it was when I was a child.

He will always be young in my mind, playing the trombone, driving a turquoise and cream Chevrolet Bel Air and taller than any adult I had ever seen. He left behind his wife (my favorite aunt) and a son and daughter, too.

When I moved from Oregon to Virginia, one of the first things I wanted to do was visit the Vietnam Memorial and find his name and put a picture of the car he had, as I had no photos of him. The memorial is the most moving place to be, and my favorite, if that is the right word, of all the monuments I have visited, because it is so evocative...black, somber, that feeling of going underground. But also such a wonderful tribute to those who never made it back to their homes, their families, their lives ahead of them...

I had never googled his name before, but I did today and this is what I found...

Name: Ralph Carol Balcom, Jr.
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Date of Birth: 24 December 1933
Home City of Record: Seattle WA
Date of Loss: 15 May 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam (see text)
Loss Coordinates: 171200N 1064000E (XE100100)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D
Other Personnel In Incident: None Missing

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 March 1991 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.

SYNOPSIS: Ralph Balcom Jr. was shot down over North Vietnam about 20 miles north of the Demilitarized Zone in Quang Binh Province. A radio signal indicated that Major Balcom had parachuted to the ground, but because of zero visibility at the time, search planes were not able to locate and rescue him.

Two months later a propaganda film appeared with a man Ralph's parents immediately recognized as their son being paraded down the streets of Hanoi. The U.S. Government later identified the man as a returned POW Kyle Berg, also from the state of Washington.

In November 1973, the Air Force discovered that Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) in Nakhon Phanom was carrying Balcom as a Prisoner of War while Defense Intelligence Agency carried him as Missing In Action. The Air Force directed JCRC to delete any reference pertaining to POW status in Balcom's files. Balcom's status was changed from Prisoner of War to Missing in Action, although analysts say today that JCRC records were the most accurate and complete because of their close proximity to the region.

JCRC also lists Balcom as being lost in Laos, not North Vietnam. The loss coordinates, 171200N 1064000E are in North Vietnam about 20 miles north of the DMZ. Grid coordinates XE100100 are located a few miles northwest of the Ban Karai Pass in Laos. It cannot be determined why there is a descrepancy in loss locations between agencies.

Today, over 44 years have passed since Ralph Balcom's last flight over Vietnam. His family is still not sure whether he is alive or dead. Over 10,000 reports of Americans still held captive have been received by the U.S. Isn't it time we brought these men home?

Ralph C. Balcom was promoted to the rank of Colonel during the period he was maintained a Prisoner of War and Missing in Action.

To my dear uncle...I will never forget.

Disco...Worth his Weight in Gold?

Down another ounce, and just for comparison...here he is at the beginning of his diet:

I know, it doesn't look like much difference but it's half a pound and as an example, it would be like if I lost 4 pounds...it's a start, but I wouldn't rush out and buy a smaller size jean just yet, hahameow!

Disco is kinda like a caterpillar, in that he can 'scrunch up' and stretch out, and just like when someone takes a picture of me and says 'Suck it in', here are two photos of him...one looking quite slim (and it's not Photo Shopped, either)




We aren't disappointed that we are at the end of this 90 day campaign and didn't end up 'The Biggest Loser' because: 1) We have found the food we all want to eat and that is good for us, too and 2) We have done something in spreading the word about pet obesity by our participation in the Nulo Fight Pet Obesity Campaign! And we are waiting anxiously to see who the dawggie or kittie will be that is 'The Biggest Loser'!!

We really like having Nulo delivered right to our door (actually, it comes to where our Teri works so it's not left out on the porch for someone to nab!) and Teri says it keeps her out of the 'Pet Department Stores' which also saves her some green papers! And fresh! She says it's almost like she made it herself, hahameow!


And our Teri will continue work on getting Disco down to his goal of 12# and will post on his progress (yep, no doubt there---we will succeed!). And really monitoring Disco during this program revealed to her that Disco's weight had kind of turned him into a 'Pet Rock' and she is happy to see him 'feeling frisky' again!

It's been a fun and rewarding experience and even though our Teri knows lots about cats, she said even she learned some new info being involved with Nulo and that helps make her a better pawrent and a better vet tech, too!


Nulo is where nutrition meets love. As an advocate for better nutrition, health and wellness for dogs and cats, Austin-based Nulo aims to improve a pet's lifestyle through grassroots education and a new way of care and feeding.

Mancat Monday...

Humans aren't the only ones enjoying Autumn...Mr Percy Campbell of Davidson North Carolina, a handsome Furrydance Alumni, has a lovely 'Picture Window' from which to watch the squirrels gather nuts and the birdies search for seeds...

Disco Gets Down in Funky Town...

By down, we don't mean on the dance floor...we mean on the scale! He's down another one ounce this week and everyone has noticed the change in his physique.

At this rate, he will be under 14# by next week...the end of his 90 day participation in The Nu Campaign to Fight Pet Obesity. But, it won't be the end of Furrydance being a Nulo household, that's fur sure! And we all want Disco to meet the target weight of 12#, too!

All the cats are wild about the canned Turkey formula Nulo now, after a kinda slow start. In fact, the other canned food they were all previously in love with (Life's Abundance Instinctive Choice) has become 2nd choice, as this photo shows...


Here's what's in the Nulo Turkey canned food...remember those important 'first five ingredients'

Turkey, Turkey Broth, Chicken, Beef Liver, Tuna, Flaxseed, Oat Bran, Tomato Paste, Calcium Carbonate, Carrageenan, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Potassium Chloride, Dicalcium Phosphate, Salt, Betaine Anhydrous, Choline Chloride, Taurine, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Niacin, Vitamin E Supplement, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Sodium Selenite, Biotin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfate Complex, Folic Acid, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide

It has been both fun and rewarding to also watch all the participants progress--Tahlula 'hauling nub', Xena is looking positively ravishing at 14.5#, Koa another pound lighter and Noah plateauing as Disco did for a while--don't give up, Noah!

Disco actually looks forward to, and 'guilts' me into playing stairclimb as I am ready to head to bed. We aren't getting in the 10-15 minutes 2 X a day that the experts recommend, but then it's better than skipping 'going to the gym', right?!


And since we are talking 'Turkey', we wanted everyone to know about the Nulo Petsgiving campaign. Nulo is helping feed shelter pets for Thanksgiving! Cat and dog lovers can help their less-fortunate furry friends stay healthy and happy this holiday season by participating in Nulo's "PetsGiving" food donation campaign between Nov. 1 and Nov. 25.

During this time, for every $25 customer order placed nationwide, the Austin-based pet food company will donate one pet Thanksgiving dinner to local Austin shelters. Each dinner includes Nulo's turkey and sweet potato recipe for dogs or turkey recipe for cats, plus cranberry treats or chicken treats for dessert.

These traditional Thanksgiving ingredients are part of Nulo's nutritional formula year-round. The company aims to produce the most nutrient-dense, transparently labeled cat and dog foods on the market. In place of the usual meat by-products, Nulo uses all-natural, single-source proteins like turkey, chicken, lamb and salmon. It also chooses nutrient-rich, low-glycemic carbohydrates like sweet potatoes and brown rice rather than corn and other cheap fillers that have become ubiquitous in commercial pet foods.

Here's how you can help...

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PETSGIVING

Ps: Teri's on the road, delivering Spot & Dot to their new home, hence the lateness of her weekly Disco post, and she forgot before she left to download some good 'body shots' of the almost svelte Disco...but when she gets home on Sunday, she will add them to this post, promise!