Blog 3 – Pets

And then there was one ….

Yesterday I noticed with utter dismay that our little “boy” didn’t seem as spritely as usual. I kept a beady eye on him all day. I reckon he was just having an off day which I figure we are all entitled to I had to smile to myself, Yip… I am digressing already! I was chatting with a friend, we were discussing socializing on these chilly winter evenings. She started to say she really didn’t encourage going out in the winter because: – It was at this stage I mentally thought, Yip friend, I get what you about to say when she proceeded to say “the thing is, it’s chilly” right I agreed with her, it certainly is and then she went on to say“and I really don’t enjoy keeping Toby outside when we out”.  Now the reason this resonates so with me and I was so delighted to hear, is because I am exactly the same. To fill you in dear reader, we had Pebbles and Bandit, who were brother and sister and besties of note. In December we noted the one morning that Pebbles had woken with a new look, that of a chipmunk. Gary and I teased her, and laughed about it, thinking nothing of it. I reckoned it was perhaps a bite, she is always chasing after nunu’s especially flying nunu’s. When she was a puppy she chased and caught a hornet and he gave her what for to that! I raced her off to the vet and they gave her an antihistamine and that was it – she never did learn though, through the years she got stung plenty times. Plus, the important fact here, her demeanor hadn’t changed at all. She was Chippy Chipmunk in looks but in character, she was her same dear old self. Anyhow after day two, we decided perhaps she has an infection in her glands, so off we went to the vet. Truly not suspecting anything untoward. We were devastated to hear that they suspected Lymphoma. As you have already surmised, it was a sad ending. Our precious little Pebbles is in pet heaven with Captain, Meeks, Jenna, and the rest of the Motley Crew of Robbertze Pets. So, of course, her little bestie, Bandit has been our everything since then (January 2021) I kid you not. I remember years ago, I spotted a Patricia Lewis clone at the local nursery, she had her little dog in a pram. I kid you not, in a pram! As rude as it is to stare, that day, that is precisely what I could not stop doing. Anyhow recently I needed to drop work goodies off at one of my private schools. It’s quite a drive, I felt sorry that Bandit would be home alone for longer than usual so I bellowed to Bandit, and off we went. He loves the car, every day when Gary is due home, Bandit sits at the gate, when Gary arrives he takes Bandi along the road to see all his friends. He has one in particular who has learnt the sound of Gary’s car and runs to the fence and barks at Bandit – and of course Bandit talks (Barks back). So, should you next read we have a pram for our beloved Bandit, please just smile and wave (kidding, I would never go that far, or would I?)

With the cooler weather, I put a doggie suit on Bandit so he doesn’t feel the cold too much. (obviously Liz!) The first couple of hours he slinked around the house, I do believe he was silently praying no one pitched at our house to visit, or we took him for a drive. Imagine that, being seen with this ridiculous clown suit on. That is until he realized this is keeping me warm. Funny thing that hey. Remember when the kids were small we would be cold so insist they put a jersey on.

So yip as I was saying, Bandit is our everything, we have three cats, but their attitude is a definite: Get outta here with your blady clown suits, and car rides.  Although, saying that, Fraidy Cat firstly, is the most beautiful cat in the whole wide world. She is dear reader, with the most beautiful nature. Oh my word, she is so loving (hmm maybe translated it is actually needy) but what a character she is. She is twelve, going on twelve weeks. Simply put she has the most amazing zest for life. She still, I am not joking plays hide and seek with the other cats. Grooms Bandit (yip you read correctly) and in her lifetime we have had three snake incidents with this little princess.  We bought her as a kitten, she was actually returned to the pet shop. She had the meanest tummy bug (I am damn sure that’s why whoever owned her took her back) and wasn’t that the best thing that idiot ever did because she became a Robbertze. Anyhow, Gary is for this reason convinced she is older than we thought. She is a tiny cat with long fluffy fur (yip – I told you – she is beautiful) anyhow we had her hmmm maybe two months and Gary said “This cat is pregnant” of course I was shocked and said, “Never, not my little princess.”

Well, she was!  So she was expecting (she became a mum, due to the fact she fell hopelessly in love with Merlin the cat next door) she was venturing in the garden when she came in, her eyes were in definite need of attention. She had been spat in the eyes by a Mozambican spitting cobra. (They frequented our house and garden). Due to the spitting in the eyes incident, Fraidy sadly lost her first kitten when she gave birth. The second snake incident we found her sitting in the sun chewing, on closer inspection we noticed it was a thin green snake and she had its head in her mouth as it wrapped itself around her body. The third snake incident, she was making a funny noise, so I went to investigate and there, half-dead was another Mozambican Spitting cobra.

Whilst Fraidy dodges and ducks the snakes in the vicinity we had (yip sadly – had) as they both have also joined the Motley Pet Crew in pet heaven. Meeka, our beautiful German shepherd whom we adopted from the SPCA and Captain. Now. these two had serious character flaws that sprung to life when they were within breathing space of each other. Oh my word! Meeks tried so hard, to no avail. Cappies was the Captain of this clan and it was his way or the highway for anyone who didn’t adhere (A bit like Gus Fring in Breaking Bad – yip I am seriously addicted and loving this series). On that note, digressing slightly again! I watched Breaking Bad with a bottle of my finest Light white wine. Now dear reader I am truly loath to admit, but on Sunday morning, I made myself comfy on the couch, and put on Breaking Bad, where I had left off the night my vino was finished.  Alas! I was so confused what the heck, when and how did Gus die? And on that note, why is Ted Beneke in hospital? Yip dear reader, as you no doubt have already realized, my vino and me, or is it perhaps menopause,  but this mind of mine, she has her own life. And she frequently forgets what occurred, now at this stage I am passing it off as a glass too many, I do hope that it isn’t frikken something more serious.

So I was introducing Meeka to you, what a sweet-natured dog she was. We chose her as she looked fierce and so therefore would most definitely deter any wanna be baddies from choosing our wall to climb over. Well, the one morning we awoke, the car had been broken into, and when we did have visitors enter our premises, Meeka truly was scary. Scary in the fact that the only way they would have died was by being licked to death. She loved everyone. She loved meal times just as much. Except for boiled eggs. Why I hear you ask, why would you give your dog a boiled egg? Well, I had made a few and the one was really a train wreck after I attempted peeling the shell off. Since I really don’t enjoy wastage, my thoughts were of course she will eat it. I called her she was already right at my side waiting for any tidbits that she knew came her way when I was in the kitchen. Now, this I don’t know if I can even begin to describe as vividly as it occurred. I swear it was really, really funny, and I guess it was one of those situations whereby you had to be there. I casually threw the train wreck of a boiled egg to Meeks. We were like a finely tuned team I threw the egg with precise precision, she gracefully moved in towards me, with the speed and swiftness of a Fish Eagle she opened her largemouth. I to this day am not entirely sure, if it was the texture of the egg or the taste, mind you she didn’t even give the poor train wreck of an egg time to even consider its taste, and with a force of gusto truly similar to a tornado tearing through a town she spat it out. I will always remember the expression on her face. It was a case of really, really mom was that for real? 

Whilst on the subject of food and feeding dogs in particular. When we moved to Nelspruit Chad was in Grade two, the local schools were majority Afrikaans, so Chad was at the local Afrikaans school which had an English class per grade. He came home after his first day, in fact I noticed when I fetched him from school, all the kids coming out. (Now we moved in July, so it was a really cold winter). These little kids came out sporting winter jackets, beanies, gloves the whole shebang. But they were barefoot. I kid you not they were barefoot, each and every one of them! I asked Chad “why do the kids not have shoes on boy?” He was as flummoxed as me. We soon learnt it was the Afrikaans way, they never wore shoes in fact to this day the kids don’t wear shoes to school.  But it was at this stage that he was truly perplexed at a particular habit the kids had. At break time once they clearly had had sufficient of their sandwich, without batting an eye, they would throw their sandwich on the ground and walk away. Now dear reader, I was seriously pondering, just what flippen school have we registered him in? This is no good we will need to move him. What the heck, no shoes and just throwing their lunch down – I mean come on man! Anyhow, a few days later, he came home delighted as he has solved the mystery of the abandoned sandwiches. There was a very grateful candidate for these sandwiches, his name was George. George was a Saint Bernard who resided in one of the houses across the street. The kids, were in fact not throwing away their sandwiches. All their moms made a sandwich for George as well as their kids, each day. So yip you guessed it – before long I was also making sarmies for George, Chad, and Ryan. Oh and to this day, I still make for Gary. A while later, I met one of my dearest friends, she had the most fantastic Book club evening once a month. I will save that story for another BLOG. But the first time I stepped into Marcel’s house, there in all his splendor was dear old George. When Marcel and Riaan bought their house, George came with it. The previous owners had three kids who went to that school (it was across the road from their house).  When that family vacated George stayed, and each morning would go across for the school day, and return once school was done for the day.

Well dear readers, that is all from me for this week.  I have been so soooo engrossed on reading, re reading, checking and re checking before I post this and at the exact time I realized I could hear a pop, pop, popping sound occurring in the kitchen – I smelt it – my rice is definitely overdone. L

Thanks for all your encouragement, please, tell your family and friends about me, I would be so super chuffed to have trillions of Followers.

Be Blessed.  Till next week. Stay well and warm.

Oh, one last thing, the photo of me on my blog, that’s Bandit – how cute is he!