I promise that we are very responsible...

it's been a sad zoo here this fall. At least for the pets here. In September, Toadie...the little frog that we raised from a tadpole, died all of a sudden during a habitat cleaning.
Cobb was in charge of cleaning and blamed himself and something that he must have done wrongly. I finally convinced him that he was in no way responsible and that 3 year-old frogs do sometimes die.

Then a couple of weeks later, our old dog Stamper passed away in his sleep. This was the dog that ZD and I found on our wedding night. He had parvo and we had to postpone our honeymoon to get medical care for him. He was our first "little boy" and we had in in our lives for 16 years. Matty was the one who found him and was horribly upset. Making matters worse was that Cobb was off at his Order of the Arrow Ordeal camp out and came home to help bury his favorite pet.
It was such a sad day.

Unfortunately, it delayed a decision that ZD and I had made about our other 16-year-old dog, Angel. Little girl was having a really tough time before Stamper died. Afterwards, she was just totally lost. She didn't eat. She paced around the yard all day and most of the night. She was confused most of the time. When she finally stopped drinking unless one of the boys put her nose in her bowl, we decided that the inevitable had come. The older two boys went with ZD to the vet's office to spend a few more minutes with her without pain and pet her as she took her last breath.

We buried her beside her partner for 15 years in the yard where they had spent 12 years of their lives.

Now....as a final blow...we are missing a cat. Chloe got out of the house somehow on Monday night and we haven't seen hide nor hair of her. She is spayed and micro chipped but she didn't have a collar because she wasn't supposed to be outside. She had lived for 18 months as a stray and had been spending a lot of time trying to get outside.
I home she comes home soon. She is the most loving and cuddly cat I have every seen.

Thankfully, we still have Mango cat. Unfortunately, she can't stand us.