Pigs may not fly, but fur sure does

In my want for a dog, I came across this ADORABLE dog toy at work. It's this stuffed pink pig, with black seaming and little white daisies all over it. ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. So, when I got a superb discount for being and awesome associate, I bought one.

Isn't this pig adorable?

Now, I know what you're saying, "you don't have a dog, why would you buy one?!" Because it was cute, and I might not have the chance when I GET a dog, that's why! Plus, for the price I got it at, it was a steal, and I figured I'd get some cute memories of cats sleeping on it, or the ferret climbing on it. NEVER in my WILDEST DREAMS would I have imagined the damage this cute little piggy would cause, or take on.

Let me truly preface this story by saying that we had a neighbor's dog in the apartment for a VERY short amount of time, and in an attempt to NOT scare the cat, Tristan's skin paid the price. (This is a second hand story mind you, I only got to see the aftermath)

Okay, maybe the face is a little terrifying...

He picked her up and Frodo - the young Bully Breed mix (who is GORGEOUS, by the way)- was being quite calm as he entered. Eeva took ONE LOOK at that dog and freaked the heck out. Fuzzing like we were about to stab her, and spitting and hissing like she'd just been thrown in with a whole mix of crazed dogs who were foaming at the mouth! Tristan began bleeding quite a bit from multiple scratches and the cat took a while to calm down, when she reappeared, Tristan was angry enough that she went straight into the cat carrier and was not permitted to come out until mommy came home.

SO, when we brought the pig him, Eeva looked at it confused and cautiously inched towards it, sounds and movements, and especially touches caused her to jump half a mile in the air. So, being the WONDERFUL parents we are, we decided to chase her around with it - simply because she wouldn't get over her fear. (Aren't we awesome at this whole animal parenting thing??)

This is what cat claws look like when they're completely ripped out...

Only thing is, she fuzzed and spat and hissed. Until eventually, when we stopped torturing her, she was panting, and growling - even after the pig went out of her site and we stopped being mean to her. That's when we noticed it - she was bleeding, a lot. from multiple paws. After quickly seizing the kitten, we noticed that not only had she TORN several claws, but had actually ripped one completely out. In her anger the cat had practically declawed a couple of toes.

Needless to say the last hour or so has had us trying - and failing - to bandange the cats front paws (the back ones only had a couple of cracked claws, but very little - if any bleeding) and closely monitoring the poor thing. Who, by the way, was practically passing out in our laps because she was so exhausted from going at the darn pig.

Moral of tonight's endeavors?
We're now kind of nervous to get a dog. Seeing the damage she can do to other things - the pigs head is partially shredded - and to herself, worries us as to what she'd be like if we tried to bring home a puppy... We already know she doesn't appreciate dogs in her living space...
So...
About that dog..

He's not the Hedgehog we need, but the one we deserve

People are constantly astounded by the fact that we own a Hedgehog. Asking what they're like as pets, and how we get past all the spiney-ness, and whether or not he's okay with other pets and such. So, here's all about life as a hedgehog with as much experience as we have - which is to say hat we have extraordinarily little experience.

So you've seen those cute pictures of those brown and cream colored hedgehogs that are absolutely adorable, the hedgie is probably holding a strawberry, or nibbling at a raspberry, or curling cutely around someone's thumb? Pictures like this perhaps?

BE WARNED: NOT ALL HEDGEHOGS ARE THIS CUTE ALL THE TIME!!!!

At least...

our's isn't...



In fact, our little baby hedgie, is Albino. So he is a very bright white color, with bright red eyes - which kind of turns people away from really how cute he truly is. He's kind of terrifying when you first see him.

Which is how he got his name...

Azael - most commonly referred to as Azazel - is a Fallen Angel, who fell after being tempted by a woman to commit sin, and then imparted many great secrets to man and cohabited with women - or so we found on the great interwebz.

Okay, so we tried to name our demonic looking hedgie after a demon... We call him Azzy though! Isn't that cute and not at all cruel?

SO

We thought to ourselves, "We shall have an adorable baby hedgehog who is kind of creepy looking, but also eats things adorably, so all shall be good in the world!"

WRONG!! WRONGITY WRONG WRONG WRONGNESS!

What Azzy does most often is sleep. Especially during the day - hedgehogs are nocturnal creatures - so when WE are up and about and ready to play with an adorable hedgehog, he's resting. When we're sleeping and not wanting to deal with inside out pincushions, he's eating and pooping and running on his wheel.
He does that a lot too - pooping, I mean. We wake him up so we can socialize him, or bring him out to public places to show him off, and all he does is poop, for like half an hour. It's kind of obnoxious, really. And the biggest problem, unlike other rodents who like to keep their poo concentrated in one location, he just kind of goes whenever, wherever and doesn't care if he's walking through it, curling into it, or spreading it about the container or hand he is currently in. We've washed more poop off of him than I care to admit. You're SUPPOSED to be able to litter box train these guys, and believe me, we have the litter box suitable for hedgehogs and have good clay litter - it's the stuff Je uses - and all he wants to do is burrow through it and throw it all around the cage.
Oh, and that myth about animals not pooping where they eat?
WRONG!
He poos right on his food bowl without discretion. Thankfully, with the bowl we bought him, he doesn't poo ON the food, just on the bowl itself.

And my god, does this little guy eat. We got him at about 6 weeks old, so he's truly still a baby maxing out at about 10-12 weeks now. I should have guessed that a growing hedgie would eat and eat and eat, kind of like a growing human, right? Well, this guy eats almost 1-1 1/2 Tbsp. per day. And you think, "oh, that's not really that much." You have to remember that this is a creature who two weeks ago could fit in the palm of a single hand and today not only require the use of both hands to simply HOLD him, but some creativity in keeping him from crawling up my arm because he didn't truly fit in both hands.
Thankfully, I opted for the larger food dish, thinking that we just may not have to put food in there as often. If I had gone for the next size down, we would need to be putting food in there almost twice daily.

Have I mentioned the spines yet?
Baby hedgehogs are afraid of EVERYTHING. And what they do in defense - because they just don't bite - is pull their unibrow of quills right down over their eyes, curl up as tightly as is physically possible - pointing quills in every direction in the process - and make a sound called huffing. This sound is nearly impossible to describe, and I don't know how to accurately describe how to immitate the adorable little sound my hedgehog manages to make when he's upset, but it's more cute than terrifying and it's about the only sound he makes. But as he's doing this, you say something like, "Aww, how cute" and go to touch him. Then, he jumps at your touch, and stabs you with dozens of tiny little needle like quills.
(The feeling is analogous to being pricked with thick sewing needles.)
And those little things HURT... A LOT

And the temperature?
That's just about the most important part of a hedgehog life (aside from keeping them away from heights - they will stupidly walk off of anything, no matter how high, they have no concept of heights) - the temperature. We don't tend to like COLD weather - which is why we are both fond of SC. However, even our apartment - which is supposed to be at an ideal temperature for hedgies - is too cold for little Azzy. So we had to buy the thing a heating pad, and then fleece to insulate it so that it wouldn't burn the cage we had built for him. Regulating his temperature has been more important than we realized. We have been keeping the windows open and at night we see him huddled under his heating pad - yes under, he won't lie on it, has to be under - and during the warmer part of the day, he comes out and runs around - did I say day? I meant warmer nights. ;)

Anyways, that's basically life with Azzy the hedgehog. As far as I can remember. I'm sure you'll hear of all of our adventures with him. He's come to work to visit my work buddies a few times, and likes to get out. So I'm sure pictures and stories will be soon to follow!

By the way, here's our little guy.

Gotta Take a Breath

Okay, so I wanted to get back into the blogging thing, and honestly, I've been terrible at it. Life has gotten pretty crazy though, so that's why. Here's the latest scoop:

I GOT A JOB!
I currently work at a PetSmart near the apartment. I'm just a cashier, but it's fun. They initially told me they would train me in everything except grooming and stocking - which by the way, meant I would get certified in dog training - and now based on some other factors - that I'll get into in a minute - I won't be trained in anything else. Which is unfortunate, it means I don't get to play with the birds, hamsters, lizards and fish, but it also means I get to see all the pretty puppies that walk through the door.

SPEAKING OF THOSE PRETTY PUPPIES...
I want a dog. I don't actually remember life pre-dog, and I think that's part of my problem. I think the other part is I have never really had a dog that I didn't like. Some of them are pains in the tookus - TIBERIUS - but I've never owned a dog that I didn't absolutely adore. So now, I'm seeing dogs and puppies daily, and missing my own dogs and REALLY WANT A DOG OF MY OWN. Tristan and I have FINALLY agreed on the fact that we both would ADORE for our first dog to be a husky baby, but we simply can't afford one right now.
LONG STORY SHORT:
I see huskies every. single. day. Seriously, I never STOP seeing huskies. There are days where more huskies walk through the doors at work than any other kind of dog, and it's driving me insane! Sometimes they come in all at once, and then I don't have to worry about them, but sometimes, I see one almost every hour. Recently, I saw upwards of 15 huskies.... all with single dog owners... If you think there are like 400 dogs running around PetSmart every day you have another thing coming, we don't get that many dogs... so my luck: all the dogs that walk into the store are huskies now, because I want one. It very seriously didn't help that I once saw a dog that made me do a double take. A light red male husky walked through the door, and I saw him, smiled and then looked again with wide eyes. He looked almost exactly like my parents' first husky, Nanook. What worse? When I finally got the nerve to talk to the owner - he came up to my register - the dog's name was, no lie, Nanook. I think the gods are trying to smack me around a bit before I manage to get a dog.

OH! So... WHY THEY WON'T TRAIN ME IN ANYTHING ANYMORE:
Iiiiiii'm moving! Yes! Again! I just got here to South Carolina about three months ago, and then a few weeks ago IP comes to Tristan and says, "Oh, hey, you're going to get a call from Augusta soon, you're moving there at some point." So we wait a total of three weeks, get the Augusta plant in some SERIOUS trouble for NOT calling, and get a paragraph and a half of information and a two minute phone call. Want out information? "You're coming here in four days to look things over and talk with us, and then we'll give you a tour of Augusta" then, the day he is supposed to be leaving, "Oh, hey, dinner with us tonight!" Did I mention Augusta is an hour away?? LOL That was Monday. I still don't know when we're moving, except that we're moving "in the first quarter of next year" and that Tristan is off in Augusta now getting a tour and talking to some higher ups. Hopefully, I'll get more information later today. Can you tell it's so frustrating to me? I don't handle stress, or moves, very well. So, soon, I'll NOT be packing up my things - the company will pay for it as long as we let the moving guys come in and pack everything up - and moving my little butt to GA.

SPEAKING OF LITTLE:
I'm going to try to not only be better about my blogging, but also about my working out. I look down and go, "Oh god, where did THAT come from." Now, they're not just food babies... I was actually asked how far along I was while I was at work one day... yes... I'm so fat now that someone thought I was pregnant when she saw me behind the counter and with my baggy unisex uniform on... FANTASTIC. SO, When Tristan gets back, I'm making him do Insanity with me. Well, it'll probably be more likely that he'll be making ME do insanity. Since he's the ONLY reason I went running last week, and the ONLY reason I've been doing ab workouts this week. I'm kind of tired of this flab, and not actually feeling comfortable in ANYTHING I wear anymore. I'm also tired of not being able to get my stomach to not hang over my pants when I finally get them buttoned... Soooo, here's to our sanity while we complete insanity.

WE'LL PROBABLY GET TO HAVE MORE FUN IN THE KITCHEN THOUGH!
We cook, well, we used to cook. We both LOVE cooking, although our stress levels have been so high that lately we've gotten lazy. And Tristan hates shopping so there's rarely the stuff to cook with unless we pre-plan everything. But we should probably start eating, and eating well, once we start insanity. I'm going to wind up looking online through those cook books that people recommend while you go on those super super super awf....awesome.. awesome... not awful... workout routines. But that'll mean more experimenting in the kitchen! When I first moved here we cooked FAR TOO OFTEN and wound up pitching more leftovers than food we actually ate, but that's mostly because most recipes are meant to feed families, not couples. So we wind up eating leftovers at work a lot. We still do now, but we've found that if we let ourselves be SUPER LAZY one day a week, we can cook two or three days a week and get by with lunches at work and dinners at home. But we rate all the recipes we make. On a pretty basic, yes or no, scale. When we take a few bites, we decide whether or not it's good, and then decide whether or not it's good enough for me to go through the trouble of writing it down in our new recipe book! YAY! We legitimately just bought a scrapbook, and I write the recipes on blank pages and then put them in the proper category. The scrapbook is small - only a 6x6 - but it works for us so far! It's a GREAT idea to not only gather new recipes, but keep the ONE recipe you liked out of that recipe book that is collecting dust on the shelf with your other favorites. I've got the three or four recipes from home that came out of a couple of different books and people that I LOVE, and it's all in ONE LOCATION, I love it. Especially since, living in an apartment, while we have a whole empty room, we have to find room for some things. We even have a scrapbook for things like drink mixes. I'm trying to come up with a way for us to save our favorite beers in there too, like cut off the labels on the boxes, or peel them off of the bottles and stick them to pages before putting them into the book. That way we always know! (although, we should probably keep three sections for those - one for my favorites, one for his, and one for the ones we both like - since we have WILDLY different tastes in beer. It's fun sometimes coming up with names for the random mixes we have, and Tristan was already a pretty good bar keep by the time I got here, so I'm TRYING to coerce him into giving me those mix "recipes" so I can put them in the book.

I'M GETTING CRAFTY!
The whole scrapbooks for the kitchen thing, kind of got me back into my crafting love. SO, since I don't really have much in the way of scrapbooking for anything else, I'm actually painting. I wanted to try a button tree painting, and then wound up buying a pack of 7 canvases for pretty cheap, and then one thing lead to another and WALLAH! So I still have only those 7 canvases for things other than personal projects, but it's still fun. I have SO MANY IDEAS about what would be SO COOL on canvas, or on a wall, or anything like that, but money is a factor. I currently don't have the money to fuel this yet, and we don't have the space for 7 canvases that don't really fit in with any room in anything in apartment - a few of them do, but we don't have enough wall space to not make things look cluttered and awful.

SO NOW I'M AN ENTREPRENEUR!
I'm selling my stuff on Etsy! I'm going to try posting the paintings I make - and did I mention Tristan is going to carve for the store too? - here and then if you're interested you can look at our store! But yes! I'm an entrepreneur! I am working half from home half from PetSmart and hopefully will be able to find another job to fuel my savings account, and start selling paintings to fuel my want to create more art!

ON A SADDER NOTE...
My little Je bear? He's sick. When I moved here, I found that he lost a lot of fur and got kind of skinny, I didn't think anything of it at first because the stress of moving, and then moving to a hotter climate - ferrets have a summer and a winter coat, just like most dogs and tend to lose weight in hotter temperatures - and then we added to his stress by having to fight off a huge flea infestation. I thought by now he would be better. And then I found that every other day - or so it seems - he has diarrhea. Its not consistent, which is terrifying, and he gets plenty of vitamins. He's continually losing fur, and weight, and is aggressive towards the cat now - he never was before and he's lived with cats and dogs all of his life - and can actually get kind of lethargic. I have never seen him sleep so much while he's in his cage, and he's not playing for as long before he lays down exhausted when he's out of his cage. SO I took him to the vet. And $150, two medications, and a blood workup later, Je not only has ear mites - not serious and currently being treated - but also has a lump in his abdomen... The vet said that it COULD just be a swollen lymph node, since he's sick, but it could also be a tumor. I don't remember what kind of tumor she said it would be, but I'm pretty sure that after my research today, it is inoperable. The doctor started telling me that his just being sick, might lead him to be grumpier, more tired, and have a decrease in fur. But the tumor - which could cause the vet to diagnose hypoglycemia - is also a much more logical conclusion. BUT We are currently force feeding meds to the poor guy and will be seeing my favoritest veterinarian in a couple of weeks, and then we will have more information! Fingers crossed people, fingers crossed.

I think that's all for now... I think... sorry for the novella of an update into our lives, but there it is!