All Creaturesの September/October 2020 の目次

NOTHING BRINGS ME greater calm than observing my golden, Gracie, sleep. Talk about mindfulness. It puts me right in the moment. Sometimes I’ll align my breathing with hers. Sometimes I think our brain waves actually synchronize. At any rate, if I watch her long enough, I drop off myself. I have lots of opportunities to achieve this co-nirvana because Gracie is a world-class napper. She can sleep anywhere and in nearly any position: splayed on her back like a starfish, stretched out like a lioness, or curled in a perfect circle, tucked tail to nose. Out on a mountain trail if we tarry too long over a water break, Gracie will cop a snooze. I once looked up whether dogs suffer from narcolepsy. They don’t. Her favorite slumber zone is…

CHARLIE Our beagle boy finds the sunny spot in any room. —David T. WILSON He relaxed after our guests left on New Year’s Eve. —Cindy Wortman BROWNIE She naps like this often, always near me. —Merriehelen Myrvold COCO She requires several “lap naps” daily. —Sandy Gardner GIBBY My little old man’s cocoon keeps him cozy. —Sherise Schleining MEMPHIS  Our Goldador has always had big paws. —Michelle Anderton Grove LUCY  Our playful girl will sleep just about anywhere. —Janet Gonzales Miller MISSY She likes to cover herself up while I’m working from home. —Pam Miller MAXIMUS He’s snug with his blanket and Garfield toy. —Mercedes Tappy DULCIE AND SADIE During the day, these two nap near each other, Dulcie (top) channeling her inner cat. —Lori Wright Dowling…

My 12-year-old Labrador seems disoriented sometimes and will bark for no reason. Is this normal for an older dog? —Allison P. At 12, a dog’s age can be equivalent to that of a 72- to 90-year-old person. In general, large-breed dogs age faster and are more prone to cancer and orthopedic problems, while smaller breeds can live into their late teens and are prone to heart disease, endocrine disorders and cancer. Your pet’s disorientation might make you suspect dementia, but that’s not always the case. It’s important to differentiate chronic disease from brain deterioration associated with dementia. Your veterinarian will start with a thorough physical examination. He or she will assess weight changes, muscle quality, gait, and eye and ear function. Your vet will also listen to the lungs and…

IT HAD BEEN 23 DAYS since the statewide shelter-in-place order was issued and schools closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was worried about our eight-year-old son, Isaac. He’s an extremely outgoing kid, and having no one to play with was getting to him. “I miss my friends,” he said to me one Sunday morning. I had to do something to lift his spirits. After we went to drive-up worship at church, I decided to take Isaac kayaking. Outdoor activities were still allowed as long as people kept six feet from those outside their household. Driving down to the Sipsey River, I looked at Isaac in the rearview mirror. “This will be fun,” I said. “Sure,” he muttered, his expression downcast. Just as we were putting our kayak in the…

You’ve heard Mother Goose stories. How about a heartwarming Father Goose story? Once upon a time…well, one spring day in 2014, Mike Jivanjee was boating on Lake Oswego, near Portland, Oregon, with friends when they spotted a tiny Canada gosling in the water. “Mother geese do not typically leave goslings alone, so we knew that it was in trouble,” Mike said. They rescued it and found its family. But the mother rejected the gosling because it had a crooked foot. Knowing that the baby bird would die on its own, Mike took it home and named it Kyle. “I decided I’d care for him until he was old enough to fly,” he says. “Boy, was I wrong!” Mike was wrong about something else too. Kyle turned out to be a…

NOT LONG AFTER my husband, Ed, and I got married 38 years ago, we adopted two kittens, Sam and Nicky. They lived long, happy lives. In their memory, we put up a monument in our backyard with bricks bearing their names and the years they’d lived. Eventually we moved to a new house and brought the bricks with us. Since then, we’ve had 10 more pets, and each time we said goodbye, we made a new brick. But the weather wore them down, and it became hard to see the engraved names. A few years ago, I ordered custom photo magnets online—one for each of our beloved pets, with names and dates just like the bricks. The magnets are lightweight, so they’ll be easy to take along if we move…

The idea may have started in Taiwan, but there are now about 100 cat cafés in the U.S., including Ohio’s first, Eat Purr Love. The Columbus café offers creative ways for humans and cats to interact and hopefully pair up forever. We talked to Brittany Williams, director of marketing for Columbus Humane, the nonprofit that owns the café, and Maghen Powell, the café’s assistant manager, about what makes their space purr-fect for feline friendship. For the uninitiated, what is a cat café? Brittany: It’s partially a normal café that has coffee and baked goods, tables, and chairs, but there’s a separate living room environment with adoptable cats and enrichment activities where the cats can play. It’s such a beneficial place to help shelter cats get adopted, because they feel comfortable…

ONE DAY MY 14-YEAR-OLD SON, Connor, came home from school and said, “Mom, we had the best show-and-tell ever!” He proceeded to tell me quite the story. His friend Austin had brought his pet lizard, Mr. T, to science class. Austin kept the Argentine tegu’s large carrier covered with a blanket while he talked. “Tegus are predators,” he said. “They eat raw meat and bugs, but they also eat fruits and vegetables.” Mr. T’s favorite foods were chicken hearts and gizzards, and he liked to crunch on eggshells. Austin told the class that although Mr. T was friendly, he was still a wild animal. Some of their classmates looked nervous. Connor held his breath as Austin removed the blanket. Then he took the three-foot-long reptile out of the carrier and…

Mornings in our household start with breakfast—for everyone. The gerbils, rabbits, goats, ponies, horse, chickens included. It’s a big job, but it goes quickly when you have help. My 10-year-old daughter, Iris, loves feeding the animals. She comes with me from pen to pen, her cat, Thula, at her heels. Thula likes to perch on the fence and watch, though she’s a little too interested in chicks that have just hatched. But the large fluffy Maine coon cat is easy to keep an eye on, because she’s never far from Iris’s side. No matter how many animals join our family, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Thula. Iris Grace was born in 2009 and was, in my opinion, the most beautiful baby. Ten delicate fingers, ten…

Six perfectly shaped gourds lay before me, spread out on the grass of my backyard. I’d grown them myself and harvested them carefully. Now it was time to turn these fruits into the perfect houses for my favorite birds—purple martins. I cut a round doorway in the front of a gourd, scraped out the insides. Hollowed out, the gourd would be perfect for a purple martin to nest in. I looked up. The September sky was empty. But come February the purple martins would return, spinning and tumbling like acrobats above my head. For me, they were more than entertainment. They were a reminder that God is with me, even when everything else seems lost. As I lovingly crafted my next gourd birdhouse, my mind drifted back to a day many…

It’s not hard to understand why Francis of Assisi is every animal lover’s favorite saint. He preached to the birds. He calmed the wolf that menaced the Italian town of Gubbio (or so the story goes). He would stop and pick up worms on the road out of concern that they would be crushed. Once, one of his followers brought him a hare caught in a trap, assuming it would provide welcome sustenance for the humble group. Francis simply picked up the rabbit, stroked it and put it down to hop along on its way. But the animal refused to abandon Francis’s side. It kept coming back to be with this man who loved all of God’s creatures. When writing about Francis, there’s no reason to embellish the stories, which…