The Old Bitties

We have three old ladies riding along in the motorhome. They’ve been with us for 13-14 years, from Florida, to Tennessee, and now in the rolling earthquake on the road.

Suki came to us first in September of 2009. We got her from the Humane Society at around six months old. They said she is a Spitz. She looked so scared in her PetFinder pics. While she wasn’t the one we initially went to see, she crawled into Al’s lap right away, then peed on him a few minutes later. The difference from her frightened demeanor in the kennel, to almost calmly asleep, tricked us into bringing her home. We soon found out that she does not like being left alone. She has anxiety and strong abandonment issues, cries & whimpers when I leave, much worse when we’re both gone. She will have bleeding claws if put in a cage, and will shred the front door trim trying to find us if we leave. She is totally content when we are around. She loves going for walks, gets very excited if you even touch the leash, and only she can play with the toys. Fourteen years later and she still hasn’t shaken any of it. She now has arthritis and fatty cysts are starting to take over, but she trods along on hikes as far as she wants, then gets carried by one of us geezers the rest of the way.

A week after getting Suki, we fostered Cassie with hopes that they would keep each other company. Cassie was a year old and had already birthed two litters of pups. A few months later, we adopted her, too. She’s a rat terrier with minor OCD tendencies. Upon first meeting her, she too climbed into Al’s lap and fell asleep. She’s fine in our absence, but mostly glued to Al whenever he’s around. Early on, she would lay on top of Suki to steal her warmth, and Suki would tolerate it, but not so much now. She used to love chewing on turtles and chasing bears and squirrels up trees and out of her yard. Now at fifteen, she doesn’t chase much of anything as she’s mostly blind & deaf, has a partially collapsed trachea, and likely mammary cancer. Addressing any of her issues is too risky at her age. We try to make sure she goes out every hour or two or there may be tinkling to clean up. When hiking, she rides around in a chest carrier and seems to enjoy all of the outdoor smells in every direction, but I swear she asks why we huff and puff up all these hills.

Lastly, there’s Betty. At maybe a couple weeks old, she would pop through our fences just long enough to make the neighborhood dogs bark. We never saw her mama around, so when she came to investigate our lanai, we closed the doors and caught her. She barely fit in the palm of my hand. At the time, she became pet #6... three dogs and three cats. She used to wrestle regularly with Cassie and at times still plays chase back and forth with Suki. She will always disappear when company arrives. Now at thirteen, she rules the motorhome. Do not let her see the bottom of that food dish or the claws will come out, and most every square inch is her personal bed. At least she keeps off the countertops. She stays back at the motorhome during our outings as she’s not bothered by heat and enjoys the alone time. We give her drops for an eye ulcer and her renal counts are just below needing special food, but she seems to be doing fine otherwise.

We try to keep them comfortable and give them the best life we can offer. There are jealousy spats over food & attention now and then, or random growls because one looked at another funny, but usually they get along fine. The little monsters may say they never get enough treats, but they get more than plenty.

While most would think the five of us geezers must feel crowded now, going from a big house in Florida, to a smaller house in Tennessee, to a motorhome that thrashes around the countryside. Quite the contrary. We find that most of those former rooms were largely unused. Betty may object as she likes having that queen sized bed all to herself during the day, but she still snuggles up with the rest of them to their favorite, Daddy Al, keeping him nice & sweaty through those occasional cold (and hot) nights. They don’t often sit by me, especially if Al is around, yet they do like to take my spot every time I get up... my fuzzy blanket too. They are a lot of work, and sometimes limit what we can do, but we'll put up with them as long as we can.

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