A couple of videos from our trip of Siegfried and Roy's tigers.


Ryan was playing hide and seek with one of the tigers through the fence. What a cutie ♥



The tigers were playing while we were there and it was sooo cute. That one was in the pounce position foreeever and I was like "omg are you going to attack him or what? :|" They reminded me of my kitties.

And while I have your attention, please visit Selunca's journal and help her kitty if you can!

I know that big cats go through a "terrible two's" stage much like children. Tiani was impossible to work with sometimes when she turned two. Well, I am now convinced domesticated kitties go through it as well :| At least Desmond is.

He has decided he no longer loves Ben like he did as a baby. He will stalk him, chase him, even purposely hunt him out. If Ben is sleeping on the top of the cat condo Desmond will jump up there, bite him and attack him until eventually Ben gets down.. just so Desmond can now sleep up there. It doesn't matter that he was just fine sleeping on the couch a few minutes earlier. He'll follow him down the hallway to the bathroom and attack him. Saturday night they got in a fight and fur was flying and Ben ran into the bedroom and hid under the bed to get away from Desmond. I caught up with Des before he got under the bed too.

Sometimes he'll make it seem innocent enough if I'm watching him. He'll go over to Ben and start licking his face and his neck.. then he bites him. He was literally gnawing on his head the other day.

Ben -usually- does nothing to instigate any of this. Sometimes he'll go up and whack Desmond on the face a few times, but he doesn't bite.

On top of this he has no manners anymore. The cats have always been good about not bugging us when we eat. We taught them when they were little that if they just sit there, they'll get bites when we're done. So usually they just sit around us (if even that) and just watch. But twice now Desmond has knocked food out of my hand WHILE I AM TAKING IT TOWARDS MY MOUTH and gobbled it up. He also is getting into shit he knows he shouldn't be getting in to. He's not even listening to Ryan anymore. Usually when he's doing something bad, Ryan can just yell at him and he stops. Now he waits for Ryan to get up and start heading towards him before he gets down/stops.

Although.. he was kinda cute the other night.

We were in the kitchen and Desmond was out there whining and crying trying to get our attention for some reason. Locke and Ben were still locked in the bathroom since they were eating dinner. After a few minutes of us not paying attention to Desmond, he went out into the dining room area and flopped onto his side on the carpet. He meowed a couple more times and rolled around, and then when we continued not to go over and pet him and give him attention he started dragging himself around the carpet. He was having such a temper tantrum X)

I'm gonna talk with Dr. M some more and see what she thinks we should do. We're going to get another cat condo next month in hopes that creating more vertical space will alleviate some of the fighting. Ben really needs to learn how to stand up for himself. Desmond is like 9 pounds and he's 13 and a half. I can't really justify the feliway because it's so expensive and it only lasts 4 weeks. And we've tried treating Desmond like the "alpha" cat and giving him attention and stuff first, but that just seems to make his bratty behavior even worse. I don't want to have to get rid of Ben, but I feel bad for him getting beat up. He had a wound on his throat from Desmond biting him. I'm hoping Desmond will just eventually get over it again.

It's sad though that they're acting like this. I miss when my kitties were like this

I was waiting til most of them got here, but I figured I'd go ahead and start saying thanks now :)

To Sema, Rogue, Nanook, Va-Kasi, Miaor, Mahrkale, Ges <3, KC and Flaer, Sagegoat, Botface, Dy, Tyr, Tiv and Gearpony

Thank you all so much for the cards <3 <3 They filled me full of happy :)

And extra thanks to Miaor, Botface, Tyr, and Gearpony for the sketches <3

And thank you Tiv for the gift <3 Also thanks to Ly for the gift <3 The kitties appreciated it! They got some toys and treats and a new bed :)

I think that's everyone. Sorry if I am forgetting you x_x;;

And unrelated, here are a couple pics I took at work last month-


Gracie was adopted from the shelter and they found out afterwards that she had heartworms. This is while she was staying with us after her heartworm treatment. We had a bunch of people donate nice towels and fleece blankets for us and we gave her a nice plush blankie to sleep with since her temp was kinda low. I walked by her a little while afterwards and she had managed to wrap herself up with it. So cute <3


Boo and her brother are some of our regulars. Their owner always tells me about how they almost knock over her couch trying to get to the door when she asks if they want to go see Dr. H and the girls X) They love staying with us. This is just a little pic of her out in the first snow of the year.

Oh shit...

I'm working on something



All my anatomy skills that I had developed have gone out the window pretty much since I haven't done any serious art in like 2 years.

I did that art improvement meme going around DA. OH GOD THE HORRORS OF THE EARLY 2000s


Art Improvement Meme by ~malaikawolfcat on deviantART

My biggest goals for 2010 are this:

Pay off my debt! I have a lot of bills that are finally dwindling down. I managed to pay off all the taxes I owed to the feds and Oregon state in October, so that's one bill down. I owe $400 to my ambulance company still from the trip to the ER a few years back, $400 or so to Ryan for dental stuff, $300 or so to Care Credit, $320 on my wedding dress and $350 to Capital One (at which point I'm closing that card, even though they are trying to entice me by raising my credit limit a ton). After those are paid off I'll just have my $1600 Bank of America card to pay off.

Get all my dental/orthodontic work started! Another reason to pay off all that debt.. because I'm about to have thousands of dollars more. I need to get my wisdom teeth out and 4 extractions before I can get my braces. I'm hoping to start this in March.. assuming there's no hold-ups with Ryan's new insurance. I am happy to say though that I already have $2000 as a down-payment and insurance should cover $1500. So that's $3500 of the orthodontic work paid off.. which leaves $1800 that I'll have 2 years to pay off. And then like $1000 or so for the other work.

Get back into art. I have tons of ideas but no motivation to really sit down and work on them. I don't know why really.. I'd also like to get back into art so I can maybe take some small commissions to help pay off the aforementioned debt. Even 10 icons would be $100 that I could use to pay off a bill.

Try to start saving some money again. It's been quite a few months since I've had some left over to put in my savings. I don't think I'm going to meet the goal amount I wanted to have in there by 25 at this point.

Other than that, I'm just gonna try to keep doing my best at work and continue to look for a zoo to get into. I am excited to start doing doggie daycare at work in a few months. I've been doing a lot of work to set it up.

A lot of the animals I worked with back in Oregon left us during 2009. I just wanted to take a minute to post this and remember them.


Michael


Ariyeh


Etosha


Mugadi


Scooter <3 You were only 2 years old. I remember watching you all those hours when you were a little baby cub <3 You grew up to be so handsome, it's sad your life was cut short so early.


Lexus

Angel: Let's make a resolution.

Mimi: I'll drink to that.

Collins: Let's always stay friends.

Joanne: Though we may have our disputes

Maureen: This family tree's got deep roots.

Mark: Friendship is deeper than blood

Roger: That depends

Mimi: Depends on trust

Roger: Depends on true devotion

Joanne: Depends on love

Mark: Depends on not denying emotion!

Roger: Perhaps

All: It's gonna be a happy new year!

Roger: I guess

Part 2!



( Paris, TI, Venetian, Mirage Volcano )

So I figured I'd finally get around to sharing some of those pics from Vegas.

You can see all of them here if you are on my Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=334724&id=820175103


View from the top of our hotel (Stratosphere)

( Bellagio Fountains, Caesar's Palace, Statues, Luxor, MGM, Mirage, Siegfried and Roy's, New York New York, Paris, statues, white tigers, etc )

Will do the rest in another post

If you have any spare cash, check out theredwolf's journal and get a commission from her. It goes towards getting her kitty some medical care!

See here: http://theredwolf.livejournal.com/536361.html

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36854510

Third pic down :D

It is so not a good pic compared to most I take, but I am flattered she's using it as a store pic!