Thanks everyone :mrgreen: You all know how hard it was for me to come home tonight and NOT go running for the meter, right? And how hard it was not to flip out when I saw the clock read 8:00 in the car on the way back from NC? I very admirably restrained myself from both things though.
Time to enjoy those free hours.... yeah. About that. So, how much do I need to worry about stress elevating Tugger's BG levels during this trial? Let me point out a couple of things first.
1. The cats all have access to my bedroom through the cat door, so they have a nice quiet place to escape when things get nuts. It is where Tugger spends 80% of his day on that nice Tempurpedic bed I got him, though he's not fond of the massage options
2. OK, well I guess that was the only thing I could think of.
I ask about stress levels because... tomorrow we will be bringing home a 2 year old female Great Dane. I can't NOT bring her home. I'm not sure if we can keep her but we can not leave her where she is. She'll wind up in a bad place if we do. She's not spayed. Because "I wanted to let her grow some more before I breed her" She's not on heart worm meds (the place was swarming with skeeters) and they have a boxer who HAS heart worms, they tried to act like they know something about breeding... but only of the backyard variety iykwim. They said no one else had come out to see her yet and they would not keep her beyond tomorrow.
Well, when we first introduced the dogs, she went a little bit snappy (scared the pee out of Boomer, my little wuss) but by the end of the visit they were sniffing butts and doing doggy things. Because of the snappy though, we didn't feel comfortable putting them in the van together without at least one crate. So the people agreed to keep her tonight and we will go get her tomorrow, with a crate and without Boomer. She has a few issues that I know of already. Food aggression, cowers as if she's been hit, I'm concerned about heart worms, her shots are not utd and she's not spayed, comes from poor lines from the sounds of things the people said (half her litter didn't survive and were severely deformed) and the most important thing... we do not know how she is with cats.
That's where Tugger's stress levels could come into play, that and if she's ugly at Boomer. I would think snapping fighting giant dogs in your house would be stressful to a kitty.
Cats have access to my bedroom without dogs if we close the door. They also have the kitchen and dining room as dog free zones. We have a crate which the new dog will sleep in and be in when someone isn't watching her or if we all leave. There is also a room that can be gated off to keep the dog(s) in. It's Boomer's room with his couch and food already in it and the door they use to go outside. So Tugger does not have to be totally stressed out about this, he'll have lots of time to roam safely around the house. Moving Boomer in was almost nothing, the cats each slapped him one good time and he left them alone. I'm not sure they'll even notice a new one. They might just think they are seeing double :lol:
Some pics the people sent my hubby...
This appears to be birthday cake on her nose...
If we can't make it work out in our home, I do have contact with the local rescue coordinator so we can get her safely and responsibly placed. These people were offering her for free, first come first serve and with a time limit. You see why I couldn't just not bring her here to try? I have to try.
.
