This Way and That Way

Owen and Snafu 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Dogs of Marshwood Cottage: Cooper

Since we have four dogs in addition to seven cats, dogs are a very important part of life at Marshwood Cottage. It is long overdue for us to formally include them in our daily Cat of Nine Tales posts. 

We begin in order of their seniority (age).

This is Cooper, our 15 year old Jack Russell Terrier.

He’s been DP’s heart and soul, and inspired her to become a Certified Professional Dog Trainer.

In his long and eventful life Cooper has been an Assistant Carriage Driver with DP when she drove a carriage in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

He was a professional model for Pet Edge pet supply wholesaler where many of his shots from 10 or more years ago can still be seen.

Cooper was a muscular and agile star athlete... 

kept buff by running in Flyball Tournaments for several years.

You can see him run in this video from 2009 (turn your volume down!).

He even earned his “Iron Dog” status for running Flyball for 10 years!

Cooper’s won many titles in Obedience Trials and was a Therapy Dog.

Today, Cooper is retired from active life. He has mellowed a lot!  Since he is 15 years old, he is going senile and has become a bit "lovably" goofy. He is now earning many new titles like "Old Man," Gramps," and "Cooper Magoo." 

Although the former athlete is arthritic, mostly deaf and mostly blind, he still enjoys a couple of walks a day in our woods and lives for treats.

Thanks for reading about Cooper!

We'll feature our other three dogs in the days ahead.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Mr Wizard

Our Mancat feature for this Monday!

WIZARD

Such a lovely fellow.

He is very partial to people food (unfortunately) and is very partial to DP who tries to give him the extra attention he desires.

~Bonus Picture~

Whenever we are giving attention to any other cat, Owen must be a part of it and see what is going on, so a few of my photo shoots include one of these photobombs:

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Fu and Yu: Three Way Tunnel

There is only one cat Snafu rarely messes with.

Now that is innocent lounging.

Have a great Weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Spring at Marshwood Cottage

Since we live in Maine, I'm obligated to show you a patch or two of snow that we still have left.

But less than 10 steps away the lilac is beginning to sprout leaves.

And we are promised a lovely show next week!

So the big story of spring is not the color here at Marshwood Cottage, but the sounds!  

This video features the sounds of frogs and peepers around our semi-frozen pond (yes, the white you see is snow and ice), the song of a white throated sparrow and the most important sound of spring at the end!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Snafu on Hand

Snafu is glad Holy Week is over and I'll be back at home where he can lounge around on me, as it should be.

Snafu laying on my hand is very reminiscent of this picture of Moseley from 6 years ago. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Two Tailess Tabbies on Tuesday II

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Yukon's Not too Big for the Box

Yukon is a lot skinnier than he used to be...

Only one of our mancats!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Slight of Paw

Those are not Snafu's paws coming out the red tunnel...

...and this is not innocent lounging. 

Moments after capturing this with my camera, I redirected Snafu by enticing him with a blue feather butterfly wand. 

Nick was left to sleep in peace.

Have a great weekend all!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Society of Feline Gardeners

At last we'll be able to fully participate as members of the Society of Feline Gardeners.

We had a good practice run last summer.

But this is how our garden looked this past Saturday. As of today the snow you see at the bottom has completely melted. Yes, I know it looks really messy, but I'm working hard not to work too hard on this garden.

Here's the bit of color we have going on at the moment.

 A sweet sight!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Cat Nip in the Toy Box

A silent movie for Wordless Wednesday

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

The Cat Enclosure: Then and Now

When we lived at our other house, our cats were blessed to have an outdoor cat enclosure. DP is very good with handmade fences and fashioned a simple enclosure out of chicken wire and U-Posts. 

It was 7 foot tall and very flexible at the top, so that any cat who might have climbed up the chicken wire, soon found themselves falling back into the enclosure. No one ever escaped (except for that one time when BJ climbed over it, but then he got too fat and couldn't do it again, ha).

Part of our new house budget was going to include a professionally built cat enclosure by a company called Safe Kitty. We'd seen their vendor booth at cat shows in the past.

There was only one location outside our house that would work.

Candace and Mike, who own and operate Safe Kitty, are truly a hard working and lovely couple who own several special needs pets of their own. 

They made a special trip to our house to measure, measure and measure.  Then a couple of months later, they came back up with the pre-constructed ready made kit and spent the day with us assembling it.  

Although Candace and Mike delivered and set up our custom sized cat enclosure, they do ship their kits all over the US (check them out www.SafeKitty.com).

Fully complete!

My favorite part is being able to go inside with them.

A window with a ramp offers three modes of getting down.

 The bottom has open grass, as well as a gravel area to do business. Of course they don't restrict themselves to do business just on the gravel.

They have a great view of the open lawn to watch us, the dogs play,

or watch the birds at feeders surrounding them!

Winter was challenging...

But they still went outside on sunny days!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

A Holy Week Meditation with Yukon

Surrender

Breathe Deeply

Embrace Peace

Purrrrr...

For best results view in full screen mode. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

It's Friday! Nick Time!

Grab a Nick and have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Fu and Yu: This is mine

Fu needs no words to express his ownership of this morsel of stinky goodness.

It appears Yukon does not agree.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa

Angus by Request

Hey Laila!

Someone said you wanted to see more of me!

Oops! 

I'm sorry, was that too loud?

Angus is a shy floofy boy who is very licky, which he demonstrates nicely in this video.

Moving Cats to Marshwood Cottage

A year ago we bought this cute cottage. We call it Marshwood Cottage (we also call it tiny house on the swamp).

It has a big beautiful backyard with several garden beds, a workshop/shed, woods, even a small pond.

DP got to work right away building new fences and replacing existing ones. With three layers of fencing for dog walks, it’s a continuous process.

We repainted the interior (mostly).

We packed up the pets and stripped the “old trailah” bare, sold it and had it hauled away.  

Moving day was so crazy that I don’t have a picture of the eight cat crates packed tightly into the back of my Forester. 

Thank God we only moved a half hour away. 

Everycat say, “MEOW!”

 Everycat arrived safely and found the comfort and smell of a familiar bed (It was hard, but I thought it best not to start off with clean fresh sheets. I think it helped the transition a lot, along with not changing the kitty litter and having 4 diffusers of Feliway burning away).

Braver ones ventured out within hours of the movers leaving.

I was surprised Angus came out of the bedroom to explore a bit after only a day.

Everycat wore collars with new name tags engraved with our new information, and we kept them on for about two months…until we got our new cat enclosure!

But that’s a story for another day!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Lisa