Pet odds and ends

We had a sad passing here in our home, last night.  Luna the rescue guinea pig .  Which brought to mind that I should blog again on our animal ministry, or I should say our son's ministry.  My oldest son has aspired to be a veterinarian since he was age four.  When my mini doxin became disabled, it led to him volunteering at the local animal clinic and now he works there and is a senior in school.  We home school, so he has a more flexible schedule than most; a God thing for sure.    Our close relationship with the people at the animal clinic lead them to know our hearts and us into the animal rescue world.  When Z first started asking to bring home animals, my husband and I prayed on it long and hard.  Our answer was found in the book of Genesis, where we are commanded to take charge of the animals.  Not everyone ministry looks the same, which is good, and everyone is called to one.  Ours is animals.  We have been doing this almost four years, and not once have we not been able to help provide.  Luna was our first, she was left in Doc's drive way (he lives by us) while he was at the clinic, and she had a bad case of mange.  Doc and Z nursed her back to good health and for the past 3 years she was a fat and sassy pig!  Here are a few more, but certainly not all our rescue animals.

This is Angle, a pit bull mix.  You may remember that Z rescued 9 puppies last summer, she is the mother.  Z and another lady from our church who does animal rescue, went back and rescues the mom the next day.  She still has sores from where she was so emaciated that her bones rubbed the ground when she lay down.  I call this a real rags to riches story. Angle went from a starving dog to a pageant winner at the local pet parade!

Sorry this pic is so blurry.  This is Zoey, a boxer/terrier mix, sleeping on our laundry basket.  She is 100% Z's dog, she loves that boy.  He brought her home when her previous owner abandoned her at the clinic with a pro=lapsing rectum (her poo-shoot kept falling out).  She was stitched up and hasn't had a rectum issue since, plenty of other issues though! LOL

This is Tina, the only surviving kitten from a box of three left on our front walk.  There were 3 white, 4 week old kittens, all with parasites.  My middle dd, Bre, hand feed her every two hours for the first few weeks we had her.  It's a shame people do that, how selfish.  As you can see, she is now a very large and happy cat.

OK, this isn't a rescue cat, actually she came with us from MI when we moved.  I just think it's interesting that yet another pet likes to sleep on our dirty laundry, and we have a ton of that since our washer has been broken for 9 months now and we do all our laundry by hand (which is a bummer since we have handicapped animals that require daily bedding changes, twice a day).

This is Nala, our latest acquisition.  God brought her to our house. We found her under hubby's car, almost dead.  Some of our neighbors said they saw her a couple days earlier, two blocks over from our house.  Doc said she would have died in a few hours if we hadn't brought her in when we did.  She is now one of the most pleasant cats we have, and yet again you can see that all the animals tend to conjugate to certain areas of the house (like the back of the living room sofa).

Like I said, this is by no means all our animals but just a few pleasant happy endings.  Each one has their own story and happy ending.  While we will miss Luna, we know she had a good quality of life and really, that's what it's all about.  My son is taking this passing hard and is learning many life lessons, such as how blessed he is to have such an incredible support system with his friends, family and co=workers.  If your out and about today, hug your local animal care giver.

Blessings, Beth Ann