Help Save the Critter Project!

Ferdie

As I said in my last post, we were trying to sell the yaks. We're devastated by this. But now it's worse.

We'd contacted the breeder who got Yazoo pregnant with Ferdie and hoped he could help us. He thought he could find a home for Yeti and Yonkers and would keep Yazoo and Ferdie himself. (And we'd hoped we could buy back at least those two once we return to Colorado.

Yonkers with Yeti as a baby

Now things are more dire.

I have enough gasoline for the generator (so that I can stay here and feed them) and enough hay to feed them on for only TWO DAYS. The breeder says it may take a month or so. It's not safe to let them roam (I'll write a post about that in the near future).

Yazoo

Please if you can donate a little money for hay and gasoline so that I can stay here and feed them - or enough to help us find someone to board them, I'd be entirely grateful.

Please I beg you. If you can post this on Facebook or Tweet it or pass it along in any other manner, please let others know.

A Sad Intermission for the Critter Project

Just when things were starting to go well...

I haven't been updating this blog because the changes have been coming too fast and we're still reeling with the punches.

This May or so, Quantum's mom, "J" started exhibiting the symptoms of Alzheimer's related dementia.

J lives in Florida, and since we moved here, the plan was for her to come out and be with us. She didn't have much keeping her in FL (no relatives, few friends who hadn't passed). She was looking forward to gardening, canning and other country/farm pursuits, not to mention the company of myself and her son. All we needed to do was build the house and she'd be here. She's elderly and wouldn't adapt well to the rough life we've had till now (living in a trailer with no plumbing). The plan had been to start building next spring. (We would have started earlier, but the fire when we first moved and bare survival, set us back a bit.)

Then we noticed the dementia. I won't go into all the details but at one point the neighbors found her with all doors and windows open and lying on the tile floor to stay cool. Her AC had broken - in FLORIDA in JULY and she couldn't figure out how to call the air conditioning people to get it fixed - and didn't tell us about it until two weeks had gone by. That was just one incident of many.

We found a house for sale in the area. Unlike our land, it was connected to the grid, had plumbing, a bedroom for her and one for us, and was right outside of town. (I haven't had the opportunity to write much about it, but in winter it's near impossible for us to get to town from here - sometimes for weeks at a time.)

We talked with her about the place and she seemed excited to move here. Then a few more incidents occurred (including J losing her car insurance because she forgot to pay the bill - since she's 86 the ins. company leapt at the chance to get rid of her, and wouldn't reinstate) and Quantum realized he'd better do something sooner rather than later.

He flew down to Florida with the plan of bringing her back with him. Everything was fine for the first couple days he was down there. Then two things happened. First J fell and hit her head and had to be rushed to the emergency room. That may or may not have contributed to what happened next, but it solidified Quantum's feeling that she needed someone to take care of her 24/7/

Then her "caretaker" (a woman who helped her clean, pay bills and drove her around to stores) asked for J's car in partial payment. As soon as the car was signed over to her, things suddenly changed.

Suddenly, J was becoming ambivalent about the move (egged on by the caretaker who wanted to keep her job, we believe). The caretaker told J that she didn't have to move and actually called the police on Quantum.

Next the caretaker brought in a court-ordered "decision maker"/advocate for J.

With all this, we have no choice but to move back to Orlando to be near Quantum's mom and to make sure that she's cared for and to fight for Quantum's right to do so. 

We've already rescued 3 wonderful dogs. However it will be 6 months to a year before we can return here, so the bulk of our rescue project is now on hold.

Heartbreakingly this also means we're going to have to sell the yaks. We have no money to board them and no ability to stay here and care for them.

I'm trying not to cry.

A Letter to PETA - about Pitbulls

A correspondence between PETA and a woman who had planned (that's past tense, thank goodness) to leave her fortune to them when she passed.

A Letter to PETA is a well-put answer to PETA's (imo) despicable treatment and villification of Pit Bulls and pitbull-like breeds.

Friends don't let friends support PETA.

NEW Pit Bull Links

Just added a page of Pit Bull Related links to our blog. If you know a website, rescue center, video news item or other positive pitbull related page that should be on our list, comment and let us know!

Quantum's Mom and Alzheimers

Thanks for taking a moment to find out about my mom. Over the last 10-12 weeks, she's been suddenly forgetting things even in mid-sentence. It's clear enough that this is some kind of mental deterioration, sadly not uncommon in folks her age (which is 86).

My wife and I moved to Colorado 2 years ago to build a new home away from the hurricanes and crime back in Florida. In the country outside this little town of 4,000 people.  As well as a place for my mom's latter years. I'm the only child, and I knew either I took care of her in her later years or nobody would.

Eight weeks after my wife and I moved here, we had an electrical fire that destroyed virtual every possession we had with us, which included all of our professional equipment, tools, and materials.  And there went our interim means of employment. (If you've been reading our blog, you probably know about fire.) Our only remaining resources all being tied up in our property in Colorado, and our old place back in Florida.

We've been renting the place through a management company for most of our monthly income, but these last couple months mom has been becoming confused, forgetful to an extreme, and afraid to even leave her condo back in Florida. She would get the rent check for our place mailed to her, then deposit it in our bank there in Florida. Our bank there is really good, and the ones here are lousy. But she's misplaced the rent check 2 months in a row, and now she's forgetting that she ever even received these checks. Which obviously really messed up our limited income. I've also received highly concerned emails from her financial advisor, and my 88 yr old aunt up in Montana, concerning mom's behavior and lack of communication.

Now, I need to fly back to Florida and sort out mom's affairs. And sell our property back there to pay for moving mom out with us. She is gonna need daily social contact and supervision, for her well being and health. She's been living alone for 2 years, and it's clearly not been good for her.

Herd Transitions

Sometimes things come along and make you readjust your attitude and your priorities. Ferdie's birth has been one of those. Not just for us, but for the yaks as well.

We've now spent two near-sleepless nights perking our ears for the stealthy approach of large critters. We live in cougar, bear and coyote territory, so that's not much of a surprise. Unfortunately, Ferdie has decided that her favorite space in the corral is right up against the edge of the fence, where she could be vulnerable. On the good side, the dogs are constantly alert for anything roaming in the night. Of course that includes racoons, possums and potentially mice. Welcome to being awakened at 2 a.m. Because the dogs smelled...something.

Quantum and I have spent the last two days with perma-grin. Watching Ferdie's antics has been...just blow-away. We are convinced that she is the cutest little animal since the gods first created cute little animals.

We spent the first dozen or so hours of her birth worried because she wasn't nursing. Within the first few hours, Zoozoo kicked (gently) at her. As a first time mommy heifer, she wasn't used to someone trying to nuzzle at her underparts. I'm sure her thoughts were something along the line of, "What the heck! That tickles." Just before Quantum was ready to go to the feed store next morning for colostrum formula, Zoozoo started letting her nurse without kicking her away. Gods, the relief!

The change in the herd dynamics has been profound. Before this, Yonkers was the undisputed Queen of the corral. Bitchy, defensive, and never having had a good relationship with humans, we've been challenged in dealing with her from the start. We got her at age nine, and it was clear that she'd never been tractable, and never liked people very much. We've got the impression that the folks we bought her from figured, "sell her to some schmuck or make her into hamburger." Her purpose, before we got her was breeding babies and more babies, without much care or interest in helping her to be gentle.

Quantum has done a world of work with her in the nearly two years that she's been ours. She went from, "approach at your peril" to a creature who though not easily handle-able was at least respectful when we entered the corral. And for the last 6 months she's been eating out of our hands, even though she will still charge the corral fence when I or strangers approach.

This winter when the girls escaped for the third time, Yonkers managed to put a huge gouge in our friend RY's butt. It wasn't her fault. He got tired of waiting for her to get in the trailer (he's impatient) and wacked her over the head with a metal pipe. So I thought Yonk was fully justified in turning around and burying one of her horns in his butt-cheek. Good thing he wasn't facing the other direction!

Knowing how nasty Yonkers can be, we thought we' d need to separate her from Zoozoo and the baby once it was born.

As part of her job as Corral Queen, Yonkers has the idea that her time should be spent convincing her two daughters that humans are evil and not to be trusted. However her yak-mommy instincts turned against her in a way. It's the natural instinct of most mommy animals to wean their older children in favor of their younger babies. That meant that Yazoo (the older daughter) was getting chased from the hay piles and the water bucket on a regular basis. Which left our Zoozoo open to the wiles of my husband, who would make sure that Zoo had her own special pile of hay when Yonkers tried to chase her away from the food. Despite that ZooZoo has been told by Momma that humans were evil, it was humans who were making sure she had enough to eat.

Meanwhile 2-yr old Yeti is just on the verge of being weaned. I saw her nursing only a few months ago, and that might still be going on when I'm not looking. Yeti has taken up her Mom's stance of "people are scary" and doesn't let us touch her.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, that all changed.

Within moments of Ferdie's birth, Zoozoo, who had been somewhat "on the fence" regarding human involvement in her life, has come a bare step away from total acceptance. We are both (and the both part is a surprise, since she likes Quantum a heck of a lot more than she likes me) allowed to touch and handle the baby, get in the corral and push the baby towards her. In fact, when baby Ferdie gets herself somewhere between the wood and the electric wiring (now turned off) of the corral, I get the feeling that she's actually happy that someone is there and ready to push her baby towards her.

Yeti has gone from shy sibling to doting aunt. She's fascinated by anything the baby does and posts herself in guard position near baby Ferdie.

But the biggest change has been with Yonkers. Suddenly she doesn't act like she's the biggest and most important yak in the corral. After a few times of pushing off Ferdie (who wanted to nurse and couldn't figure out who to turn to for that) Yonkers is now quietly following the other yaks around.

And being pleasant and gentle to the point where Quantum has crawled into the yak pen stark naked (hey it's hot here!) without the slightest worry or challenge to his various man-parts.

Less than 24 hours from the miracle birth of our grandbaby, and it's somehow changed the herd dynamics to allow us to be accepted.

It's a Baby Yak!

Ferdie

Born 7/2/2012 7:14pm

OMG it's happening!

We're trying to relax after a rough day in town and car breakdowns. I look over at Yazoo and notice that she's at the far side of the corral, lying flat on the ground in a rather unusual way. The baby bump is getting bigger every day.

"I think it's going to be soon," I tell Quantum. "Maybe in the next couple days." The other two girls are chowing down and I figure I should bring her some hay of her own. Yonkers chases her away from the food sometimes.

Just as I get back inside, Quantum looks out the window. "Oh my god! It's happening! It's happening NOW!"

Zoozoo (that's still Yazoo - our pet name for her) has her tail up and there's a pink bubble forming there.

I run for the camera. (Thanks again, Mom!) "Her water broke," Quantum says.

Absolute terror sets into both of our hearts. Neither of us has ever helped a critter give birth. We're miles from the nearest large animal vet, miles from town, and we're not even sure the truck will run. It had vapor-lock before, and we barely made it home. Besides that, even though Zoozoo has become relatively accepting of Quantum (and me to a lesser degree) we doubt she'll let us help if she needs it. She doesn't like to be touched. We've read that yaks are easy birthers, but as first time grandparents, we're trembling.

Yonkers and Yeti are curious, but Zoozoo makes it clear that she wants to be left alone, so Quantum climbs into the corral and keeps them away from her.

We watch, helpless, as Zoozoo grunts and strains and the bubble gets bigger and bigger. We can see tiny white hooves inside the veil of the birth sack. And then it slips out, landing on the ground, a tiny, motionless form of black and white.

Moments after birth.

"It's alive! It's breathing!" Quantum says. Both of us slump with relief.

Zoozoo starts licking the baby and eating the birth sack away. It's already clear she's going to be a doting mother. We watch, enthralled, as the baby makes several attempts to get to her (at least it might be a her, we're still not positive) feet.

"You can do it, Ferdie," Quantum says.

This morning. 10 hours old.

"You do realize that whether it's a boy or a girl, that's it's name." I say

He smiles over at me, his face alight.

We'd actually hoped for a bull-calf, because we had considered studding him out. We'd like to get the local ranchers interested in cow-yak hybrids. So if it was a boy, we planned on naming it Ferdinand. We hadn't picked a girl name yet.

It's so tiny and perfect and fragile. We don't care what its sex is. We're already deeply in love.Zoozoo keeps licking away and Ferdie struggles to rise and plops back down in the dirt several times.

Then she's up, tottering on the very tips of her hooves. She can't seem to figure out how to use them yet. She falls down again then finally rises and take a few wobbly steps forward. Straight towards me. Zoozoo stands alongside her, but doesn't protest Ferdie's interest in me.

Still a little wobbly.

I put my hand through the fence and she comes over to me, her pink nose just inches from my hand. She sniffs and gives a little baby yak grunt.

The two of us are stuck halfway between laughter and tears.

The other yaks are very curious, especially Yeti, but Quantum and Zoozoo make sure they keep their distance.

We're surprised by her coloring. Both of her parents are black Imperials with a white patch on their foreheads and white socks. Ferdie is a Royal, like her grandfather Sherpa, black in the front, white in the back, with spots and patches, here and there, white legs and a wide blaze down her nose.

We go inside, and let them be, feeling high and exhausted. It's going to be a long night, because neither of us are going to get much sleep, especially with the coyotes living so close.