Animals and Sleep Depravation

Tuesday evening

Around about 16.15 I remembered I had to fetch my cleaner from the house and drop her at the taxi rank close to my work. I arrived home and immediately went to check on Jinx and the babies.

Shame there was another baby that did not make it. And there were definitely were more than 6 pups. There were 8 surviving pups. I couldn’t believe it this madam had had 10 pups. One of them was so small, even smaller than TINY from head to tail approx 9 cm. He was very small and very fragile but he seemed to be feeding and I was very worried about him and checked on him continuously.

When it comes to runts I have no idea how to look after the small frail pups and I just hoped that this little man would survive.

I returned to the office and processed the freight for the final hand over and arranged the final drop off at the airport and other agents. Then we went to the other depot and processed the economy freight and finally left for home at 19h30. A very long day and by now I was quite emotional and tired and utterly shattered because of lack of sleep.

I was preparing dinner when Jinx flew into the kitchen so excited and prancing around the kitchen. Her body language was one of “Please follow me” Concerned we rushed to the bedroom and she plopped herself down with her babies and we realized she just wanted to show off her babies and was missing the company.

Her evening ritual before the puppies arrived was to sit with us in the kitchen and get under our feet and I think she was lonely. So we sat with her and showered her with praise and love. I watched the runt drink and felt a little easier about his chances.

During the evening we checked on Jinx and her babies, Fed her at least three times and kept up the milk and egg mixture and Jinx stayed with her babies nursing them through out the night. She did ask to go out ever hour on the hour. After the night before we were really running on empty. At 1.12 our alarm went off and this time I was not responsible. I swear Bern rose out of the bed with help of levitation and switched off the alarm. Checked to see where the movement was in the house by the sensors.

Opened the door to the passage and kept an eye on Fiona to see if her danger radar was going to show there was trouble. Fiona showed no fear and Little Boy just kept on sleeping. So Bern opened the passage door with hesitation. On the other side of the door was Kitty with a new hair style. She was a big pom pom. Her hair all on edge and she had set the alarm off. We had no idea how she managed to get into the other side of the house and admonished her for giving us such a fright.

The security company phoned and I answered the phone: "Good evening Michelle this is Chubb here!” The operator must have been just as confused as I was, because he said "No ma'am, this is Justin from Chubb who am I speaking to?"

I started to stutter as I was almost unconscious and the laughter must have confused him because he quickly went into the protocol. Ma’am, are you all right, do you need assistance. Dont worry ma’am the armed response is on the way.” Stay on the line ma’am if you are able to.” I quickly pulled myself together and explained that it was my cat that set the alarm off and we were quite safe. I gave him the secret code and he very reluctantly said good night and wished me a good night’s sleep.

If only he knew how badly I needed a good nights sleep. I thanked him and babble away to Bern about the rescue mission I nearly caused. Her response was, “We need to be rescued from our animals” and she went back to sleep within seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

I envy her that ability. Bern has told me that on quite a few occasions I poke her awake to get up to the dogs. And when I am not happy with her promptness I fight with her and get up all huffy and annoyed and threaten to kill the dogs. The getting up and threatening to kill the dogs I most certainly do remember. The poking her awake I however do not,

I am sure she dreamt this up until she actually showed me the bruise on her arm as I somehow manage to hit the same spot on her arm. Oh well that happens when every hour on the hour I have to get up, And believe me Bern gets up during the evening to them as well.

Its not that they need to go an relieve themselves, not its because they may have heard a noise the want to investigate or just need to stretch their legs or the call of nature is at different times for them. Jinx’s constant need to attention was because she was very pregnant in the last weeks and before that it was the pressure on her bladder from the growing litter in her belly.

I thought I was finished with the Pajama drill years ago and I must admit that this lack of sleep is seriously affecting my sense of humour! I will get them to stop this constant need to go out side by making them sleep in the laundry a few nights and hopefully they will get the message.

Back to the loud and disturbing wake up call from Monster Kitty. After my heart had settled down to a manageable thump as you imagine the worst when your alarm goes off and you are ready to karate chop the first thing that comes into your room after managing to break down the very thick wooden door that would require a battering ram.

When you are woken up with the spine chilling thrill of the alarm you are not thinking straight. You are on edge and the adrenalin rushing through your blood stream you are on red alert. Monster Kitty is a Houdini I am sure as all the windows were closed on that side of the house. I am sure she has learnt the art of sneaking under cracks in the door.

I used this opportunity to let the dogs out again. Have you ever tried to focus when you are so tired you can barley walk and there you stand waiting for the dogs to return? You are so tired and also hear the call of nature yourself but you really do not want to walk down the long passage to the bathroom only to have to return to the kitchen to let the dogs back inside.

You do the moving from one foot to the other, and pray for help and eventually you give in and stumble to the bathroom only to hear the dogs scratch at the door to come back inside. This nightly walk down what I now refer to as Dead man Walking is really becoming an issue for me and I am tempted to leave the monsters outside for the night.

I said tempted, not that I ever would, not forgetting that Jinx would most probably break the door down to get to her babies – Fiona and Little boy would be traumatized by having to sleep outside like normal animals….and there is that fear we animal lovers live with, that some cruel excuse of a human would poison the. Yes we have experienced this in Johannesburg and I really can not go through that again. I crawled back into bed and in approximately 20 minutes I was fast asleep again.

Kitty was not at all happy with this and she woke me up for love and was biting my fingers and purring so loud I thought we were being raided by helicopters. My life with animals is so filled with pleasure, pain and joy. However there are times when I would gladly trade them in for a full nights sleep.

Half awake and half dead, I petted Kitty and hoped she would sleep, but no she had other ideas and she wanted to play. Zap zap, my fingers were mauled and shredded and by now I was quite helpless to protect myself and left her to her fun.

This was not good enough for Kitty, she jumped on my hands then Bern’s foot which she wriggles in her sleep and the “What the F%$#" that rushed out of Bern’s mouth as Kitty was hanging off her foot like a trapeze artist, claws deeply dug in as she misjudged the end of the bed put end to our attempts to sleep. Kitty was bored and she needed to get rid of her pent up energies and Bern and I were hapless victims. Too tired to fight back and to deflated to find the energy to push Kitty out of the room I simply lay there

I tried to hide my hands under my pillow but she then decided this was part of the game and she burrowed under the pillows and hooked my skin with her nails and pulled them out. In frustration I dragged my very weary body out of bed and offered her food and this seemed to pacify her. She then went to sleep as close to Jinx as Jinx would allow her. Kitty was missing her Best Friend.

The unfair part of this whole animal thing is that they sleep the day away, waiting for the caregivers to come home and these caregivers also double as toys.