Tuesday Festivities

As you all have probably noticed, we are all ready for Christmas around here. Our Christmas trees are up (much to Eddy's delight), and our halls are decked. This year, we also took our festivities one step further.

What are those, you ask? They're our furbaby Advent calendars!

I recently saw online how someone had an Advent calendar for their dog. From the beginning of December to Christmas Day, they would open up a respectively numbered door and out would come a treat. So, I went on a hunt for an Advent calendar for not only pup Astrid, but also one for the kitties.

Alas, this was far more difficult than I thought it would be. The Advent calendar I saw online was one from the UK. Advent calendars for furbabies must be far more popular there, as I found plenty of vendors who sold only to the UK, but scarcely any in the US. Those I found in the UK do not ship to the US, though understandably so, as food items are often involved in the calendars. Finally, though, thanks to Etsy, I did find a shop called MeatloafsKitchen, which sells an Advent calendar for pups just like that for which I was searching. (This is not a sponsored or affiliate post, we are simply sharing an Etsy shop that made Astrid's day!)

Let me tell you, though, unless I'm looking in all the wrong places, kitty Advent calendars seem to be nonexistent. So, I set out to create my own version. I'll begin by saying that since only about 25-50% of the kitties around here eat treats on a good day, I decided to instead fill our feline Advent calendar with other little goodies, such as toys and niptastic paraphernalia. That probably sounds like overkill, but we have already decided that both before and after Christmas, we will be sorting through our toy baskets and donating toys to shelter and rescue furbabies.

The kitties' Advent calendar is in the form of a numbered gift bag that my sister found at terrific Target. I placed 25 new toys in the bag, and one is pulled out every day. Thimble is the most enthusiastic about the Advent festivities, and she comes running whenever she sees the bag come out to play.

Pup Astrid's Advent calendar is the one lying down in the photos above. It is very much like a traditional Advent calendar you buy that contains chocolates. It is a box with 25 little doors, behind which lie some seriously adorable dog treats.

This pup also now knows the sight and sound of her own Advent calendar. Needless to say, both Astrid's and the kitties' calendars have to go into hiding in between uses.

We hope all of you friends of ours are having a fun and festive week!

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We are continuing with our doodles in honor of furbabies we feel often get less attention than they deserve. So far, we have done a Ten Days of Tortie series in honor of lovely torties, a Tails of Tiny Tim series in honor of specially abled furbabies, and now we are moving on to our Black Cat Christmas series.

Black Cat Christmas: Day 1

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Our Tip of the Day:

Our second tip relating to heartworms is to know the potential symptoms. Since heartworms can affect the heart and lungs, early symptoms can often resemble those of asthma. Coughing and a lack of desire or an inability to exercise are commonly seen. Other potential signs of heartworm disease include decreased appetite, weight loss, and vomiting. The more severe the heartworm infection, and the longer it is present, the more pronounced the symptoms may be. Severe cases may also involve fluid buildup in the abdomen, as well as acute symptoms of pulmonary or cardiac failure, often due to heartworms causing a blockage. If you have any concerns that your cat or dog might have heartworms, seek veterinary care as soon as possible.

Our heartworm tips will continue tomorrow, this time with some info on testing for the disease.