Cares 4 Critters Pet Sitting

04/08/2025

26/06/2025

There is an old pony in a big pen by the barn. He has no real purpose. No kids ride him, he is not a companion to another old horse.
We have no history together. He came into my life by happenstance. There are no fond, warm fuzzy memories. I owe him nothing. But he’s polite and kind, and nickers to me as I come out the door in the morning.
He eats a princely sum of special food, and has a premium round bale of irrigated grass that the other horses can only dream of. His water is fresh, and warmed in the winter. I’ve gone out there late at night to make sure he has food, and he’s the first thing I attend to after morning coffee.
Why? Why not send him to the sale where ‘someone’ will want him? At 40 cents a pound, he’d be worth a nice steak dinner and drinks in town. They’ll load him on a truck with 30 other old ponies and horses, and somewhere down that line, if he doesn’t fall from his bad knee and get trampled in the transport, he will become dog food.
There’s a bum calf in our scale house on this cold frosty night. He’s little and scrawny, with p**p stuck to his butt, and a bit of a runny nose. There’s a heater in there keeping the temp above freezing. In the morning I’ll make him a bottle of warm milk replacer and try to convince him to eat some of the pony’s special food. Bob will clean his little house and put down fresh bedding. It would be easier to have left him in the field with the 500 bigger, stronger calves, to steal milk from the occasional tolerant cow, to eventually freeze to death and feed the coyotes that lurk about the herd for just such an opportunity.
There is a wild kitten in the barn who most likely jumped off a utility truck a while back. We’ve been leaving food just for him, and making sure the heated water bowl is full, so he doesn’t have to go outside and perch precariously on the horse waterer to drink.
I guess we sound like saps, the old cowboy and I. Sort of wimpy and un-ranch like.
I guess we are. But at our age, with certain infirmities starting to creep into our daily routines, and the realization that we are not perfect, we are thinking that kindness is a virtue and care is our purpose.
Care of not just the healthy robust animals that make money and pay the bills, but care of everything we are capable of caring for - those creatures that, like us, are in need of a bit more attention to get through the day.
We didn’t go about seeking these creatures- they came to us and landed here not of their own choosing, or ours. But here they are, and off I go to town to a business that provides enough to buy the expensive milk replacer, premium hay, and special pony food.
There may be some karma in all this, or maybe not, but in the end we’ll know we did the best we could for those that needed us.
Peace. Really, I mean it.
Credit goes to the Respective Owner

02/06/2025

With temperatures rising, please remember that asphalt and concrete can burn tiny feet and delicate paws!

31/05/2025

This is not just a photograph.
This is a farewell.
A goodbye between two beings whose bond defied species, language, and loss.

Her name was Ndakasi.
A mountain gorilla orphaned by cruelty, raised by compassion, and remembered now in the arms of the man who became her entire world.

Thirteen years ago, in the shadowed depths of Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo, park rangers found a tiny infant gorilla — trembling, motherless, silent — still clinging to the lifeless body of her mother, slain by poachers for bushmeat and brutality.

She was just two months old.

That night, Andre Bauma, a young ranger, did the only thing he could: he pressed her against his chest and held her through the cold, dark night, letting his body heat fight off death.

And it worked.

From that moment on, she was his. And he was hers.

Ndakasi grew strong under Andre’s care at the Senkwekwe Center — the only orphanage for mountain gorillas on earth. She laughed. She played. She posed — famously going viral in 2019 for cheekily photobombing a ranger’s selfie, standing upright like a person, face lit with mischief.

Millions smiled at that photo.
But few knew the deeper story.

She wasn’t just a gorilla.
She was a survivor of war, poaching, habitat loss, and grief.
She was proof that love could resurrect what violence tried to erase.

And then, thirteen years later, she fell ill. Her brave heart began to fail.

Andre stayed by her side. Every hour. Every breath.

And when her body could no longer fight, she did the only thing she had ever known — she laid her head on Andre’s chest and let go in the arms of the man who had once saved her life.

Can you imagine?
The sound of her final breath?
The weight of her head against his heart?
The silence that followed?

This is what love looks like.
This is what grief feels like when you’ve raised a soul from the brink of death — and watched them return to it.

She was not just an animal.
She was a child.
A sister.
A friend.
A radiant thread in the fragile web of life we so often break without thinking.

Let us say her name:
Ndakasi.
The gorilla who smiled at the world and died in the arms of the man who never stopped loving her.

May her memory burn like a candle in the darkness.
May her story remind us that every creature deserves protection, peace, and someone to hold them — even at the very end.

14/04/2025

With Easter fast approaching, remember that a “Roast leg of lamb” is the limb of a baby just like her. She doesn’t just donate it either. It’s taken from her by force, & so is her life. Celebrating a holiday that embraces life restored while serving up a slaughtered infant makes no sense. This Easter respect the meaning of the holiday by leaving the babies off your menu & celebrate life by not taking someone else’s.

~ by Martha Macdonald

06/04/2025

I am a 21st century dog….
-I'm a Malinois.
Overskilled among dogs, I excel in all disciplines and I'm always ready to work: I NEED to work.
But nowadays I get asked to chill on the couch all day everyday.

-I am an Akita Inu.
My ancestors were selected for fighting bears.
Today I get asked to be tolerant and I get scolded for my reactivity when another approaches me.

-I am a Beagle.
When I chase my prey, I raise my voice so the hunters could follow.
Today they put an electric collar on me to shut up, and you make me come back to you - no running - with a snap of your fingers.

-I am a Yorkshire Terrier.
I was a terrifying rat hunter in English mines.
Today they think I can't use my legs and they always hold me in their arms.

-I'm a Labrador Retriever.
My vision of happiness is a dive into a pond to bring back the duck he shot to my master.
Today you forget I'm a walking, running, swimming dog; as a result I'm fat, made to stay indoors, and to babysit.

-I am a Jack Russell.
I can take on a fox, a mean badger, and a rat bigger than me in his den.
Today I get scolded for my character and high energy, and forced to turn into a quiet living room dog.

-I am a Siberian Husky.
Experienced the great, wide open spaces of Northern Europe, where I could drag sleds for long distances at impressive speeds.
Today I only have the walls of the house or small garden as a horizon, and the holes I dig in the ground just to release energy and frustration, trying to stay sane.

-I am a border collie
I was made to work hours a day in partnershipwith my master, and I am an unmistakable artist of working with the herd.
Today they are mad at me because, for lack of sheep, I try to check bikes, cars, children in the house and everything in motion.
I am ...
I am a 21st century dog.

I'm pretty, I'm alert, I'm obedient, I stay in a bag...but I'm also an individual who, from centuries of training, needs to express my instincts, and I am *not* suited for the sedentary life you'd want me to lead.

Spending eight hours a day alone in the house or in the garden - with no work and no one to play or run with, seeing you for a short time in the evening when you get home, and only getting a small toilet walk will make me deeply unhappy.

I'll express it by barking all day, turning your yard into a minefield, doing my needs indoors, being unmanageable the rare times I'll find myself outside, and sometimes spending my days sunk, sad, lonely, and depressed, on my pillow.

You may think that I should be happy to be able to enjoy all this comfort while you go to work, but actually I’ll be exhausted and frustrated, because this is absolutely NOT what I'm meant to do, or what I need to be doing.
If you love me, if you've always dreamed of me, if my beautiful blue eyes or my athletic look make you want me, but you can't give me a real dog's life, a life that's really worth living according to my breed, and if you can't offer me the job that my genes are asking, DO NOT buy or adopt me!

If you like the way I look but aren't willing to accept my temperament, gifts, and traits derived from long genetic selection, and you think you can change them with only your good will, then DO NOT BUY OR ADOPT ME.

I’m a dog from the 21st century, yes, but deep inside me, the one who fought, the one who hunted, the one who pulled sleds, the one who guided and protected a herd still lives within.

So think **very** carefully before you choose your dog. And think about getting two, rather than one, so I won't be so very lonely waiting for you all day. Eight or ten hours is just a workday to you, but it's an eternity for me to be alone.

Written by *unknown*

01/04/2025

23/10/2024

“Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions.”
Dean Koontz - The Darkest Evening of the Year.

Amy Kathrine Browning - Lime Tree Shade,1913.