Playing it Cool in Eronga

Just as three years had passed since we were last in Patzcuaro, so too has it been that long since we were in Erongaricuaro, “place of waiting” in the Purepecha language. The two towns are close in proximity to one another, strung around lovely Lake Patzcuaro, so if we pet-sit in one, we tend to pet-sit in the other.

Lucy curls up in front of a crackling fire on a cool Mexican eve.

June is the start of the rainy season, but there have been plenty of warm, sunny days with only the occasional downpour. Nights are cooler, so much so that we sometimes hunkered down in front of a crackling fire and snuggled under thick comforters at bedtime. Meanwhile, at home in the interior of British Columbia, temperatures were soaring as high as 38 degrees Celsius. We had to keep reminding ourselves this was Mexico.

A new restaurant opens on “the flats”.

As in Patzcuaro, not much has changed in its smaller lake-side cousin. The place has always lacked a decent restaurant; the only food choices being the deep-fried taco stands lining one side of the plaza, the occasional cocina economica (economic kitchen) on the other, where you can sit at a plastic table and chair outside or in a small, dim entryway of the kitchen and eat cheap (but usually good, we’re told) sopa, tacos, burritos, etc. Sadly, nothing has opened in Testerelli’s old location, previously the source of the only good coffee and torta in town but, diagonally across the square, the new Doña Mary’s Restaurante serves excellent cappuccino for less than two bucks and a comida of chicken, rice and salad for about five bucks in a sectioned room creatively decorated with local art.

Lupita’s, outstanding in its field before it was moved.

Down on what I call “the flats” (I don’t think anyone else does) — the fields and pastures demarcated by the canal that runs out to the lake — the sewage plant restaurant has closed (gee, I wonder why?) and two new ones have opened across the road, on the edge of the field. One is called Lupita’s, but it was always closed the few times we took a walk to check it out (found out later it’s only open on weekends), the other doesn’t seem to have a name. It’s setting was nice enough, however — ringside to the lush, green pasture, dotted with grazing cattle, stretching out to the lake — that we stopped in a couple of times, once just for drinks, another time for comida, a shoe-leather tough breaded chicken breast, and the ubiquitous rice and salad. On one other occasion, we ventured out to Campestre Alleman, the German restaurant on the way to Patzcuaro, again, mostly for the pastoral setting as well. The place is famous for its farmed trout, but the fish splashing around in the ponds these days are likely carp. We hear they now truck their trout in from Uruapan, Michoacan’s second largest city, about an hour’s drive away.

Xochi strikes a pose like a thoroughbred.

But enough about the food: we were here to reunite with friends Phyllis and Jon and their four-legged family. Sadly, Luna is no longer with us, but two new pups have taken up residence on the sprawling grounds. There’s Lucy the lab and Xochi the, uh, I dunno, honestly. She’s a Mexican mutt, I guess, but she’s a beauty: glossy black coat, copper eyes, long, graceful legs with grey and white-flecked boots. She has a thoroughbred’s prance and stance, and stretches nearly my height on her back legs.

Lucy searches high and low for the ball.

Lucy’s still a puppy, which means endless reserves of energy and an obsession with chasing a ball. Xochi, being a former street dog, wasn’t so enthusiastic about things being thrown in her general direction (they’re usually rocks). After observing the goofy glee on Lucy’s face as she bounded after the ball, she quickly caught on and joined in. Lucy was always quicker, however, and never failed to trot by with the ball in her mouth, pushing her face into Xochi’s as if to say, “Beat you again, sucka!”

Rigo jumps into the action.

Rigo’s the same, i.e., still enthusiastically living up to his nickname of “Jack”. I think he’s actually worse this time. I mean, how do you keep your auto-erotica in check when sharing a home with two beautiful bitches? He’s still wild-mannered on walks, and Xochi and Lucy are not leash-trained. Walking them one at a time worked well, since they were out-numbered and actually came to feel special when it was their turn for an outing. Plus, since Xochi was a convicted chicken killer, having attacked at least three birds while free-walking, we just wanted to do our part for the local hen population.

Rocky checks for predators on high.

Little Rocky is the same squeaker who spends most of her days skulking around inside, ever wary of an ambush, especially now that there are two new gangly dogs who don’t know quite what to make of her.

Hunting for Cosmos down the garden path.

Cosmos is losing some of his killer instinct, bringing in only three lizards and one bird. Now that he’s an older gent, he seems to prefer lazing about to hunting.

Eronga’s “symphony of sounds” remains the same: barking dogs, booming fireworks, cacophonic garage-bands, and what I’m convinced is some kind of fight club across the field that starts up after dark. How else to describe hootin’ and hollerin’, and what sounds like body-slamming into metal walls and chain fences? Amplifying the ambience were the local elections that were taking place while we were here. Every other day, big rallies clogged the streets, candidates broadcasted their false promises via loudspeakers, and firecrackers blasted into the wee hours.

Leapin’ Lucy always catches the ball, much to Xochi’s chagrin. Click the pic for a slideshow of all the critters.

Eventually, when the polls closed, the politicos boarded their buses and blew out of town, when clubs and bands were resting their chops, and fireworks were mercifully dormant, a peace descended on the tiny town. It was then we’d venture out onto the lawn, this oasis of calm, dogs trotting eagerly behind, and we’d toss the ball, savoring the silence while this place of waiting held its breath.

An Ear For an Eye

Clinker becomes Winker after losing his first eye.

One of our first pet-sits was for a little Llasa apso named Clinker, in Barra de Potosi five years ago. Cute as a button, he was plagued with health issues, from allergies to rashes to obsessive tail-chasing (and shredding). Just when he overcame those, he lost an eye to infection. This only served to sharpen his other senses, particularly hearing, and he got along just fine. Except he’d bump into you if you walked him on his sightless side. Then, a few years later, he lost his other eye. Still doggedly undeterred, he gets around by smell and feel, as well as those highly tuned ears. Dogs and cats are remarkably resilient critters; they don’t let much drag them down. Where we’d be freaked, they just deal.

Common causes of blindness or eye loss are melanoma, glaucoma, and progressive retinal atrophy. Experts say dogs and cats can live quite normal and healthy lives with one — or no — eyes. Unlike humans, they won’t miss a good book or movie. They’re not bummed if they can’t drive. And if the vision loss is gradual, they adjust even better. If the pet has lived in the same home for a while, they’ll remember where their food and water is and how to manoeuvre around quite well without sustaining too many bruises and lacerations. Still, it’s a good idea to keep obstacles out of their way. Completely blind pets are prone to falling off a balcony, down stairs or into a swimming pool.

For our latest sit we cared for not one, but two, one-eyed pets: a dog named Abi and a cat named Boo. Neither seemed to notice. Abi got giddy chasing sticks on the beach and Boo navigated the house and yard with the ease of a ghost.

Click on Abi’s Image to See a Slideshow of Our Fun Days at the Beach

Abi was born with a tumour in her eye socket instead of an eye. And even though she never had to adapt in the way other pets do who suddenly lose their sight, she still has depth-of-field challenges. “More than once she has run full tilt into a log on the beach when chasing a stick,” says her owner, Ann. “Sometimes she needs help following where a ball has been thrown. We used to have a pit bull mix who quite often acted as a seeing-eye dog — for a dog. She would follow the ball and point with her nose so Abi would find it. It was very sweet.”

 

 

Boo keeps a ghostly eye on us.

Boo was a four-month old kitten when he wandered into their yard on Halloween. When a search for his owner scared up nothing, they kept him as a companion for their recent rescue, a fluffy Persian named Porsche. When he was about eight months old, Boo was hit by a car. “His jaw was dislocated, tongue almost severed, teeth broken,” recalls Ann. “It didn’t look hopeful for him, but after two days he started eating again and recovered.” Except for vision loss in his left eye.

When we cared for them, Boo kept to himself mostly, venturing outside only a few times, but slept with us at night. Abi enjoyed long walks through the park, neighbourhoods and on the beach (no logs were damaged in the course of her stick chases). She’s a big bear of a dog, with a thick woolly coat, and actually preferred to sleep outside in her doghouse, even on the chilliest nights (although we’d persuade her to come inside just for our own peace of mind). She’d wade into the frigid ocean and walk on frost-covered leaves as if it was a summer day.

Boo and Abi don’t seem to have a special bond because of their mutual handicaps, and they certainly don’t feel helpless or disadvantaged. Maybe they just don’t see it.

One-eyed Abi bonds better with Porsche than Boo.

 

 Eye and vision loss in pets is so common, people have written books — “Living With Blind Dogs: A Resource Book and Training Guide for the Owners of Blind and Low-Vision Dogs” and “Blind Dogs Stories: Tales of Triumph, Humor, and Heroism”, by Caroline Levin, RN — and blogs — blinddogs.com, http://oneeyedog.wordpress.com/ oneeyedluna.wordpress.com

Island Pets

Bonnie and Ben (pseudonyms) have been wintering in Mexico for over five years, and have availed themselves of the services of regular pet-sitters to watch their home, cat and dog while they enjoyed la vida buena. Those sitters recently moved east, and we became the chosen few to fill their shoes. We followed directions to the end of a quiet, leafy street, stopped and peered up a long, winding driveway that disappeared into a forest of brilliant red- and yellow-leafed maples and towering evergreens. We looked at each other and smiled. We can handle this.

We drove up through the woods to a rolling lawn and large, gabled house built from reclaimed timber. Ben and Bonnie greeted us from their wrap-around deck, along with their little dog who, in the way of all vertically challenged dogs, yapped like a Doberman. We stepped into a cozy fir and pine home, warmed by a crackling fire. A round, fuzzy orange creature, which looked like a massive caterpillar, hobbled past us and up the stairs. That would be the cat. The very old cat. Over the next several hours, we sipped white wine, noshed on turkey loaf, and traded stories of our experiences in Mexico. The next day they were gone, leaving us to care for their magnificent home and two aging pets. A cake walk, we thought. Until the vertically challenged dog began to present other challenges.

Some of the homeowners we sit for prefer that their privacy be protected, so I make up names for them and their pets. It’s usually quite easy, as the fur balls tend to name themselves just by their look or behaviour. Hence Squeaky and Scratchy. Squeaky is an 18-year-old fluffy-faced Persian (aka The Caterpillar) who is so old he can barely muster a meow when he wants something. Imagine a mouse. With laryngitis. On the outside, standing still, Squeaky looks robust and healthy, young for his age even. When he starts to walk, however, he looks like The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns in a plushy costume. Hunched with arthritis, he’d carry a cane if he could get a grip.

Further belying his bright-eyed and bushy-tailed visage are the bones that jut from his skin, concealed beneath his thick, downy coat, the result of AIDS. A long and randy life cavorting and carousing through the deep woods surrounding his home has caught up with him. Even though I’d never heard of it, feline AIDS, technically called feline immunodeficiency virus, is not all that uncommon. One in 12 cats carries the disease, according to North American veterinary statistics. An AIDS diagnosis for human or animal can obviously be devastating, but cats can live quite healthily for up to six years after being stricken. And Squeaky here is proof positive: despite his frail frame, he has a big appetite, is never incontinent, spars with the younger neighbourhood tom cat (and always wins), and, apart from some stiffness from his arthritic haunches, appears pain-free.

Turns out he’s quite the snugglepuss, too. Every morning he pulls himself up on the couch (alas, his leaping days are over) and squeaks in my face for a cuddle. I gather him in my arms and hold him close while he tucks his head under my chin and purrs against my chest. If I’m in the middle of writing and don’t notice him right away, he’ll scratch at my arm to get my attention. Then he’ll reach his front paws up, grab me by the back of the neck and pull me in for a hug, just like a kid. He’ll stay like that for several minutes, burying his head under my hair, and then he’s had enough. He’ll gracelessly fall off the couch and hobble up the stairs to his owners’ bedroom where he’ll resume his 20 out of 24 hours daily sleep.

Then I turn my attention to the Itchy and Scratchy show that has been going on at my feet while I’ve been canoodling with the cat. The Maltese-poodle-type pooch has his own set of health issues, and after our third visit to the vet in just one month, he was labeled “polypharmacy” (translation: needing a lot of meds). Bonnie and Ben had taken him in after their neighbours moved away and left him behind with the rest of their memories. So they’re not entirely sure of his breed or medical history. At 13, the mysterious maladies of an aging dog are starting to show. Or should I say, smell. The dog had apparently been diagnosed with seborrhea oleosa, which is a fancy way of saying flaky, oily skin that causes bouts of manic scratching. It’s like his skin cells rose up in an inter-cellular battle and slaughtered each other, leaving behind a killing field of dead flakes. When the skin sloughs off (more like flies off under the blur of rapidly thumping claws) it mixes with an over-production of oils that quickly turn into a rancid, fetid sludge that coats his body. Just imagine a concoction of the smelliest blue cheese, blended with chopped rotten egg, and mixed in with a jock’s socks and you’re almost there. Just a few days after a bath, he starts to reek so bad we swear we can see stink waves wafting up around him. Stink, stank, stunk! It seemed too cruel to call him Pigpen, so we settled on another cartoon character, Scratchy.

Bonnie and Ben say they’ve tried everything to banish the odiously malodorous condition, from shampoos, to meds to talcs and lotions, and nothing has worked. On top of that, he has a kind of cough-gag-retch thing going on that had us spooked. When he had finally scratched his neck raw, and coughed till we feared he would faint, we decided to take him to the vet. The good doctor said he had allergies and wrote a ‘scrip for a corticosteroid/antihistamine combo. When we asked about the cough-gag-retch, she told us he had a collapsing trachea. Sounds serious, and it can be, but Scratchy’s isn’t so bad. In severe cases, the trachea — or wind pipe — collapses in on itself and restricts air flow, sort of like a bent garden hose that blocks a full water surge. Scratchy’s trachea is only slightly bent so, while he isn’t getting optimum air supply, he is getting enough to avoid any major treatment (surgery being the only option). For now. We’d just have to live with the cough-gag-retch, and if he will, we will.

The meds for the scratch and stench, however, did little to alleviate the problem. At first we thought it was because he was “cheeking” the pills. We had started off tucking his tabs in little treats called pill pockets, which he greedily gobbled down. But after he actually chewed a few and tasted the bitter pill, he became hip to the trick and refused to eat them. So we started mixing his meds in with his meals, which worked until one day I noticed a soggy pill on the floor. Another day I spotted one hidden under his water dish. Yet another day, when I started to wipe his breakfast from his muzzle, I frowned at what appeared to be bright pink lipstick. Turned out it was a pill clinging to his chin, its neon coating leeching into his white furry lips. Was he actually snuffling around in his food, picking out the pill and spitting it out somewhere else? Dude! From that point on, we crushed the drugs and stirred them well into his kibble. Worked like a charm, until it didn’t work for the ailment.

We phoned the vet for an alternative treatment and, suspecting a yeast infection (which she said would explain his offensive tang), she prescribed an antifungal to be used in conjunction with the antihistamine/steroid combo he was already on. The two meds together brought Scratchy’s itch down by half, and more frequent baths masked the musk. Problem solved. A week later, he nearly died. We noticed he was breathing rapidly — a whopping 72 breaths a minute, at rest. We called the vet and she told us to get him in a-sap; apparently normal breaths for a dog his size should be between 24 and 28 breaths per minute. Yikes. We bundled him up and off we went. Chest x-rays showed he was in full-blown heart failure. On the film we saw his heart was so enlarged it was pressing up against his rib cage. Plus, his lungs were nearly filled with fluid. He had apparently been walking around for years with a heart murmur, a ticking time bomb that chose now to detonate. The stink about the stench suddenly seemed trivial. The vet gave him an emergency injection of Lasix and sent us home with more in the form of tablets.

The good news was, a follow-up the next week showed the meds were working; his heart size was reduced and his lungs were clear. Phew. The bad news was that his new course of heart meds didn’t interact well with his skin meds. So we were back to the nose-plugging pungency of his scratchapalooza. Desperate for some relief — not just for him, but for us — we hit the pet store. The clerk, a self-professed female Dog Whisperer, ran through the tinctures and tonics, lotions and creams that may or may not help with Scratchy’s itch. We loaded up on oatmeal shampoo, “hot spot” spray, a vial of holistic drops, a bottle of lotion that was supposed to be soothing but smelled like kerosene (we kept him away from the fireplace, just in case), a can of sheep tripe (I’ll get to that in a minute), and a bag of dehydrated duck treats if all else failed. Well, of course, all else failed. He scratched through the spray, chewed through the drops and stunk through the lotion. He happily gobbled the dehydrated duck, though. So we turned to that abyss of useful and useless information, the internet.

After reading until the sun slid from the sky and the room grew dark, our heads were spinning. Wait a minute, maybe he doesn’t have seborrhea, we see no evidence of “…increased scale formation … characterized by faulty keratinization or cornification of the epidermis…” as noted in a top veterinary manual. OK then, it really is allergies! Nope. None of the usual suspects lurk in his environment, no dust, no pollens, no grain. The vet was wrong! Then it’s definitely a yeast infection! No, that’s not it. We observed no “…disruption of mucosal integrity, indwelling, intravenous or urinary catheters…” Or did we? What was mucosal integrity, anyway? When did yeast get so honourable? We finally tossed the laptop aside and poured a drink. It’s a mystery to us whatever it is he’s suffering from and, we began to suspect, to the vets as well. Like typical people doctors when they’re stumped, they tend to throw a bunch of pharmaceuticals at you and hope something works. So we kept to his course of heart meds and introduced a half dose of the antihistamine combo, mushed into the vile-smelling tripe. The pet store clerk assured us dogs love the stuff, and sure enough Scratchy did. Well, she was right about one thing . . . Or maybe he was simply attracted to something that out-ranked him, if you know what I mean.

The low dose of antihistamine barely scratched the surface of this dog’s woes so, interested to see what kinds of holistic treatments were out there, we contacted a naturopathic vet. When she wanted a litter of cash to give him a full work-up before hinting that acupuncture would do the trick we said, yeah, no, won’t be doing that. A super-scratchy dog stuck with pins could only equal disaster. The dog forums we perused spewed all kinds of wacky advice but two suggestions that kept popping up were yogurt and cider vinegar. So that’s what we’re doing: yogurt for a possible yeast infection (treatment starts from the gut, with good probiotic bacteria), and cider vinegar rinse for the stink. If nothing else, at least he’ll smell of fish and chips instead of blue cheese and jock socks.

Vancouver Island

October 29, 2011 — March ??, 2012

Many people outside of Western Canada — and particularly outside the country — confuse Vancouver and Vancouver Island. They think Vancouver is on Vancouver Island, or is Vancouver Island, or that Vancouver Island is in Vancouver. Confused? For the record, Vancouver is on mainland British Columbia. Vancouver Island is a large land mass — 32,000 square kilometres large, in fact — across the Strait of Georgia. The only thing they have in common is that Captain George Vancouver was not content to slap his name on just one place. In fact, the city of Vancouver, Washington, as well as Mount Vancouver, up around the Yukon/Alaska border, are also odes to himself. Ironic that the great British seafarer died in relative obscurity back in 1798.

Vancouver’s island is the largest off the west coast of all of North America; so big you could fit a Holland or a Taiwan in it. It’s so big, in fact, that it doesn’t really feel like an island, in the romantic, tropical sense. It doesn’t have palm trees or white-sand beaches or crystal-blue water. It does, however, have one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems and loggers have generously left us some tracts of old-growth fir and cedar forests in which to explore those ecosystems. Strathcona Provincial Park’s Della Falls, at 310 feet, are the highest in Canada and one of the tenth highest in the world (take that, tropical isles!). Britain and Spain bickered over, then shared, Vancouver Island for a while back in the late 1700s, until Spain got bored and left. The only reminders of their presence is in the names they left behind: Quadra, Galiano, Malaspina, Juan de Fuca. The British had their grip a little tighter, and Victoria (formerly Fort Victoria, named for the Queen of the day), the province’s capital city, successfully exploits that history for oodles of tourism dollars in such quaint amusements as afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel, double-decker buses, and horse-drawn carriage rides on the Tally-Ho (at least there’s no fox-hunting…).

We’re bunking down in Nanaimo, long considered Victoria’s ugly sister. It was established as a trading post in the early 19th century and later mushroomed into an industrial centre when the Hudson’s Bay Company learned of the gold mine of coal mines here. As the story goes, in 1850 the chief of the local Coast Salish people, called Snuneymuxw (Snuh-NAY-moo) loaded up his canoe with coal and paddled it on down to Victoria, about 100 km south of here. Turns out it was such high-quality coal that in 1853 The Bastion (an octagonal-shaped fort — the only original wooden one in North America, in fact) was built to protect the harbour and its resources. Not sure who from, but obviously coal was a big deal back then. So big that digging clipped merrily along, apparently unchecked, until, in 1887, one of the largest mines exploded, killing 150 miners. A year later, another explosion killed 100 more men. Town officials quickly decided that perhaps lumber was a safer resource to exploit.

In any event, some clever marketing type re-christened it the Harbour City, the government poured a boat load of cash into dressing it up, and Nanaimo’s Cinderella story is complete. Nanaimo Harbour has a pretty little boardwalk and is the site of a whack of marine activities, including bathtub racing. Yep, you read that right. Ever since 1967, Nanaimo has been the self-proclaimed (no one cares enough to dispute it) “Bathtub Racing Capital of the World”. And it’s exactly what it sounds like: crazy people fashioning all kinds of water craft from bathtubs and, up until the mid-‘90s, racing these contraptions from Nanaimo to Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver where they’d clamber ashore to party hearty at Vancouver’s Sea Festival. Since the demise of that particular hoe down, the racing stays closer to home, with racers starting in Nanaimo Harbour and ending in Departure Bay. (For more on the rub-a-dub, check out bathtubbing.com.)

Almost as famous (some would say more so) is the Nanaimo bar. The tooth-achingly sweet chocolatey, coconutty, custardy confection originated here after a local housewife back in the 1950s submitted her recipe to a cookbook contest and the public ate it up. Other cities — including New York — have tried to take credit for the bar, but we know the truth. Over the five months we’re here, I plan to put on a few pounds and get a few cavities exploring the Nanaimo Bar Trail (http://www.tourismnanaimo.com/content/nanaimo-bar). I do it for my country.

The Sunshine Coast

PENDER HARBOUR

October 13 — 19, 2011

From the hot, steamy jungles of summertime in Mexico to the cool crisp breezes of autumn in the Pacific Northwest, our next adventure in pet-sitting landed us on home turf. We were both born and raised in British Columbia and, while it’s always a blast to travel the world, there’s no place like home. Or someone else’s, as the case may be.

This particular home was in Pender Harbour, on what’s called B.C.’s “Sunshine Coast”. We met a few cynical locals who rolled their eyes at the hyperbolic tag, insisting it’s nothing but a tourism-marketing construct since the region gets a mere 2.9 hours more sunshine per year than the metro Vancouver area. Tim and Marsha (names changed on request) couldn’t care less about a few extra hours of sunlight; that’s not what drew them here 11 years ago. Marsha had long dreamed of owning a little house by the sea and, now that they’re both retired, her dream has come true. Their humble abode was cute and cozy and their backyard a tangled, rocky mass that tumbled down to the ocean — the same ocean we faced in Mexico. But in Mexico we had a view of the beach and the vast, rolling seas beyond; here we looked out onto a sparkling cove that rippled like a lake. In Mexico we were draped in banana trees, palm trees and vines; here we’re fringed by towering pines, fir and cedar. Either way, it’s still seaside bliss.

A walk through the rainforest.

Pender Harbour, like everywhere else in the country, was of course first the home of native people, in this case the Coast Salish and specifically the shishalh, from which the nearby town of Sechelt takes its name. The shishalh spent their summers fishing salmon, hunting deer, picking berries and bucking down cedars to build dugout canoes and longhouses. They passed their winters feasting on the fruits of their labour with raucous potlatches attended by other tribes from the Sechelt Peninsula. Food was bountiful, everyone lived in peace, life was good. Then came the Europeans. In 1862, explorers came ashore packing smallpox, colds and flu and nearly wiped out the natives with their germ warfare. If that wasn’t bad enough, a few years later the missionaries invaded, hell-bent on “civilizing” these peaceful people by banishing their rites and customs.

Meanwhile, a British expedition led by Captain Daniel Pender was busily surveying the coastline. Mystery solved on how the harbour got its Anglo name. When Pender and his pals returned to the Old Country, word spread of the area’s rich bounty, prompting an influx of more Europeans, and many of their descendants still call the harbour home. Tim and Marsha, hailing from the prairies, claim no historical roots to the region but it’s where heart and hearth are. They still travel several times a year, leaving their waterfront hideaway — and two cats — to pet-sitters. Lucky for us.

Satchmo’s right ear was clipped when he was rounded up after Hurricane Katrina.

Thus our streak of caring for rescue animals (and orange cats) continues: Satchmo, the tabby, was plucked from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The tip of his ear had been clipped, which was how the volunteer veterinarians, in the chaos after the storm, kept track of which animals had been caught and neutered or spayed (right ear for males; left ear for females). The mutilation was not exactly Van Gogh-esque — the cat’s ear was trimmed only about a half inch — but it still would have been painful. In any event, Satchmo has long since recovered, and left his life — and trauma —behind in The Big Easy. Easing into his Canadian digs, the cool cat (named after jazz great Louis Armstrong, who also hailed from New Orleans) struts his stuff around the house as if he was to the manor born and not a charity case. He quickly fell into line following house rules, however — no begging at the table, no sleeping with humans, no scratching the couch, no reclining on furniture other than designated seating — and knew not to push his luck; he learned the hard way that an unheeded “no!” got him a bracing spray from a water bottle (thankfully we didn’t have to do any dousing).

A first for us: a cat who sucks her thumb…

When he moved in, Satchmo had to make nice with Tim and Marsha’s other cat Daisy, a shy, fluffy tortoiseshell who sucks her thumb. I’ve been around a lot of quirky cats in my life, but a thumb-sucker is a first. The two weren’t exactly best buds, but they did tolerate each other. They even went so far as to play occasionally, but Satchmo can get a little aggressive, sending Daisy scurrying under the kitchen table, where she’d lay low, thumb firmly in mouth. Neither was a lap cat, although Daisy would occasionally jump up and sit with us, but only for about 10 minutes. Then she’d push through the plastic cat door to the deck where she’d stare at the birds she’ll never catch.

Deck with a view, overlooking Hospital Bay.

Because bears and coyotes lurked amongst the neighbourhood’s tall trees, these were strictly indoor cats and the deck overlooking the yard and ocean was the only outside life they knew. They didn’t appear deprived, though. They seemed content to watch the wild world from the comfort and safety of their perch on the porch. Daisy, however, could sometimes be a little ditzy when she wanted to come back in: she’d paw at the cat door like a fiend, believing she was trapped outside. It was kind of hilarious to watch her from the inside, feverishly digging at the door, clueless (every time!) that if she just pushed a bit harder, the door would give. When the flap finally yielded to her little paws, she’d dart inside, quite pleased with herself, as if she’d broken free from some sort of trap.

Not to be trusted unsupervised, at night the two got locked away in the laundry room. Sounds punitive, but they actually looked forward to it, their little cat feet softly thudding down the hardwood stairs at lights-out (maybe it was the cat treats that lured them . . .). They had all they needed: comfy beds, fresh water, litter box, and a warm, humming furnace that lulled them to sleep at night. Their room was next to ours, and we didn’t hear a peep out of them until sun-up.

In the morning, they’d bound up the stairs ahead of us, then wait patiently and politely at our feet for their quarter can of cat food. Satchmo gobbled his while Daisy delicately savoured every morsel of hers, pushing back from her bowl long after Satchmo had wandered away, licking his chops. He wouldn’t dare attempt to steal her portion; that would be rude (i.e., a water squirt). But just to be on the safe side, if there were any leftovers, she’d try to bury it by pawing at the hardwood floor as though it were dirt.

The rest of their day was spent dozing in the sunlight streaming through the windows or chasing a menagerie of stuffed animals across the floor. An empty box provided hours of entertainment — for them and us. Tortoiseshells — which, apparently, are almost always female — are known to be possessive of their people. Since we’re not her people, Daisy was not in the least interested in taking ownership of us, or of being cuddled or stroked. Maybe past experience with pet-sitters has taught her we’d be gone before we bonded, so what’s the point?

All is calm at the Narrows, between the rushing tidal waters, which pump billions of gallons of water through here twice a day.

When the felines were fed and curled in their beds for their afternoon cat nap, we’d take a bit of a field trip. One day we drove north for about 45 minutes on Hwy. 101 toward the town of Egmont and the great wonder known as Skookumchuk rapids. After about an hour’s walk through old-growth forest we emerged onto a rocky slope that overlooked the narrows. Twice a day, the tide changes and the salt water reverses direction, causing a powerful current as 200 billion gallons of water forces the levels to rise as high as nine feet (Skookumchuck means “strong water” in Chinook). We of course timed it wrong, and arrived to find an inlet as calm as a pond. As if to emphasize the serenity, a seal poked his head out of the water and stared at us as he drifted idly by.

Our latest pet-sit is just a short walk away from Garden Bay.

Another day we headed out into the cool sunshine to explore the neighbourhood. A short jaunt one way took us to Hospital Bay, named after St. Mary’s Hospital, the first on the Sunshine Coast. It was built in 1930 and closed in 1964 (a newer St. Mary’s opened shortly after in Sechelt). Now it operates as a small hotel and restaurant, called the Sundowner Inn, overlooking the small bay with its handful of fishing boats and pleasure craft tied to the docks. The opposite way winds us through the quiet neighbourhood, up narrow roads and past wood-framed homes high on the cliffs overlooking the Malaspina Strait and Texada Island beyond. We spotted deer grazing in the yards with the tastiest shrubs and we crept in close for a photo. But not too close; ever since those videos from last summer showing a beautiful doe viciously stomping a dog, we gave them their space.

Back at the homestead, we paused to pick some lettuce and tomatoes from the deer-proofed veggie patch for the night’s salad, then headed out to join the felines on the deck. It may have been mid-October, but the autumn sun was warm enough for T-shirts. The four of us settled back, closed our eyes, turned our faces skyward and breathed deep the sea breezes that blew softly off the bay. As Louis Armstrong would croon, what a wonderful world . . .