This is Mathie (dog) and Elke.... Mathie is almost 11 1/2. She thinks she is every critters Mom. She loved all the critter, (except those that I have had of the rodent persuasion) she adored Hanah and Henry, and she is bound and determined to "straighten" Wesley out of his bad habits. And she rules with an iron paw...

She is a terrier mix, but I think she has a little Bischon Freise in her. Her hair has gotten dried out lately. Not sure if it is the senior food we moved her to, or just age. I am thinking of putting her on some supplements for her coat. She has a beautiful coat when it looks good. And she has a beautiful face....

I found Mathie on the side of the road in Kissimmee. I was walking Gretchen, and Mathie stuck her head out from under a platform (over a ditch) that was used to hold someone's garbage can on garbage day. She only weighed .80 pounds, and we bonded with in seconds. Not minutes, but seconds. I took her to the vet and he predicted that she would weigh only 10 pounds. By the next visit, 1 week later, her weight was 4 pounds, so we knew that the vet was wrong.

Mathie got along with everybody, highly respected Gretchen, and had a run in with Putzen, which ended up in Mathieu nearly having a scratched cornea. Now Mathieu also has a healthy respect for Cats, but that does not mean she takes any guff.

Mathie and Wesley have their spats daily, yes daily. Mathie has her rules, for instance, if Wesley and Mathie are in the bedroom together, Wesley belongs under the bed. That is where she told him he belonged the first night he came to live with us, and the rule hasn't changed. She has eased up on some of the rules for Wesley (there were many), but that one she is not wavering. Although, during the night, he is allowed to come out and sleep on one of the dog beds. In fact... one night I caught them both sleeping on the big dog bed. I don't know if she knows we saw her.

Elke, it a little over 5 years old. My girlfriend Linda called me on a rainy, coolish morning to tell me she found another cat at her at her office. Just 3 or 4 days before she found 2 other little kittens, and we think that they were orphaned in the office park she works in. Either something happened to their Mom, or someone dropped them off there. Most people think they were feral kittens, so I am thinking something happened to the Mom. Well anyway, Linda called me at work, and I ran to her office with formula, and an appointment with the vet in 1 hour. The vet took one look at her and she started spitting and hissing, and he just closed the box she was in and said, you have a feral cat here. So I said, so what should I do? He said that she was probably fine. He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and tried to examine her, but even at her size which was tiny, she could have put a real hurtin' on someone. He estimated her at the most 4 weeks old. He said that he could really tell me anything right there, but that if I brought her home and she got warm warmed up, she would probably be a little bit friendlier. I asked her about food and he said she could probably eat wet cat food, but if I wanted to bottle feed her I could. I asked him if she should be able to pee and poop on her own, and he said "probably, but he couldn't tell for sure. Bring her back in a week and he will give her a good exam and her early shots."

Well, I brought her home, you know I bottle fed her...why would I want to pass up that opportunity, and introduced her to wet food about 3 or 4 days later. Which, she would only eat off my finger to start. I stimulated her to pee, and poop. She pee'd like a champ, but the pooping was another story. I started to get concerned after she was eating wet food for a day or two, and she wasn't have any bowel movements. But when she did it was cause for celebration!!! We danced around the house, it was a red letter day.

When it came time to wean her from the bottle, I did it by watering down the formula a little more after each feeding. By the time the ratio was one to three, she was so mad, she pulled the nipple out of the bottle and yelled. That was the last bottle she would take. We the supplemented her wet food with dry food.

And... Elke loves, I mean loves Mathie. She is always rubbing up against Mathie, laying down by her, flicking her tail in Mathie's face. It is amazing. In fact, she dislikes cats. She tolerates Putzen, probably because she was there first, and she is old, but she hated Eric, our little boy that I will introduce you to later. We lost Eric last November.

So, that is Elke and Mathie.