cats and dog

Edit: We have decided to try our best to re-home Vietnam to give him a better home, where he can roam freely instead of being confined in a room away from our cats. More of him on a later post.

Sometimes it is not that we choose our pets, but that our pets choose us. This is how Slinky became my cat, and also how Vietnam has now become our dog.

We usually go visit Vietnam and his friends and family on weekends. But this weekend, when we went, it turns out that all his doggy friends are no longer around. Perhaps they have been culled. To make sure, we even went twice. They were indeed all missing.

Vietnam himself was in bad shape: lonely, skinny, and showing signs of dermatitis on his fur. He had very little appetite, and was extremely dirty.

We brought him home to give him a bath, hoping that in future if he knew where we lived he could find us for food.

He never left after that.

We tried to bring him 'home' to the construction site many times after that bath and flea treatment. He always came back to our house.

Our cats are terrified. I hope this will improve with time, because right now they cannot enter our room where Vietnam is staying with us. Eventually, I hope things will improve. I don't think putting him back at the construction site will work anymore. If our cats and Vietnam cannot get along eventually, I guess we will have to rehome him.

For now, he is living in our house. We apply skin medicine for him twice daily, and feed him proper dog food (Acana Lamb & Apple) and clean water. He sleeps in our room, and we bring him down for walks and daily business twice a day. Tomorrow when work days start again, Andy will have to bring him for walks before and after work.

Vietnam is not my first dog, but it is different this time for me because we now live in a flat; my old dogs had plenty of room to play and run in my parents' place.

Plus I have never kept both dogs and cats in the same house before. I spend time with the cats in the kitchen now, feeding them canned food more so that they will eat - cats lose their appetites when a stranger is around in the house. I am worried about Slinky because her toilet is in our room - I will have to bring her in for her toilette when Vietnam is out for walks with Andy. Vietnam has lived with cats before but he seems to see cats in general as playmates - i.e. to run and play catching with. He hardly barks, which helps, but he is so big compared to them.

Now, time for me to go give some TLC to the cats in the kitchen. Vietnam has Andy in the room with him, and it seems, to him that is more than enough.