I was in the pet store yesterday to load up on food for the keets and canary. (i almost bought a 40 pound bag of cat litter too, but struggled to put it back and decided to wait for it to go on sale, since we have enough to last.) it's easy to spend a LOT of money in a pet store nowaday!
rudy, our singing-canary (who in the 8 years we've cared for him has blessed us only ONCE with the beautiful trill and warble they're known for!) is named after rudy valee, an old time famous singer who is probably an unknown to anyone younger than 60. our rudy confuses us because he is suddenly, over the past couple months, eating like a horse! in all his previous years he ate "like a bird," which was hardly-at-all! now, he sometimes even perches on his food cup as if he's guarding it with his little yellow life for fear those neighboring keets might escape and steal it from him. i'm not sure why, after all these years, he suddenly discovered he has an appetite.
and the keets, well...i'm just hoping that miss cloudy doesn't plan on laying any eggs! mr whitey has been "taking liberty" lately and i hate to break it to them, but i'm not about to be purchasing that huge, heavy wooden nesting box they would require if they happen to become in the family-way. it weighed a ton and wouldn't even fit inside the cage. so i may have to look into a teensy-tiny-keet-size chastity belt.
mr rudy used to have a mate named ruby, who had quite a fun personality, if you can believe that of little birds! she did lay some eggs, but they were not fertilized. (i guess singing is not the only thing that rudy doesn't do.) but providing a nest for ruby was a lot easier than providing a wooden box for cloudy. a tiny little wicker nest just attached inside her cage and she filled it with little bits of string. the keets however do not sit in a nest and they'd much prefer eating string than sitting on it. so it remains a mystery what may or may not happen next.
all of the above however, was not what i intended to post! (sometimes i get side-tracked. tee hee) while in the pet store i always wander back to where they have a few windows where you can see the cats who are up for adoption. typically and surprisingly, they are young cats, not kittens; and usually there will be 1 or 2 older cats. what amazed me yesterday was the PRICE to adopt one of their older cats! $90!!!!!! i squinted. was i reading it wrong? no WAY!
when my kids were young we got most of our pets from the animal welfare shelter and they were free, though the shelter hoped you'd at least give a donation if you could afford it. then when we adopted our present cat (then an 8 week old kitten) from the shelter just 5 years ago, there was a charge of $28. but, come on...$90, for an older cat? are you kidding me?! no special breed, just a nice old black cat, fully grown. it somehow doesn't seem right. i'd rather see someone go to the animal shelter and pay, rather than give a store that much money. plus, most people, i would think, would prefer a kitten to a grown cat anyway. so, why 90 bucks? i don't get it.
