I would like to start my first Wednesdays with Winks by telling you about my recent vacation that I went on. You see, I have lived my whole life at a veterinary clinic, Ada Hospital for Animals. I don’t take many vacations. When I was little I remember being taken care of by Sheri, who is the accounts manager at Ada Hospital for Animals. She used to be a technician. I was so little so I don’t remember much. What I remember was being at her home. It was a place with cozy couches, chairs, and beds. I especially remember this furry flooring that I would roll around on and sometimes knead my soft paws into.
I also remember from time to time being brought to a human’s home when the clinic would have power outages. I love my home at Ada Hospital for Animals, but I always said someday I would like to take a vacation and visit a human’s home again. I will just have to wait for one of those power outages. We had one this past summer, but the temperature inside was not too bad so no one worried about me staying home.
My lucky day came last week when I heard talk amongst my humans at Ada Hospital for Animals. They were talking about a snow storm coming and how they were concerned about the power going out. I thought to myself, “If a snow storm comes and the power goes out, I will be left here without heat. It will get real cold inside my home here at the clinic. It was a Friday and with the snow storm coming, the humans won’t want to leave me here all alone. Here is my chance to get that vacation I have been wanting to go on for a long time now.”
My plan is to prance around and make some noise as my humans talk about the snow storm coming. Maybe someone will think to take me home for the weekend. I will just take a quick nap and wait until they start talking about it again.
I was curled up in my favorite bed by the window. My bed was around where everyone works so it will be perfect. I won’t miss my chance if they start talking about the snow storm that is coming.
The sun was shining right in through the window where I was sleeping. It was so warm and cozy. As I was resting there, Karen, one of the humans that works there came into the room. She is the hospital manager. She will surely think of me. She commented on how we better soak up as much sunshine that we can before the storm comes. This was my chance! I would love to vacation at Karen’s house. Also, she can never say no to me! She does have a dog at home, but I know her dog. She has brought him in here before. He is a Brittany spaniel named Tucker. She had me meet him in her office. It didn’t take much to show him who is boss because he is old and likes to sleep a lot like me. He knows not to get too close to me. I can definitely tolerate him while I am on vacation. I may be old, but I am still a feisty girl. I can handle him and not allow him to put a damper on my vacation.
I hated to get up from my nap, but I didn’t want her to leave the room. I got up from my bed and jumped down onto the floor. I started dreaming about jumping down onto a furry floor. I wonder if Karen will have a furry floor at her house. I ran up to her meowing and pawing at her to see if she would pick me up. Sure as always, she picked me up. She started talking to my other humans in the room about what they should do if the power goes out. There are products in the refrigerator that they don’t want to go bad. I started purring in Karen’s ear, hoping she would think what to do about me. Then all of a sudden I hear Karen say, “If we lose power, it will get too cold in here. What do we do about Winks?” Just as she said that, I crawled up onto her shoulders and nuzzled into her purring even louder. Then I hear her say, “We can’t leave Winks here. She is too old and can’t tolerate it getting too cold in here.”
Yes! My plan worked. Now, I just need to hear her say that she is bringing me home. If she doesn’t bring me home, I love all of my humans here so any home will do. Except, I don’t know if I can tolerate their fur babies. Some of them get in my face, have too much energy for my taste, and they don’t always get the message that I don’t want to play. I would just rather have a relaxing vacation and not deal with their crazy pet children.
Karen carried me around the clinic saying that she will worry about me if the power goes out. She also said that she would rather take me home than worry about me. Karen said to the other humans, “With the snow storm, we might not be able to drive here to rescue her. I am going to take Winks home for the weekend. That way, I will know she is warm and safe at my place.” This was the best news ever!
I saw Karen gathering my things. I watched her carefully to make sure she got everything I will need for my vacation. Food, check! Food bowls, check! My cozy bed, check! My litter pan, check! She packed it all!
Karen set the box on the floor. Inside it had a cozy looking bed. I walked into it and all of a sudden the door shut. Oh, wait. What is this? This is not just any box. It is a cat carrier. Um, I see other cats coming into the clinic inside them. They are always crying out making a fuss about being in them. Maybe I don’t want to go on vacation. I tried telling Karen that I changed my mind. I started crying out telling her that I will be fine staying in my own home here. She can put my food, bed, and litter pan back.
Karen was not listening to me. She brought me out to one of those motorized vehicles that I see coming and going all day long. It started moving. Karen tried telling me that I am okay. I did not believe her. I don’t know how long it was, but I cried until the motorized vehicle came to a stop.
Karen grabbed the carrier with me in it and walked us up to her house. Before entering her home, we passed by this very large metal box that made a loud noise. I couldn’t wait to get inside to get out of this carrier and away from that large box making that annoying loud noise.
It looked like it would be a cozy house where we could wait out the snow storm. As she went inside, she started talking to the human that was there. The human must be her mate. As she is letting me out of the carrier, she says to the man inside, “So, we lost power? Great! How ironic that I was worried about Winks losing power and here I lose power at my house. At least we have the generator so we have power and we will all stay warm. Winks, meet my husband.” As she is talking to her husband, she says, “I promise, Winks is only here for the weekend.”
As she brought in all my stuff, I decided to investigate my new surroundings. I see lots of cozy places to sit and sprawl out. As I am checking out one of the bedrooms, Karen brings in my stuff and places it down. I said to myself, “Oh, this must be where I will be sleeping. I can’t wait to climb onto that bed. It looks like it will be a cozy bed. I don’t know if I can get up there on my own. Let me see if I can.” Karen saw me struggling to get up onto the bed. I was definitely going to need some help getting up there. She came over to me immediately and picked me up, placing me on the bed. Again, talking to myself, I said, “Wow, I can even train her here too. This is going to be great!”
The bed was nice, but I couldn’t just sit there. I wanted to see everything. Now, where is that dog of hers? That is right, Tucker was his name. I walked out of the bedroom and walked up to a door that was closed. I hear an animal panting. It sounded just like Tucker’s panting. I hurried and walked away to make sure Karen didn’t think I wanted her to open the door. We can leave Tucker in there for as long as possible.
Too late, Karen let him out. Tucker saw me and started making his way over to me. I immediately took my stance that I do when he sees me at the clinic. I turn to the side, arched my back, and stick my fur up high to make myself look bigger. I let out a mean hiss. He stopped, looked at me, then turned away. I bellowed to myself, “Great! He can be trained here too!”
After wandering around looking at everything, I decided to go find my human, Karen. There she was sitting on one of those comfy chairs I was telling you about. Oh and look, there is that furry flooring too! Walking on the furry flooring felt as amazing as I remembered. Just as I was about to roll around on it, Karen picked me up and set me on a bed she made for me near a window. This was a bigger window than what I have at my home. It had a great view of the outdoors! I saw pretty lights of a motorized vehicle right out front. Then I hear Karen say, “Uh oh, it looks like someone got stuck in the snow.” I kept watching outside. It was so pretty with the lights shining on the snow making it sparkle.
My first night at Karen’s, I was so excited I could barely sleep. She tried putting me in the bedroom that she set up for me and shutting the door. I did not like to be alone so I started crying out with loud meows. Karen immediately opened the door. Boy, she is so easy to train. I am loving this vacation.
I saw Karen get nuzzled into the bed under the covers. I thought to myself, “It looks like she will be sleeping with me.” She must have forgotten that I can’t get up there on the bed. I started pawing at the side of the bed. Just like a good girl, she picked me up and put me on the bed. I saw her laying her head on a pillow so I went over to the pillow next to her. I figured I would lay my head away from her in case I purr in my sleep. I had my rear-end near her head so that I could lay my tail over her head. I thought I would be nice and try to keep her warm.
After a little while, I decided to get up since I couldn’t sleep. I remember seeing a box in the room. I jumped down onto the floor and came across food and water that Karen left out for me. I took a few bites of food. Hopefully, I was not too loud crunching on the food. I went over to the box. It was a cardboard box. I looked inside and it was empty except for this brown paper that was bunched up inside. I climbed inside and scratched around playing with the paper. I may have been a little loud, but I am on vacation and having some fun. I must have made a lot of noise because Karen got up and took the paper out. However, she did put a fuzzy cozy towel in there for me to lay on.
I decided to settle down for the night. I walked over to the side of the bed that Karen was laying at and pawed at the bed. This time, Karen was not responding to me as quickly. I decided I needed to make some noise to wake her up so I let out some loud meows as I was pawing at the bed. That did the trick. Karen picked me up and placed me on the bed. She was so nice to bring my bed from home and put it on top of the bed next to her. I climbed into my bed and fell asleep.
It was morning and I was not ready to get up. I wanted to sleep in since I was on vacation. The room was getting brighter since the sun was rising. I decided to check out that cardboard box with the cozy towel in it. I figured that should block out some of the sunlight. It did the trick and was a perfect spot to sleep! Since I was so antsy the night before, I fell asleep fast and slept until the afternoon.
Karen let me sleep in, but she did finally come to check on me. Humans tend to worry about us more when we become seniors. I wondered what Karen had planned for us today. I did a lot of sitting on the bed she made me by the window. Looking out the window was my favorite thing. I also wandered around checking out everything again.
Then I found out what Karen had planned for me. It was what I dreaded the most. Why would she think I would like being combed out on my vacation. I tried telling her I didn’t want to do that on my vacation. She was very persistent and didn’t listen to me. I eventually won by putting up a fuss. Did she think it would be different at her home? If I didn’t like being combed at my home, why would I like it here at her house?
The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. I got to roll around on the furry floor, sit up on Karen’s shoulders as she reclined in her cozy chair, and laid on the bed by the window. This is exactly how I wanted my vacation to go.
My Sunday was very much like the day before. Karen even tried to comb me again. I guess she worked out some of those mats that I started getting. I still didn’t like it and made her keep the session short.
Come Monday morning, Karen was hustling around packing up all my stuff to bring me back home. Good thing I used the litter pan before the trip back home. Karen brought out the carrier box and tried to put me in it. I grumbled a lot as she put me in. I then started crying out as the door shut me in. I was going to tell her how much I hated the carrier just like all of those other cats that come to visit my home at the clinic. The ride back home took forever and I let Karen have it the whole way back. I don’t think I will want to go on another vacation any time soon.
Karen brought me and all my stuff back into my home. Ah, it felt so good getting out of that carrier and being back home. I went around to all my humans there to tell them that I was back. They were so excited to see me and find out how my trip was. I missed all of my humans! Although I loved my time on my vacation, it was good to be home. There is no place like home at Ada Hospital for Animals!