A byootaful Life

Vancouver is probably one of the most dog-friendly cities in the world.

Seriously, there are dogs everywhere. I see at least twenty dogs a day. I see them in elevators, shopping centres(!!), being walked along the footpath, hanging out of car windows – EVERYWHERE, I tell you! I couldn’t believe it when we went into a grocery store and there, sitting at his owners’ feet at the customer service desk, was a big fluffy dog.

In a grocery store.

We literally stopped and stared. So weird.

While it’s nice to see cute little dogs everywhere, it also makes it hit home that I’m pet-less. I’m missing Puddy, and it sucks that I see everyone enjoying their pets and I can’t. Mine’s sooo far away. She’s probably wrestling two young boys, play-biting and swatting them when they get too rough. She’s also probably keeping an eye on my friend K, waiting for her to relax into the couch, so she can jump up and knead her lap. And she’s probably got her other eye on her food bowl, wondering when it’s going to get filled.

Even though I don’t have Puddy anymore, I do have something that will always remind me of her.

My little scar.

So, okay, it’s not that impressive, but you can make out the two little teeth marks where Puddy nom’d my arm. No, not that one, that’s a freckle. The other one. Here, I’ll do a close-up. See them now?

The one on the left is much deeper than the one on the right, but they are definitely fang marks! Every time I glance down at my arm, I see them and I think of her. I think of the pain and the blood and the PAIN and the tetanus shot AND THE PAIN, but I also think about a terrified, apologetic cat that tried to head-bump me better while I was sitting on the couch in crazy tears, phoning the doctor while trying not to bleed all over the tiles.

WAIT … did I blog about that incident? I can’t seem to find it in my archives at all! How can I not have mentioned this?

Long story short… this is how I got my first-ever REAL bite from Puddy. She’s only bitten me once and I hope to never be bitten by an animal again because OH MY GOSH THE PAIN!! Okay, here’s how it went down: I let Puddy outside. Phill was leaving for work and called me from his car in the driveway to tell me that there were two MASSIVE dogs at our front gate and I should probably think about keeping Puddy inside. I went outside, saw the dogs, saw Puddy (she hadn’t seen the dogs yet), went to grab her… and grabbed her *just* as she saw them.

You know what happened next, right?

I grabbed her, she fluffed up and freaked out, bit my arm and raced inside.

So, turns out she can take care of herself. I, on the other hand, ended up with bright red blood running down my arm from four punctures (two on top, two on bottom) plus numerous scratches. As the blood dripped all over the concrete, I sank into a big heap of tears and went into shock. Phill was sitting in his car trying to figure out what was going on. He took me to the doctor, I got a tetanus shot and the nurse bandaged my arm from fingers to elbow. I went straight onto anti-biotics and spent the next day at home nursing an agonisingly painful arm. I don’t know what is in Puddy’s saliva, but oh my gosh, it was PAINFUL.

(It probably didn’t help that I am allergic to dog and cat saliva. Doh.)

Now I have these little marks as a reminder. The scar will probably fade away eventually, but until it does, it’s a special reminder of that crazy little cat that once sunk her fangs into me because I am stupid and forget that animals have instincts and grabbing a terrified cat who is face to face with two massive dogs is only going to end in (my) blood shed and (my) tears.

Yeah, you, you adorably psychotic kitty.