All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small.

This week we had an amazing adventure. Several months ago we signed up to be foster pet carers for a charity called Guardian Angels for Soldiers pets. The group is just magnificent and is doing such an important and amazing job. When soldiers are deployed and have no one to care for their animals they often have to give them up and send them to pet shelters. What an outrage that a person has to have their family torn asunder because of their own selfless service of their country.

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Guardian Angels finds foster homes for the pets, they are then reunited with their owners once they return from deployment.

This is the blurb from their website,

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Guardian Angels for Soldier's Pet, an ALL volunteer 501c3 nonprofit public charity formed in January 2005 after learning that military service members across the country had pets that needed a caring, loving, and safe home to care for them during the pet owner's deployment to fight the global war on terrorism (combat or peace keeping missions), but had been unable to find someone to care for them. This left the military pet owners with only one option, which was to relinquish their beloved pets and pet ownership rights to a humane society, animal shelter, or animal rescue group never to see their pets again, know if they were placed in a new home, or ended up being euthanized.

The Colonel and I requested cats because of our three kitties. All of them are a little temperamental, Romeo is downright neurotic. The vet wanted to put him on kitty Prozac. I thought that was quite funny but I really think it's just so wrong to have to treat an animal with anti-depressants. What's next, ambien for cats? Nice thought.

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An Emergency situation arose where a little dog needed care, his owner was being deployed 2 days later and a variety of complications had arisen, previously arranged carers falling through and so on. Despite the cats we took the little tacker in.

His name is Trusky, I can't help calling him Trotsky. A Miniture Pinscher and super cute to boot, but what rambunctious little guy. True to his is revolutionary sounding name, he stirred things up around here. The poor cats were distressed. Unlike Sabrina the Wunderdog who visited with us, Trusky was able to ferret the cats out of their hiding places as he is little enough to get in after them and hound them out in both the yard and the house. It was terrible for the cats as the little fella just wouldn't give up on his cat hunting mission.

Cuteness Inc.
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He stormed the Winter Palace and sent the ruling elite scurrying for cover. Things were just so unmanageble. I fell immediately in love however and felt like such a traitor to my cats. He followed me everywhere and would sit on my lap and sleep. Talk about puppy love. I really do like dogs better than people.

A vicious doberman trapped into a miniature body.

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To give the cats time to come out and eat and drink we tried to shut him in a spare room at night. Poor Trusky wouldn't have any of that, loudly yapping his little head off until we let him out. Eventually he ended up sleeping with me. It was so cute the way he cuddled up next to me under his little blanket.

Things reached a crisis stage though. The cats were stuck outside in the rain and thunder unable to get to their food. I did try putting food outside for them but this is Florida and after about 5 minutes, hundreds of ants were swarming all over the bowl, while the cats still cowered in fear under the deck. When Trusky tried to get at them they made the most mournful moaning kind of sound, it was excruciating to listen to.

Sadly, we had to move Trusky on to another foster family. I cried all day and had a few tears today. I miss him terribly, amazing how loving and loveable dogs are. He is with a family that has another little dog so he has some canine company.

Despite this situation not ending the way I would have liked, I still want to assist the group and will be doing administrative tasks on a volunteer basis for them. With my cosseted kitties, taking in another pet will probably turn into another traumatic encounter. Hopefully I can contribute to the aims of the group through other ways. Servicemen and women deserve so much for the sacrifices they make, their pets deserve a break too.

Facebook page for Guardian Angels.

They need all the support they can get, hint hint. :)

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