I dropped Peanut, Seamus, and Raemy off at the Arlington animal shelter yesterday morning for their spay/neuter surgery, which is a service the shelter currently offers Homeward Trails. Long-time readers of this blog may realize how dramatic a turnaround in the shelter that represents, and the improvement is entirely attributable to Neil Trent, now in his third year as Executive Director.

Not only has the shelter improved its performance on every important metric, it now collaborates with the rescue community and seeks input from local animal-welfare advocates. And the in-house veterinarian Neil hired performs the best spay and neuter surgeries we’ve ever seen. No complications, no swelling, no scars, rapid recoveries. Adults, kittens, males, females – we have yet to see an outcome that I wouldn’t rate as excellent.

Even expecting good results, I was surprised to find Raemy cuddling with Pumpkin (who was spayed weeks ago) in the top pod of the cat tree at 10pm last night. Most post-spay kittens don’t feel like climbing anything. This morning she was up there again, hanging with Seamus. That made it easy for me to administer her pain meds.

Peanut, Seamus, and Raemy were all fasting before their surgeries, but they chowed down like champs after coming home. So everybody felt fat and strong this morning. No vomit anywhere.

Seamus and Peanut look so good we decided to save their pain meds, in case Raemy needs a third or fourth dose.

Which doesn’t look likely right now. Last night Raemy actually hopped up onto the futon to greet Martha, and this morning she came over to say hi again.

Maybe she’s taking a cue from Pumpkin, who never needs an invitation to crawl onto our laps and start purring.

Heading into the last days of December, the karma in the villa is as good as it’s been all year. Stay tuned for next week’s recap of 2013!

filed by: TS