Well, Arthur was due for his three-year rabies shot (required here),
and I had decided to put everyone on a three-year distemper
vaccination schedule, rather than yearly, due to concerns about VAS.
Oops, it's been *four* years for all but Merlyn.  Time to load up the
gang and take them to Petco for their low-cost vaccination clinic
pronto!

Luckily, I have a friend, Therese, who doesn't mind the insanity of
taking seven cats to a pet store to get vaccinated.  And insanity it
is.  First, I had to clean all the carriers (some of which had been
sitting in the basement collecting dust, since I usually only need one
or two at a time).  I cleaned them, lined them all with newspapers,
and lined a few a them with paper towels underneath that, in case of
accidents.  Well, Wolfie *always* pees, so I added a plastic trashbag
on the bottom of his carrier.

Next, I had to figure out who to put in what carriers.  Three only
have front doors, and two have top doors.  Two are wooden, two
plastic, and one is a soft-sided carrier.  Lesseee -- Wolfie has to go
into the small plastic carrier because he'll get stressed out and pee.
Okay, that one's easy.  Now who is the hardest to get *out* of the
carriers?  Well, that's pretty much *all* of them if they are being
stubborn.  So, oh, well, we'll just put Trill and Merlyn in the wooden
carriers.  The big plastic one will hold three cats, and I couldn't
see either of them making nice stuck in there with two other cats.

So I figured I'd put the friendliest ones together in the big carrier.
Cosmo, Internet and Brando.  That should work.

Arthur's the smallest, so he got the soft-sided carrier, over my
shoulder (he loves riding on my shoulder anyway!).

So I made a list of who goes where, and what order to put them in, so
the most nervous would go in first.  Yeah, right!  lol!  I just mostly
grabbed the ones that walked in front of me as they did, and managed
to get them all in, although Trill was NOT a happy camper, and managed
to scratch me until I bled, requiring a temporary stop in the
procedure.  Thanks, Trill -- hissspit!

So Therese arrives and we load them up into her (small) vehicle.  She
doesn't think they'll all fit.  You know that Simpsons episode where
Homer or Bart manages to load everything into the trunk, because of
having played Tetris so much?  Hehe.  That's pretty much it.  Big
carrier first, of course.  Wolfie on the floor, Trill on the seat,
Merlyn under my feet and Arthur on my lap.  Whew!

We get to Petco, and I tell Therese to wait.  I have an idea.  I am
going to grab three shopping carts, and load them in the carts to make
it easier to get them in and out.  Ah, yes!  Except for the fact the
Big Carrier had to be tilted since it didn't quite fit, we got it!

So the wagon train arrives, getting many raised eyebrows and gasps.
"How many cats do you HAVE????" being the single biggest question.

The assistant recognizes me from last year, and gives me the
paperwork.  I don't have to fill all of it out, since they've got my
info from last year.  Just my name, and the cat info.  She counts out
7 sheets, and I begin trying to remember everybody's names and how old
they are.  Luckily, I have thought to bring along my little notebook
with all their birthdates.

So Dr. Beer (yep, that is his name!) begins taking a peek at the first
cat, Trill, before giving him his FVRCP shot.  And we load them out,
one by one, except Wolfie, who has, of course, peed in the carrier.
Luckily, it's one of the two that open from the top, so he just
reaches in.  Every one of them is amazingly well-behaved.  We talk
briefly about the various health problems, and I especially ask him
about Arthur, whose respiration seems to be very fast, and who needs
neutered yesterday.  He thinks Arthur may have asthma :-( and suggests
a chest x-ray.  Dr. Beer does low-cost ($60) neuters, and he said the
x-ray would be $70. So I think I will take him in, get the x-ray to
see what is going on, and if Arthur is healthy enough, go ahead with
the neuter.  Soon!

The other worrisome note was that Wolfie has a heart murmur :-(  Poor
Wolfie.  It has to be fairly significant, because he told me he can't
hear a low-level murmur in the situation (middle of a pet store, dogs,
cats, birds, cash registers ringing . . . .).  But he said it probably
isn't anything to be overly concerned about at this point.

So the Wagon Train finished up and moved on out West (or East?) to the
parking lot, garnering smiles and amused looks along the way.

We all got home safely, cooled down a bit, and they got dinner, and
treats!

Talk about a literal zoo . . . .  It was!

Ginger-lyn

Home Pages:
 http://www.spiritrealm.com/summer/
 http://www.angelfire.com/folk/glsummer (homepage & cats)
 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~summer/index.htm (genealogy)
 http://www.movieanimals.bravehost.com/ (The Violence Against
                        Animals in Movies Website)