Ripley - The Final Furbastard

When Derrick and I moved into our apartment, we got all of our furniture situated, looked around, and said, "Awww HELLLLLL NAW we do not have the space for a dog. We have one furbastard, we have one shell baby, and we are content."

Ok, so content was the wrong word. We are both dog-people, through and through. We both grew up with dogs, we both love dogs, I love training dogs, I love dogs, and love. And dogs. I love dogs so much that I trained Scruffin McMuffin to do dog things, like sit, sit pretty, shake paws, and roll over (we are still working on that one). I have never had a dog in my adult life and it was kind of killing me.

Here is a chronological list of how the dog conversation went:

"We don't have the space,"

"Well, we could make it work, but we don't have time."

"Well, I think we could make time, plus we can get a dog-walker for the long field days."

"Let's just look at dogs online."

"Oh look at this one, isn't she cute? She has Yoda-ears, a pink spot on her nose, and OMG she only has three legs?! I loved my tripod dog back in super early college days!"

"I'm just going to send in an application, just to see if we would be accepted as potential adopters."

"Oh look! The adoption organization is having a meet and greet event next Saturday! I'm going to go meet some dogs, including our favorite one!"

"Don't worry, I won't bring a dog home today. I'm just going to meet her and if I like her we can make an appointment to talk to her foster parents."

"I brought a dog home even though I said I wouldn't."

And that's how we got our wonderful Ripley. Since Derrick and I are only attracted to discarded and messed up animals, we immediately loved Ripley. And for those of you who are wondering: yes, she is named after Ellen Ripley from Alien because they are both badass bitches who have been through hell and back.

THE BEACH IS MY FAVORITE PLACE BESIDES ALL THOSE OTHER
PLACES THAT ARE MY FAVORITE

Just a girl and her beef trachea. #justgirlythings

"Human. I need cheek scratches. Right now."

The First (and only) Shell-baby: Half Dome

We have a tortoise named Half Dome. Half Dome's story is pretty short and not as exciting as the Furbastards. His parents were zoo specimens that accidentally bred when they were like 50 years old - of the clutch, four of the eggs hatched into precious widdle baby tortoises. All four babies were scooped up and adopted by co-workers of mine, much to my relief and Derrick's woe and anguish.

After about a year, one of the tortoise-parents was going through some really rough stuff at home and felt she couldn't take care of the tortoise anymore. I made the mistake of telling Derrick, and now we have Half Dome.

I wasn't super in to the idea because we live in an apartment the size of a postage stamp, but we make it work and Half Dome seems happy, Derrick is happy, and I am happy because I loooooove my little shell-baby now.

The First Furbastard: Scruffin F. McMuffin

I used to keep a blog about my pet birds, but I was young(ish) and poor(ish) and I was unable to provide them with a safe, enriched environment due to the insane high cost of living in San Diego, CA, and thus they have found wonderful new homes.

At some point very very very shortly thereafter, a half-dead, scraggly, mangy, snaggle-toothed, skin-and-bones, very sick cat wandered into our backyard. He looked like he was about 50 years old, walked stiffly as though he had arthritis, was missing a tooth, missing half of one ear, and had scars all over his face. I'd actually seen him around the neighborhood before - the first week after I moved in to the new house I saw him hiding under a car while a coyote tried to grab him. This death-on-legs cat was usually pretty skittish, but on this day I think he decided, "Fuck it. I'm half dead and literally starving to death. I guess I'll rub myself on this lady's leg and maybe she'll feed me."

This was the first day. He's actually all black now, but was missing a ton of fur when we met.

Yeah, I fed him. He had the most pathetic gravelly meow-noises (they are not proper meows, that's for sure) and he absolutely destroyed an entire can of wet food, so I fed him again later that day. And the next day. And the day after that. I started calling him all sorts of variations on the word "scruff," like Scruffy, Scruffers, Scruff, and Scruffin. The last one stuck. His middle name is Furbastard because just look at him.

The most beautiful cat in the world. Not.

Eventually my roommate put her foot down and said that if we were going to keep feeding him, he needed vet care, needed to be neutered, needed vaccines, etc. She generously took him to the vet and snip snip stab stab VOILA! We had a pet stray cat. The vet said that he was about 2 years old and had FIV, which was likely the cause of all his ailments.

Food. Now.

Long story short, Derrick and I took Scruffin with us when we moved into our own apartment. He is fat, playful, and happy now. He is super cuddly and loves being around people. It's hard to believe he's even the same cat.

Fat. Happy. Has enough fur to be Furminated now, which apparently blew his mind.