After reading many beautiful and heartwarming articles written by mothers and daughters about Mother's Day, I wanted to share some of the photos and stories of animals I've seen around the world taking care of their young.  Some of you know that I've been involved in animal rescue for many years and have a soft spot in my heart for all animals.  I am always amazed at how protective and caring animals are of their offspring.

  I really wanted to write a post in honor of all mothers and especially those that are often overlooked on Mother's Day each year.  If you have pets you are a mother they could not survive without you!  I wrote a similar post about animal mothers and their offspring for mothers day a couple of years ago.  One of my readers was very grateful that I had posted it.  Sadly not humans have a mother at all or one that they are close to. 

My husband and I have also taken in several stray pregnant cats.  We found homes for all of the babies and mothers including the seven orange ones in the second photo down.  We actually kept the mothers - Princess (the black cat) and Peaches (orange cat) for ourselves. 

The monkeys that I saw at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali we're so fun to watch.  The babies were so cute and well taken care of by their mothers.   I thought this mother was showing tremendous patience with her little one.
Here is a mother monkey feeding her baby what appears to be some coconut:
I saw many elephant mothers with their babies in the Serengeti National Park while in Tanzania:


Although I love all animals, I'm normally a little afraid of horses because they are so big.  I did see this mother and baby last month while I was visiting a park in Belize.
Here is a lion with its pride in the Serengeti of Tanzania:

Here is a penguin family I saw on an excursion in Punta Arenas, Chile on my way to Antarctica a few years ago.  This Family is in their borough (home).  One thing I learned about penguins on this trip is that they mate for life.
Here is a mother and baby sea lion nursing that I saw it last summer at an aquarium in Curacao:
I saw this litter of puppies in Alaska about two years ago when I went dog sledding on the Mendenhall glacier:
Here is our cat peaches with her seven one week old kittens.  We took peaches in when we were alerted by a rescue organization that she was lying next to a dumpster nursing her seven one week old kittens.  We kept her in a bathroom away from our other cats until we were able to take her to a vet the next day when we learned that peaches was FIV positive (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) which meant she could not be around our cats as it can be spread to others.  We had to wait until the kittens were older before we could test them.  Only two of the seven turned out positive. 

I was able to find a home for them with a friend who lived hundreds of miles away in Kansas City.  We did purchase a new drug called T-cyte in hopes that treating the kittens while they were very young would make them turn F IV negative.  Miraculously the drug worked and the kittens are very health healthy and are no longer F I V positive.  Peaches is probably about seven years old now. 

Peaches is kept healthy getting a shot every six months of T-cyte which costs about $60 dollars a month.  Although she needs to be kept in an area of our home away from her other cats, we adopted another F I V positive cat named Piney who is also being treated with T-cyte and is also very healthy.  You can learn more about T-cyte which has helped cats with FeLV as well here.

Here is a family of Sand Hill cranes that live in our neighborhood in Florida.  The babies grow up very quickly but the mother and father stay with them until they are full grown.  As you can see there is a photo of one of the parents feeding a baby.  I apologize for this not being a good photo but I didn't want to get very close to them and upset the parents.  The last photo of these birds was taken only 30 days after the first two so you see how fast they grow.

Although these iguanas I saw in Mexico are not furry and cute likes some of the other animals I've shown you, I thought it was a cute picture of what appears to be a mother iguana with her baby:
Although this is not a great photo of a mother giraffe with two babies that I saw in the Serengeti national Park I thought I would share it:

 Lastly I wanted to share some photos of our cat Princess.  We found her in a junkyard about nine years ago when she was less than a year-old so she was basically a kitten herself.  It was obvious she was very pregnant so we took her in.  Princess said probably lived in that junkyard her whole life and was very feral and scared of humans.  Once she had her three kittens she was a very good mother and very protective of her babies.  We were very grateful to find good homes for all of her kittens when they were a few months old.  Princess still lives with us and is a very sweet cat that causes no trouble and no one would ever guess that she spent the first part of her life in a junkyard and was feral as a young cat.

 Do you have any special animal stories to share for Mother's Day or a soft spot in your heart for them like I do?  

Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet.  I would love to hear any comments or questions that you have.  I hope that you have a wonderful Mother's Day however you decide to celebrate it.

~Michelle

“You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” ― Paul McCartney

It did my heart good to see how well cats are treated on the island of Santorini in Greece.  While I was there I visited a restaurant several times where there were several kittens and cats. After what happened in Bali last year:  “Knowing it and seeing it are two different things.” ― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay , I told myself that I was going to avoid all stray cats and kittens because I couldn't take the heart ache of having something happen again like in Bali.  

I told the owner at this restaurant that I was  going to go buy a big bag of cat food for the cats that I saw lounging around on a couch in his restaurant.  He seemed offended and said "I feed and water them every day".  It did my heart good and restored my faith in humanity for a while.  I went back there more than once.  I needed to seek the solace and comfort get away from the tourists given the fact that this vacation was not what I had expected it to be.  If you read my last post:  What Do You Do When a Tragedy or Emergency Happens at Home While Traveling?  you know what I'm talking about.  The food was wonderful the service was great and I highly recommend that you stop by this restaurant if you are ever in Santorini.  I just wanted to write about this wonderful experience because it did help me get through a tough time.   Yes I was on a beautiful tropical island and I had my camera so I was able to take pictures, but in all honesty I couldn't wait to get home.  

Santorini is an incredibly beautiful island and I would like to believe that someday I can go back and truly enjoy it.    Having said that, the world is a big place and there are many other places I want to see you as well.  

Visiting this restaurant was one of the bright spots of my vacation in Santorini.  Thank you to the owner for taking such great care of those cats.  As you can see they are very happy and healthy looking,  

I was very happy to learn about a group on Santorini that helps the numerous strays on the island.   Santorini Animal Welfare Society (SAWA) is an animal welfare association this gorgeous island. They are a small organization and mainly focus on spay/neutering which is extremely important in stray populations.

Here are some photos of Kamari Beach:

I loved the colorful boats and cabanas all over the beach!

It's a very popular place!

I loved watching the kids play on the rocks
Kamari Beach is a really relaxing area away from the crowds of Oia
There were many, many nice restaurants overlooking the sea

The beaches are a little rocky - I live near Clearwater Florida where the sand is like baby powder so it's just different to me.
It was nice strolling down the streets lining Kamari Beach
I found this pretty church on one of the side streets

I also found some nice boutiques with pretty clothes and a happy cat :)

Then I found  a nice, away from the crowds restaurant named Koutouki tou bekri AKA as"cat heaven: 
They were allowed inside out of the hot sun and allowed to rest on a nice and comfortable couch.

My two very well behaved and entertaining dinner companions:

Kissing kittens:

For dinner I had sparkling water with lemon ( my usual) and grilled halloumi cheese with tomatoes and pita.  Very yummy!
And my favorite apple pie with just "a little" ice cream ;)

Here is their contact information if you want to visit them which I highly recommend!

Playful, happy, and healthy kittens!
Below is a beautiful table handcrafted by the owner:
  .

 I will leave you with the message I left in their guest book - they have no idea how much they helped me !!!

Thank you so much for your visit.  As always, your comments and or questions are always appreciated.  have a wonderful week my friends! 

~Michelle

To know life, one must love many things.”

—Vincent van Gogh

I wish I could buy a ticket to heaven for my next trip.  Heaven gained a new angel while I was in Europe last week.  Our Black Lab Shadow went to the Rainbow bridge on July 20th, 2014.  Shadow got along great with our cats.  We love him dearly and he will be so missed.

Shadow was a black lab who we found running around in the middle a busy street in Columbus Ohio.  He had been fixed, but was very skinny and had what is termed Separation Anxiety Disorder which is also known as SAD.  Separation anxiety disorder is likely caused by abuse and or abandonment.  Shadow became very attached to my husband and only my husband.  He went everywhere with my husband - to work, to the store, anywhere he could go Shadow had to go too.  If Shadow couldn't go with my husband he would just lay beside the door until he returned. 

As Shadow got older than about age 10 or so his separation anxiety decreased some.  When he was about 10 years old we thought he may have had a stroke.  It turns out he didn't have a stroke but he had a problem called "Old Dog" Vestibular Disease which you can read about here: Our Scare With "Old Dog" Vestibular Disease. 

We don't know exactly what age shadow was when he passed away last week but the vet estimated he was around 14 years old.  My husband took the best care possible of him that he could even when shadow became mostly blind and deaf and needed help standing up.  He took care of him the best he could.  My husband would take Shadow to the vet periodically to be sure Shadow was not in pain and or suffering.  Shadow had liver cancer which likely was not causing him pain, but in the end the cancer may have spread to his bones.  

 While in Athens I was able to check my e-mail.  It was then I learned that Shadow was in very bad shape.  That was on a Sunday and my husband planned to take him to the vet on Monday to see if there was anything else to be done.  By the time I got to my hotel in Santorini and was able to call home he had really gone downhill.  I did get to say goodbye to him over the phone, but I would not have been able to make it home on time to say goodbye to him.  

I looked into flights to get home from Santorini even though I had already prepaid my hotel.  It would have cost me more than $3000 to get home.  I really did consider just leaving right away and going home, and I definitely would have if it would have meant that I would've been able to say goodbye to Shadow.  Shadow, unfortunately, passed away long before I could've made it from Europe back to the US.  

Shadow had been very sick for a long time we really didn't know if he had days weeks or months he definitely seem to live and have a quality life for a lot longer than we ever would've imagined.  Whenever I left to go somewhere for more than a few hours I made sure that I told him I loved him and gave him a hug.  Upon reflection, I do wish that I had found a way home early from Greece.  I did not enjoy the trip as much as I should have.  I don't know if I will ever return to Santorini or Greece, I have no idea how much more I would have enjoyed the trip had this tragedy not occurred.  I really just couldn't wait to get home from the time this happened.  

I'm not sure if this will be a lasting feeling but this is made me realize how important being at home with my loved ones is.  We have other pets and I never would want this to happen again.  My cat Coco was diagnosed with cancer when she was only 4 1/2 years old.  I didn't dare leave her when she was sick.  There's no way I would've gone on a trip when she came out of remission.  If there had been services for a human being that needed to be attended, I would have spent thousands of dollars to get home I do always insure my trips, but unfortunately insurance companies don't consider an animal the same way they do a human being. 

I did not discuss this on Facebook when it happened, it was just too hard.  I knew I would get 1 million different opinions on what I could or should do.  It came down to being a very personal family decision I wish that I'd never gone on a trip, but Shadow had been stable when I left.  If I had thought for one minute that he would pass away while I was on my trip leaving my husband to deal with such sadness and grief I would not of gone.  In my opinion no amount of money is worse not being there for your family member when they need you most - whether it be a pets or a human being.  

I don't want my love for travel to end because of this tragedy.  I canceled a trip that was scheduled for the near future.  I just need to come to terms with what happened.

 As much as I love to travel, there is nothing more important to me than being with family at a time of need, or especially in shadows case, at the end to say goodbye.  I'm sure there are some of you reading this that would have made a completely different decision than I did and would have spent any amount of money to get home to be with their family even after shadow passed away.  I understand that and I respect your opinion.  Trust me, there is nothing you can say that will make me feel any worse than I already do.  I do feel a little like this trip to Europe was a bit of a waste as the last half of it was not that enjoyable.

I'm very unsure whether or not I will want to visit Austria or Greece again given the memories that I have.  I do know that there is no way we can time or predict these things.  All I know for sure is that I would not have boarded the plane in the first place if I had known what was coming. 

Shadow got along great with our cats!

Shadow when he was around 7 years old:
Shadow when he was around 11 years old:

Shadow when he was around 14 years old in June 2014:

How we want to remember Shadow.  We got everybody "dressed up for St Patrick's Day in 2010:

Shadow's urn:

Here is our cat Jasmine being watched over by Shadow :)

These are two black dog figurines that I found in Santorini and bought in memory of Shadow:

Goodbye our sweet Shadow RIP

  Thank you so much for reading and stopping by.  Have you ever experienced a tragedy while you were traveling? If you have any stories to share and don't want to leave a public comment, please feel free to email me my contact information is listed at the top of my blog. 

~Michelle

The above photos are of Little Peanut who is now around 2 months old.  We feel very fortunate that one of the SPCA's wonderful vets has adopted him!  They fell in love with him and that is such a great thing especially since Little Peanut's urinary tract is not wide enough.  The vet operated on him a couple weeks ago.  He will need another operation as he gets bigger.  I have been very worried about him, but know that he is in the best of hands and is happy with his nice new family in his new home.  His prognosis is good.  I will try to post some better photos of him in the future.

The above photos are of foster kitty Oliver.  He was already spoken for when he came to our home, but only weighed 12 ounces.  He needed to be bottle fed and get a little older before he could go to his new home.  Fortunately Oliver did really well like the dozens of "bottle babies" I've had in the past :).  The photo of Oliver and I was taken at 4:30 AM as I was headed to the airport for a quick trip to Vermont.

The above photo is of one of my best friends Tina and I while I was in Vermont.  I love visiting Vermont.  It is so beautiful and serene.  I also have several good friends and family there.

Meanwhile, the weather in Florida is beautiful.  Fall is my favorite season here.  The humidity is gone and the temperature is perfect (to me) on most days - highs in the low 80's and lows at night in the 60's.

I've missed blogging.  I will try to be better.  Thanks so much for stopping by and take care my friends!

Michelle

Here are some more photos of this amazing park known as "Secret Beach" here on the island:

I have about 2 weeks left of 12 hour days and then my adjustment to a 6 hour difference time change to look forward to when I return home.  In spite of all that, I'm completely in my element and having a wonderful time.  Strange to think that I just finished a 2 hour Ashtanga HOT Yoga class at 2 AM my time.  Hmmm...do you think I'll have some jet lag when I return to florida ;)?

Thanks for stopping by!  I truly appreciate all my loyal and occasional readers!

Michelle