Introducing Sylvia and Tupelo

aka Why Do We Trap Animals in the House With Us?

‘Sup people. I have a question. How many of y’all have pets? Do you love them? Are they like members of your family? Good golly miss Molly mine certainly are. I have two pets: Sylvia, the cat, and Tupelo, the dog. What breeds you may ask? Haha. The Wofford family laughs in the face of such questions.

Actually we just don’t know. Sylvia is…well…a cat? She was rescued by Animal Control and then adopted by me and they certainly didn’t give me any breed information on her. The vet says she’s a “domestic short hair” which I’m pretty sure is just a fancy way of saying “cat.” But whatevs.

Tupelo on the other hand is what many might refer to as a “Heinz 57.” No two people have guessed the same when it comes to assuming his breed. Animal Control (where he was adopted from) said he was a “wire hair terrier.” Which is understandable: he appears to be some sort of terrier and he definitely has the wire hair. But what’s hilarious is that wire hair terriers (aka wire fox terriers) are like maybe 20lbs full grown. Tupelo weighs 72. [Side note: Animal Control told me when I got him that he would probably be 30-40lbs full grown. They were obviously a little off.]

But a few Christmases ago my mother got me a doggy DNA test! I dutifully swabbed Tupelo’s mouth (he was thrilled) and sent it off. Turns out that Tupelo is actually a…

mutt. I swear it’s like someone put a few dozen dog breeds in a bowl and just grabbed a handful and made a dog. The DNA test can only figure out a few generations back so 25% of the results were just “idk.” The other 75%? American Staffordshire Terrier, Australian Cattle Dog, Chow Chow, Labrador Retriever, Miniature Schnauzer, and Siberian Husky.

When people ask, I tell them he’s a Miniature Polish Bearhound. (He has his own tag on instagram if you wanna see more pics #miniaturepolishbearhound) Ya see, one regiment or whatever of the Polish army adopted a black bear during WWII. He ate with the men, slept where they slept, played with them. He was even officially drafted and carried munitions and stuff. His name was Wojtek. (Pronounced voy-tek) True story. Look it up. Anywho. I imagined that if that bear had a dog, Tupelo would be a miniature version of it. Hence: Miniature Polish Bearhound.

So these animals live in my house, leave their hair everywhere, and generally just live to wake me up in the middle of the night cause one of them has eaten something they weren’t supposed to. (Tupelo once woke me up at 4am and proceeded to throw up a rock.) I love them so much.

Unfortunately this month has been really stressful for me when it comes to my animals. Tupelo is a very anxious dog and so I sought a trainer to help him overcome his fearfulness and nervousness. He’s getting some in-depth training and socialization with the dog trainer, whom he has been staying with for nearly three weeks. I never in my life thought I would miss an animal this badly while they were still alive. Y’all. My stress level has been through the roof since Tupelo has been gone. I was completely ignorant of the fact that he had become my de facto emotional support animal. I’ve had to abandon my NaNoWriMo goal because I can’t handle the unnecessary stress. Thankfully he comes home at the end of this week! I’m so excited I could cry, which is weird. But alas.

Sylvia has been enjoying being the only child while Tupelo has been away. But the day after I’d dropped Tupelo off with the trainer, I noticed Sylvia walking oddly. She was limping and holding her leg in a weird way. I petted her and noticed immediately that something didn’t feel right. She’s been a purely indoor cat for about 9 1/2 of her 11 years so it’s not like she got into a fight with something and got hurt. I called the vet. They said to bring her in. There was a mass on her back right leg. They biopsied it and we got the results a few days ago: it’s a cancerous tumor. Because the type of tumor would likely just grow back if they tried to remove just it, the best course of action is to take the leg.

So tomorrow I’m taking my cat to get her leg amputated and my dog isn’t back yet, and y’all, I am a hot freakin mess right now. It’s super expensive but I’m gonna eek by with it and the money is barely stressing me. I just want both of my “kids” back home safe and sound.

Pets are the absolute best. Give yours a belly rub or a pat on the head or an extra treat from Wofford today, alright? <3