Taz is Blind

[Tambrey]

HI...thanks davet....have not seen you in a while...and I always ignore typos!

Taz gets along better each day and seems to be more comfortable with the stairs etc....
I watch him....even if he is laying on a stair sunning himself, if I go out there, he goes DOWN the stairs, underneath to the left, comes out on the right side, turns to his right and walks up them...that is his beginning routine to get up the stairs EVERY time, I guess to get his bearings as to where he is in relation to the stairs...

Once he gets his first foot on one, he feels with his nose and puts his other foot up....he keeps doing this until his nose does not touch a stair, then he knows he is on the deck...from there, he slowly walks forward, moving his head back and forth until he touches the left (always his left) side of the doorframe, then he wags his tail and runs into the enclosed porch!

We have noticed when they sleep, he is back from the opening and Mysti lays in front of it..if Taz gets up to go out, she is there to block him and make sure he does not get hurt...slows him going out the door and down the stairs too fast...and she goes with him!!

The guy who works in the building next to us has stacks of THICK walled insulated crates....about 4x4x4 solid plastic and solid insulation....they have feet so not directly on the ground, but not too high up, and lids that lift off...used to ship dry ice etc....they are all broken in some way or another so are not "insulated" for whatever they were intended, and he said alot of people buy them for pet houses....

I asked how much for a couple (maybe a few for cats too) and he said for me, nothing.....so I am going to have my son and/or his friend load up one a day in their trucks and bring them up...

We are going to cut enterance holes in two of them, and figure out the best way to put them at the bottom of the stairs in their yard, so neither needs to come into the porch area and do stairs...we will put bedding in one, and food and water in the other...
I need to measure but if I put them on either side of the stairs, between a stair and the fence, and put the openings both facing each other underneath the deck/stairs, they can easily move from one to the other to sleep or eat/drink, and the stairs and deck would protect the openings from most of any blowing snow and winds, yet they could still get out from underneath the stairs to play in the yard....
When we go out to feed them, we could just lift the lid of that one and reach down to fill dishes.