Tuna and Oliver had their annual visit to the vet for vaccines and physicals. Here is Tuna being the king of everything at the vet office.
Tuna, predictably, was lovely to the vet, let his blood be taken, sat like a rock for vaccines, and has normal bloodwork.
I would take a pic of Oliver for you but I have no clue where he is. He is hiding. Oliver is allergic to life. He is allergic to cedar, he is allergic to Texas, he is allergic to food additives commonly found in cat food. He has constant nasal discharge, which means he sneezes a lot, he rips his hair out, which I clean daily, and he can only eat Royal Canin Sensitive Stomach food, because everything else he throws up.
Oliver will not eat special cat treats, tuna out of the can, or vet cat bribe treats. Only Royal Canin. That’s it. Also, he loves Meow Mix kibble, which he cannot have, because he regurgitates it right back out.
Oliver is also the reason why I have furniture covers on everything. Not only that, I have doubles, so I can swap them when company is coming. I cannot stand pet hair on furniture. It drives me up the wall so I religiously clean it with a special tool.
Oliver hid in the carrier at the vet, had to be forcibly removed, and they could not draw blood even after putting him into the kitty bag. We had to leave him at the vet so they could sedate him with gabapentin. Finally, blood was drawn and the results have come back. He has IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disorder, which we already suspected. He also has a UTI. We picked up an antibiotic for him, which we have to squirt into his mouth twice a day.
Oliver fights for his life every time we wrap him in a blanket to give him medicine. Every time that happens, he truly believes that we will murder him. Given a chance, he will claw you bloody and bite, and I just wish there was some way to make it less alarming for him, but there is not. So now, when he sees either of us, he runs and hides.
::exhales:: Oliver is a lot. He is now classified as elderly and he doesn’t react well to change. He is a sweet, clingy kitty, and I was the one who took him out of a cage in PetSmart, so he will have a home with us for the rest of his days.
Also a lizard got inside two days ago. Charlie killed it – we know this because he brought us the still twitching tail – which we confiscated. We looked for it at the time but couldn’t find it.
We found it this morning, safely tucked under a large dog pillow. It had begun to rot and it stank. I’m washing the pillow cover and contemplating if I should give up and throw the whole pillow out.
I’m supposed to be writing today, and I’m not feeling it. But I really want to get this novella done before the end of the month.
::pretends to gird loins::
Don’t write, don’t eat. Onward! To cleaning cat hair, putting pillow cover in the dryer, and then writing like the wind.
So hard!!
Life that is… 😅
in December I adopted my mother’s 10 year old female cat. I have 3 year old Maine Coons/Bengal crosses. They are still working on a peace treaty. The male (22 pounds) doesn’t care. His sister, has decided that she must stalk and taunt the older cat. On a daily basis we have growling (mom’s cat) and wild flailing paws (both females). Periodically the poop nuggets are left on my bed. oh well, at least they’ve quit peeing to mark territory.
But, bringing you a lizard tail is a beautiful sign of love and affection and surely makes it all worthwhile right?
Oh, Tubby absolutely did his job. He was bred to keep vermin out of the house, and that is exactly what he has done. I just wish he hadn’t stashed it away for two days.
This is like our old cat Tropical. Everyday she brought me rat remnants, mice moles etc. Usually just the stomach and head. No cat since has been so giving.
At didn’t hide it inside your duvet cover, unlike one of mine did for e with a dead mouse. Or bring in a live chipmunk and let it go in your kitchen. Or hide dead snakes under the rug
We are convinced our cat was trying to teach us to hunt and kill last fall. Bear in mind, going in and out on her own requires climbing a tree, jumping 2-3 feet to the porch rail, jumping down from there, into the cat door, up the stairs and down the hall to the master bathroom. Into my huge soaking tub she brought us (living) 3 birds and 2 chipmunks along with 2 more dead birds. We have lost count of how many lizards, both dead and alive that we have found and place back into nature.
She was a street kitty for 2 years before Animal Services picked her up, (first time I have ever had to teach a cat to use a litter box) and oh boy is she a good hunter!
Cats feel sympathy for poor hunters (us), and bring us live prey on which to practice. 🙂
I’m thankful that I don’t have to deal with that right now, as my current two girls are indoor kitties.
But growing up, our tiny Siamese (Sooty) was a mighty hunter, and we always praised her for for the shrews, mice and garter snakes that she brought us. Accepted gift and toted it out to the garbage can, with her following and meowing all the way …
What do they call it, synchronicity? My brother just sent me a hilarious reaction video of my 2 year old niece seeing her first ever cat gift of a live mouse. It was not well received 😉
Our indoor/outdoor cat would leave headless dead mice on the front stoop for my mother, because with 6 people and 3 pets, we had a large household to feed. She was the beta to my mom’s alpha. (My dad was, of course, The Consort.)
My oldest pet is a 13yr old bombay cat named ‘Princess Oya, Second of her Name, the Duchess of Yelling’.
When she was a younger girl, she was quite the huntress. Shrews, snakes, mice, everything. She did a very good job of keeping the house free of *living* rodents.
Unfortunately, she liked to hide her kills around the house. Including one time she hid one in a love seat. We didn’t find it until it was too late to keep the loveseat. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to why we had to throw out the loveseat.
But it was horrible.
I was literally just thinking “I wish George RR Martin had this ‘just do it’ attitude regarding Winds of Winter” when I saw the last line… nailed it!
Oof, life… Loins properly agirded, I hope the day goes well!
I feel for you. I have a Maine Coon female about Tuna’s size (15.6 pounds as of last week). I take gray hair off of everything, up to and including the spoon in my tea cup. (Gray is what you get when your partially dilute tortoise shell sheds.)
I hate it so much, I am adopting two kittens (when they are old enough), so I can have 3 shedding cats…
Omg I feel for both you and Oliver! I once had one allergic to the outdoors but at least he could eat normally. Had to get him quarterly steroid shots, even tho he wasn’t outside that much. Ah well
And my last cat didn’t half a.. the biting when I took her to the vet. My vet definitely did not like her, even tho I was the only one getting bitten. I miss her, but at the same time I’m quite relieved to not have that fight anymore.
Lizard tails…..I remember those, too. They would come in on the plants for the winter and I would have the unenviable task of capturing them for removal back outside. My cats never seemed to care, spoiled rotten little things.
Very much looking forward to the novella, but totally understand the lack of desire to just do it hehehe. Hang in there!
I feel your pain… my sweet darlings brought me a present last week… one disemboweled rabbit… on my bed… mostly… parts were in the kitchen….. oh the horror…
They obviously have been watching the godfather … the worst part was all the snuggles and purrs later on. They were ever so pleased with themselves
yep the cat signs of affection. I once had a lizard left in my shoe. I miss my Betsy girl. Cats were for me and after she passed away my honey asked for a dog. So now we are dog people. Our CJ will not tolerate cats otherwise I would have tried for a blended house but they are the one animal she chases with a vengeance. She has been great with everyone else(chickens, goats, mini cows, and a peacock that likes to randomly visit). I had visions of that scene of The Devil wears Prada when Nigel yells “Gird your loins!!” hear the writing comes ready or not. You Can do this!!
we are trying robot vacuums again. I do not have time for vacuums and the amazing cleaning people who come every other week are not frequent enough for my beautiful long-haired cat. I do not understand how she produces such volumes of hair and remains so wonderfully Fluffy.
I think my house is Squid Games for robots. Between the stairs, low clearances, child discards, animal hazards, random tight spaces, and difficult thresholds we don’t even want the robot to attempt (but I’m sure it will with the enthusiasm of a dog about to chase a duck onto water for the first time) it will be a miracle if the robot gets home at the end of its shift.
Wishing you luck with your vacuum robot. We are too afraid of what it could smear around during it attempts to clean.
😄 🤣 😂
I SECOND THAT!
The writing struggle is real. I don’t understand sometimes why this stuff doesn’t write itself. I open a document and title it . . . sometimes I even write a little to get it started and then close the document, but is there anything there later when I check on it? No. No there is not.
I strongly recommend a robotic vacuum (check Consumer Reports for a good brand in your desired price range). Cannot recommend enough! Fur babies bring us great joy but all the hair. Like DANG.
With a robotic vacuum it can be vacuuming a room you aren’t in (or over night). LOVE IT. Because who has time for all that vacuuming? I have a blog post / new book from my favorite authors to read. 😉
The list of things that need to be done today, or at least sometime soon, that I’m not feeling is quite long. The animals have other ideas about priorities. At some point I need to overrule them, but right now their priorities look pretty good.
Thank you for the slice of pet person life. It makes me smile. In return, have a cat snot story for you. my cat, Moonshine, had gotten old – 18- and had a chronic sinus infection and sneezed everywhere – and was impossibletokeepup with. one lovely summer day, the 3 kids informed me they were bored and had nothing to do. not true, but they were insistent. so, I got 3 sponges and 3 bottles of Fantastic and told them to clean up all the places where Moonshine sneezed on the walls. They never told they were bored ever again.
My itty bitty five pound kitty would get random bouts of pulmonary edema and her tongue would turn blue. I would have to give her prednisone for 10 days. I had to wrap her firmly in a towel, stuff her down into the corner of the couch and sit on her. I found later in life when I had to take prednisone, it is the nastiest tasting stuff ever.
Robot vacuums do a great job. Are they perfect? No. But once I mapped the house with specific doors closed, I just choose which room I want him to vac and send him on his way. Just having the kitchen done daily is worth it! Yes, I have to be awake and home. Doesn’t dim my joy at all.
At least it wasn’t in your bed. There I am, 3/4 asleep, wondering why is this piece of string coming out from under the pillow? It was a mouse tail. Attached to half a mouse.
OMG! I had to read your post three times just to make sure I read that correctly 🤢!
The cat placed it under your pillow like a treat that the tooth fairy may have left🤣
I sometimes have to throwaway pillows due to excessive cat hair. I try to brush it off but it’s too many and those cat hairs are difficult to lintbrush/lint roller out. I have resorted to thrift pillowcases for cat furniture /cushion covers.
Royal Canin must be like crack for elderly cats because it is the only thing I can consistently get my grumpy old man 16-year old cat to eat. He’s supposed to be on some special prescription diet for kidney issues, but mostly turns his nose up and maintaining weight is an issue so I’m happy to have him eat anything. He’s also a long-haired fluffy monster and last year the vet offered to start giving him a lion cut on visits as long (as I don’t mind it won’t be as even as a groomers) and it’s reduced the amount of hairballs and vomiting by 75%. Plus forgetting about the haircut and occasionally being surprised by the cutest little black lion is awesome.
Aww. You have a baby Conlan out from under the bed. 🙂
Somehow, when I got to your last paragraph, I could hear a mighty choir singing:
“Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war”….
And then it deviated to:
“Battling endless cat hair, and pillows cloaked with gore”…
Good luck with everything today! Hope I didn’t give you a musical earworm to deal with on top of the rest.
So good of you to stick through everything with Oliver. Sadly, many people would have just dumped him or put him down.
This sounds like my daughter’s cat Tatum (She lives with us) Tatem is 15 years old and was losing weight. We finally narrowed it down to she will only eat Sheba which is terribly expensive. No other physical issues. No more Tiny Tigers or American journey canned food. We have two unopened cases of the old food which will probably go to somebody fostering cats for rescues.
Poor Oliver.
We have 2 dogs, which combined make an Oliver.
Ace is allergic to everything. I cook boiled chicken and rice for him. He has some sort of scar inside his throat which occasionally gets infected. We know he needs antibiotics when he starts hacking constantly. But he is easy to medicate and is generally a confident companion.
Pepper was traumatized in many ways early in her life. We rescued her when she was 9 months. She is afraid of everything and never sure of what she should be doing. If I sneeze she will run across the house to bite a visitor, or if there are no visitors she will bark like the Huns are attacking. She is sure we hate her at random times during the day, although we have never struck her and she is allowed on our furniture. When I am going outside I always invite her. Sometimes she will run out, but then stop and turn around as soon as I start moving forward, tripping me. Or she will run out barking like a maniac. Or she will put her ears down when I ask her, like I am going to hit her, and then as soon as I am about 10 feet from the door she will start scratching and barking as if she has been alone for a year. Sometimes she is perfect, walking next to me like a perfect partner. She is protective of babies and children, which has saved her life.
Our conures are like cats, and are as spoiled.
I recommend getting a chom-chom. It’s like your Brellavi pet hair remover but it’s on a roller thing so you can go back and forth.
I have one, too. It works really well and my cat does not bat at my hand as I run it over the sofa.
Consumer Reports rated it the best at removing pet hair. (They used Maine Coon hair as the test material.) That’s why I even tried it.
It works beautifully and there is a large face on the furniture. It uses the same “fabric” as the ones you are showing, just a different presentation…
I have a cat. I volunteer at a cat shelter. I also volunteer at a Petsmart adoption center. I empathize. I commiserate. You are a hero.
I rarely get mice. I have a cat. Not too long I did get one, and I tried to get him out of here before my kitty got to it. No such luck. it was waiting for me one morning by the cat’s food bowl. I told him he did a very good job and I was proud of him. Then I got rid of the mouse. And I barely flinched – I am not scared of mice, but I didn’t want to handle a dead thing.
If the Royal Canine food is a dry food, put it in a small baggie. Puncture the small baggie a little so a cat can smell it; a few small holes. Put it in your pocket and resume life as normal. Take it out at the end of each day and place where Oliver cannot get it. Repeat the next day…and so on. Oliver may associate you with the favorite food and learn to love you again. My girl hates the vet too. She takes a day or two to forgive me.
Tuna is an anomaly.
Yay kitties!! Boo everything else!!
Also, tailless, rotting lizards are so gross!! Thinking about amputated twitching lizard tails was not on my bingo card for today. That reminds me of the time our German shepherd snatched a bird out of the air and dropped it at my feet. Not sure if the bird was in the process of dying and my dog just had impecable timing or if he made it dead.
Either way, being terrified of birds in any state of existence, I freaked all the way out and vowed to never play fetch with him again.
I really wish it were easier to give our beloved kitties medicine. My husband has scars from our little Scully cat. The vet actually puts a muzzle on our big boy Groucho.
We lost two of our old cats last year. We adopted two* new cats (12 & 7) at the end of January. The integration is the worst I’ve had with twenty years of living with cats. I found our old girl today sitting in a corner of the bedroom, clearly having given up all territory in the house. At least for that five minutes. My heart was breaking, I didn’t know how I could be doing this to her but I cannot bring the new cats back to their concrete cages in the shelter.
She was back on my husband’s desk in the special box he made for her later that day, doing just fine. I know she’s way less happy than she was, but I don’t know how to fix it. I also know that she’s learned from a master (my old boy m0053) how to make us feel guilty.
I know there’s still plenty of time and things will settle. They are already much better than they were a month ago. But it IS hard.
There’s a YouTube channel — WasabiSushiMatcha — and the woman who posts is a foster cat mom. She has been taking in tiny orphaned kittens lately, so small they aren’t on bottle feeding even, still syringe feeding, and she has to rub their tummies to make them poop. Which, as long as someone else is doing it, is adorable. But I don’t get her. I could never raise those kittens and give them away, no matter how much the new parents might love them. I did learn from her channel that a “foster fail” is not when a cat can’t be placed, but when the foster falls in love with the cat and keeps it. My husband and I would be the most failed fosters ever. Our apartment would just fill up with cats.
Wasabi, Sushi, and Matcha are her permanent friends, and Matcha sounds so much like Oliver. He is afraid of everything. And he fights so hard when he has his claws cut that his cat mom has to take him to another part of her apartment building to do it. He’s so scared of being out of the Home that he freezes and she can cut his claws.
Cats are people. They’re just not human people.
____
*we were supposed to get ONE new cat, but my husband fell in love with a second at the shelter. One more reason we shouldn’t be allowed in shelters
**our old cat is a guesstimated 13 on the part of the shelter we got her from. Our two new ones come from established households and were adopted as kittens so we know exactly how old they are. The one we went for is 12, and the one my husband fell for is 7.
One thing you can try is to rub a separate spare hand towel or wash cloth on each pet (or you could rub 1/2 of one on one new cat and the other 1/2 on the other new cat) then place the towel under the other cat’s food bowl. This helps them to associate something good (eating) with the smell of the other cat.
That is one thing we HAVEN’T tried! I will get on that!
Oh Poor Oliver. My Peyton is getting to be like that and dying to boot of unknown causes (cancer? we just don’t know and that’s after alot of looking and I have a budget so…) He bit me last Monday to let me know he loves me but I wasn’t moving fast enough get up for Bfast. The bite is a nice purple yellow on my upper arm. He just barely avoided the skin punctures. He has a very well regulated bite force. His nick name is Bitey Mc Bitey for a reason… not long for this world and I mourn him, but I will not miss cleaning the endless vomit, liquidy poops etc. Or giving the sub Qs every 3 days. I wish I could have a bit more good quality time with him though. Sad. OTH there’s also the 18 year old young lady who peed me at lunch time as we gave fluids. She did that on purpose I think… her time is also shorter with kidney failure and though a gem in the house, she hates the restrain need to give fluids. I guess we lose what we love, and have to remember the good bits. My Goose was what your Tuna is, good as gold and never a problem at the vet, the Vets LOVED him. He was a total love with them. Of course, if I tried to medicate him, he fought me. But, not them.
the 9 months Maine Coon kitten Hobbes has cow pies at times so a sample went to the vet on Monday but it may be that he is growing fast. he leaves his pies under my desk. the other 4 are in full shed and we have fur-niture. love the little fur balls
My kitty is a biter and no one approaches her with a carrier. Instead we use a cat carrier pouch which velcos around her neck and zips around her. At the vet, we just unzip. Much less stressful for her and us. I also use a Velcro blanket to wrap her up for medicine….much easier for everyone ❤️
Hugs….
We adopted a senior Bombay mix….he will need us to drug him when we go to the vet…..we feel the “joy”…..
I absolutely adore a Vet office that hangs an eye exam chart! 😂🤣😂
Tuna needs a mini crown for all his awesomeness 🥰
Yeah, and catered to cats as well.
We have two fur children – both cats -one is an absolute angel at the vet the big faker’s name is Tatiana she is a demanding princess of evil at home; her brother is Percival who just got his new seasonal bow tie collar for summer and requires two gabapentin and anti-nausea to just survive the car ride to the vet
Good luck. Poor Oliver. I have a young cat (about 1-2 years Animal Control was guessing when I adopted her I 2023) and she is afraid of most things also. Fortunately, she is ok with cat food and we are slowly working on the fears. She gets gabapentin in her food a couple of hours before I take her for appointments so she sort of behaves some. Good luck
Dani has the equivalent of “kennel cough” and gets lysine every other day mixed into into 1/3 can of Wellness pate food. I also rinse the can with a little bit of water which I pour over both portions and mix well. She doesn’t eat very much at a time so Drago eats what she leaves hence the 1/3. She is sniffley and sneezes if I don’t stay on schedule with it and ends up with an actual respiratory infection without it. They both like it wetter so all they have to do is lick it up. I bought a case of shredded by mistake and all the meat pieces went into the garbage no matter what I tried, expensive mistake. The vet told me 500 mg twice a day but she won’t eat it daily so the daily 1000 mg goes into the every other day serving. I use Now Pets lysine from Amazon so far so good.
Dani sleeps on a fleece throw on the foot of my bed. I add fabric softener to the wash water and it seems to help get rid of the hair better. With her first respiratory infection I filled the syringe with the Rx and set it down next to me and waited until she got on my lap for attention then put my hand on her chest and pushed her backside into the back of the chair and got it down her that way. She has always been really skittish and that worked the best. They have been with me for nearly 10 years now and she has gotten better but she is definitely not a lap cat, always tense and ready to leap off at the slightest movement. She is definitely her own person.
Looking forward to the next project. I got a notice from Fantastic Fiction for next years book, ready for preorder!
have you tried a calming collar? i had to when the queen of darkness would not stop tormenting the Tuna look alike because he got out of the house for a couple hours and she didn’t feel like he should be allowed back. it did work. i got them at Target or the pet stores.
i think it has lavender and camomile in it so i don’t know how the one with allergies would react.
Aww, Oliver! You have a cat friend in Massachusetts who shares in many of your struggles. Her name is Maja, which means beautiful one, but really, or also, M is for murder everyone at the vet. And it’s a cat only vet too.
Precious Tuna!
Stinky lizard corpse! We had a mouse body in a closet. lol
Best of luck to getting back to work!
Pets are wild! My elderly grumpy cat went to the vet today and her blood pressure was through the roof. She’s having all the tests done.
Our corgi barks like it’s going out of style and wants to be the dog equivalent of a garbage disposal. Between the two of them there is fur everywhere. I will be ordering that tool.
However! Neither of them have gifted me a decaying lizard so I have that going for me.
Thank you for the Tuna being an adorable orange boy pic. I’m sorry Oliver is being difficult. Maybe you should give yourself a few hours of no brain time? Surely after all that stress you deserve to watch something mindless and let your brain rest and reset. I think I would be hiding in the closet with my kindle app after that kind of day lol
As someone with 4 cats who shed and regularly eject inner materials outside their bodies, I see and salute you!
One of my (inherited) Mom’s cats is Special Needs and pees every day outside his cat box. I now stock pee pads and have targeted the three strategic areas he favors. I also have to put the extra mattress pad protector over my favorite comfy chair, because when he imagines he’s been slighted (often), he will vent there in an organic fashion as well. I have had to buy another one so the chair is protected every minute I am not there to defend it.
Tuna is the best kitty boy ever! Oliver has captured a weird little corner of my pet-loving heart.
Au courage – avante!
Animals do,they love 💕 or have us. They do make like interesting and frustrating also hazardous.
You make me smile, used to have a cat many many years ago that brought me mice presents, not always dead ones either.
When I was younger, we lived in the foothills of California. The house had a big deck running the length of it and a sliding glass door. Our calico cat would catch rodents out back, lie down by the slider, and eat the heads off, leaving the bodies for us by the door. Thankfully outside. I always remember the crunching noises.
My cat did the opposite (also in foothills of SCAL). She ate the body and left us the head and stomach.
I wish my cats didn’t love me quite so much in terms of bringing me dead things.
Oh, poor Oliver! 😢 I hope he feels better soon…
And thank you for the suggestion of a good pet hair removal brush. We had a mostly black dog a while ago (black hair everywhere.) Then we had a mostly black cat (more black hair everywhere.)We now have twin 2 year old cats who have short-ish totally white coats that feels soft like bunny fur and which grows in nice and thick in the winter (so LOTS of shedding now and white hair everywhere, especially on all of the dark clothes we were used to wearing in the past!) 🙄 But they are sweeties, very cute, hilarious, very cuddly (even with the vet!) and we love them very much. 🥰💕💕
Every time I see comments about dead things being brought in I remember the half of the rotting squirrel that my dogs brought in. The kitchen has never been that clean since that day. Also, be glad that nobody rolled in the dead lizard. It is no fun washing two dogs over and over again until the smell of dead snake is gone.
We get Texas Blind Snakes in the house from time to time. Binx, my yearling cat, likes to play with them. Evidently one escaped her clutches by hiding in the laundry. I found it in the tub of the washing machine as I was removing the clean clothes. I assumed it was dead, but it was very much alive and is now (I hope) happily living in the yard.
Poor Oliver. I have an old gentleman kitty, too. He also threw up everything. We tried different food. We tried a combo of mirtazapine and… shoot I can’t remember the other one off the top of my head. It helped some, but he was just barely hanging on. He was nearly skin and bones. Our vet tried looking for everything. It took almost 3 years before his blood work finally showed something – hyperthyroidism. Three years of normal blood work and FINALLY something changed. He’s now on medicine for his thyroid and he’s gained so much weight. He’s not throwing up anymore. He has energy. He’s happy.
Um… anyway, my point is that I hope that something shows up soon that will give you guys a new medicine that will help poor Oliver. I hope Oliver gets the same turn around.
That’s hard that you can’t put Oliver in a cat bag to give meds and draw blood! When we first inherited my mother-in-law’s cat we took her to the vet for vaccines and such so we could fly with her. She went crazy and ripped up the vet’s hand! None of us were expecting it.
Also sorry to hear Oliver has IBD. Our little mini-schnauzer had it for 6 years before he passed at the age of 10 from cancer. My friend had a cat with IBD that did well just on a change of diet. Sadly that wasn’t the case with our dog.
You’ve probably done research already and if you dont want to hear my experience, just ignore my notes in this paragraph! I only put this out there because I had a hard time finding info on IBD in dogs 10 yrs ago and I had a hard time evaluating what I did find. Things I learned the hard way: 1) we had to get an internal medicine specialist to adequately treat our pup and even then I needed to be his advocate and a researcher (which i wasn’t very good at then). IBD is just too complicated for most regular vets. 2) People will have all kinds of suggestions but what food or med works for one IBD animal may not work for the next. Some animals just need a simple diet change (or a one protein diet or to be put on a hydrolyzed diet) and they are great! Others, like my sweet pup, didn’t do great even on multiple medications. I found a science based dogs with ibd group on facebook that was really helpful. ModR, if this paragraph crosses the line, feel free to delete!
Good luck with the writing and/or the cleaning today!
Love whatever House Andrews writes and am happy whenever it gets published!
Coming to this late but you have made me happy to know that there is another Cat Staffperson out there who buys the ultra expensive Royal Canin Sensitive Food but must also buy the cheap(er) Whiskas (not Friskies but similar) because they also love that “crack for cats”. And yes, it means cleaning cat barf.
They own us.
Gotta say tho that they behave perfectly once they make it to the Vet. Then they take it out on us when we get home.
cats our furry little overlords what would we do with out them
Have you ever heard of 5Strands? They do intolerance testing using a sample of hair. I was a bit skeptical, but I was at my wits’ end with one cat who had constant loose stool and vomiting no matter which sensitive stomach or limited ingredient food we tried. Based on their results, she was intolerant to the majority of foods (like turkey, rice, lamb, etc) usually recommended for sensitive stomachs, and most seafood. I tracked down a food that mostly matched her acceptable foods, with only one or two slightly intolerant ones and transitioned her and it has made an amazing difference.
If it helps, I stepped in dog poop and cat throw up today.
Ilona, the original care bear. I have a strong suspicion that Ilona is the heart of every ass-kicking heroine IA write, since they all have a bleeding heart.
I kidnapped a cat, he belonged to my sister in law but twice he had an abscess on his chest where a large male tom attacked him and she and her mother never noticed so we kidnapped him and he never went back 🙂 We stayed with them while we were waiting for a house to buy and if he saw a cockroach (the big ones) he would catch it and bring it to me to show what a great warrior he was. When he came to stay with us in our new house he caught and killed a mouse (the only one we have ever had in the house) and again he advanced on me with it so proud of himself but I have to admit I went and hid in the bedroom praising him through the door while Michial got rid of the body
I have every sympathy. We have Felvies, or FIV+ cats. We have recently lost the one that was “The Good Cat”. He was the loveable doting black cat that you want in life.
That leaves us with the anxious orange lump, who the black cat was his emotional support cat, the cat that came with our house, our old, cantankerous calico who pees on everything, and of course, a 5k vet bill.
I too have another load of pee pads to wash.
Once my cat dragged a live rabbit into the house through the hole he’d made in the window screen and we woke up to him chasing the rabbit around the kitchen table.
I had someone ask me one time if her kitten was weird because she was nervous at the vet. Her adult cat thought vet visits were a chance to meet new people. I told her the kitten was more typical – her adult cat was the anomaly! 🙂
My 16yo personal kitty will let me do ANYTHING to her at home – up to and including drawing blood from her NECK! At the clinic? She turns into 6lbs of Tasmanian devil and tries to eat people through the kennel.
We have an elderly kitty puke machine due to thyroid issues. Thank goodness it’s a cream in her ears instead of a pill bc she fights for her life when it’s pill. She prefers a nice rug instead of bare floor to vomit on. She will also be with us to the end bc Ohana means family and family doesn’t get left behind.
My cat Monkey had a huge vet file because she had so many health issues. At the vet she would go to her zen place and just pretend she wasn’t there. But first we had to dismantle the carrier to get her out. One memorable visit the tech and I held the carrier with the door off, opening down, and shook it. No luck. She had somehow wedged herself in. So we had to unscrew everything and remove the top half. Every time.
She was so smart, endlessly inquisitive, quirky, food obsessed, diagnosed obsessive-compulsive, a wonderful caretaker to all my foster kittens, and often a royal pain in the ass. Loved her to bits. She was only nine when I lost her to liver failure nearly eight years ago. I still miss her. And all the cats I have had since Monkey have been annoyingly well behaved.
All of which is to say, enjoy the adventure that is pet ownership.
can Oliver eat caroots ore normal human food?…. one Cat of Mine hat Problems with Cat food to , but Like to eat Rice and Chicken … know ist price Up tho Cook for Cats but when He Not can eat normal Cat food then give human food
Oh my gosh…what a stress! I took my two black mogs to the vet…they hate it, flat ears, sweaty paws. My guilt is high.
Re murdering the wildlife…yeees. My cats brought in a live teenage sewer rat, which bit me when I tried to rescue it cueing tetanus nd antibiotics over Christmas.
I know you need to finish the novella for time and finance but give yourself a 1 day sloth day…not jobs at all. I would say read a book but perhaps that isn’t relaxing?
Mmmm Tuna is beautiful. I feel your pain re Oliver. The first time I cooked Turkey was thanks to my beloved feline Pippa developing IBS. After a fascinating conversation with the vet about the ingredients used to make commercial cat food I learned that Turkey was the one ingredient her gut had probably never encountered before and therefore probably didn’t have any antibodies for. So I bought a very large crockpot, bought the frozen unstuffed, unbasted, pure as the driven snow Turkey, put enough water in the crockpot to cover the bottom, put the Turkey on in and turned it on. One the thermometer showed cooked for poultry I stripped the meat off the bones and froze it in small blocks. Pippa was a very small cat. She thrived on the Turkey, and seemed to live another very happy and health five years after the trauma of the initial diagnosis. But I do remember reflecting during that time that there may be something slightly distorted in my financial priorities. I don’t regret any of it though – I loved that cat and I still do.
I have a cat who has IBS and another who is extremely shy. My boy shadow who has IBS can’t have anything with Chicken in it and is on a food that has rabbit protein. It’s hard helping our fearful kitties when they’re upset. Hang in there!
Poor Oliver! We had a cat who’d literally climb the wall at the vets – never seen anything like it – and the only way we could get meds into her was by using gabapentin first. So when she needed a week of antibiotics, she spent the week inside doped out on gabapentin. Poor puss, but the stuff was a miracle drug.
Hearing about Oliver ripping his hair out reminded me of this lovely guy in the UK on YouTube (Half-Asleep Chris) who does a lot of content with legos and his cats (not necessarily at the same time). He builds stuff for his cats like an adventure catio or a cat feeding contraption or a cat maze.
Anyway, the reason it reminded me of him is because he has a cat named Bella who is allergic to a lot and he talked about how she would try to rip out all her hair. At first they used a cone, but that was distressing for her, so they found a kids stuffed toy donut that barely fits over her head but easily and safely onto her neck. It works almost the same as a cone without being so large. She wasn’t thrilled with it, but she wasn’t as distressed and it kept her from hurting herself.
Not sure if that would work for Oliver, but I thought it was a clever idea that might work for some fur babies with the same issue.
Have you tried a Chomchom pet hair remover? It has that same grabby stuff but it’s kind of on a roller with a reservoir for the hair so you don’t have to clean it out till you’re done. I switched to it years ago when I saw The Happiest Fox wildlife rescue using it (she has multiple foxes in her house at any given time).
Raven, my Rottweiler/Australian Shepherd mix, also eats Royal Canin because anything else.makes her lick her paws obsessively. it was actually working until the grass greened back up.
Everything you said about Oliver resonates with our Percy – every. Point.
Our biggest issue is, he causes himself sores from overgrooming – especially in his paws 🙁
Does Oliver do this?? Have you found a fix?? We feel so sorry for Percy…and also we think he’s a little nob head who causes his own problems 😅😖
Seanan McGuire has a kitty who has to be saved from himself (over grooming) so he gets to wear fancy outfits that he enjoys. Maybe your kitty might be a ‘fit kitty too? Don’t know if he’d tolerate gloves for the paws. Even my sainted dog who had allergies and would lick his paws too much would barely tolerate having his paws wrapped up, I imagine a cat would be even less thrilled.
Bohemian Catsody.
Because…
Sometimes it begs for music.
https://youtu.be/pXezLv_5RaY?si=1bBU6s1zhgh2c4fW
🤣 🤣🤣OMG, I just spit my drink all over my keyboard. Thank you so much for sharing that, I really needed a good laugh.
I was going to say poor Oliver but, it should be poor you. Thank heavens he has you. Many others wouldn’t be so caring. At least Tuna balances it out. I am a dog hair on furniture hater and a big fluffy Alaskan Malamute/ husky lives with me. I feel your pain.
Oh, God, the stories about Oliver brings tears to my eyes. My 19-year old kitty went nuts over meds too. She had thyroid disease and we had to give her a tiny pill. She would lose her furry little mind. The doc finally gave us meds that could be absorbed through her ears. I’d be writing on my laptop and she’d come lay across my forearms. I miss her so bad.
Gird your loins! Love your critters! Clean what you must, and then do what you can. The BDH has visions of you “ writing like the wind” bu would be content if you “wrote like a brief breeze “ and drank tea and ate goodies and relaxed 🙂
You are all beloved (even Oliver.)
one of my cats is now marked as a “flight risk” in her file at the vet, and she cannot have so much as a tech visit without being put into a room.
Pets are a pain, but so worth it (just like children). Please take time to relax and take care of yourself!!! Remember you are worth it too!
My last elderly cat had trouble with UTIs. There is an antibiotic that the vet can give as a shot for UTIs. Its a single shot, so no repeat vet visits, no trying to stuff pills or liquid down their throat. I’m not normally a fan of the “single shot” type thing for stuff like this, because it means an extremely large dose of the meds at once, but sometimes when you have a cat like this its the only way to go. I don’t remember the name of the antibiotic, but if you need it I can ask.
Oliver must be related to Stanley, another Petsmart rescue. Stanley is AWESOME, talks to everyone that enters the house. But Stanley is also the hardest cat to feed I have ever had. He will actually starve himself to death (he’s knocked on that door before,) and has sever pancreatitis so he is supposed to only eat gold dipped prescription food (at least it is that expensive.) But. He. Won’t.
He also blows out both ends of his body every time he goes in the car. I’m sure the vet techs grown everytime they see our name on the docket.
Try “My Pet Peed” on the lizard stink. It is really good at getting rid of organic issues (vomit, urine, feces, etc.). We foster and have elderly. We have a large number of issues. It was the only thing that got rid of the cat spray issue at my mother-in-law’s house.
We have a dog with severe allergies like Oliver. He did not walk on grass until he was 9+. He is the opposite of the farmer’s kids. He also has IBD. Everything including Royal Canin hydrolyzed protein gives him the squirts. Our holistic vet suggested we try cod. We tried it. I got sick of cooking it. We switched to Just Food 4 Dogs and he has perfect poop. No more vomiting. No more squirts. They have a cat food…
+1 for My Pet Peed! It’s an excellent product and works great. I buy it in bulk.
Writing like the wind sounds great, but I’d prefer you put your pet’s & your needs first. Yep, we have two cats, both long haired and getting older (8 & 11) and I’ve never seen pickier, more spoiled critters – nor more loved. Not sure what it is, and I have always been soft-hearted, but the more my age climbs, the more I love all of God’s non-human creatures. (I love MANY people as well, develop an affinity with many quickly, but there are some mean & cruel people in the world, and I don’t like it. I’ve felt anger, sadness, disbelief – as I never before have in my 63+ years on the planet. If anyone has any solutions…please pass them along.)
Thanks, all❣️
I feel your pain. I had a cat with IBD who was impossible to give medicine too (and she needed lots of meds).
I was once at the vet’s and this new young vet said “Let me show you how to give a,cat a pill”. I just smiled and 15 minutes,later she gave up. Vindicated
Oh I relate to this post SO hard! I have eight pets: 6 cats and 2 dogs. I estimate 90% of my house cleaning is pet related. One of cats is elderly and pees where he shouldn’t whenever anything mildly disturbs him. Which happens daily. Now one of the younger cats is like, oh this is cool, right? And has started marking his own spots. Despite many scratching posts and cat trees, our furniture has been destroyed. There is fur everywhere. The dogs have scratched up doors and chewed up window blinds and carpet. I always say you can have pets / kids OR nice things but not both so *shrugs*. But it’s a lot. And don’t get me started on how I spend a fortune each month on pet food. And vet visits are $150 a pop per pet plus the heartworm test and blood work so they can get their prescriptions refilled every six months. I love the little bastards though! Point is, you are not alone.
My Old Lady will be 15 in August. She either has IBD or lymphoma, but I don’t know which because I can’t afford the $1000+ to find out which one. And… I treat her symptomatically. She was a puke machine for about 6 months, which was Not Fun At All. She now gets pred (inflammation) and cerenia (ant-acid) every single morning, wrapped in a roasted chicken pill pocket. On this protocol, she hasn’t puked in nearly 2 years. She gets her fancy food and her meds, and she is expensive. But as long as she is still purrs when she’s on my lap, she can keep going. When she no longer purrs and is unhappy, I’ll say goodbye and put her out of her pain.
I’m still NOT putting the rug back down on the floor. I’ve come to enjoy sweeping over vacuuming, due to the noise. Vacuums are loud and I don’t love them.
Yes, exactly! This is life with two (or more) cats.
I have two “rescued” feral cats, a year apart in age, a lightyear apart in personality:
Midnight St’ar is as sweet as can be. I can pick her up, cuddle her, take her to the vet in a carrier (she complains, but mildly), etc. She will meow at me to ask to be brushed or to have the front door opened (they have a cat door, but usually only use that to re-enter the house). She brings me “presents” from her outdoor excursions (small snakes, mostly; occasionally a large bug; always alive! fortunately, I am not squeamish) about once a week, having learned to hunt from her younger housemate.
On the other hand, if I try to pick her up, Tzivoni will shred my hand, arm & anything else she can reach. (Relatively recently she has consented to be brushed and petted – a little.) She brings live skinks or birds inside to play with (and eat, if I don’t rescue them fast enough). She has gone in the carrier a few times, never even close to willingly. If she senses there’s a chance of ending up in the carrier, she vanishes (too smart for her own good). After their initial meeting, her first vet wanted me to give her Gabapentin before bringing her in. Her new vet can pick her up with no problem. (I need to figure out how she does that!) Now, if I could only get her in the carrier!
After I spent hours chasing my cat to give him liquid antibiotic I tasted it (in nursing school my teacher made us taste the liquid meds). It was VILE. I took it back had made him taste it – there is a reason something is cheap.
Although more expensive and not normally offered ask your vet to give Oliver an injection (they have longlasting antibiotic injections) instead of oral meds.
Best of luck!
OK, I’m gonna have to give you the southern, bless your heart…
I completely understand your frustration when it comes to giving your pets their medicine.
It’s a fight giving my Hemi his oral flea & tick and heart-worm medicine.
I have now resorted to placing an expensive flea and tick collar on him that last about 6 to 8 months.
The heartworm tablet I just have to crush it into a powder and mix it with meat that has some liquid with it such as canned tuna, canned chicken or a bit of freshly cooked hamburger with it’s grease.
Tuna is quite the cutie. Haha. I can so relate.
My cat is indoor only, but she still managed to kill three cockroaches last year before the apartment manager had someone come spray. She takes her job very seriously, lol.
Poor Oliver. I currently have 6 kitties, only 4 of which will eat canned cat food (which is helpful to maintain hydration), and of the current 6, 2 have allergies and/or feline herpes that create eye gunk, nose gunk, and/or frequent respiratory issues. We recently lost my mama’s boy kitty who acted like Tuna at the vet (I have similar pictures of him rubbing up against everything) until it was time for blood draws. Even gabapentin wasn’t enough for him, so we actually did the full knock out and revival sedations for labs. Of note, I’m also the pet and human mama who insists on being present for all of this, so I’ve been a hands on part of this process for many moons. Said orange fluffy mama’s boy had all of Oliver’s allergies, a few extras, and a super weak respiratory system thanks to a lung infection as a kitten. (And yes, we’re in the Houston area, and alleric-to-Texas is an appropriate diagnosis, for feline, canine, and human alike!) My orange fluffball frequently needed antibiotics for respiratort infections. If the oral ones are too stressful for Oliver and/or you, and/or if they’re too rough on his GI tract -all of the above was applicable to my kitty), you might consider asking the vet about injections. It’s a one-time antibiotic that is frequently stronger than the 10-days-of hell and is sometimes more appropriate for GU and respiratory tracts. Also some medications can be done transdermally for kitties now… instead of oral messes where you’re not sure if it gets into his system and said antibiotic may upset a weak GI tract causing more unfortunate side effects, there are several medications that can be given as a little dab in the ear (only safe place the skin is thin enough for absorption). And if the vet says no to the injection antibiotics, steoirds in the ear are definitely an option which may give him the support to help his allergies and/or infection.
You may also investigate kitty water fountains for helping kitties stay hydrated to prevent future UTI’s; I have 2 in the house, one sitting on top of a sink and one in the kitchen, their amazon cost was about $20 each, and I replace the filters every week for 6 cats. We’ve not had kidney problems on any of our kitties since we made that investment, so I’m an avid supporter.
I apologize if I’m overdoing it on unrequested advice. When it comes to furry things with paws, I’m a sucker, and when it comes to ones that purr, I go overboard.
We just adopted an Maine Coon from a momma cat who was left on the side of the road with newborns. It was heartbreaking and the woman who took them in told my son about it and he said he would take one. We have been trying to adopt a cat since Christmas. Yeah, I know, the procrastination is real. But honestly he was worth the wait. He is king and he knows how to get what he wants. Incredible calm and very playful. This morning I just got ready to head downstairs when he come racing up with the cat toy he loves a home made crochet fishing rod. The racing we call the zoomies. The cat is my shadow. If he can’t see me he comes to find me. I am no longer allowed to use the restroom alone. He really is a fantastic cat and we were lucky to find him. Also, Does anyone have pet insurance? We have seen several that even include well visit reimbursement. Love to get some more info before we decide.
Our furry children. Oh how we love them.
If your vet has not suggested it, you might want to research and begin Oliver on a probiotic. The antibiotics don’t discriminate and kill all bacteria which really messes with the gut biome. It’s a thing. Really. Please check it out. Particularly since he already has tummy issues.
+1
I love your pet stories almost as much as your published work:) Thank you.
Bella, our first German Shepherd, was my soul dog. I miss her so much and of course she was perfect in every way… except maybe in her enduring love of dead, rotting fish which she could roll in at every opportunity.
Felix Von FuzzyPants caused 2 days of IV antibiotics when I tried to get him to the vet the first time. The shelter told me that he came from a hoarder situation and we didn’t see him for the first 6 weeks after we brought him home. Now he demands scritches and is very put out if we don’t adhere to his very strict bedtime schedule but it’s been a ride.
I hope your loins are appropriately girded, you are fortified with the beverage of your choice, and the writing goes well with no additional lizard bits.
My white Staffy cross, rolled in something green & stinky once, so I made him cross the street & walk on the other side of the road from me, going home. (We lived in a small town at the time, so I could get away with that lol)
Luckily it washed out easily. He never held a grudge, but wasn’t happy being cleaned. It’s a dog thing.
Aww, sweet Oliver.
My previous cat Linus had Issues–he was painfully shy and lived under my bed for the first month only coming out at night to eat and poop, was prone to weird medical things, etc.–but I loved him fiercely and still miss him very much. They wiggle into your heart and never leave no matter how much trouble they can be.
I can relate. I had a few years ago 3 animals, all elderly . They had many meds and took them bravely. One cat had an infusion of IV liquid under his skin . Fast forward to today, I have 2 six year old cats. They won’t get in the crates ,they won’t take medicine, and require injections instead of pill. They are sadly faster than me.
My cats were a total failure in the critter-defense game. I sat wrapped in a blanket with sweet kitty #1 on my lap purring and when I felt something crawling up the blanket, thought kitty #2 was coming to join us. Nope, it was a chipmunk. Later found it had been living behind my (infrequently used) stove. Kitty #1 could not have cared less. Kitty #2 never noticed. Chipmunks SEEM cute, but they are crazy, electrical wiring eating pests! I needed Oliver!!
One of my cats can only eat Royal Canin sensitive tummy food. Royal Canin makes the exact same brand of cat treats as well, which is also the only kind she can have. Maybe Oliver would like those too!
So, we have a cat that is also allergic to so many meat and fish proteins (except for chicken). Normally, I would suggest trying to mix the antibiotics with a churu on a plate. We’ve tried it with three of our cats. Our food lover ate it like a champ. One kiddo caught on in a couple of days, and our picky eater refused after a dose. You could try it and see, but our cat with allergies cannot have even the chicken Inaba churus. (We think it is wither the scallop, or more likely, “the natural flavors,” which could be anything.) You could also try mixing it with plain Gerber chicken and gravy baby food, which our cats love. I know it is tricky to suggest adding in a new food for a cat with allergies, but I also know how stressful it is to have to force antibiotics down, so I wanted to comment just in case it was helpful.
Gerber chicken baby food is the greatest stuff. For cats who need meds , for cats who have been fed poorly and have messed up stomachs and for cats who are old or ill. You know they are better when they don’t want it any more because dry food is more fun. Here is my standing ovation for all of you guys who have challenging pets and love them anyway while cleaning up the most disgusting messes.
I wanna add or die trying. The end of this post is also the end of my procrastinating for today.
I had a lovely orange cat who hated the vet so much, that the vet finally fired him. All the staff was terrified of the cat, so they refused to deal with him any more. Ah, Daniel, I suspect there are still stories of your ferocity being told by vet techs everywhere.
My mother always said orange cats had the sweetest temperaments. All the orange cats I have known were very relaxed about everything. Our orange guy is relaxed at the vet and lets small children crawl all over him. Just don’t try to use the hair dryer near him.
Good luck with Oliver.
We have had some success with animal communicators and energy work.should you be desperate enough to try something really outside the box
Big Hug!
Tuna is a trip! There is an antibiotic injection that lasts two weeks. I have used it several times
I once woke up when my cat dropped a live mouse on the bed while I was sleeping. Thank goodness it only happened once. Our current problem is the 14 year old dog licking everything, leaving wet spots all over. Lots of drooling, ick. My husband has to hide his pillows because Lacey likes them, but she doesn’t touch mine!
Fresh air and sunlight will sterilize and freshen up the pillow.
I like ‘girded loins’ the best!!!!!☺️☺️☺️☺️
Sorry this is so late 🥰🥰
Pets! Been there, so totally get it. I used to have a (completely) white Staffordshire Bull Terrrior cross doggy. He loved me, & I him, never growled at me once in his 17 & 1/2 years of life. He would let me do anything to him, eye drops were no worry (got scratched by a kitty).
Next I acquired my friend’s 14yr old long haired Tortoiseshell kitty, a total little princess, she would threaten to scratch my eyes out if I tried to give her worm pills.. but was super affectionate, & very demanding. She lived to the ripe old age of 24, outliving my man’s gorgeous 12 year old kitty by a year.
In her last year she was hard work, as she never could work out how to use a litter tray, she would stand paws in, bum out.. but only for the liquid stuff..honestly!!
There were other issues too, but you don’t want to know..
We had covers, pet brushes, wipes.. yup the lot.
I feel for you, pets are hard work, but they did love us so much, & we them.
Now the only one in the house who leaves hair everywhere is me ..sigh..
Hope you feel refreshed soon, & Oliver overcomes his worst issues. Tuna seemed quite happy, at least that’s a positive.
You are great pet owners, & they are lucky to have you.
Poor Oliver. Food allergies are hard. Medicating cats is hard. Having them run and hide from you is harder still.
That pet brush looks amazing though! I go through waaaayyyyy too many lint rollers or just get the vacuum out. I’m tried pet specific brushes before without much success but that one looks skookum.
I wish you success in defurring and clean up!
And of course, when Oliver gets into the Meow Mix and barfs it back up, the dyes in it stain everything it touches. Do I sound like the voice of experience? Well, yes.
Don’t have cats now, but when I did, instead of the towel and purrito method or a cat sack, I used to wedge whoever needed pilling between my ankles right in front of the pelvis, just tight enough to hold them. This gave me one hand to pry open the cat’s mouth, and one to shove the pill down their throat. My cats would stand still for this and take their meds without a fuss. I think—no expert here—that not having their legs immobilized, etc., they didn’t quite see it as much of a threat, and it gave me both hands free to deal. I had tried a lot of things. (The pill pockets got licked off and the pill left behind.) That one seemed to work, YMMV.
I am so sorry about Oliver. Our Elder Statesman Cat Chester had IBD. He would not tolerate a towel, medicine or anything else.
We ended up doing prednisolone melted in about 1 ml of water and my husband would hold him for pets and I would use a little syringe and squirt it in his mouth. We also did monthly sq B12 shots at home. Royal Canin was all that he would eat too.
I put up little christmas lights in his spots for him to see at night, ended up with pine litter and 3 litter boxes for him and it was a lot. It is hard to help them, especially when they are very, very set in their ways. But he did well until his kidneys shut down and we still miss his big, yelling ways.
He made it for another 3 years and finally went over the rainbow bridge last winter. I miss him every day, he left a huge hole in our hearts but everything we did and all the adjustments we had to make were worth it.
I hope things go well with Oliver and everything else.
hello sorry to Annoying you but i read again ^ Sweep of the Heart ^ and i come to a scene where a Planet of the swordman is mentioned, now my question will ore is thera a Story to read more about this Planet as in Sweep of the heart….?
thangs and sorry to Annoying
There is no further story. The people are Sophie and George, who have appeared before in Innkeeper and the Edge.
My elderly cat has renal failure. Stage 4. She yacked up everything until the vet suggested that I try 1/4 tab of Famotidine (antiacid). Worked like a treat and the daily cleanups have been moved to once maybe every 10 days. I grind it up with a mortar and pestle and sprinkle it on her daily Churu fix.
Oh Oliver. My Bug is also a lot. He’s a walking existential crisis with IBS and I have to do all his emotional processing for him, because he just can’t. He hasn’t been the same since we lost the 2 kitties he grew up with. I was really thoughtful about the new kitty friends we brought into the family and he is convinced that they will eat him. Not that I meant to get as many as I currently have (5, all together), but the most recent kitten must smell right or something, because he LOVES the kitten and they sleep together with Bug’s entire face pressed into Echo’s fur. Echo also loves this.
The things we do for people we love……
You have an Oliver I have a Buddy. Other two Ralph and Alby are like Tuna 🤭 but life would be boring without them! I still where the scars of pride just trying to get them to the vet… three journeys next time vet comes to me 🐾
God bless you for making us laugh right when we need it! And those hair removal brushes remind me of red ones we had over 30 years ago! They worked great! Thanks for sharing these new ones!
I can’t stop laughing 😂 Thank you
I so very much love these little accounts of domestic adventures. Thank you so much for your willingness to let us into these moments! Makes my day better every time.
Such different cat personalities ❤️ I just finished re-reading One Fell Sweep (this series might be even better the second time, which I would not have thought possible) & very much enjoyed the cat adoption elements. Much love to the cat parents out there, I hope to be a cat parent again one day.
See if you can find Tide Clean Boost fabric rinse. I does a superlative job of removing odors. I used it for my Mom’s clothes, as she became incontinent in the last year. Removed the urine smell from her clothes and bedding. It removed the sweat smell from my exercise clothes. Give it a try, it can’t hurt.
I am in Canada, but it is a Tide product.
I’m so sorry for the smell that caused 🫢 but at the same time, he’s showing he loves you, so I guess that’s good?
Cats also get you gifts when they see you’re not feeling well. I’ll never forget when my cat brought us a dead mouse the morning we got the news that my grandfather died. She was really quick about it, too, like, RUSH DELIVERY, HUMAN IS CRYING!
I am running to go buy that tool! Thank you. Our German Shepard creates hair bunnies on a daily basis that seem to breed and create new hair bunnies.
I just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful stories. They help in times like these. I look forward to reading your next stories and books.
Heh. My cat has been put on the naughty list b/c she hisses and claws at the vet. She, too, needed anesthesia to have blood drawn, and was woozy and uncoordinated for a long time afterwards. Luckily, her bloodwork was fine. Being on the naughty list seems to mean that the vet needs an assistant to handle her, which has created scheduling issues when said assistant was unavailable. I shouldn’t wonder if they also charged us more, though I don’t know that for sure.
However, we recently started seeing another vet (from the same clinic) and she has a calming effect on our baby. Also, we started training our cat to get her used to riding in the car and wearing a harness, both of which she used to associate with trips to the vet. I’m cautiously hopeful that future visits will get better.
Oh, and she’s a champion shedder, too. BUT: we bought her a ‘castle’ (one of those contraptions with platforms, a cradle and whatnot) which she absolutely adores. Now, the majority of her hair stays in the castle. Still need to vacuum often, but at least the furniture stays more or less clean.
This is unrelated to the poor adorable kitty, but I wanted to ask if your Amazon listings were hacked somehow. For example, white hot is listed right now as: White Hot: A Suspenseful Fae Romance Novel Featuring a Billionaire and a Kick-Ass Heroine (Hidden Legacy Book 2)
If that’s something you did on purpose than okay, but based on the plot of the books I am concerned that it’s not a deliberate change you made.
OMG! Thank you, Sam! Clearly a mistake has occurred. I am going to go make some phone calls.
We’ve had a couple of cats that simply would not allow us to put anything in their mouths. The trauma for both the humans and the felines was biblical.
Now, when necessary, our the vet gives them an injection of antibiotics and we trust the cat gods to manage the rest.
Mark Twain said it best “If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
I feel you. I need sedation myself after a vet visit. Just the drive to and fro is an ordeal. Cats.
Hi everyone. My cat of 13 years died from cancer two weeks ago. I had no idea that animals especially cats got cancer. He was with me through some of the most trying times of my life, helping me to cope. I miss you Bad Billi Boy.
Ah, Meow Mix. Everything loves MM. Cats, dogs, squirrels, birds. It’s a universal feed.
Ah yes. What we do for our kitties\pets. I feel your pain.
Teal’c (the worlds tiniest Maine Coon) has seizures if exposed to beef (cheese in the general vacinity is fine, but we can’t even bring beef into the house). That took a LOT to figure out because every test by a vet was a big shrug and anti-seizure meds and cats don’t mix. He WILL take CBD treats which have reduced his seizures from (at times) several times a week to now going for 3+ months between. We think they’re also stress related – when I’m stressed, he’s stressed. But CBD helps (he’s now 15). Frankly, CBD helps me too (but I digress LOL). Because of the beef thing and so many cat foods have “animal fat” not just “chicken fat” added – Royal Canin Salmon and Duck are all he’ll eat that doesn’t contain beef that I’ve been able to find (for wet food).
Saxo (short for Mr. Saxobeat) is a Short Hair tuxedo. Anything other than Royal Canine Digestive (for kibble) and it doesn’t stay down. Now that he’s 12 he’s having trouble with the extra “sheath” on his claws so I ALSO get the joys of clipping his nails before they curl under and puncture his pads.
Love them both and do what I can because they’re our rescues and as long as they’re happy and loving life, we’ll do everything we can for them.
You have my sympathy on the IBD. One of our boys was diagnosed over Christmas and it’s been a never ending balance since to find a food that he’ll both eat and not trigger vomiting. So far on kibble the Hills Biome is working for us but still trying to find a soft food. We’re also identifying that hairballs send him into a major flare requiring antacids and anti nausea medications to resolve. We have a follow up next week and I’m going to ask if he should get a shave to see if that helps lengthen the time between hairballs/flares. He also is prone to bladder crystals, has a heart murmur, and is also classified as elderly now. It’s a lot, but we love him and are trying to keep him healthy and happy for as long as possible.
Love y’all. Would love to hold Oliver…. He sounds so beautiful…. Tuna is such a cutie.
We needed a full set of plate armor to give our kitty any medicine.
The medicine struggle. I love being the great betrayer when I put on the flea medicine. I swear I just think about it and they both know and run for the hills. Also, I have one furbaby who has gone through so many medical trials, medicines etc. Mysterious paralysis of her hind legs (thankfully succumbed to broadshoot medication because the vets had no idea). Then Overgrooming (or plucking the hair out) because of allergies, etc. Finally after many trials, tribulations, medications she HATED the vet thought of something he used to do in the 70s and it has mostly done the trick. But here was the magic of it — the medicine was chicken flavored and my cat loved it. Would happily let me dropper it in. Someone tell me why all medicine cannot be flavored so cats love it????? And not in a stupid pill form?
I have to say though she has remained amazingly sweet throughout it all other than running for the hills when she does not care for whatever it is we must do.