6 Sick cats....

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One of the hazards of having six cats is the possibility of having six sick cats at once. Right now five of the six are sick. Actually Ernie just finished his antibiotics. Herbie has remained healthy; I think he was exposed to everything when he was living with my mom’s cat.

A week ago if you had asked me who would be the toughest to get a pill in I would have said Pippi or Lucky…turns out Hurley is The Worst. He bit me, he bit Bob twice and he sunk a claw into me that went so deep he couldn’t retract it himself, I had to manually do it. To say he doesn’t want to take a pill is an understatement. The next most difficult is Jack, he starts drooling and frothing so he can spit the pill out. It’s a huge production that always results in scratches and bites. Bob wraps them up in throw blanket creating a straight jacket. I have some water ready and we tilt their heads back and jam the pill in and follow it up with water. This technique works great on Ernie, not so good on the rest of them. Sometimes they swallow, more often than not they spit the pill out and we start over again. Lucky was crying and screaming before I even handed him off to Bob. If it wasn’t so stressful it’d be funny. He sounds like someone is torturing him and I haven’t even picked him up yet.

Hurley figured out what was going on and he hid in this soft cube we have. It’s soft sided, it’s got two holes in it. He wouldn’t come out, I tried shaking him out and he wasn’t budging. I tried to pull him out and he tried to bite me. So we turned it into his straight jacket. I really wish I could have gotten a picture of the face, he was SO mad. His pupils were fully dilated and he was squinting at us. He pouts all day afterwards, he won’t let us near him. Jack seems to forget and move on pretty fast. Pippi is actually pretty good about it, go figure.

This is the first time we both said six cats was insane. When they’re healthy and low maintenance it’s not that big of a deal, they’re manageable. But right now it’s just really, really stressful. They look pathetic because they don’t feel well and then we have to force a pill in them. It’s just horrible.

I want to know why someone hasn’t invented a nasal spray for cats. With all the new technology you’d think someone would have manufactured SOMETHING to make giving cats medication easier. I tried sneaking a pill in wet food, they sniffed it and turned their noses up. I stuck it in cream cheese, they licked all the cream cheese off and spit the pill out. I tried Cool Whip, same deal. It makes sense though, what cat is going to eat something that’s bitter? You can’t even bribe them like you could a kid.

They're kind of like kids...

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Ernie picked up an upper respiratory infection at the vet's. Jack has it and now Lucky is sneezing, it's like when kids pick something up at day care. Ernie has been on antibiotics since last week and we're almost done. Now Jack needs them, which means Lucky probably will also. And of course it can't just be liquid antibiotics, it has to be a pill. I'm learning though, when this is done I'll be able to medicate them all.

I knew Jack wasn't feeling well when I heard him in the back of my closet sneezing. He has shown no interest in picking at the tape on the screen door. I cleaned out the refrigerator the other day and normally Jack would have been all over that. Today I did the pantry, Jack was nowhere to be seen. I feel so bad for him, he looks SO pathetic. Usually when I make Bob's lunch Jack cries for lunch meat and tries to get up on the counter, he slept through everything yesterday. I can't believe I'm saying this but I miss his antics.

More about Jack

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I found some old pictures of stuff Jack has done in the past. He and Hurley turned two yesterday, I really thought he would have mellowed out by now. Hurley definitely has, but he was never that energetic to begin with. Jack hasn’t slowed down at all. I think he’s worse now that he has Pippi to plot with. I’ll say it again, Jack is an exceptional cat and the day he slows down we’ll probably be sad because it will mean he’s old.

When we brought Jack home he was the smallest out of his litter. I had to go back and look at his paperwork to make sure I got his weight right, he was 8 ounces. That’s like a block of cheese. Hurley was just a dot over a pound at 1 pound 2 ounces. I worried about Jack since he was so small and he wasn’t a big eater. When you sign up to foster they warn you about Failure to Thrive syndrome. Sometimes kittens just don’t mature or gain weight and there’s nothing that can be done for them; they eventually die. Because that was always in the back of my mind I really watched Jack to make sure he got his share of food. Even then Hurley wasn’t shy about snarfing all the food he could get. It’s funny how some things never change.

Pippi was a punk as a kitten and she’s still a punk. We love her, but she’s kind of mean. Try to imagine a tiny 2 pound kitten growling at you…that’s what Pippi was like.

We were talking about how different Ernie and Pippi are. It’s like different ends of the spectrum. Ernie is so mellow and good natured and Pippi is just difficult. Ernie picked up an upper respiratory infection at the vet, so he’s on antibiotics in addition to his pooping medicine. He’s SO good about taking a pill, I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to get a pill in Jack or Pippi. She would probably bite me. He doesn’t like it but he doesn’t claw me or bite me. I learned a new little trick. I jam the pill down his throat and then very quickly shoot his tuna flavored medicine in, he swallows and it doesn’t taste too bad. The key is shooting some liquid in there right after you get the pill in. They have to swallow it and the pill goes with it.

Days like this...

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It's days like this that make me question our sanity for adopting six cats.

I have a lot of stories like this morning’s, probably because we have six cats and that increases the likelihood of stuff like this happening. Honestly, this isn’t that unusual..it’s frustrating but not really out of the ordinary.

Breakfast time is 5:00 AM, I try not to give in earlier because I know they will just start pestering me earlier and earlier. This morning Bob had a bad nightmare around 3:00 AM, I’m pretty sure anyone with their window’s open heard him yelling. Unfortunately that woke all the cats up. So from roughly 3 until 5 they kept waking me up. In retrospect I should have just gotten up around 3:30 and fed them, but I was trying to hold them off until 5.

After I fed them I told Bob he needed to get up for work, I wasn’t going to be his human snooze alarm today. He got up and went in the spare room and I fell back asleep. He woke me up about 20 minutes later saying we had a ‘problem’. He could hear Pippi under the bed growling, but couldn’t see her. Finally he realized she was IN the box spring, growling at Ernie who was under the bed. It kind of reminded me of that Twilight Zone episode where the kid goes into another dimension. Anyway, at 5:45 we turned the bed upside down to try to find the hole she made. Bob was yelling at me because he had to go to work, I was yelling at him because I was half asleep. We found the hole but Pippi wasn’t budging. Bob left me to deal with her while he got in the shower. She just kept growling at me and backing away. I went downstairs to get some treats thinking that would entice her out on her own. When I came back upstairs she was out, prancing around. I put tape on the hole, like it’s really going to make a difference, and tried to put the bed back together.

We put the bed back together as best we could, Bob left for work and I went back to bed. I kept waking up though because I thought I heard Jack pulling the tape off. I don’t even know why I bothered with tape.

It gets better….I tried to put the bed back together and I noticed the bed frame is missing some bolts. I found one of the bolts in the water dish, god only knows where the other ones are.

Feeding time...

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I’ve always heard that you can’t over feed a cat; supposedly they will stop eating when they’re full. Whoever said that never met Herbie. Herbie will eat until he barfs and he’s been doing that since he was a baby. I thought he would outgrow it but it’s only gotten worse. It happens several times a week. The good thing is he usually gets it all back in his food dish so clean up isn’t too bad.

Lucky and Hurley race to finish their food and then clean up whatever Pippi, Ernie, and Jack have left. Jack isn’t a big eater; I usually have to carry him to his food dish at dinner time. Then he just picks at his food and goes back to whatever he was doing. When WE eat it’s a different story. Jack likes people food and so does Hurley, Lucky and Pippi. Jack is very persistent when he’s begging, who would have guessed right?

Hurley is the least discerning, he will eat almost anything. Honestly I’ve never seen a cat eat like Hurley does. His absolute favorite people food is asparagus. He turned his nose up at fish and went for the asparagus.

Lucky is very polite when he begs. He puts his front paws on the table and looks at what we’re eating and cries. He never jumps on the table or claws us; he just waits patiently for Bob to give him some of our dinner. He’s slow so often Hurley or Jack steals his share and then eats their own. I have to admit I’ve given Lucky Cheez It’s and chips.

Pippi is a picky eater, she’ll beg but if Bob gives her some meat she just plays with it. When it’s time for wet food she acts like she’s starving and she has to be fed first. But she doesn’t really eat much of her wet, if it’s a flavor she doesn’t approve of she’ll just stare at me. She does however like ice cream and milk and she’s not shy about helping herself to Bob’s ice cream and cereal.

Herbie is only interested in food he can’t have. He thinks I should give him raw chicken or ground turkey. I did that one time and learned the hard way that raw meat is bad for cats. Apparently cats can’t really digest raw meat since they’re so domesticated. Poor Herbie had stomach issues for about a week after that.

Ernie has zero interest in people food and most wet. If all he ever got was dry food he’d be happy. He doesn’t even care about that fancy stuff like Sheba, he licks the gravy off and moves on to the dry food.

A typical day around here....

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Any hopes of Ernie’s medication working were dashed this morning. I noticed he was making his potty face and he was in his ‘potty’ hunch. When he’s not feeling well he doesn’t lie down properly, he hunches over. I reluctantly called the vet who suggested I bring him in. Sure enough, he’s full of rocks again. The good news is they are smaller than usual and there isn’t as much since it’s been just over a week since his last treatment. I feel SO bad for the poor guy, he was NOT happy about what was going to happen to him. So now we’re going to try a complete diet change, all prescription food. I’m frustrated and sad, I just want to make him better.

Pippi is learning from Jack. This morning she opened the silverware drawer and was trying to get the vegetable peeler out. When I caught her she looked at me like I was bothering her and went back to what she was doing.

Right now Jack is looking at the tape job on the screen door. I figure I have about 5 more minutes before he pulls all the tape off AGAIN. Since he got out into the garage he’s been trying the doors everyday. I have to admit that even though he’s a pill he’s very photogenic.

Lucky....

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Poor Lucky often gets the short end of the stick because he’s such a mellow cat. If you were to describe the “perfect” cat you’d be describing Lucky. He has never had an accident outside the box, he’s never sick, he doesn’t get on the counters or tables, he doesn’t claw anything other than the cardboard scratcher, he doesn’t wake us up and he gets along with all the cats but best of all is he’s a true lap cat. He would much rather sleep on someone’s lap at night than sleep alone.

The shelter always puts together a little description of each cat, kind of like a dating profile. His said that he wasn’t very affectionate and didn’t like a lot of handling. As soon as Bob opened his cage door Lucky jumped into his arms and buried his head in Bob’s arm pit. He pretty much picked Bob. He spent a week at Bob’s old apartment before we moved here. He’s a little nervous but that’s because he had a rough start. He was transferred to our shelter as part of a shelter partnership program, he’s very “lucky” that he got that transfer because his shelter was one that’s barely able to keep up. Who knows what would have ended up happening to him if he hadn’t been shuttled down to our shelter.

We took him to the vet about two weeks after we adopted him to make sure he was healing properly from his neuter surgery. Turns out he had ear mites. He did NOT like his ear drops. As soon as he saw the ear drops he would start crying and struggling. Thankfully he’s been healthy ever since. The only other time he went to the vet was for shots. As I mentioned Lucky is normally a very sweet boy, when we tried to put him in the carrier he turned into a wild animal. We chased him around the house for a good 15 minutes before we finally captured him and stuffed him in. I’d love to know what he was thinking because he made horrible noises sort of like growling, hissing noises. Once he was finished with his shots he jumped back into Bob’s arms. Getting him back in the carrier for the ride home was fun.

We have a cat harness; it’s sort of like a leash for cats….it’s pretty funny. Anyway, we put Lucky on the harness because he was interested in ‘outside’. He jumped in the bushes and cried the whole time. It was hard not to laugh at him. We brought him back in the house and he acted like Barney Fife, all tough and confident but as soon as we started to open the front door again he ran off.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about Lucky because he’s ‘vanilla’. He’s a great contrast to Jack and I’m glad they aren’t all like Jack. Lucky reminds you that not all cats are curious or wild, some are just happy to be with you.

The Old Man

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I adopted Herbie when he was about 3 months old. The shelters that are staffed and have good funding name the animals, the shelters that are struggling usually assign them numbers like in prison. I was at the shelter with my mom looking for a male kitten. I saw one male kitten that just didn’t really jump out at me, he was cute but we didn’t click. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to adopt a kitten that day. My mom said “What about this one?” I said “that’s a GIRL” She said “No, it’s a BOY. His name is FOWLER”. I had read it as “Flower” duhhhh. Anyway, I asked if I could ‘interview’ Fowler and we hit it off. He was such a cool little kitten, looking back now I would say he’s a little bit like Jack. Not nearly as wild as Jack, but he had a wild streak in him. When he was little he climbed up in the fireplace and slept on the ledge in the chimney, he emerge covered in soot.

I adopted him and renamed Herbie. He had to be neutered before I could take him home so I had to pick him up the following day. He was tiny but he had a set of lungs on him and he cried the whole way home. It’s always recommended that you keep a kitten in a small room to adjust when you first bring them home, then gradually let them explore. I put Herbie in the bathroom and he HATED it. I swear he has some Siamese in him because the crying and howling was outrageous so I gave in and let him out of the bathroom. They told me to keep him calm and that he shouldn’t be too active since he had stitches. They should have told Herbie that because resting was the last thing he wanted to do. He wandered around the house talking constantly. I knew where he was the whole time because he never shut up. That night I took him to bed with me so he’d shut up. He was in heaven; he purred for what seemed like 10 minutes and then fell asleep, from then on he slept with me every night.

Herbie didn’t like my mom’s cat Arthur. I don’t know if he was territorial or he just didn’t like Arthur. When Bob and I moved in and we brought Herbie and Lucky together I was very worried. I hoped that maybe if they started off in a new place together it would be ok. Much to my surprise and relief it was better than ok, Lucky LOVED Herbie. Herbie hid under the bed for the first two weeks, I actually got worried about him and thought he’d never come out. Lucky spent a lot of time under the bed with Herbie so when Herbie finally did decide to come out and join the family they hung out together all the time. He’s been so good with foster kittens and he loves his brothers and sister.

Herbie is going to be 13 years old this month so we call him the old man. He was very active when he was younger, now not so much. He’s a lot like Hurley these days. His main activities are eating and sleeping. You can set your watch by this cat. He expects breakfast no later than 5 AM, dinner at 4 PM and treats at 7 PM. Sometimes we forget about the treats, or as we call them crunchies. Around 6:45 Herbie stumbles downstairs and assumes his position in the kitchen. If either one of us happens to be in the kitchen he starts crying. He’ll wait patiently until about 6:55, then he starts yowling. He figured out that he can trick us and get double crunchies. He’s a good actor and he acts like he hasn’t gotten crunchies and he has perfected his routine. More than once I handed out crunchies and then he tricked Bob into handing them out a little later on. Now we check with each other before passing them out. Herbie will hang out around the kitchen from 6:45 until about 9 hoping to get extra crunchies. As soon as you set foot in the kitchen during that time he starts yowling and crying. You don’t even want to think about opening the pantry, if you do he alerts all the other cats and you have a swarm of cats around you demanding crunchies.

Herbie is my baby and I cringe when I think about him getting older. I really don’t know what I’m going to do when he goes to heaven. Remember how I said Bob swore under his breath when he found out Herbie was coming to live with us? Well, Herbie is more Bob’s cat than mine now. I don’t know if it’s a male bonding thing or what, but Herbie comes to Bob before he’ll come to me. He loves to sleep on Bob's shoes after he's worn them all day, it's kind of gross but he enjoys it.