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.

The One No One Wanted….

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Where do I start with Pippi? She’s got many nicknames: Poopie, Poopitar, Poopula. Usually when we foster we get to name the kittens, but her batch came named and quite frankly Pippi suits her, she’s a Pip.

We’ve been told that cats don’t do things out of spite and we’re giving her too much credit when we say she does. But I’ve seen her watch me clean out the litter box, then minutes later she goes down and does her business NEXT to the clean box. At first we thought she preferred a clean box but I can tell you that’s not the problem. She leaves us gifts when she’s displeased, like if we’ve gone out for an extended time. Now I realize it’s possible we are reading too much into this, but she has more of a tendency to leave her mark when we’re gone too much.

When we were fostering her, her sister and her brothers we weren’t sure who was doing their business next to the box. As the boys got bigger, got neutered and went up for adoption we were able to narrow it down through a process of elimination. We actually thought it was both of the girls, turns out it was just her. They had to disclose this fact to potential adopters, that’s why she just sat there at the shelter.

The shelter is closed Sunday & Monday and we’re such suckers we didn’t like leaving her all alone those two days. Ok, she wasn’t all alone, they do come in and clean and feed everyone. It’s not the same as being WITH us though. The shelter supervisor let us bring her home on the weekends, which in retrospect was probably a bad idea. She decided this was her home, she was a perfect angel here. At the shelter she was a terror. After her sister got adopted they tried to put another kitten in the cage with her so she’d have company. Yeah, she wasn’t having that….she growled and hissed at the poor thing. She also climbed the sides of the cage and CRIED all day long, so much so that the workers were sick of her. It got worse when we came in, she got WILD and even louder. After about a month of this routine Bob joked with the shelter manager, saying “soon you’ll be paying US to take her off your hands”. A little while later we were out with the dogs and the shelter manager came out and said “Do you want her? If you do you can have her, get her OUT of here. We’ll update her shots and you can have her”. I’m sure we are giving her far too much credit but I honestly believe that’s what she wanted all along.

If we hadn’t raised her I’d say some of her behavior problems are a result of a rough “kittenhood” or a bad mother. We have had her since she was about 2 ½ - 3 weeks old so I know that’s not the case, she’s just a punk. If you pick her up and she doesn’t wish to be held she growls at you. Actually she starts off whining, works up to a growl, then she’ll try to bite. She doesn’t bite hard, she’s never broken the skin but you know she doesn’t want to be held. It’s pretty funny when this little cat starts growling at you, we find it so entertaining that we hold her until she gets worked up into a tizzy. I know, we’re mean but it’s funny. She’s over a year now so it’s pretty safe to say she’s full grown and she weighs 9 pounds.

Pippi’s other claim to fame is her fascination with knocking things off counters and dressers. Cats don’t understand the concept of sleeping in or weekends, they just have an internal clock that tells them it’s time for breakfast. Since we get up early during the week (4:30-5:00AM) the latest they will ever let me sleep on the weekends is 5. Around 4:15 Pippi starts knocking stuff off my nightstand. She starts with my water bottle, I try to ignore her. She then moves to the actual alarm clock which always wakes me up. I’ve taken almost everything off my dresser because she’s knocked everything off. We lost the remote because she knocked it off and kicked it under the dresser. Pretty much anything is fair game, empty boxes, pens, silverware, bottles, cans, mail, magazines, etc. It’s REALLY annoying and I swear she knows it. Another fun thing that Pippi likes to do is run across the bed early in the morning or sometimes she’ll wrestle with Jack or Hurley. It’s always on my side of the bed because Bob sleeps through everything. Sometimes I have scratches on my hands from her running across me. Oh and I can’t forget the CRYING, good grief. She’s small and yet she has a set of lungs. She’ll stand at the top of the stairs CRYING like someone is torturing her.

Pippi isn’t all bad she can be very sweet when she wants to. She follows me around, she sleeps with me and she’ll sleep on my lap. She was definitely meant to be a part of our family; she fits right in with Jack. It’s hard for me to imagine life without Pippi.

Ernie the Orange Boy

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I’ve never been so focused on poo in my life. Let me explain, Ernie has megacolon. What that means is his colon doesn’t work properly and poo just builds up in there. He DOES go poo, but it’s a long drawn out process for him. He goes to the box multiple times and tries to make product, about 75% of the time nothing comes out. Eventually he does make chocolate but it’s hard, like clay. We had him on a schedule where he was getting enema’s roughly every six months and we changed his diet. Recently however that wasn’t enough and he spent three days with our vet.

He’s on new medication that seems to be working, it’s been less than a week but it seems promising. I’m pretty sure he can’t tell the difference between a fart and a dump because he goes to the box a LOT and farts a LOT….audibly. We’re pretty excited about this new development because it means that the medication is working.

Through all his medical problems Ernie has remained a sweet boy. He never cries in the car when I take him to the vet and most of the time he’ll get in the carrier on his own. He likes to lay with us at night when we’re watching tv. He comes up right by my head and curls up next to me.

When he was really backed up he would make the ‘potty face’. I know this sounds crazy, but I can tell when he has to go. He wouldn’t go by himself because Jack & Hurley and Pippi would gather around the box and watch him, he doesn’t want an audience. So he’d sit in his cat bed looking at me with his potty face and I’d take him to the box. Now that he’s feeling better he goes all by himself, which is also huge.

Ernie is a funny little man, he was smitten with our first foster kitten Boo Boo Kitty. I’d go looking for her and I’d find them together. I think he was crushed when she left us, after she left he wasn’t interested in any other foster kittens.

I actually wish he would eat people food or drink some milk. If he would he might get rhea, which would be a huge improvement over his current situation. But he’s only interested in dry food and he prefers water with ice in it. He’s on prescription wet right now and he seems to like it, but I think the novelty might wear off.

Anyway, every time he goes to the box we gather around and wait in anticipation of a big dump. I can’t tell my non cat friends this stuff because they’d think we’re nuts.

Bob said I was a little too graphic with Ernie's medical problems. I was going to go back and edit this, but I got to thinking about it. I don't want to get all preachy but we see a LOT of animals that are brought into the shelter because they 'didn't work out'. Sometimes animals with medical problems are abandoned. It's really unfortunate and I certainly understand that these days money is tight and sometimes owners have to make the difficult choice to surrender their pet. But how often do people adopt a pet without thinking it through? My point in writing this blog is to share what it's like living with 6 cats, they bring as a lot of joy and pleasure. However, it's not without some sacrifices, animals require work and money. I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that it's all rainbows and butterflies, you roll the dice when you adopt an animal. They might be perfectly healthy or they might end up developing medical problems, you just never know. I wouldn't trade any of our cats for anything and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. We made a lifelong commitment when we adopted them. Anyway, I apologize if any of the above is too much information but Ernie's medical problems are part of our daily life.