animal communicator part two

Ok, you are going to start thinking I'm the crazy cat lady here - and maybe I am - and maybe I'm ok with that - but still.  You are going to like this one.

The other day we went to Target and bought a remote controlled mouse for the crew.  We've tried battery powered toys before and they always look at us like we are crazy.  They know their natural prey isn't supposed to make noise (according to some it is supposed to lay in a basket in the corner of the room and smell like cat nip, but that's a different post)  

Well this toy was a hit.  Unfortunately the toy broke pretty quickly.  The front wheel fell off it's axis, and as a result it doesn't move very well. The crew doesn't seem to mind because they like the fur it is covered in, and it moved once, so it must still be a toy.

After they gave up and went for their dinner, I picked it up and put it on the counter (which they aren't supposed to go on, but they do) and went down stairs to exercise.  While I was exercising I heard a few suspicious bumps and a clang, that sounded very much like mouse making it's way (with a great deal of help) off the island across the floor, and dropping through the railing and down the stairs.  I didn't stop exercising figuring I'd nab it on the way up.  Well when I was done there was nothing on the stairs. I glanced around the room and didn't see it, so I gave up and went upstairs.  Later that night I had some of the cats in the room and I told DH what happened, and threw a comment out to the crew that if they could return the mouse that would be very helpful.

Well the next morning it still didn't show up.  So before they ate breakfast I very pointedly told them that I would like the mouse returned.  I pictured the mouse being in the kitchen, and asked them to help me out.

Wouldn't you know it, when I came home from work.. the mouse was in the kitchen, pretty much where I was standing when I made the declaration.  Just sitting there like it had run around exploring the house and returned on it's own.

Go ahead.  Tell me I'm crazy..

:)

The Crew - Tweedle

Tweedle, oh the stories to tell..

Tweedle came to me as a foster kitten who was still nursing with her siblings on mom.  There was nothing special about her at that time, and she seemed quite normal.  As things progressed though, things changed.

First there was her inability to learn how to eat.  Nursing she got, but the fact that food could come outside of her mom was completely alien to her.  Her siblings all started eating solid food on schedule, but she would sit and complain that there was no food.  I would offer her tidbits in her mouth, and she LOVED the food that appeared in her mouth, but could not make the connection that the food pile on the floor that I just took a bit from was the same as the bit that ended up in her mouth.  After a week her mom was weaning the kits, and she was getting less and less and I was starting to get concerned.  Usually the bit in the mouth works for kittens who don't understand food, but if it doesn't then the next step is to put some food on their nose.  She just looked at me quite pathetically.  When that doesn't work I tend to very gently push their noses into the food.  She struggled against that, totally not understanding that I was working in her best interest.  After a piece of food finally worked it's way into her mouth against her will she FINALLY figured it out.  Unfortunately she thought she had to eat with her head buried into the food up to her eyeballs and that is how she proceeded to eat for the next month or so.

Tweedle also had a little deformity as a kitten.  Her chest wasn't formed as her siblings were.  It wasn't glaringly wrong, just enough for me to bring her into the vet, and for the vet to be concerned enough to take an x-ray.  Twee was always an incredibly sweet kitten, very loving and wanting of attention.  But she has one thing she will not put up with, and that is being laid on her back.  I don't know if it is because of this deformity or what, but she hates it.  During the vet visit she needed to be prone on her back to get the xray of her chest.  She fought tooth and nail, and the techs were quite surprised at how determined she was.  They finally got it and it was decided that while she was different, she was in no danger from it and was given a clean bill of health.

My husband had fallen in love with Twee by this time.  Her incredibly sweet nature and her desire to be snuggled when ever we would visit simply won him over.  He too had noticed her deformity, and we had decided that if it was going to be a problem that we would take that on and adopt her.  When she came back with a clean bill of health, he was noticeably disappointed.  Not that she was healthy, but that she would be moving on.  Well.. as you can tell by this post, that was not meant to be.

When she and her siblings made weight and went to be neutered, she had a severe reaction to the anesthesia. Her lungs filled with fluid almost immediately and her heart stopped.  They were able to revive her, but they were not able to spay her at that time.  We ended up bringing her home to recover while her siblings went back to the shelter for adoption.  She stayed for several weeks while her lungs recovered, and then she went back to be spayed.  This time they took precautions and used a safer anesthesia, but it too had a horrible effect on her.  Once again her heart stopped.  The doctor raced through the spay, and got her through it, but her chart showed severe warnings that sedation would be beyond risky for her.

So now we had a medical reason to keep her.  But still I tried to find her a home.  The shelter had an event at a hotel, and I brought her down on a leash and harness to talk about fostering and possibly find her a home.  There were several people who thought she was adorable and were interested, but did not take the next step to actually adopt her.  The next step for me was to bring her to the shelter and leave her there with the written warning about sedating her.  That really bothered me because I know a lot of people fall in love and don't pay much attention to the restrictions the pet may have.  I did not want to risk her being adopted by someone who would have her declawed - which I am sure would have killed her. Or someone who would let her outside where she could be injured and have to be sedated to repair something - or even not take care of her teeth so she would need to have a tooth extracted.  These images floated around in my head as I drove home from the event.  When I got home my husband excitedly exclaimed "Tweedle is home!!" and I asked if she was, and he admitted he very much wanted to keep her.  I told him to go down to the shelter and adopt her then, and he did.  Tweedle was ours.

Tweedle is so named because of her .... well how do I put this kindly.. her intelligence deficiency.  There were many other names bandied around for her that were on the mean side when a co-worker suggested Tweedle Dum.  I jumped on Tweedle Dee, and Twee she became. Now don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with her, she's just a little slow and definitely a little special.  She did not hit all of the normal learning milestones that kittens hit anywhere near when she should have.  She would often get very lost in the house and scream for us to help her find us.  New things just confuse her, and offering her treats will often get you a blank stare.  She has her security blanket of a toy (her current one is wrapped around her) which she can often be found carrying around the house.  Previous to this she had a feather garland that was meant to go on a Christmas tree.  She loved that thing so much that after a while she started to eat it.  But not as you would expect, she would begin at one end and eat several feet of it before it would be forced back up.  I tried tying the ends together, but she found a way to undo them.  It was as hard on me as it was on her to finally decide it wasn't safe for her any more and I had to throw it away.  Before that it was shoe laces and strings that facinated her.  I had to be so careful - but no matter how hard I tried she would find something to play with.  Shoelaces were chewed off at the shoe, fringe on the carpet was all chewed off before I even realized it was interesting to her.  Even one of my favorite bras was not immune.  No matter how many times we thought we had gotten up everything she could chew on she would find something new of interest that we hadn't even considered.  We are beyond lucky that none of that was damaging to her as eating string can easily lead to an obstruction, and it probably would have been the end of her because putting her under for surgery is so risky.

Even as she became more comfortable in the house, she still sat outside of the "kitten room" and wanted to be let back in.  "I'm the Baby!" became what we associated with her desires.   It is why the next new addition to our house ended up with the name Kit, because we had to call her the kitten because if we called her the baby Twee became visibly upset and confused.  I once had a reading with an animal communicator, and not having told her anything about Twee except that she was 2 years old and a black and white short haired kitty, the communicator came up with that she had the mind of a six month old.  That rings very true.  I lovingly call her my little down syndrome kitty.  Only because of what I know of down syndrome people is they are so happy, and so joyful and loving while not being fully blessed in the IQ department. (man that probably sounds horrible, and I do not mean it to be.  To me it is an easy description of her personality, which is a very positive thing in my book)

Twee was very bonded to Em as she grew up.  She would often lay next to her and let Em do what Em did best - lick her.  I was very fearful what would happen with Twee when Em died.  But she did seem to take it ok.  I am not sure if it is because Em spent so many months not doing well, or if because she was euthanized at the house and some how Twee got that.  She was at a loss as to what to do with herself, because she used to be with Em, but over time she started to figure out that she could hang out with the other kitties.  They were not overly amused.  Twee particularly likes Muffin, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't depending on Muff's mood.  Twee does NOT understand why sometimes it is ok and sometimes it is not.  She also doesn't understand why Muff runs off and then hisses quite violently at her when she runs after her.  I feel so bad, and try explaining to her over and over.  I even went so far as to ask the other kitties to be nice to Twee, but she just wants to be with Muff.  *shrug*

Health wise, we have been lucky.  There was an abscess on her neck when she was a young adult, but a round of antibiotics took care of that.  I brush her teeth when I can remember and fortunately they are doing very well.  At the moment she is losing very tiny patches of fur on the top her head.  A little bald spot about the size of a pencil eraser pop up, then disappear.  She's never had more then one at a time.  There aren't lesions so I can't fathom what is going on.

Twee's biggest quirk is her need to YELL at us. I think she just doesn't grasp the concept of how loud she is talking.  Kind of like Loud Howard from Dilbert.  She likes to crawl into bed with us and look us straight in the eye and scream.

In July of this year, 2010, she will be six years old, but she still looks and acts like a one year old

darn

I just caught Jack in the bath tub again looking like he was going to spray.

Is this medical?  I hope not, because if he is having problems on this food (not that many carbs in it) then I'm boned.

So that leaves behavioral.  Is it something he's learned that he should do because it helped him when he was sick or is it because he's stressed?  Marking territory doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense because it is in the farthest corner of the house, away from all of the places they lay and the places they eat, and he doesn't hang out there, so it isn't like he's carving out a little corner for himself.. I mean it isn't like he's a fan of a bath tub..

*sigh*

So I opened up a can of Jack Mackerel (yes, I know.. but I couldn't resist giving Jack Jack) and gave him the liquid in the can and gave the fish to the rest of the crew.  I have to tell you I almost hurled at the scent of canned mackerel.  heck I'm having issues just typing about it. I can't believe people enjoy eating that.. *shudder*   (of course that is pretty much the way my husband feels about tofu)

I was going to give him urinary food, as I still have some, but then I didn't think I'd get a good sample to see if he's having issues.  of course there is the thought that fish food can cause urinary issues, so if his urine isn't too alkaline, it might be by the time he goes pee. 

I'm hoping it is a learned behavior that he doesn't realize he's doing.  I'm hoping a few good well placed "bad Jack's" will cure him of this.  But I'm not opposed to bringing him in to the vet for a check up if he continues..

*crosses fingers for no pink litter when I get home*

This is starting to get a little freaky

I am posting The Crew's posts at work (yes, I know, but I'm bored) and when I got home yesterday after posting Eli's he was ALL OVER ME.  First Ollie becomes more affectionate after I post he doesn't really want much affection, and Eli's complete change of routine and being all affectionate (and very squeaky - he had so much to say)

I'm almost afraid to keep posting these :) 

Ok not really.

My intention is to work through my current crew, then go back and do posts for Kodi, Em and Tig (the first cat I owned after I moved out)

The Crew - Eli

Eli.. now Eli's story is quite long.  He started out life as "Melvin" which was my father in law's name.  It seemed to fit his quirky personality.  He wasn't a stand out kitten, just your standard average every day kitten.  I know that sounds horrible to say, but after fostering hundreds of kittens, the start to blend especially since personalities aren't formed when they are so young.  They all tend to do the same things, get into the same kinds of trouble, etc.

What was different about Eli was his health.  He was the sickest little kitten I ever had that lived. For weeks he suffered from one URI after another, and I had to constantly pick the snot off his nose to help keep it clear or clean the gunk that came from his eyes.  While he liked getting loved on, he was not a fan of being medicated or picked at.  Over time the fear of being picked at outweighed the reward of being patted, and he started running from me if I went towards him.

Eli had a very bad spell over Thanksgiving weekend 2002 while I was still fostering him.  We had family at the house, and even though he was isolated in the basement, the stress still got to him and we found him very sick.  I brought him to the vet the next day and he ended up spending the rest of the holiday weekend getting fluids and medication to reduce his fever.  He came home and recovered slowly, but one of his tear ducts became scared and blocked.  This causes the tears to spill onto his face instead of recycling back into his system.

When we decided to adopt we decided to keep Eli because of his blocked tear duct and his fearful nature.  I wasn't sure it was going to be fair to new owners to pass on a kitty that needed hands on care that was fearful of hands.  I tried so very hard to break him of the fear, but offering treats and going towards him with out intent of doing anything to him, but he didn't care he just ran.  It got to the point that he ran when we walked into a room.

All of this stress caused him another round of URI, and as a result his other tear duct blocked.  Now as you can imagine this was the last thing he needed.  He spent the first years of his life with his face and ears covered with black debris which is what happens to cat tears when they dry.  Why the ear canal was so covered, I am not 100% sure of the mechanics, but I do know they are all connected.  It would become so crusted that I was fearful that it would block it up completely and do damage so I felt the need to clean them often.  Which of course just added to his fear.

So not being able to spend a lot of time one on one with him, it took forever to find a name for him.  Melvin was a little awkward for several reasons, and just isn't that good of a name for a cat. (well to me anyway - my apologies to any Melvin cats out there)  one day I was driving down the road and saw El's Clam Shack, and for some reason my mind read it as Eli, and a light bulb moment occurred.

I ended up working for a vet, and as a result I was able to get Eli in for surgery to try to unblock his tear ducts.  Unfortunately the scaring was too extensive, and they were unable to help him out.  The clinic had several vets, including a holistic vet who suggested that maybe laser light therapy would help him out.  Once a week for several months I rounded him up and brought him in with me for her to work on.  We saw a dramatic improvement.  His ears were no longer caking with excessove debris, and while his face still had problems, it took longer and longer before it got to the point where I felt the need to step in.  Unfortunately though Eli's need to not be caught and worked on was stressing him out, and catching him became more and more of a chore.  When the improvement started to taper off, I decided to stop bringing him in.  It was suggested I could work on him at home but he would not sit still for me for even a moment and I was fearful of that light so near his eyes.  Over time his eyes started showing more spillage, but by that point Eli had started to understand me a little.  I suggested to him several times before cleaning his face that if he got another cat to clean his face for him I wouldn't need to.  Well finally he caught on to what I was saying, and now all I need to do is tell him to clean his face, and by the next day most of the black gunk is gone (you can see just one speck on his face in the above photo - which is incredible.  Generally it is all down the side of his nose)

At one point I got so sad that Eli didn't have a relationship with us, that I started looking into more alternative therapies for him.  I ended up using Feliway, but that really didn't help.  He wasn't fearful in his environment, but with us.  I got a bottle of Rescue Remedy and started dosing him with that.  I put a few drops in his food and slowly over time he was able to over come that initial fear reaction that caused him to run.  I knew that a few months after we stopped medicating him he had no idea why he was running but it was left over that when he saw us coming at him that he needed to run.  The first time I was able to walk through a room he was in and he didn't run (although he did watch me carefully) I almost threw a party.  We broke that instinctual reaction, and it was just going to take time for him to work through the rest of it.  One thing that helped was Eli's LOVE of static.  He is the only cat I've ever known that WANTS to be patted in the winter time.  The more static you can generate the better.  For a couple of years we had a winter only kitty because once we couldn't generate static for him any more he didn't have much use for us.  But in the past year or so he has started to realize that the people are good for more then generating static, and now he comes up and throws himself down near us and asks (ask? yea, demand is a better word) that we pat his belly.  Just the other week he actually climbed up on my lap for some attention - ok so it was just two paws on my leg, but to me it was huge.

One set back in his journey to be a comfortable in the home was a pretty bad bout with urinary crystals.  He ended up blocking.  At that time I had Em who was diabetic and not eating the dry food we were feeding very well so she was being fed a low carb canned food upstairs while the rest of the crew ate Felidae downstairs.    When Eli blocked we ended up feeding him upstairs in a different room the "prescription" food the vet recommended.  I did more reading on crystals, and found out that he would probably do just fine on a canned diet like that Em was getting.  The reduced plant matter would keep the urine from being so alkaline which is when crystals can form.  So Em and Eli ate upstairs while everyone else ate downstairs.  Then Jack blocked and had to be on an even stronger form of "prescription" food because his crystals were excessive.  So Em ate in one room, Jack and Eli ate somewhere else, and the rest of them ate downstairs.  It was downright silly trying to heard the cats to the right areas of the house.  This is when I did even more reading on feline nutrition and came to the conclusion that even the carb content of regular canned food was too much for Jack, and that if I put him on a raw diet he should do ok.  And that a raw diet would be ideal for Em who was dealing with diabetes and extra carbs have been shown to increase the blood sugar levels of diabetics.  And for the kicker that a raw diet was actually ideal for just about every cat.  So I started making my own cat food.  It was not fun, and I HATE raw meat, but it is doable.   With the addition of more cats to the household, grinding up meat for more then six cats got to be overwhelming so we are buying premade raw food for cats, but I wish I had the stomach to continue to make it for them.  That way I could control how much plant matter ended up in their diets.

Eli has many quirks, one of which is that he does not meow.  For a long time I didn't think he could, but he proved me wrong during one trip to the vets where he let out a magnificent caterwaul  Eli squeaks.  Lets out little squeaking noises that aren't quite bird chips but are close.  What's more adorable is he will squeak at you if you call him by his nickname of "Squeaky"..  

Eli is also very much into catnip.  Some cats are sensitive to it, some not, but Eli loves it.

He is slowly becoming our cat as opposed to a cat in the house.  It has been a very long process, but we don't mind one bit.  Sometimes I have to wonder if he wouldn't have done better in another household because it would have been a break from us and a change in general that might have helped him overcome his fear of humans (humans or was it just me, and then my husband because after I stopped being able to catch him on my own I would send him after Eli)   I guess I will never know, but I can only hope I made the right decision.

The Crew - Muffin

I am not sure why it has always been Muffin before Eli as they came from the same litter of kittens, but it always has.  Maybe because her personality is stronger, maybe it is because she is larger then he is, or maybe because he was such a fearful kitten that she was there and he wasn't.  Not sure, and I suppose it doesn't matter.

Muffin was one very precocious kitten.  She was always right in the thick of things and making a nuisance of herself.  While that is pretty typical of a kitten, with Muff it was to the extreme end of things.  She was also one incredibly beautiful kitten, and she knew it.  When she got into trouble, she would just strike the beautiful pose as if to say "How could you be mad when I'm this adorable??"  This knack for mischief and her coloring (basically a white cat with a gray hood and cape) led to the nickname of a sheep in wolf's clothing.  Her crazy antics led to her full name of "Banana Nut Muffin" which I hope is self explanatory.

Muffin has also been incredibly healthy.  When all of her siblings suffered pretty badly with URI, she had one short spell with an inflamed eye.  It got pretty bad, but the medicine the shelter gave me cleared it up very well.  I can't say for absolute certainty, but I think those meds ended up changing her eye color to the very unique pale color she has now as I was giving them to her while her eyes were changing from the kitten blue they are born with to what ever color they were supposed to be.  Maybe they were supposed to be that color, I'll never know and I don't rightly care.  She is also my biggest cat at 15lbs.  Some of it is excess, but not much. She does love her food, and very much wants to eat what ever we are eating.  I have seen her eat some incredibly weird things (her favorite food for a while was pop tarts) but usually after she begged for so long to get a bite that she gobbled up what ever I offered with out really figuring out what it was that I gave her.

Muff is the first female cat I have owned.  I have always heard the stereotypes of cats, who is more affectionate (males), who is more standoffish (females), etc and I guess Muff never heard of those, because she has always been a snuggler.  Mostly with me, but if I am not around she will snuggle herself into a draped blanket, a basket, a box, heck for a while there she would snuggle herself into my pajama bottoms when I would use the toilet (TMI?  sorry)  She is at home sitting on my chest giving me what I like to affectionately call "purr therapy"  it usually is accompanied by "massage therapy on the most painful places possible"  She likes to kneed and will work on one spot (a neck, the inside of my arm) until I can no longer stand it and move her.  She's also got an incredible knack of knowing when my bladder is full and exactly how to step on me to hit it.  But while most of this is really annoying, the love and devotion she shows while doing it is very endearing.  Sometimes she knows she is bothering me and will let me move her into a better position for me - and she is the only cat that allows me to do that.  When I move the others they usually get annoyed and leave.  She likes to reach out and gently pat my face with her paw.  Her place in the bed is on top of me - which used to be Em's spot.  One down side to her personality is she is not a kitty's kitty.  When Em passed, Tweedle tried to bond with Muff, and often is found trying to snuggle up to her, which Muff wants nothing to do with.  I am trying to teach Tweedle what Muffin means when she hisses and that it is not "lets play"  But she is accepting of all of the other cats as long as they let her be, and get out of her way when she has decided that it is Mom Time.

I tend to want to hug my cats and hold them close.  For the most part they would prefer I not love them quite so physically but from a distance.  Muff doesn't mind one little bit, and puts up with my need to rub my nose in her neck.  Which is probably why she's become my favorite kitty.. not that I could ever choose *I watch animal cop shows where people have to pick one or two pets and thoughts of that happening to me move me to panic*

She is the princess of the house.  Wanting all the glory and beauty (she gets jealous when she thinks there is a more beautiful cat in the house) and none of the responsibility of keeping the other cats in line.  As long as she has their respect, she's happy.

Pet Food

http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/784/Patrick06.html

Now this is a very interesting article about pet food done by a Harvard student in 2006 labeled "Deconstructing the Regulatory Façade: Why Confused Consumers Feed their Pets Ring Dings and Krispy Kremes"

Bet you never considered the food you were feeding could be equated to Ring Dings did ya?  (well unless you've actually been reading this blog and read up on pet food in the past)

See, it isn't just me who thinks dry food = cookies :)

oh yea, and in case you want more references...

http://www.catinfo.org
http://www.feline-nutrition.org
http://www.felineoutreach.org/Education.html
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm
http://www.felinenutrition.net/
http://rawfedkitty.org/

The Crew History - FIP

This is not an easy post to write, but I needed to get out the experience I had with FIP in order to be referenced during Muffin's and Eli's upcoming posts.

In the fall of 2002 I brought home a set of orphaned kittens.  There were six of them and they were a LOT of work.  This being my first fall using the downstairs room to foster, I didn't realize how cold it would get down there.  Not ideal for young orphaned kittens who have a hard time regulating their own body temperature.

At the time I had a mother kitty with four kittens.  I didn't know this at the time, but not all of the kittens were hers originally.  I still don't know who was an add on and who she gave birth to.  Not that it matters.  I talked to the shelter about the orphans, and they suggested that I take my mother cat and see if she would nurse the orphans - since her four kittens were eating on their own and were doing just fine.

Well she did take to them ok, but it didn't seem very fair to leave her with out contact with her own kittens.  It was still very cold in the basement, and I figured if they thought it was ok to put the mother with the kittens, why wouldn't it be ok to put the kittens with the mother instead, so I combined the two groups into the warmer of the two rooms.

Orphaned kittens can not be tested for Felv/FIV until they are six weeks of age.  It apparently wasn't even considered that this could be a problem, but sadly it was.  The orphan's story is quite heartbreaking on it's own but that is the past.  They taught me a lot of respect for fostering, and being aware of what COULD happen. If nothing else, their short lives were for something.  The shelter's policy on kittens is to euthanize if they are found to be felv or fiv positive.  I understand a lot of people find that offensive, but I have to respect the shelter for realizing their limits and accepting their financial resources should be limited.  Yes, they could have kept these kittens for another few weeks and tested again, but then those funds could go into an animal that absolutely can be saved, and not drained in the risk of maybe they would fight off the infection.  I don't like it, in fact I hate it.  But I hate the fact that any animal needs to be put down before it's time, and better it be for an incurable illness then a fixable injury

***just an aside.  Felv/FIV should not be a death sentence for a loved pet.  A lot of cats can live long healthy happy lives infected with these horrible diseases.  Both work on the immune system, so cats who are infected need to be cared for a little more cautiously, but it does not mean they are going to immediately die.  Kittens brought into a shelter with Felv or FIV could be raised and very well could be neutered/vaccinated and not have health issues, but it is a risk that the disease could cause problems, and frankly it is VERY hard to find people to adopt these types of cats.  Why would they take a chance on a cat with a known health issue, when right next door is a kitty who is healthy and just as cute?  It sucks, but it is life in a shelter system.

So now we have a known exposure to Felv for the four kittens and the mom who remained.  I was asked to keep them for six weeks and have them tested again.  What a hardship on me, because the longer you have a kitten, the more your heart attaches to them.  But I was already head over heels for one of them, and didn't mind having him around.  The whole family was constantly battling URIs, and except for a really bad case over Thanksgiving, they did seem to abate while waiting out the incubation period.

Six weeks later, we had them tested.  Unbeknownst to me, the shelter only tested the mother and one of the kittens.  I do not know who, but it really doesn't matter.  The test came back negative, and I was never so thrilled to hear of a failed test :)   Took me quite a few minutes before I could wrap my brain around negative being good.    I brought them all home with me, and we had decisions to make.  The litter of kittens had two boys and two girls.  Both of the girls were totally full of it - personality up the wazoo.  One of these "Muffin" was also quite photogenic.  She loved being photographed, and being in the middle of things all the time.  The boys were "Eli" and "Kodi".  Kodi was a beautiful cat, and both my husband and I wanted to keep him very much.  We felt we were at our limit of cats with three, and I tried to convince my husband that we didn't want to keep him with "Well if we keep Kodi, we have to keep Muffin and Eli too!" (The other girl kitten "Izzy" just did not bond with us at all, and I am sure she has found her perfect place in life just as she was meant to)   Some how he agreed and we went from a three cat household to a six cat household.  It was crazy and insane, but some how it worked.

Unfortunately Kodi never did get over his URI.  He battled congestion continually.  I finally brought him to my own vet (outside of the shelter system) who recommended a less aggressive course of treatment for it.  URI in owned cats is generally viral, so most medications you can give won't really help.  It is mostly supportive care and making sure they can eat that is critical.  I place absolutely no blame on my former vets for what happened next, because I doubt that even taking an aggressive stance with the URI would have changed anything.

Kodi got worse, and my vet couldn't see him for a couple of days, so I decided to bring him to the vet that saw him previously.  They gave him a much more aggressive treatment for his URI, but it didn't make much of a difference.  On a follow up exam, it was determined he had a fever.  URI and fever generally don't go together, so we started looking for different reasons for it.  Well in the end they settled on FIP.  I almost fell down - having just read about FIP the week before.

FIP is a mutation of a very common virus that generally is found in cats.  In fact pretty much every shelter cat has been exposed to it, and except for maybe a few private catteries who aggressively eliminate it, well lets just say it is very common.  The mutation is not.  They still don't know why the virus mutates.  While their understanding of FIP has come a long way (when I first started reading about it on the web, most of the information was from the 80s and 90s. and that it was that it was highly contagious) there still is much that is unknown - and pretty much unknowable at this point.  There is no test for FIP.  Previously they tested for the coronavirus - which is the virus that mutates - and which is the tests that were run on my cats.  I did not know, and the extremely high titers that came back scared the living daylights out of me.  It was recommended we test again in six weeks, and several of the cats tested even higher.  I was told by the vet attending my case that this means the cats are shedding the virus and this was bad news.  She could not tell me much more then that.  She also went behind my back and told the shelter I should no longer foster kittens because it was dangerous for them.  She not once told me she felt this way - which I found to be a huge betrayal (especially since I was now working for the veterinary clinic she was working at)

Well I never stopped reading about FIP and over time I realized how wrong this vet was.  FIP is a diagnosis of last resort since there is no test.  There are two forms.  Wet FIP which fills the cat up with fluid is pretty obvious but still is not conclusive to be FIP.  Dry FIP is much more elusive, because other then general malaise and a fever, there is no definitive clues that says "YES! this is FIP"   I can't strongly recommend highly enough (enough adjectives there?) that anyone facing an FIP diagnosis get their kitty to a new vet for a second if not third opinion.  Since you are reading this on the web, I also recommend you find an FIP active online community forum who can help you look for other conditions that have been previously diagnosed as FIP that hopefully your cat has instead of FIP and can be treated.  (yahoo groups has several at the time I'm creating this post, but I'm sure there will always be others)

But unfortunately what she was not wrong about was that he had FIP.  Poor Kodi had a tragically short life.  While I did not end up doing a necropsy to be absolutely certain he had FIP, he ended up bleeding into his eyes, and had several other classic FIP issues.  Could it have been something else? I guess.  And I so wish I had thought to bring him to a different vet back after I first got the diagnosis for him.  Probably wouldn't have changed anything, since I was ignorant of what FIP was, and I was unable to get my hands on any of the new information until quite a long time after Kodi passed.

My whole point with this blog is to share information.  This is what I faced, and this is what I chose to do and faced with this again, the changes I would make.   I don't always succeed in not being obnoxious about things (declawing, food, free roaming outdoor kitties) but it is never my intention to make anyone feel they were wrong about decisions they have already made.  What is done is done, and all you can do is make decisions from the point you are and go on.  If you had a kitty die of FIP, I am very sorry.  My heart breaks for you because I have been there and done that.  If you are here because you just got the FIP diagnosis, please learn from my ignorance, and get a second or third or fourth opinion for your kitty.  Google the living daylights out of FIP, and learn all you can about all the new research, and all of the different illnesses that can mimic FIP for a doctor who is not quite as up to date on things.

The more out of touch your vet is, the faster they are going to come up with an FIP diagnosis.

Ollie

Now this is interesting.  Right after I did his little diddy on this blog, stating that he doesn't seem to really want a whole heck of a lot of attention, he has done little else but demand that I pat him.  Nudging his nose into warm bits as I am laying in bed.  Chirping grumpily at me if I don't adorn his head with my hand, and just generally being a nusance (but in a good way)

Ok seriously, what is going on with my cats?  are they reading this blog??

This morning was really cute.  I didn't much want to get up, and Eli wanted belly rubs (Eli ... now this is a whole different post) Ollie wanted to be patted, and Jack was snuggled up to me.  Just me and the boys.. (Skippy still being just a kitten)

The Crew - Jack

 

Jack is my first foster failure.  I started fostering in 2002, and he was in the third litter I had.  He came with three other kittens, and shortly afterwords one of them became very ill and needed to be put to sleep.  It was the first loss I had fostering, and it hurt.  I spent a lot of time with that group of kittens as a result.

Jack was a pretty unremarkable kitten. He came with the name Houdini, which fit him nicely because he was quite a little escape artist, but it wasn't an easy name to call a cat.  Jack has the ability to look like several different animals depending on his mood, and we picked Jack because he looked a bit like a jackal one day. He was a little fluffier then most short haired kittens, but wasn't quite long haired.  He was also quite gangly, and he almost seemed to be put together from several different kittens.  But he needed me.  He used to nurse on my ear and snuggle up tight.  I wasn't overly amused at the actual being nursed on, but his need out won my discomfort.  When the time came for the litter to go back and be put up for adoption I cried.  I had sworn to my husband when I started fostering that I wouldn't keep any of them (ha ha ha) but he was so special and unique, and I loved him for him - certainly not for his looks!!  I finally could not deal with it, and ran down to the shelter and scooped him up.

I was unemployed at the time, so I took Jack with me everywhere.  I fit him with a harness and leash, and we went to get ice cream, to visit friends and family, and many trips to the pet store - simply because I knew he would be welcomed there.  He basked in the attention and loved going out.  He would run to the door when ever someone would start getting ready to go out.  After a few months I found a job and he had to stay home.  He lost his love of going out, but he has not yet lost his love of being the center of attention.  When ever we have company he has to be right there.

He grew into his gangly looks.  He's now a very long sleek boy with medium length blue hair. He does have quite a bit of a belly hang though which waddles when he walks fast or runs, but it does not detract from his beauty.  He has a gorgeous mane as well which has a small white dot in the middle of it which developed after he became an adult.  Unfortunately he does NOT photograph well at all.  I think it is because you can't see him in three dimension and that is a pure shame.

Jack has had several medical issues, including a lump removed from his back when he was young.  He wasn't even a year old, and the vet was concerned that it might be a VAS because of it's location (near the scruff where the shelter vaccinates) but we were very fortunate it was a just a cyst. A couple of years ago he developed another cyst on his back leg, but we've chosen to ignore it until he needs to be sedated for something else. We also had the great FIP situation over the holidays of 2002.  As a result of some bad advice and true lack of knowledge I went through several months with a huge black cloud over our heads (but more of that with Muffin and Eli's profile) and in the end it turned out that Jack tested positive for FeLV.  I had him tested eight weeks later and he was still positive.  I started giving him Vitamin C, and when I had him tested a year later he came up negative.  I should probably have him tested again just to be sure, but I haven't.  THEN Jack started having urinary problems.  Eli had already gone through them, so I knew what I was looking at, but I still didn't get to him in time.  He blocked.  After going through the surgery and several round of "prescription" foods, he blocked again.  At this time I was facing problems with Em and her diabetes, so I was open to learning anything that would help, and I learned that diet is incredibly important in maintaining the right PH balance in a cat, and that the "premium" dry food he had been on was keeping him so dehydrated that the crystals were able to form a blockage.  I started making my own raw food, and while he ate it he didn't have any more problems.  Well making cat food for six cats was a stretch, but when the household got larger, I started buying it.  When we started buying Oma's Pride, it caused problems.  I didn't really notice until Jack got into quite a bit of dry one day and then ended up peeing in the bathtub.  I tried to work with the issues Oma's caused, but when just about all of the cats became ill on their food and they simply did not care, I then went to Bravo Raw.  Jack's issues pretty much cleared up, including his cruddy ears.  The only other issue with Jack so far is that he actually sprayed.  We had a foster cat who was not leaving, and this upset Jack.  I had seen him making spraying movements before, but he had never sprayed.  Fortunately he did it right in front of me, so I was able to make arrangements to get the foster re-situated, and I was able to work with Jack to ease his fears that other cats might be joining the household.  According to Jack, eight is enough!!!  A few medical things that are on the side of good, Jack has great teeth.  Even at 8 years (OMG he's eight??!?!) of age his teeth are still sparkling white.  He also had a strong heart murmur as a kit and young adult, but that closed up and is no longer around.

Jack is EXTREMELY food motivated.  He has never wanted for anything in his life, but you would have thought he spent many a moon starved and alone.  I jokingly call him and Muffin my garbage disposal and my dishwasher.  He also has this incredibly high pitched meow when he wants you to give him something... very much like nails on a chalk board. I don't doubt for a second if I could work with him alone, I could easily train him to do tricks.  He loves food and loves praise, but it is very hard with other cats distracting both of us.

He is also the Beta to Ollie's Alpha.  Ollie often feels the need to put Jack in his place, which is kind of interesting to watch because I do not see Jack competing for Ollie's status but my affection - which for the most part Ollie doesn't want.

Jack has outgrown his *need* for me, and stopped nursing on me a little after six months.  For the next six months he would nuzzle my ear, and give it a little lick from time to time, just to make sure he still could.  For the most part now that he is a "big boy" he acts very independent, but at night he is still curled up by my right side.  He loves it when I rub his chest and chin because he gets to sit up all regal like and accept praise.  My husband is able to give him full contact rub downs which include messing his fur all up so he looks like just came in from a hurricane.  Why it is OK for him to do that and not me I have no idea.  His fur is very fine, almost like a rabbit, and I think as a result of that Frontline does not work on him.  Fortunately Advantage does.

I love Jack very much.  I often whisper in his ear that he is my favorite.  I don't quite know about that anymore, but he is definitely the kitty of my soul.

The Crew - Ollie

I thought it would be nice if I did posts for the kitties.  I did pages for them years ago, but they are kind of out of date, so....

Ollie:

 

 Ollie came to us as the product of a mating between his mother and his brother.  My husband's coworker thought they had "Maine Coons" and were breeding them.  This was when I was very new in the world of cats, and I believed what I was told.  Since they couldn't sell them, they offered one to DH.  He, always wanting a "coon" said yes.  He was born around mother's day 1999.  I agreed to a new kitten on the condition that we could return him if Emerald had problems with him.  Em had been an only kitty for a while, and because of her reaction to neighborhood kitties, I was certain it was never going to work out.

But Em had lived with rabbits and rodents, and learned to leave anything in a cage alone.  So we adapted the rabbit cage we had to house a kitten.  We gave him bedding, litter and food and gave him some snuggles before safely ensconcing him in the cage.  Em lumbered in, took one look at the little cat thing in the cage thing and let out a very threatening hiss.  She was confused, because she knew it was a cat, but it was in a cage.  We simply told her no, and when she stopped hissing, we praised her for not hissing.  She walked closer, hissed some more, but got another "NO" and then more praise for ignoring the cage - which is how we taught her to leave rodents alone.  After a couple more dirty looks she left the room.  Over the course of the day, we praised her for ignoring the kitten, and she continued to ignore him.  We thought it might be safe to bring him out.  Well she started hissing again, but a stern NO let her know that we were expecting her to accept this new thing.  Ollie tried his best to win her over, which of course was all the wrong things for him to be doing, including jumping on her back and trying to wrestle with her.  We returned him to the cage, and praised her, and the next time he came out, he stayed out for good.

He is quite unique in his coloring.   You can't see it in this photo, but he has a little milk dribble from his mouth to the bib on his chest.  And if that weren't endearing enough, he's always got one white whisker on the top of his head.  Sometimes it is on the left, sometimes on the right. but only ever one.  As you may have been able to tell due to the quotes around Maine Coon, that Ol is not a coon. He is simply a "regular old long haired cat".  But he is his own uncle :)

Ollie was a happy little kitten.  He was so happy to interact with anyone who visited and played happily with us or Em or himself.  We had him neutered after puberty which was the accepted practice at the vet we were using.  But with puberty came his attitude adjustment.  Not to say every cat who goes through puberty is going to end up like Ollie, but this is his story.  He went from a happy child to a grumpy teen.  His play was no longer happy go lucky, but intense and when things didn't go his way he would grumble and sulk.  He never comes out to visit company, and for years no one knew we had a second cat.

But we loved his quirks, and he quickly gained the nick name "Mr. Grumpy Pants"  He hated being groomed, and would often swear like a sailor when I would try to remove the mats from his mane (he only ever matted under his ears)   One time after a particularly trying grooming session, he was beyond inconsolable.   I tried to calm him, but the second he got a chance, he lashed out.  It was the worst experience of both of our lives.  He was able to hit me square on the face, one paw on each of my cheeks.  Fortunately he had just had his claws clipped, but even still I had four red tracks on each side of my face.  That has been the only time I have ever lost my cool with a cat, and I hate to admit I hit him.  I was able to get a hold of him (and myself) and i locked him in the bathroom while my pulse returned to normal.   I was unsure of what to do.  I wanted him to learn that this was not an appropriate way to get what he wanted, but I wasn't sure how to convey that.  I came up with a very unique solution which actually worked.  I dug out the rabbit cage again, and put it in the middle of the kitchen.  He had all he needed, food, litter etc, but he was isolated from us and the other cats.  Cats HATE being ignored, and will modify their behavior to not let it happen again.  He stayed in there for one day, and the change in him was very noticeable.  After that he came to me and acknowledged that I was alpha, and he never again lashed out at me.  However I do need to be very careful that there are no other kitties between me and his escape when I groom him. 

When Em was alive, she was the Alpha cat by default.  But she was much like the Queen of England, a figurehead only.  When she passed, Ollie laid down the gauntlet and proclaimed he was head kitty.  He occasionally bats other cats on the head just for being too near him and not deferring to him.  He eats alone on the plate first, and he sleeps where he wants.  Oddly he likes to sleep between my hubby and myself up by the pillows but not on them.

He has had a few medical problems over the years.  Once when we were about to go on one of the rare vacations we take, he became severely constipated.  He was vomiting all over the place, and needed to be treated by the vet.  Fortunately he recovered in time, and I had a pet sitter I very much trusted.  I also have had to have two growths removed from the same place near his back left leg.  I did not have them biopsied, but I am pretty sure he had Vaccine Associated Sarcoma (aka VAS) due to the location and the regrowth almost one year to the date of the initial removal.

Ollie came to me when I was new to cat care.  He was the third cat I have owned, and I was still unaware that not everything preached as gospel in cat care was true.  It didn't even occur to me to consider differently.  He ate mostly dry food with some canned.  Not being one of my foster kittens, he ate pretty much the same thing most of his life, so he does have a little bit of a problem when trying new foods.  Fortunately since I have learned of the GI upset cats can face when eating the same foods over and over, I have been able to vary his diet so the impact of food changes are lessened.

now that he's older, I lovingly call him my grumpy old man.  He spends his days on top of the fridge watching the other kitties or in the sunroom basking.  I hope he's around for years to come, but I am very carefully watching his side for a possible regrowth of the tumor we've removed.  I hope I never have to decide to have that removed again, because both surgeries were hard on him, but the second was much more so then the first.  He was very slow to recover, and very PISSED OFF that he couldn't continue on with his life as he wanted.  He is not one for change, and I fear that he is one of those cats that are going to be better off facing death on his own terms instead of allowing me to fight tooth and nail for him.  But I will let that decision be his when the time has come - which hopefully will not be for another 10 years :)

Animal Communicator?

Ok, so I am not an official animal communicator, cause I have no idea what they are thinking at any moment in time - but I can generally figure out what they are about to do by their body posture - but I am starting to believe I have the ability to TELL the cats what to do..

now for the most part my kitties are much like other kitties, they don't listen.  They take a message and get back to you sort of thing.  Often if you want them off something they are on, you have to walk up to them and threaten physical removal in order for them to care.

but recently I have started asking my cats to to get down, or come here, or leave their sibling alone... and it worked!!

I am sure it has a LOT to do with my tone.  If I tell them to get down in a sing songy happy voice, they just bask in the praise they think they are getting.. but there is that no nonsense tone I have that means *I have absolutely had it with whatever you are doing and the next time I speak you are NOT going to like it*.  You know the one, when you say, no, get down, no, go away, leave my food alone, no, NO, GEEZE  COME ON!!, no, down, sit down.. and THEN you get the tone, so you could pretty much tell them to fly to the moon and they'd slink down and sit somewhere close and watch you.  Maybe I've come to be able to use that tone the first time, but I got Kit to lay down on the first command the other day when she was so excited over seeing DH that she was about to step in his dinner for the fifth time.  I got Fleurp to get off the counter, twice.  I got Ollie and Muffin to drop their little scuffle (those are interesting.  Muffin is 1.5 times the size of Ollie, but Ollie is older and meaner.  They've never actually fought, but they have been having quite a few vocal scuffles lately)

I also haven't been able to do anything in my house with out an entourage.  DH thinks it is quite funny when I walk down the hall with at least four cats following me around.  Last night when I got home from work, I had six, and they were all squeeking and whining wanting my attention.  I was in the kitchen trying to talk to DH and I almost couldn't hear myself from all the hubub.  I told them to be quiet a few times, but not in "the tone" finally I had it, and told them to leave us alone! and surprisingly a moment later there wasn't a kitty in the kitchen (they were all on the far side of the island which I refer to as the dining area of our great room kitchen/living room/dining room room) no crying, no noise of any kind.  I almost went giddy with my power.  If I could get Jack to not cry for treats, could I take over the world??

I then went down to exercise, and my entourage came with me.  Fleurp has taken to sleeping in a blanket that is on the floor in the basement where I work out.  She comes down with me and takes a cat nap while I work out.  I have not worked out alone since... well since I can remember :).  But last night I had Skippy running around playing with a ping pong ball and trying to goat Fleurp into playing.  Muffin was there too, doing her best to distract me with her beautiful belly.  She so loves to flaunt that thing at me when I'm busy knowing I have a very hard time resisting it. Life according to Muff is that NOTHING is more important then paying attention to Muff - unless she's busy. 

We do have a little bit of a situation though.  Twee has ended up with a few scabs on her head, so someone is not playing fair.  She had a tiny one at the base of her ear on the back side last week, and on Sunday I found a rather large scrape/scab under her chin.  I see her playing with Skippy and Muffin (ok so Muffin doesn't play she tells her to go away with some rather aggressive tones but I can't see her getting physical) and I've never seen anyone trying to hurt her.  Not quite sure what is going on.  She's lost several patches of fur on her head previous, but with no scabbing, no irritation of any type.  Just a small round patch of fur missing (maybe the size of a pea) and smooth white skin peeking through.  *shrug*  I'll have to keep an eye on it and see what comes of it.

sharing the kitten fever

I might just have to camp out at the shelter once Boots goes home

r u awake?

I think my cats are on ICHC

Online Quiz

I took this with Ollie in mind.