Category: Cats

I knew there was a problem on Sunday morning when Dr. Jones jumped into the broken side of our double sink in the bathroom and assumed a very familiar position with an intent look on his face. Yes, the cat peed—just a little bit—right in front of me. I took it as a sign that he was going to need a trip to the vet on Monday.

I had friends over to play A Game of Thrones that day, so I was busy most of the morning and early afternoon making food and tidying up. Jones didn't enter into the picture again until my friend Tara set her purse on the floor and I caught the cat trying to pee in/on it.

He just got worse throughout the day. I had to shoo him out of the game box and by the evening he was simply standing in the middle of the kitchen floor straining and peeing where he stood.

When I looked up his symptoms online, I realized that if he had a true blockage we could have an emergency on our hands. So rather than wait until my vet opened on Monday ($$), I went ahead and took him to the emergency vet clinic. ($$$$)

There he received a diagnosis of feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD), which is kind of a catch-all description but boils down to a lifetime of special dietary needs to prevent crystals and stones in the cat's urine. The vet told me that it is very common in neutered male cats but also in human women, so there's a good deal of research being conducted on it.

While I sat in the waiting room, the vet emptied Jones' bladder and gave him some pain medication that zombified him pretty thoroughly. I put him in a kennel overnight with water and a litterbox and I'm pretty sure he spent most of the night standing and staring blankly through the bars.

The next morning he was doing much better. He doesn't mind the kennel, so it's a good place to put him when I feed him his special canned food. I got a big bag of the dry form of the prescription food and switched all the cats over immediately. The vet warned me that I'd have to limit the portions to keep the cats from getting fat, but it's better to have them all eating the same thing than to have to worry about Jones getting into some food that will make his symptoms return.

So now Dr. Jones is on an anti-spasmodic twice a day for a week, the special food forever, and I have more pain medicine that he doesn't seem to need. He seems to be back to his old self already, which is a huge relief.

I asked my friend who'd given me Jones as a kitten if there was any chance he was still under warranty since he doesn't turn two until this Friday. Nope. No refunds, no returns. I guess I'll have to get him to pay me back in purrs and snuggles. I wonder if he'd be willing to take on a part-time job?

Yes, today's the day and we're celebrating here by drawing to see who will win my cat FURminator giveaway.

The first two comments were from the same person, so I ran the random number generator for entries 2 through 34:

Lucky entry #8 was from Sweet Purrfections:

I'm sure they can really use a good FURminating. Congratulations, kittehs!

Disclosure: Prize was provided to me at no charge by FURMinator, but I will be paying for shipping to prize winner.

Last November, I was confronted with the evidence that we had a mouse problem in our house for the first time since we've lived there. I can't say I really did anything proactive about it, but you'd think that with four cats and a dog wandering about the premises, the solution would be pretty obvious.

Fast forward to last night. We'd gone over to leech off our friends' HBO subscription watch "Game of Thrones" with some friends and when we got home and walked into the kitchen, we could see that Dr. Jones was very engaged with something in the corner. I immediately suspected that he'd found a mouse, and a flick of the light switch confirmed it.

Meanwhile, all the activity got Xena and Velvet's attention as well. It wasn't long before all three cats gathered in the kitchen to, I assumed, make short work of the interloper.

Instead, they managed to let it escape behind the refrigerator.

There was no more sign of it for the rest of the evening, so I eventually went to bed…but only after carefully checking the sheets to make sure no one had left a mouse carcass "gift" there. Xena likes to bring her toys into our bed, so it was a valid concern.

When I woke up this morning, my husband told me that the cats had managed to kill the mouse during the night and he had handled the disposal. I appreciated that, especially since our division of labor back in the old days when we still had an outdoor cat was that I dealt with mammals and he cleaned up the dead birds.

Who knows how many more mice are lurking in our walls and cupboards, but at least the cats have gotten the hang of their varmint killing role. If the critters know what's good for them, they'll leave now. Ish.

You may recall last year when I began embracing my crazy cat lady destiny by accepting a free FURminator and sculpting my cats' fur into little fuzzy creatures. At the end of that post I promised no more cat fur sculptures, but guess what…I LIED! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

This year they upped the ante with a celebrity cat fur sculpture theme and I couldn't resist participating again. Also, because I'm already stocked up on FURminators, I'm going to give one away on this very blog post, if you can be patient enough to read to the end.

So without further ado, here is my rendition of Gene Simmons from KISS, brought to life via the media of free-range egg, Sharpie, one of my old belts, and black cat fur:

I know it's cheating to have him wearing sunglasses, but eyes are hard to draw. See also: my artistic choice not to have him in stage makeup or with his tongue sticking out. Naturally, one of my fellow artistes (who ended up being a contest finalist) had to get all show-offy and make this:

Also show-offy (and another finalist), Mr. Scrubby, who claims to have built Conan O'Brien out of his own fur, despite his obvious lack of opposable thumbs. I think his moms helped. 

You can check out the entire gallery on Facebook and vote for your favorite finalist.

So on to the giveaway. I have for you, the Large Cat Short Hair deShedding Tool, a $50.99 value. 

They didn't ask me to say this, but these things are amazing! I especially love that little blue flange you see there, because it serves to push the fur off the teeth of the comb and into the trash. If you've ever dealt with staticky hair flying everywhere while grooming a cat with a regular brush or comb, you'll know this is an incredibly handy and desirable feature.

To win, leave a comment on this post telling me about the pet you have that sheds the most. I'll pick a random winner on Friday, April 27th, which makes perfect sense because it's National Hairball Awareness Day. Make sure you include a valid email address so I can contact you if you're selected.

UPDATE: Contest is now closed. See winner here.

Disclosure: Prize was provided to me at no charge by FURMinator, but I will be paying for shipping to prize winner. I'm not a finalist for the big prize (a $1,000 donation to a cat-related animal charity), but I am eligible for a $150 Visa gift card drawing as part of this program.