All Cat's Go To Kitty Heaven

Even the prickly ones.
I woke up this morning on my own, rather than to my cat meowing when she thought I should get up.
That should have made me happy, but it didn't. Not today, anyways.
Yesterday we had to have our 16 year old cat put to sleep. I found her lying on the floor, unable to get up. Her legs could move and she stretched out a couple of times, but couldn't even manouver into a position to get up , and didn't seem able to lift her head. She peed on the floor while lying on her side, and I knew that it wasn't going to be a good day.
We picked up my daughter, from her apartment (it had always been her cat, and when she moved out, she couldn't take it with her) and went to the vet. The vet was nice, and sympathetic, but honest and said it was  very serious, there was nothing we could do for her, it was either a clot in her head, or a tumor. So we did the only thing we could for her. My daughter was devastated. I was incredibly sad, but I have been through this before.
  Skittles wasn't a cuddly sweet cat to everyone. She had her own personality like all animals, especially cats, do.She was loving and affectionate to my daughter, she really lived in her room most of the time when she lived here. When my daughter left, the cat transfered that to me. I got to pet her and got the lap sits. She did mellow a bit when she got older, but she never really bonded with others in the household, not much anyways. That kind of makes me sad too.

I will miss you Skittles.

Cats and Dogs and Daylight Savings Time

They don't get it.
They don't like it.
That much is apparent to me.
Pet supper time at my house is at 5:00, and it's usually on schedule.
It has been a month since we set our clocks back an hour for daylight savings, but that makes no nevermind to them.
The cat now goes and sits by her food dish at 4:00, and the dog takes her que from that and goes and sprawls in her place in the kitchen doorway, waiting for me to serve them.
The cat glares at me, and lets forth bone chilling meows, and the dog gives me pitiful "you better feed me or I'll fade away, really I will" eyes.
The cat of course is the ringleader. A dog you can distract with words and games, but a cat has a mission and there is no distracting them from that.
Funny how I noticed they have adjusted to the time change when they are allowed to sleep in for that extra time in the mornings, even though that is how they spend most of their days, but fool around with dinner time and someone has to pay.
I think they're just messing with me.

Cat's ear hematoma and more lovely stuff

In my quest to bring you both good and bad things about pet owning, I give you a small tale about our cat, and a couple of her issues.
Skittles, was give to us by our daughter's friend in the fall 11 years ago.

First adventure at the vets: We had her about a month, when we noticed that she wasn't eating, or peeing (sorry about mentioning the p word again in my blog, but it's just something everyone does and has to do...a lot). We took her to the vet, and he felt her stomach and said it appeared she had something in here and it felt "crunchy". She was new, and small, but we had no choice but to get her into surgery. It turned out that she had eaten a candy cane, wrapper and all. The candy had gone through, but the cellophane wrapper had balled up and stuck in there. Once it was removed she was stitched up and just fine. Shows you that your pets will try and eat anything. Little cat. Big bill.


Second adventure at the vets: This was about two years ago. One day she seemed fine and the next, her ear had ballooned up. Off to the vet. We were told that it was an ear hematoma. She must have been shaking her head and ruptured some vessels in her ear. No ear mites or fleas, so we are not sure why. Once again...into surgery. The ear is drained, and because it had filled with fluid, the layers of her ear had separated and it had filled up like a hot water bottle. They cut the skin, and fit it back together and stitch it up, kind of like a quilt so the ear can heal and glue back together. The stitches stay for about 10 days. Then they take the stitches out. This may work in some cases, but in ours......no. The ear started to get fat again and in the end our cat's ear just wouldn't heal nicely. We could have tried again, but had no more money and our cat was just not a good patient. It's wrinkled and thick and she looks like an old alley cat, I don't think she cares.

Sink Cats & Tub Dogs

Just about everyone knows a cat that likes to sleep in the sink.
If you think not, look for telltale signs. Are there strange hairs on your bar of soap....I don't mean the curly ones that you may blame (curse) others for leaving behind, in your home. I mean long silky ones? Is your toothbrush hairier than usual. If you say yes, you may have a secret night-sink sleeper.
I have had 3 sink sleepers. This one is Claw'd (named because that's what you got when you went near him).
This particular cat used to sit on top of the fridge and bat the top of your head when you opened the fridge door, and also hide behind doors, attacking your ankles when you walked past. Sadly this little fuzzy monster is no longer with us.

Slightly less well known...but they are out there for sure, because I have had 2 of them, are the dog tub sleepers. This is Monty, our first tub sleeper (again, no longer with us).


Our current dog will do this as well. She did it a lot as a young dog (as well as dragging out the wet towels and rolling in them). She is getting older now, and it's harder for her to pick her legs up climb in, so we don't see her there as often. I suppose this is a big dog thing, that's what we have always had.
Anyways, cats in sinks, dogs in tubs, just part of the strange goings on in your home when you own pets. Nothing weirder than walking into your bathroom on a warm summer day , and having your sink and tub full of furry animals.
Gotta love 'em, they have their own personalities.

What's in a name?

Almost as hard to come up with as names for your children. Although occasionally, it seems like people just don’t want to think about it too much. I can remember being a kid and having a cat named Lucky, and then the next cat we got was also named Lucky. Ironically neither cat was.
We had a lab cross named Penny, and a beagle named Tammy. Both names that were considered for me apparently, but were given to dogs instead.
I can remember sitting around the kitchen table writing names on paper that would be chosen out of a bowl. That was for our black shepherd. I wrote Thor, a brother wrote Brutus, and he ended up being called Ben. That was a good name for him.
I had guinea pigs named Bubbles and Pickles, I have no idea why. I was a kid.
Since I got married and started my own family we have had a cat named Dickens, not after the writer, but because he was a dickens. Also a cat named Claude, because that was what you got when you went near him “Claw’d”. Our kids names their cat Skittles (why?) and our first dog a golden retriever was a purebred and so appropriately we named him Montgomery (Monty). Two rabbits, Magic (black) and Twister (because he would run and then jump up in the air and twist around, also the movie was a big hit at the time) Our current dog is Tira, named by our kids after some anime character.
I always think of good names, like Achilles, so I could say “Achilles heal! When we don’t have a pet to name, but when we do have a new one, it just seems so daunting to come up with the right one.

Morning, Oh Joy.

I wrote about this "animals and morning" thing last year, and am finding it is happening again this year.

The time of year when my cat starts to think she's a frickin' rooster.

At precicely 5:55 she starts walking up and down the hall outside my bedroom door, meowing.

I lobbed Tums and cough candies and anything else I could find in my nightstand drawer at her, but she just thought it was a demented form of dodgeball, and kept meowing. My eyes were still half closed and I didn't have my contacts in, so the missles didn't actually make contact. That may have been why she didn't run away.

During the week it isn't a problem, the alarm goes off about that time anyways. But last night (Friday) I put a bunch of marshmallows in my drawer and when she started up this morning, I was more prepared. Or so I thought. I forgot about the dog. I have a very lazy assed dog that usually sleeps in until 9:00 or so, but the smell of marshmallows flying through the air, aimed at the cat, woke her up and she started intercepting and eating my marshmallow ammunition before it reached the intended target. When she devoured it all, she started licking me.
My husband could sleep through all this. There will be no sleeping in for me.

Oddly enough, the rooster that lives across the field, doesn't start crowing until about 1:30 in the afternoon.

Cats vs Dogs

The cats have stepped it up a notch.