Adventures in Animal Care
[Note: post on June 30th on Dreamwidth, but I forgot to crosspost here until today]
Allo, mes amies! Sneaking in under the time limit with my monthly post once more. I am now 38 years old, which seems somehow less old than 37 and also, like, a lot older? It's weird. But it's a nice colour, so I'll hope for a good year.
The last couple of weeks have not boded well for that; it's been something of a series of unfortunate events. On the bright side, Pax is now free from all gates! He is no longer confined to the kitchen at night time. He was starting to throw hissy fits and bang on the gate in the middle of the night, so we decided to see if he had just outgrown it and he's been much happier overall and very well-behaved. We've just had some interesting events arise as we're all adjusting to it, along with some adventures in cat-sitting.
CW: sick cats and anxiety attacks, but with happy endings.
Not last Wednesday, but the one before, there was a massive thunderstorm and Pax hates thunderstorm. He came down the hallway to tell us about and I got up to sit with him and the poor little guy was beside himself. He kept running up and down the hallway honking and howling and crying. He has this idea that if he's afraid of something, we should all of us gather in the living room. Like, he would be better off just going to the bedroom to his crate there and hanging out, but what he wants is for everyone to get up and come sit in the living room with him. And since I was the only one who got up, he would run down the hallway, back down to the kitchen, through the kitchen to the back door, howl to go out, come through the other kitchen door to the living room, yell at me, then go back down the hallway and repeat. He always wants to go out in a storm, despite the fact that there's, you know, a storm. So you open the door and he goes, 'but I want the good outside, open the door to the good outside please', but you can't, so he runs away crying and then goes back to ask to go out again. Finally, the storm calmed down enough for him to out and then he was a bit more chill, and then he just put himself to bed in the kitchen like 'okay, all's good, see you in the morning'.
So that was Wednesday. On Friday we went to my brother's to feed his cats while he and his wife were away. He has two cats, Jack and Larry, who are 14 and about 5ish respectively, both Russian Blue-looking ones. Jack has diabetes and Larry has kidney stones, so feeding them is like one of the puzzles in a video game 'Jack eats here and gets a scoop from this bag, while Larry eats here and gets a scoop from this bag, Jack gets a spoonful from this can, Larry gets a spoonful from this can, etc'. Jack also needs an insulin shot, which he's good about. It's cute, he'll bend down to eat and then look over his shoulder to make sure you're giving it to him properly. Unfortunately, he's just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and is on new meds and was pukey and didn't want to eat very much. I was worried about him, and then that night, there was another thunderstorm, so another night of Pax being upset. Mum took that shift. The next day, we got a text from my brother that the morning feeder had texted to say Jack was still under the weather, so he and his wife were coming home earlier than expected, but we still needed to do the night feed. No problem. Except, we went in and Larry decided to run out the front door almost as soon as I opened the door.
I usually handle emergencies very well. I'm a 'problem solve now, panic later' kind of person. But I did not handle this event well. I didn't know the neighbourhood or the neighbours, I didn't know Larry very well, I did not know where he would go if he would let me grab him if I got close to him, I didn't see where he went, and it was pouring rain. We also couldn't find Jack inside the house for a good five minutes until he appeared from...somewhere. I was full on panic attack territory. Mum, former nurse that she is, was cool as a cucumber, though. We texted my brother who said Larry always goes under the neighbour's deck, so I went out with the cat treats and shook them and called for him, and he popped out and hopped into my arms, and I got him safely home. Good lord, that was stressful. Thankfully, we didn't have to return the next day and Jack is doing much better now. Happy endings all around, but stress, major, major stress. I also hurt my back crawling around in search of Larry. And Pax decided to bark at a footstool in my mum's room at 2AM because it moved when he wasn't expecting it.
The next night he decided to hunt a fly at 3AM until we told him to go to sleep.
And on Monday, there was another thunderstorm.
So, it's been a couple of weeks. But today we went up to my sister-in-law's family's cottage to have lunch and had a lovely, sunny day near the lake and a great time chatting with my brother's friends who had also come to visit. And Pax stayed by himself without any gates and was a good boy the whole time. Happy endings!
Hope everyone else is doing well! It's Canada Day tomorrow and I know July 4th is upon on us, so enjoy your celebrations if you are those who celebrate either holiday!