Sunday's cat is full of cat food
The good news is that the right cats ate the right kind of food again today. A combination of tough love, supervision, and pathetic pandering is doing the trick. Unfortunately this return to proper diet is not working quite quickly enough for Cally.
Cally's arthritis is really hurting her, and just two days of the senior osteo food hasn't been enough to make a noticeable improvement. Tonight I broke out the 36ml Metacam and hope she'll get some relief before the nausea kicks in and I have to stop it. That will give her an extra 4-5 days if all goes well. I'm also hoping that that interval will give the food some time to be effective again, so she won't need the meds. So I have scheduled nausea to look forward to over the next few days, with a high probability that it will be on the foot of my bed where she spends almost all her time now. She's been extra smoochy, which is a bit of a concern. Nice, but not natural.
Speaking of the foot of the bed, I installed an extra accessibility step so she doesn't need to jump more than a foot at a time to get up there, but I'm not sure it's stable enough for her liking. It's an upturned plastic box that bows a bit and has no gripping surface. My bad - I'll have to find something that's firmer, but softer.
Speaking of vomit, tonight it was Pumpkin, under the dining table, with a furball. I'm hoping I can get enough of his special high fibre furball control food into him again to get his insides moving properly. It was an extremely serious problem in his youth and we nearly lost him in late December 1999. In the meantime there's Catlax, a cat laxative in a tube that he really really likes, thank heavens. Think vegemite mixed with vasoline. Go on, I dare you.
And the reason for all this feeding time disruption, Princess. She has eaten nothing but the hypoallergenic food for about three weeks now, which make it about three-four weeks since her cortisone shot wore off. Last night I found the first apparently self-inflicted wound since then, and today found two more. Just little scabs, but it's a worrying trend. She's also started washing a bit too fiercely for my liking. The observations continue, then it's either expensive regular flea treatment (for invisible fleas) or another anti-inflammatory shot of some kind. Given that she had a fit last time I'm not too keen to make it a regular thing. Also, we're not exactly in cash flow heaven right now.
We love our cats, and accept that as time goes on they'll need more love and attention, and eventually some hard decisions. I don't believe in 'heroic measures' for the two elder cats, but we may also eventually have to face the 'how much is their love worth?' question. That time is coming closer.
One of the sweetest things that Husband says to me is "Thank you for bringing cats into my life." "And?" I usually prompt. "And Arnold Schwarzenegger movies," he finishes.
Cally's arthritis is really hurting her, and just two days of the senior osteo food hasn't been enough to make a noticeable improvement. Tonight I broke out the 36ml Metacam and hope she'll get some relief before the nausea kicks in and I have to stop it. That will give her an extra 4-5 days if all goes well. I'm also hoping that that interval will give the food some time to be effective again, so she won't need the meds. So I have scheduled nausea to look forward to over the next few days, with a high probability that it will be on the foot of my bed where she spends almost all her time now. She's been extra smoochy, which is a bit of a concern. Nice, but not natural.
Speaking of the foot of the bed, I installed an extra accessibility step so she doesn't need to jump more than a foot at a time to get up there, but I'm not sure it's stable enough for her liking. It's an upturned plastic box that bows a bit and has no gripping surface. My bad - I'll have to find something that's firmer, but softer.
Speaking of vomit, tonight it was Pumpkin, under the dining table, with a furball. I'm hoping I can get enough of his special high fibre furball control food into him again to get his insides moving properly. It was an extremely serious problem in his youth and we nearly lost him in late December 1999. In the meantime there's Catlax, a cat laxative in a tube that he really really likes, thank heavens. Think vegemite mixed with vasoline. Go on, I dare you.
And the reason for all this feeding time disruption, Princess. She has eaten nothing but the hypoallergenic food for about three weeks now, which make it about three-four weeks since her cortisone shot wore off. Last night I found the first apparently self-inflicted wound since then, and today found two more. Just little scabs, but it's a worrying trend. She's also started washing a bit too fiercely for my liking. The observations continue, then it's either expensive regular flea treatment (for invisible fleas) or another anti-inflammatory shot of some kind. Given that she had a fit last time I'm not too keen to make it a regular thing. Also, we're not exactly in cash flow heaven right now.
We love our cats, and accept that as time goes on they'll need more love and attention, and eventually some hard decisions. I don't believe in 'heroic measures' for the two elder cats, but we may also eventually have to face the 'how much is their love worth?' question. That time is coming closer.
One of the sweetest things that Husband says to me is "Thank you for bringing cats into my life." "And?" I usually prompt. "And Arnold Schwarzenegger movies," he finishes.