A Tail of Two Kitties
Ollie is unabashedly exploring everywhere he can get to, including the food dish of a certain resident kitty. The response is hissing and growling from the pint sized well dressed tuxedo cat as she sits as concealed as possible on the chairs under the dining room table. Ollie ignores her. He takes up residence in my office, and she wanders out to see me... only to discover the other cat. Hissing ensues once again. Ollie just stares at her. She growls. He just stares at her, even walks around her looking at and sniffing everything else with no tension at all. Her response to me is to smack at my hand repeatedly with her paw, giving me evidence that her claws grow back sharp within a week.
When Ollie wanders upstairs and I enter the kitchen for another cup of coffee, I suddenly have a loving little Ashe kitty at my feet, plopping on her side for pettings and stretching out her belly to be rubbed. She purs and is contented for her standard two to five minutes of social interaction. A couple minutes after she heads over and munches on some leftover kitty food, Ollie wanders back into the picture ...and the hissing and growling little kitty resurfaces...
As I was writing this, yet another of the office encounters occurred with the absolutely hurt and demoralized expression of the little cat who just can no longer scare this big monster cat twice her size. I feel bad for her, but this is obviously the way cats handle things. ...and she has always been such a piss ant anyhow...
So, I have one happy cat and one jealous cat.
Ollie's visit to the vet went well (despite his absolute terror at being there), and he was so very well behaved as per usual. His official weight was 14.5 lbs. He was given a prescription for oral L-Lysine gel to manage the stress reaction of the kitty version of herpes zoster (aka, cold sores). Dr. Gross told us that there is a Feliway collar, but I could not find one on-line. That search did, however, reveal a calming nutrient supplement for cats and dogs called Zylkene, which is apparently a European veterinarian supplement. I will call Dr. Gross and ask about the possibility of using this as it has documentation on a veterinarian website stating the success of studies in the same fashion as used by the Physicians Desk Reference for pharmaceuticals. It looks promising, and it allows the comfortable entrance of that currently nervous kitty that keeps wanting to come into the office only to see a big Maine Coon sitting on the IKEA automan behind my office chair, then it may be worth $70 for two months of kitty calming nutrients.
When Ollie wanders upstairs and I enter the kitchen for another cup of coffee, I suddenly have a loving little Ashe kitty at my feet, plopping on her side for pettings and stretching out her belly to be rubbed. She purs and is contented for her standard two to five minutes of social interaction. A couple minutes after she heads over and munches on some leftover kitty food, Ollie wanders back into the picture ...and the hissing and growling little kitty resurfaces...
As I was writing this, yet another of the office encounters occurred with the absolutely hurt and demoralized expression of the little cat who just can no longer scare this big monster cat twice her size. I feel bad for her, but this is obviously the way cats handle things. ...and she has always been such a piss ant anyhow...
So, I have one happy cat and one jealous cat.
Ollie's visit to the vet went well (despite his absolute terror at being there), and he was so very well behaved as per usual. His official weight was 14.5 lbs. He was given a prescription for oral L-Lysine gel to manage the stress reaction of the kitty version of herpes zoster (aka, cold sores). Dr. Gross told us that there is a Feliway collar, but I could not find one on-line. That search did, however, reveal a calming nutrient supplement for cats and dogs called Zylkene, which is apparently a European veterinarian supplement. I will call Dr. Gross and ask about the possibility of using this as it has documentation on a veterinarian website stating the success of studies in the same fashion as used by the Physicians Desk Reference for pharmaceuticals. It looks promising, and it allows the comfortable entrance of that currently nervous kitty that keeps wanting to come into the office only to see a big Maine Coon sitting on the IKEA automan behind my office chair, then it may be worth $70 for two months of kitty calming nutrients.