Twenty of Thirty: An Outing for Milo
This is Milo. He lives downstairs in my parents' apartment (for those not in the know, my family owns a two-flat building, with my sister and I in the upstairs apartment, and my parents downstairs).
Even though he is technically not my cat anymore, I still feel a great sense of responsibility towards him since I'm the one who brought him into the house. Back in December of 2008, I received him from a friend of a friend who could no longer keep him because her boyfriend was allergic. I had high hopes of integrating Milo into our little family, but failed utterly. Tally soundly rejected him and in four years has yet to soften her heart towards him. And Bubba never got used to him, and would bark madly every time he saw him. After about three months of trying to make it work, I had to admit that Milo was not fitting in. It's sad, because I really do think that he loves Tally and wants to be with her. But she is having none of him. Luckily, my dad was quite taken with him--he really is a gorgeous-looking cat--and encouraged my mom to offer to take Milo off our hands. He has lived downstairs ever since, and it's been lovely to see my dad bond with this cat who has been rejected so many times.
One of the nightly rituals at Casa Talitha is 9pm snack time, where I give all the animals a special treat, and during snack time, Milo is allowed to visit our apartment. I put Bradshaw in his crate with a dog biscuit, and then I open the door and let Milo in for snacks and the rare glimpse of Tally (she usually runs away from him, but once in a while she's slow to make her getaway, and he gets to sit there while she hisses in his face). He doesn't feel comfortable so he doesn't stay long, but I feel a like it's a nice diversion for him, and it makes me feel a little less guilty about giving him up.
The reason I'm telling you all this is that it's the background for today's outing. Milo's always been slightly odd, and we think he was poorly socialized as a kitten. One of his behavioral quirks is that he sometimes goes to the bathroom outside of his box, generally in the crawlspace of the basement staircase. He's been doing this for years, and my saintly parents are resigned to having to clean up after him. Well, last week, he did his little potty routine on my back porch during snack time, and since this was out of character, I decided that we needed to take him to the vet. I suspected that he left his little "gifts" in protest of the new dog in the house, but I wanted to rule out any physiological causes before relegating the act to behavioral issues.
Getting Milo to the vet was like coordinating a military operation. My mom left the arrangements to me since I'm used to this sort of thing, and I already have a history with the Cat Hospital. I made the mistake of using the "F" word when making the appointment--yes, I called Milo "slightly feral"--and so the folks at the vet's office were concerned that they would be faced with some sort of violent scene upon his arrival. This led to several follow up calls with tips for how to get him safely into his carrier, and when I mentioned that I had phenobarbitol on hand to sedate Tally for her vet visits, they got very excited and said we should sedate Milo for his visit as well. This meant that we had to weigh Milo so that the vet could prescribe the correct dosage. We don't tend to handle Milo very much since he likes to nip, so weighing him was a three person operation, with my mom on the scale holding Milo, me on the floor taking the reading, and my sister hovering in the background for moral support.
That all worked out, and we got the dosage, which my mom gave Milo this morning a couple of hours before the appointment. When I came downstairs in time to help with the stuffing into the cat carrier, he was a little loopy. My mom greeted me with the words, "Milo just got done licking the walls!" LOL. Thinking he would be much more complacent than he normally is, I grabbed him and tried to stuff him into the front of the carrier. Oh, the hubris! Milo was having none of it, and managed to swipe me quite nicely on the hand. So we went to Plan B and took the top off of the crate, waited for him to settle down, and then grabbed him, plonked him into the bottom of the crate and swiftly put the lid on. Whew, the beast was contained!
After a car ride filled with many, many unhappy kitty protestations, we arrived at the Cat Hospital, where we were instructed to fill out their FIVE PAGE questionnaire on Milo's bathroom habits. I swear, this is the most thorough interrogation on kitty litter that the world has ever seen. They even wanted us to draw a map of all of the litter box locations. It was epic!
When we finally got into the examination room, Milo's reaction was anti-climactic. He was a total lamb for the doctor. She was brilliant; she covered him with a towel and got down on the floor with him. Seeing how much he enjoyed that towel, my mom said that as soon as we got home, she was going to give him a towel of his own. It's just like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: never leave home without a towel! Sedated and towel-entranced, Milo even let the vet comb out the mats in his fur. It turns out the vet used to be a groomer, so she got a little obsessed with the state of his coat. My mom was so pleased--he hardly ever lets her comb him. The vet was able to give him his booster shots, and the techs were able to get a blood sample, with nary a peep from Milo. Drugs and towels are beautiful things, my friends!
We'll find out the results of the blood tests in a couple of days, but the vet seems pretty confident that there is no physiological reason for his inappropriate bathroom shenanigans. It's just Milo being Milo.
After the vet visit, my mom treated me to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I came home, ate lunch, watched some TV, and then napped like a boss. That was my day.
Even though he is technically not my cat anymore, I still feel a great sense of responsibility towards him since I'm the one who brought him into the house. Back in December of 2008, I received him from a friend of a friend who could no longer keep him because her boyfriend was allergic. I had high hopes of integrating Milo into our little family, but failed utterly. Tally soundly rejected him and in four years has yet to soften her heart towards him. And Bubba never got used to him, and would bark madly every time he saw him. After about three months of trying to make it work, I had to admit that Milo was not fitting in. It's sad, because I really do think that he loves Tally and wants to be with her. But she is having none of him. Luckily, my dad was quite taken with him--he really is a gorgeous-looking cat--and encouraged my mom to offer to take Milo off our hands. He has lived downstairs ever since, and it's been lovely to see my dad bond with this cat who has been rejected so many times.
One of the nightly rituals at Casa Talitha is 9pm snack time, where I give all the animals a special treat, and during snack time, Milo is allowed to visit our apartment. I put Bradshaw in his crate with a dog biscuit, and then I open the door and let Milo in for snacks and the rare glimpse of Tally (she usually runs away from him, but once in a while she's slow to make her getaway, and he gets to sit there while she hisses in his face). He doesn't feel comfortable so he doesn't stay long, but I feel a like it's a nice diversion for him, and it makes me feel a little less guilty about giving him up.
The reason I'm telling you all this is that it's the background for today's outing. Milo's always been slightly odd, and we think he was poorly socialized as a kitten. One of his behavioral quirks is that he sometimes goes to the bathroom outside of his box, generally in the crawlspace of the basement staircase. He's been doing this for years, and my saintly parents are resigned to having to clean up after him. Well, last week, he did his little potty routine on my back porch during snack time, and since this was out of character, I decided that we needed to take him to the vet. I suspected that he left his little "gifts" in protest of the new dog in the house, but I wanted to rule out any physiological causes before relegating the act to behavioral issues.
Getting Milo to the vet was like coordinating a military operation. My mom left the arrangements to me since I'm used to this sort of thing, and I already have a history with the Cat Hospital. I made the mistake of using the "F" word when making the appointment--yes, I called Milo "slightly feral"--and so the folks at the vet's office were concerned that they would be faced with some sort of violent scene upon his arrival. This led to several follow up calls with tips for how to get him safely into his carrier, and when I mentioned that I had phenobarbitol on hand to sedate Tally for her vet visits, they got very excited and said we should sedate Milo for his visit as well. This meant that we had to weigh Milo so that the vet could prescribe the correct dosage. We don't tend to handle Milo very much since he likes to nip, so weighing him was a three person operation, with my mom on the scale holding Milo, me on the floor taking the reading, and my sister hovering in the background for moral support.
That all worked out, and we got the dosage, which my mom gave Milo this morning a couple of hours before the appointment. When I came downstairs in time to help with the stuffing into the cat carrier, he was a little loopy. My mom greeted me with the words, "Milo just got done licking the walls!" LOL. Thinking he would be much more complacent than he normally is, I grabbed him and tried to stuff him into the front of the carrier. Oh, the hubris! Milo was having none of it, and managed to swipe me quite nicely on the hand. So we went to Plan B and took the top off of the crate, waited for him to settle down, and then grabbed him, plonked him into the bottom of the crate and swiftly put the lid on. Whew, the beast was contained!
After a car ride filled with many, many unhappy kitty protestations, we arrived at the Cat Hospital, where we were instructed to fill out their FIVE PAGE questionnaire on Milo's bathroom habits. I swear, this is the most thorough interrogation on kitty litter that the world has ever seen. They even wanted us to draw a map of all of the litter box locations. It was epic!
When we finally got into the examination room, Milo's reaction was anti-climactic. He was a total lamb for the doctor. She was brilliant; she covered him with a towel and got down on the floor with him. Seeing how much he enjoyed that towel, my mom said that as soon as we got home, she was going to give him a towel of his own. It's just like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: never leave home without a towel! Sedated and towel-entranced, Milo even let the vet comb out the mats in his fur. It turns out the vet used to be a groomer, so she got a little obsessed with the state of his coat. My mom was so pleased--he hardly ever lets her comb him. The vet was able to give him his booster shots, and the techs were able to get a blood sample, with nary a peep from Milo. Drugs and towels are beautiful things, my friends!
We'll find out the results of the blood tests in a couple of days, but the vet seems pretty confident that there is no physiological reason for his inappropriate bathroom shenanigans. It's just Milo being Milo.
After the vet visit, my mom treated me to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I came home, ate lunch, watched some TV, and then napped like a boss. That was my day.