Quadruple Cat Health Review
I'm way overdue for a cat health report, but I'm inspired by this morning's trip to the vet to try and get it all down. Warning: Contains a lot of wee and poo. This is mainly a record for me rather than an exercise in deliberate sharing.
Buffy
Buffy went in for a vaccination this morning and we learned that my 1kg of 12-week-old kitten has become 1.7kg of 16-week-old kitten. Doing well, vet has decreed her mild chronic tears and slightly crusty nose as nothing of concern. Pumpkin had the same issues so I just cleaned his face most days and he never had eye problems of any sort. Dr Laura also concurs with my theory that Buffy has some Burmese in her background (Ragdolls being a relatively new breed there's still plenty of ghosts of crosses past). Apparently Ragdolls come in two flavours - limp to the point of owner concern, and supercharged like Buffy.
Since this is a retrospective I'll record that she poo'd several times under our bed when she first arrived. We didn't notice at first because we've moved cat trays closer to the living areas and ascribed dodgy odors to them, and kitten poos are tiny. But fresh runny kitten poos are *deadly* and the penny dropped quickly. As she'd got away with this behaviour for several days straight I feared that it would be difficult to break her of the habit, but I think she responded as soon as we put down a plastic dropsheet and we haven't had any incidents since.
Oh yes, she also wee'd on the lambswool rug. We cleaned that and turned it over. Haven't been quite game to put that back yet.
Cally
Cally is noodling along without much to report. The unseasonably warm weather is at least kind to her arthritis. She's still a bit bemused by Boris Giles' attentions. Both kittens are now bold enough to stalk her tail on occasions, and while she's never happy about it (thus swishing her tail more and making it a more attractive target) she won't hiss until someone actually pins her tail down. She's also delivered a few firm splats to kitten heads, but nothing with claws so I'm pleased on the political front. More often than not a glare is sufficient to make the others back away.
I was a bit concerned last week when she seemed to do an extra big wee and also vomited up a lot of liquid (on the coffee table, which was exciting), but there have been no further incidents. She does now regularly miss the tray when having a wee, so we've taken to laying absorbent pads (designed for house training puppies) around the trays (in addition to the newspaper we already used). Wee is wee, right? I suspect her aim is off now that her hind legs are stiffening up and she can't crouch as she used to.
Princess
Princess has been slowly but steadily losing weight for some time now, but I'm concerned at how skinny she has become. I think it likely that she also has diarrhea (it's a bit hard to tell with four cats in the house but she appeared to have a bit of mess in her fur yesterday which made an impression, as trimming of the Princess arse is a job for the strong of mind and body). She also seems a bit flat. Wasn't able to get her to the vet with Buffy this morning but had a chat and I'll bring her in next Monday with Cally.
I wondered about hyperthyroidism but her demeanour would suggest otherwise, so that's off the table. It's certainly not simple kitten stress because she's not over-grooming and running to us for extra attention. At age 16 it could be heart, kidneys, diabetes, cancer... about a million things. Dr Laura said it was likely they'd run some blood tests so we'll see how that goes next week.
Boris Giles
Left the best 'til last, for odd values of Best. Boris Giles has had only the one major problem since coming to Sector 7, but it caused much heartache and no little swearing. As reported above Buffy had used the carpet under our bed as a litter tray for several days, so when Boris Giles arrived on the scene it's likely he just followed suit as an established and safe toilet area. Unfortunately Boris Giles is considerably larger than Buffy, and as a nervous kitty his poos were toxic in the extreme. He also wee'd where he shouldn't have.
I've really left this all a bit late to recall all the details, but we tried the following deterrents under the bed:
- Plastic drop sheet
- Citronella oil (nothing like smearing an accelerant around the bedroom to interest one's insurance company)
- Naphthalene flakes (mothballs)
By way of attractants we:
- Established two more litter trays
- Raised a privacy screen around the trays by the back door (being glass he might have felt a bit exposed)
- Invested in some horribly cheap rough non-clumping kitty litter to give him an option for texture. I won't go into the details of blending and layering, but we're ever so slowly trying to wean him off it.
- Cleared each tray several times per day.
I also viewed him with suspicion and quickly transferred him to a tray when he seemed to Assume The Position. This worked a couple of times so clearly I do recognise the signs.
He also wee'd twice on laundry/Grandma's couch. Oh wasn't that a joy. I went slightly crazy trying to track down the source of that one, as the laundry pile had been turned over so the source wasn't immediately clear. Nearly knocked myself out with the sniff test though, for a hit was a HIT and burned my sinuses and throat. We've only taken defensive measures there, stripping and washing the affected layers (fortunately the precious couch is covered in many layers to protect it from claws), adding a plastic cover and scattering some mothball packets around. Oh, and we're much quicker to sort and put away fresh laundry.
Perhaps the one other thing we did to address inappropriate toileting behaviour was look at stress. Boris Giles was certainly jumpy to start with, but seemed to settle in very quickly. I had started to worry though that he was being a bit rough on Buffy during play. Observation revealed a different story - Buffy was the one who wouldn't take no for an answer, and kept play-attacking him long past his comfort zone, forcing him to use escalating measures to get her to stop. He usually had to flee to make a play session stop. To address this we introduced time-outs for Buffy if she became too insistent, and since then there have been no further incidents.
I won't make the mistake of declaring victory again (you can imagine how the universe chose to reward that particular attack of hubris) but I'd rate the problem as currently managed. We'll see how well that lasts once we start to dismantle some of the defences and get our house back to normal.