Yoda’s 2011 Chew List

Pop’s Therapy Boots $250.00
Pair of fuzzy slippers $6.98
Worn piece of shag carpeting (not worth replacing)
One cat toy $4.98
Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea $24.98
One pair sunglasses $19.95
One white tennis shoe and shoelace $19.95
One cup exotic coffee plus contents $5.00

Cost of daily hits of puppy breath, puppy nips on ears, tugs on jean legs to go for walks and unconditional love of this 3 month old Yellow Lab….
Priceless!

Or maybe I should entitle this Taylor is a pill! LOL This cat is the worst cat to pill that I have ever met. Thankfully the antibiotic is so strong it is only given once every 24 hours…here’s how her pilling unfolds.

She is waiting at the door, she doesn’t want to be confined, she wants Pop’s lap. It doesn’t matter that she can’t currently see out of one eye, or that her eyes are draining massive amounts of goo- HOW DARE I CONFINE HER.

I open the door slowly it’s a chicken wire door upstairs- she tries to slide out between my legs and I slide her right back on her belly across the tile floor so that I can get inside. I hook the door and turn around- she has vanished!

Not a small feat for a 13 pound maine coon kitty mix in a room that is sparsely furnished and mostly consists of litter pans and cat beds.

I turn on the light. Let the searching begin. First, I open a can of food hoping the pop top will entice her out- nope- she doesn’t play that game. She knows I am here with intent and it isn’t the intention of feeding her.

Starting at the corner of the room, I get down on my knees and start looking for her-where is she? The room consists of high counters, small cubby holes and one bookcase. I don’t see hide nor hair of my gray and white lovely kitty and she isn’t giving herself away easily.

I lie down on the floor and look again and by golly there she is in the bookcase. In the lower shelf squeezing her massive bulk behind some hard back books! I have to give her credit- I would have never found her there without lying on the floor first.

I slide over and remove the book- she growls and spits…sigh..she is not a spitty kitty.

The books are cleared and I reach for her- she reaches back with her claws and nails me! Ouch! Her vet visit yesterday was fairly extensive as well as expensive and she is still mad at me for taking her there. I grab her scruff and gently pull her to me. She resists the whole way. Thankfully, I had the foresight to take all the meds she needs before hand and put them nearby. The pill is a small dixie cup, the ointment is uncapped and the salve is spread out on a piece of gauze.

I kneel down and place her with her butt firmly between my knees. Her growls intensify and my heart breaks for this baby. I wish I could just tell her that this is for her own good- but she is not understanding and she is feeling pretty punky.

I open her mouth and instert the pill. I can’t allow her to do a dry swallow for if this capsule breaks open in her throat it could ulcerate her throat lining and we both would be in trouble. I push the pill in with the help of a pill pusher. She clamps down leaving bite marks in the plastic.

I follow the pill with 6cc’s of water- she shakes her head back and forth and drool flies as I dribble the water carefully down her throat. Her stress meter is pegged.

I put the ointment in her eyes and put the salve on her face where she has scratched herself raw trying to get at her itching, watery eyes.

I pet her and she is still growling and swearing at me. Probably calling my ancestors all sorts of bad names. She has backpedaled so far into me that only her head is visible. I release her and she turns her head to the right and bites me right on the inner thigh! Another OUCH! Just think, we have to do this again in just 6 hours!

Taylor became suddenly severely ill late this afternoon. I called my vet and he was able to squeeze me into one of his later appointments. Tay has a bad viral infection, so much so that her eyes are bulging due to edema. It came on quite suddenly.

I had no choice, I had to dip into the monies set aside for the spay fund at the end of the month. So now, although Taylor is home and on medication, eye ointment and breathing treatments, I am ninety dollars short of getting the kittens neutered.

It’s amazing to me, just when I think I might catch a break something happens to set us back a bit. I guess I will just have to see what happens- at the very least, I will be able to get the first group of kittens neutered, it’s the second group I am unsure of.

It’s been so cold here- they are calling for a deep freeze tonight. I went and got a big bale of straw and insulated cat alley the best I could to help out the outside kitties. I just wish they would come inside but they want nothing to do with that suggestion. Just have to hope that warmer weather prevails soon- rain would be nice.

I am at the grocery store last night, waiting to check out (no cat food in my basket whatsover) surprise, surprise! The store is buzzing with activity as people are planning holiday festivites, making dinner plans or getting together with folks they care about. All I want to do is check out of the madness and go back to the chaos known as my home! LOL

This gentleman in line behind me taps me on the back. I turn around and he says to me “Excuse me, but would you like a kitten?”

I look down at what I am wearing. Not my cutsey kitten sweater or my sweatshirt with kittens parading across the chest. I am not wearing my cat shoes or even my hat that says “Cat Hair, the next best condiment!” I am in a plain sweatshirt, jeans and regular shoes.

I looked at him and asked him the one burning question on my mind. “Why would you ask me that?” and I smiled.

He seemed a bit puzzled, then shrugged his shoulders and said “Something just told me to ask you. I have a 9 month old kitten on the roof of my house. I do not know how he got up there- and he can’t figure out how to get down!”

In talking with him further, I found out he feeds the cats on his roof. He must have followed the other cats up to the roof, but won’t follow them down. His roof is 12 feet high.

I told him I don’t have room for any more cats and so I took his information and made some phone calls to find a place for this roof-walker.

I saw him early this morning outside on the perch by the window eating from the feral feeder. I called to him and when he saw it was me, he jumped off the perch and vanished under the house. 🙁 He is moving just fine so he doesn’t appear injured and Thank God- he is alive!

until you spend the night with two kittens in the last throes of heat. Poor girls they are so uncomfortable and sought comfort from me all night. I even went to bed early 8:00 a rarity for me, but spent the better part of the night, petting and soothing both Quince and Pippi who simply can’t understand why mom won’t let one of those handsome studly kittens into the room! After all, that would take care of the problem right? Not in my lifetime! I would rather be sleep-deprived thank you very much! I kept telling them next week girls, the torment will end.

Normally, when my cats start sneezing, I don’t hit the panic button. I call my vet who sends me either Clavamox or Amoxy and in about a week’s time, the cat has finished half the meds and is on the meds.

But this year, something different is coming around my group. Squirrel became ill first with multiple sneezing fits (at one point, I counted 20 rapid sneezes) She slept on my chest the other night and I could hear her labored breathing. I woke everytime she sneezed as she sprayed my face and neck with her discharge. (lovely)

This is not a snotty nasty discharge, but a thin watery one. Day before yesterday she stopped eating as her nasal congestion had built to the point she could no longer smell. (If a cat can’t smell, she can’t eat.)

I took her in yesterday and my vet tried his darndest to pill her. I warned him ahead of time that she is the worst cat to pill or give liquids to. He scoffed at me, saying he has done this for so long, it would be easy. HA! In the end, I received injectibles to give her (dexamycin) She gets two shots daily.

He also tried to get her to eat, but she would have none of it. She is home now with her roommate Riley (also ill) in our shop.

I really feel that it when it comes to the cat world, the germs are getting smarter and the vets just can’t always keep up. The vet told me he thought after the round of meds that Squirrel will be “just fine.” I sincerely hope so. That this is just a bad case of nasal congestion and nothing else is waiting down the pike. But the weather is such a factor. It is so cold here bitterly so- even the barn cats are huddled around the space heater when I go out in the morning. We are supposed to have rain this time of year and there isn’t even a snowstorm in the mountains right now. For Oregon to go through December with little to no rain is unheard of.

Yoda is being a pure puppy and he wants to chase these cats so bad. He listens though and when they are racing through the house and I tell him “No Chase!” He reluctantly settles down and just watches the NASCAT show zoom by him. I can tell he wants to join in as the activity is pretty frenzied at times-I put him on a leash this morning because I couldn’t get McGee or Fog to stop play fighting. I know they were play fighting because it was silent tumbling over and over- kicking and even biting, but all harmless play. If it had been vocal that would have been another story and I probably would of had some cat bites to tend to afterward.

Never a dull moment here that’s for sure-

I am running on such little sleep right now. With ten kittens who need to be neutered, the night is crammed with activity on the stairs and in the hallways and virtually all over the house. Mike is fortunate to some extent. When he goes to sleep he takes out his hearing aids and his world becomes silent. It then becomes up to me to try and keep the peace during the night- keep the boys from killing each other as their tom-catness goes a bit out of control.

This is the first time in rescue that I have had such a heavy crop of rescued kitties and have kept them past their normal time of being neutered. They are month over-due. ALL of them will be getting neutered next week- YAY!

I had to wait as I was several hundred short of getting them all done.

As I lie in bed and listen to the scuffles, growls, and tumbles and hear the girls calling out to the males and trilling their love song- I am just amazed that some people can actually do this on purpose- leave cats intact so the males become slowly more aggressive and heat cycles become painful and uncomfortable and THINK NOTHING of it.

I have the girls in one room with two currently in heat, the boys have the run of the house, because I have Mr. Cool and another two arrivals in the other rooms. I am seriously thinking of turning the old stables into a cat holding area!

I got a call this morning from a good friend with two older cats. She is moving out of the country and although I know she loves her cats, she has to come up with $8,000.00 to ship them over as well as another thousand for their shots and health exams before the new country will accept them. Add to that, the two spayed girls will have to spend 6 months in quarantine and Sharon is not sure they could survive that. She wants to leave them with me and see if I can find them a loving home where they can go on living in comfort together. Tall order right now as adoptions are down. But I told her I would try- and my hope is that next week after the spays and neuters some of these beautiful kittens once placed on PetFinders will find loving home- and then perhaps- I might be able to get some much-needed sleep!

Just a reminder, the comment contest giveaway will last till the last day in December and Jan 4th the winner will be announced and the book sent to the winner-

Can someone please send me the Sleep Fairy tonight so I can get some wonderful sleep? LOL

In an effort to give back to all of you who have followed my blog this year, I am offering the following prize:

Fully Revised & Updated Cat Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook Third Edition. by Debra M. Eldredge DVM Delbert G Carlson DVM Liisa D. Carlson DVM and James M. Griffin MD

To qualify for this contest all you need to do is leave a comment on my blog from today to the last day of the month. You can comment about anything, tell me about your cat(s) your day, or just say hello. You can even tell me my blog sucks- I don’t care- but at the end of December, I will draw one name and then contact that person as the winner of the book.

This book is amazing and if you don’t have it in your library and you have cats in your life- you need this book! It has saved so many kittens this year in my home and it is a comfort to turn to when things become puzzling or complex.

So there you go- Comment away- but if you spam me, I will trash your comments- sorry!

Be sure and leave your email address so I know how to get ahold of you. The winner will be announced Jan 4 2012 (why does that sound so far away?)

I have turned this house on its ear looking for this kitten. I have flipped over all our furniture looking for holes or possible places where he could go to hide. I have cleaned out closets, searched the attic, dumped out kitchen cabinets, re-organized the pantry and searched high and low. I have looked in places I know cats can’t really fit and he isn’t anywhere to be found.

In all the years of rescue, I have never lost a cat indoors. The fact that he might be in the house trapped somewhere and unable to call out is so disturbing to me. I have lost cats to the outside but never has it seemed like the house has swallowed him whole! We have no vents he could crawl into or through, and my hope is he found some way to get outside and is under the house. I’ve made a grid map of my home and rooms and laid down on the floor in each room looking for hide-outs and still nothing. Yesterday, I found in one of the kitchen cabinets and access to the outside that I never knew existed but the cabinet is little used and how he could have gotten in there in the first place would be a mystery.

In rescue when you deal with multiple cats there is always something going on- so inner conflict with a few cats, hairball scavenger hunts, trying to find the cat food lid that you know you just laid on the counter five minutes go! Always something. You make mistakes and you learn from them. The day that you believe you are an expert, you walk away from Rescue work forever.

A few days ago, I was fighting a bad cold. Over-tired, brain numb from lack of sleep, I went into the refrigerator late at night to get some juice.

When I went to close the refrigerator door (and it wasn’t gently) I noticed out of the corner of my eye (to late to stop the door) Hook reaching in to snag the plate of turkey on the bottom shelf! I screamed out, dropped my juice and grabbed for the door but it caught him in the sides of the neck. He bolted out into the porch and ducked behind one of the cages. I could see him shaking his head violently, much like a dog does when it has had a bath.

I went to pick him up and he flew past me and slid into the bottom of the jacuzzi. That was the last time I have seen him.

This house (normally cluttered) is now immaculate. I have cleaned, organized every room looking for this 6 month old black kitten. I have been in the attic, down in the basement into several of our false rooms we have here. I have looked under recliners, under couches, high into the rafters, under the dishwasher, the stove, he is gone. If he is in this house he is injured to the point where he can’t respond or so traumatized he won’t respond.

I talked to a vet yesterday and she told me that if I had paralyzed him in such an incident, it would have been immediate. He would have been so injured and unable to move. Does that make me feel better? No, I am crazy to find him but don’t know where else to look. My hope is he made it outside somehow and is hunkered down under the house sleeping off the trauma. Mike said even if I could get under the house there are a million places he could hide, and being black be unseen.

So all that is left to do at this point is pray that he is okay and just scared. I rescue some of these kittens from such abuse. I would never harm them and when accidents such as this type happen it makes me feel unworthy to be called a rescuer.