Today, Dr. Jones and the other cats helped me work all day. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning and when I got to my office, there were no parking spaces in any of the lots. I decided that the universe wanted me to spend the day writing from my living room chair.
It was quiet and I got a lot of stuff done, despite the fact that the cats took turns being on my lap at all times.
How do you feel about working remotely when you could be working in an office?
It seems like only yesterday that I had a house full of kittens, but now Xena is suddenly 11 years old, Trillian is 10, and even my youngest, Dr. Jones and Kaylee, are nine years old.
We lost our foster failure kitty Izzy (formerly Sooty) in February. He was already elderly with chronic kidney disease when he came to live with us in late 2014, so we felt lucky to have the three years and change with him that we did. We still miss him every day, though, because he was such a sweet and loving cat.
Now the big concerns are Toby and Velvet. Toby was eight when we got him, which makes him 15 this year. The shelter told us that Velvet was seven or eight when we got her, but considering that it's been a decade already, we think they may have been overstating her age. Still, she's in her teens somewhere.
Toby was recently diagnosed with heart failure, and he'll be on medication for the rest of his life. It seems to be helping and he's not coughing as much as he was, but obviously he needs to take it easy from now on. Of course, he's the guy who only has two teeth left and he also has noticeable cataracts, so he gets the full senior dog treatment now.
Velvet seems to be having tooth problems of her own. I noticed yesterday that one of her bottom canines was sticking out at a weird angle, so I presume it will be falling out soon. She's also starting to get that old gal skinniness, but she got a clean bill of health at the vet recently, so she's probably doing as well as can be expected under the circumstance.
It's such a shame that pets add so much enjoyment to our lives, but only for a short time. All we can do it love on them as much as possible while we have them.
Back in 2010, we got a cute little tabby kitten named Dr. Jones. He lived up in our recording studio with his friend and surrogate mom figure, Trillian. This is a photo of them snuggling on my desk.
They've long since moved into the main part of the house. This is how I spotted them snuggling on a living room chair today. Dr. Jones has certainly gotten larger, hasn't he? And yet, Trillian is still the "big spoon."
The last several years have been full of upheaval and frankly very taxing. In self defense, I scaled way back on extracurricular activities and gave myself permission to fill my free time with mainly friend-related activities and my band. I had been doing quite a bit of volunteer work before that, but I quit almost all of it.
A couple of weeks ago I got an email that one of the pet stores where my favorite animal rescue group keeps cats was in need of a regular Tuesday night volunteer. I thought for a moment about whether I was ready to commit to a weekly volunteer shift and decided I was.
Tonight was my first night back and I realized I've really missed working with the adoptable cats.
Right now the store has five cats and two "teenager" kittens. I let them all out of their kennels at the same time to run around in the back room while I cleaned their cages, scooped their litter boxes, refilled their food and water dishes, and washed both sides of the plexiglass so they'll be easier to see.
As an added bonus, there's a Trader Joe's in the same shopping center, so Tuesday nights will also be grocery nights. I can work with that.
I'm looking forward to getting to know all the cats' names and cheering them on as they find their permanent homes. It's good to be back.
It's been nearly a year since we took in Izzy, née Sooty. Once we learned that he had chronic kidney disease, we pretty much gave up on the idea of getting someone else to take him. He's long since been assimilated into the household to live out his life as happily as possible.
We support his health with kidney supplements and all the meals he wants of his favorite food. He's at a reasonable weight under the circumstances and you wouldn't know he had health concerns if not for the fact that he pees quite a lot.
I've gotten several reminders this week that he's been with us for a year. The first was a postcard from the veterinarian's office associated with the shelter where he was discovered informing me that 24182036 was due for a rabies shot. It was a rather stark reminder that if not for the person who called him to my attention on Facebook last year, the poor numbered cat's number would have been up.
The woman who found him at the shelter and shared his story re-shared it on my Facebook wall this week. I'd forgotten how rough he looked in that early photo. He's looking much handsomer today.
Finally, my own vet's office sent me a reminder postcard about the same rabies shot, but they still have him in their system as Sooty. I'll correct their records when I call to make an appointment for this weekend.
There in no doubt in Izzy's mind that I am his person. He sleeps next to me every night and spends as much time on my lap as possible. Even the dog gets a little jealous of him and sometimes crowds him off my lap when he feels the cat has had enough of my attention.
He's really quite well-behaved except for occasionally testing the boundaries of my least social cat, Trillian. He and Dr. Jones sometimes play, and he enjoys catnip, toys and cardboard scratchers even though he doesn't have front claws.
Of course, you could say that he pushed our cat population from "too many" to "way too many." Or you could say that he raised the number from "numerous" to "what's one more?"
So Happy Gotcha Day, Izzy! I'm glad you're with us.
Since I'm coming up on my eleventh blog anniversary in a few weeks, I figured the least I could do is get a post written to start the year.
Picking up where I left off, I've been easing into the new year pretty gently so far. My band played a New Year's Eve gig that went quite well, and we've had a break since then except for recording a four-song demo and learning some new songs to replace a few duds in the set.
I got my annual case of bronchitis right on schedule, so that was a couple of weeks of coughing with ten days of antibiotics in the middle. Fortunately, that's out of the way now.
Sooty the foster cat is integrated with the general cat population and although he and Dr. Jones frequently face off and shout at each other for no apparent reason, the transition ended up being pretty chill. I had a dream that he told me his name was really Izzy, so my husband and I have been trying that on for size and it seems to suit him.
Is he staying? Probably. He's of uncertain age with a chronic disease, so I'm really not sure anyone else would be willing to take him. We like him, he likes us and we were obviously willing to save his life, so seeing him through the rest of it seems like the kind thing to do. Not that he appears to be on the brink of death or anything; he's lean and he pees a lot (in the litterbox, fortunately), but otherwise he seems happy, energetic and generally fine.
For the foreseeable future, I'll be channeling my charitable impulses toward cats into TNR for the free roamers in my neighborhood and leaving it at that.
I've been spending time with friends, playing games, trying to keep the house in some kind of reasonable shape, and trying to decide what my year is going to look like.
I'm not anticipating any major changes, but I do know that I'd like to entertain a bit more than I did last year and I also have a couple of trips I'd like to take if I can get my budget slapped into shape. I keep joining additional board gaming enthusiast groups, so I'll probably be learning a bunch of new games this year. If I'm feeling really gung-ho, maybe I'll rearrange some furniture in my house. Whee!
How's your 2015 going so far? Any big plans or just more of the same?
I took Toby to a playdate with other Italian Greyhounds a couple of weekends ago and he had his usual good time. Because it was December, there was an opportunity to make a donation to the Missouri/Kansas Italian Greyhound IGCA Rescue and get your dog's photo taken with Santa. So of course we did that.
Can you tell Toby asked for treats?
Despite a lifetime of enthusiastic pet ownership, this is actually the first time I've ever had a pet's photo taken with Santa Claus. Usually I get some shots of the cats under the tree or licking a gingerbread house, but that's been my limit. This may be where it all turns around.
Speaking of holiday pet photos, Wellness Natural Pet Food is hosting a "Naughty or Nice Photo Contest" through December 23rd. You can visit their Facebook page and submit up to four photo entries. Two grand prize winners (one dog and one cat) will each be chosen to receive a year’s supply of Wellness Pet Food. There will also be up to 10 runners up who will each receive a Wellness cat or dog prize pack. As I've mentioned before, Wellness is our cats' favorite food brand, so I am always happy to share them with my fellow pet people.
Disclosure: Wellness Natural Pet Food is sending me with some free cat and dog treats at no charge in exchange for my mention of their promotion in this post. I retained full editorial control over the content of the post.
In case you're wondering how things are going with Sooty the foster cat, the answer is very well!
First of all, we reached the fundraising goal for getting his dental work done. A thousand and twenty thank yous from me and Sooty both to everyone who donated!
On his last trip to the vet, he had almost reached eight pounds (he was six-and-a-half when I first brought him home) and I would guess he's there now. The antibiotic shot from the first visit had improved his gums to the point that the vet decided that he did not in fact have stomatitis; just a bunch of bad teeth. I got him another shot and made him an appointment for his dental on December 15th.
I'd had a suspicion that he might have ringworm based on an increasing number of patches on his body with no fur. The vet said no, it was just places where he'd gotten injured and the fur fell out along with the scabs. That made sense considering the ordeal that led him to the shelter. I'm keeping an eye on a wound on his hip that I think was originally a burn. It looks like it's healing, though.
In the photo you can see one of the bare patches on his left front leg, but the fur is already filling in.
His coat is actually looking quite lovely and he's very soft. I've upgraded his canned food quality to what our cats are eating (initially he was getting the cheap stuff because his appetite was poor and that's what he liked). He's on his second bag of dry food as well, and his appetite appears quite healthy.
Yesterday we set up a pet gate between the TV room and kitchen so he could hang out with us while we watched television. He is very active and curious and was interested in meeting our cats on the opposite side of the gate. They were less enthusiastic about him, but the drama was relatively minimal. Sooty seems as though he really likes other cats. He kept rolling around on his back as if to say, "Look how non-threatening I am! Let's play, you guys!"
Since we don't know how long it will take to find him a permanent home once we have his veterinary needs taken care of, it would be considerably more convenient (and make him much happier) if we could integrate him into the general pet population. We're taking it slow to avoid the kind of all-out war that Xena and Trillian engage in to this day.
Sooty seems very afraid of the dog, but it shouldn't take long for him to realize that Toby is no threat at all. We actually had Toby in the room with him most of the evening yesterday because otherwise the incessant barking would have put us all on edge.
That's where things stand today. I'm looking forward to finally getting his bad teeth taken care of so his entire system can finish healing. His progress has been frankly astounding and the vets say he's the luckiest cat in the world. If you're interested in adding Sooty to your family, let me know! He's a great guy.
I took Sooty to the vet on Saturday to get her opinion on the state of his mouth. I told her about his horrid breath (which has actually improved noticeably since we got him home) and described his gingerly eating habits and apparent swelling beneath his upper lips.
She looked in his mouth and confirmed my suspicions: he has serious gingivitis and numerous abcessed teeth. He needs a dental procedure to remove most of his remaining teeth so his gums can heal.
The vet said it wasn't surprising how thin he is considering that he's not only declawed but also unable to bite into anything firm without pain. Out on the streets he must have found it incredibly difficult to hunt and extremely painful to eat anything he could catch. Poor guy.
She did his exam for free and I paid for a long-acting antibiotic injection in the hope of clearing up some of his mouth troubles. She also gave me an additive for his water that may help his gums.
Unfortunately, veterinary dentals are very expensive: she quoted me a price range up to $1,000. They involve anesthetic and they can take a long time, so the price reflects the seriousness of the procedure.
Because this care is more than I can budget from my own funds, I have decided to do a GoFundMe campaign to see if I can raise the money needed to get his dental work done.
If you feel inclined to help out, even a few dollars would make a difference in this sweet cat's life. Thank you in advance!
This is a sponsored post for which I am receiving some Wellness pet food in exchange for posting. It's the brand my cats all eat and love anyway, so I am happily supportive of them. My specific wording and opinions are my own.
This Wednesday, November 19, 2014 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. CST, Wellness Natural Pet Food’s veterinary consultant Dr. Cindy Bressler will be doing a live Twitter chat to discuss pet safety during the holidays.
At this time of year perhaps more than any other, pets are exposed to unusual foods and tempting decorations that could put them at risk. Learn more about keeping them safe by following the hashtag #HappyPawlidays, along with @wellnesspetfood and @DrCindyBressler.
I'll be following along and participating if my evening meeting wraps up early enough. I need all the tips I can get for keeping the cats away from the ornaments on the tree!