Tag: cat

How To Torture Your Cat

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

This weekend I noticed that the wound that Milo, our tuxedo cat, had on his lower spine was not healing as fast as I’d like it to. I had been doctoring it, but on Monday when I went to look at it I noticed it felt spongy. I was moving his hair around and it started oozing. I doctored it some more decided to give it a day to see if it was any better. By Tuesday I decided to call our vet. They asked for me to send in a picture so the vet could look at it and make a decision if we needed to come in or not.

Because his hair is thick and black it was hard to actually see what the wound looked like. The vet called and said it would be best to bring him in, especially with his wound history. (that’s how he became our cat. He wandered up with a horrible neck wound that almost killed him)

I got an appointment for 3:40 that afternoon. At 3 I got out our cat carrier. Because Milo is SO docile I thought, for sure, he would go right in with no problem. Boy, was I wrong. It was like trying to get a angry octopus in a bag. I had the kids try to help me. We took the lid off and put him in. Nope, he almost broke the carrier. Jackson suggested tipping it over and dropping his through the opening. That sure didn’t work. By this time it was 12 minutes until my appointment. I called the vet frantic because I didn’t know what to do. They said just put him in anything that I had. Say less. I remembered a Chik-fil-a catering bag that I had.

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To say he was not happy would be an understatement, but I got him there. He actually did so well at the vet. The vet and I agreed that he caught his back going under the chain link fence. The vet shaved the area, flushed it out and gave him an antibiotic shot.

He just chilled out the rest of the night.

Guess who did like the carrier?

I’m glad because after Christmas she’s going in to get spayed.

Day #60 – Slinky the Incontinent Skunk

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I feed the night critters (and the day ones also). We have a sweet little skunk that either got hit by a car or was born with a defect. He cannot walk so he slithers. It’s almost like he’s partially paralyzed. The problem with that is that it makes him incontinent. I was putting the food bowl on the patio until I realized that he cannot help it when his “stink” slips out. So now I feed him in the grass away from us.

We try to be mindful of him. It takes him almost an hour to eat. The other night I thought he was choking and could just see myself trying to dislodge the food. Luckily he did it on his own. We have two younger skunks that will come up and eat, but I have noticed that they treat Slinky with respect and let him eat without bothering him. They will fuss among themselves though. One night I want to follow him (he’s a slow slitherer) to see where he goes.

We have also started feeding more of the stray cats. Our neighbors across the street were feeding the ones living on their side (it’s like west side story turf war between the cats) but they have started all coming to eat around dusk. I have to keep O’malley inside because, although he too was street cat with them, he’s very protective of his home base now.

Tonight I finally got to touch the grey and white one who we call Fidget. She is getting braver and walking up to me. The two little black ones are newcomers.

This is Mr. Whiskers. He’s always let me love on him and is very protective of the other ferals. I need to get him fixed because I have a feeling he has fathered most of the ones that come to eat. Someone put a flea collar on him, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t belong to anyone.

Oh and I colored my hair today and I’m posting it so I can remember when I did it. I didn’t have a hair bag so I just wrapped my head in Saran wrap.

I have been using the Wella color from Sally’s and I really like it. I use medium intense blond with a 30 developer. It’s so close to my natural color so I’ll take it.

The kids start college tomorrow. I think I’m more nervous than they are.

Hangry Cat

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Medical stuffLeave a comment

I’ve mentioned the stray cat that found us who we named O’Malley. Well, O’Malley had really wanted to come in the house all the time. That was great, except that unless you watched him like a hawk, he would spray. I felt bad having to keep him outside so I made an appointment to get him neutered.

We kept him in the house the night before the appointment. Now the funny thing about this cat is that he stress eats. Whenever you pet him or even just talk to him, he has to run to the food bowl and eat. It’s like his comfort thing. We were told by the vet to take his food up at midnight. The morning of the surgery he came into the kitchen and I was petting him. He will always roll over on his back to have you scratch his belly. This particular morning, while I was doing just that, he identified as a gator and chomped down on my hand. I felt his teeth sink into my skin and blood started pouring out of the wounds. He, realizing what he had done, jumped up and ran to the now non existent food bowl.

I immediately washed the bites and sprayed hydrogen peroxide on them. My whole right hand was throbbing, but I couldn’t miss the appointment, so into the makeshift crate he went. I do actually have a cat carrier somewhere I just can’t find it. It had poured the day before and I had only a bit of time to search the stacked up with totes to the ceiling shed. I had to just make due with what I had which was two laundry baskets, a Bungie cord and hair clips.

It was a little embarrassing walking into the vet with so many people in line staring at my “carrier”, but you do what you have to do. Six and a half hours later Jackson and I went to pick him up. He was supposed to be crated for 2 days, but that wasn’t working. Milo was very curious about his friend.

After about 8 hours he seemed fine so I let him out. He ate and used the litter box. We did keep him in for about 2 days and he was fine with that. It seems like he has taken to house life because he now is in more than out. This was him today and now he’s curled up on the bed with me.

I, on the other hand, was not fine. I didn’t want to tell Donny about the bite, but my hand started swelling, getting red and was still oozing. There was no way in hell that I was going back to the bougie ER and luckily I had a doctor’s appointment the next day. It was just the twice a year appointment to go over my labs, but I was definitely going to ask for antibiotics.

The bite was Wednesday, the appointment was Thursday. He did give me a prescription for antibiotics, but by Friday I was so sick that I stayed in bed all day. I couldn’t eat anything, but Donny got me a vanilla shake so I could take my medicine.

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I felt lousy. We don’t know if it’s cat scratch fever or if I developed cellulitis but whatever it is it is taking its own sweet time healing. It’s not as swollen, but still has a hard area around both wounds. The antibiotics make me nauseous and give me zero appetite. Next pic is gross, but it was taken this morning.

I guess we’ll just take it one day at a time. Geesh, the things we go through for our pets.

Coyotes

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Our cats are inside/outside cats. Milo was a stray that we took in. Monkey was from a litter from a cat we rescued after the flood in Baton Rouge, Queso is my daughter’s cat that we are keeping for a while and Tommy is the cat that we have had for 11 years that we got off craigslist when we lived in Corpus Christi. Well, Saturday morning when I went to let the cats in, Tommy was not there.

Tommy and Monkey will stay outside maybe 4 nights a week. Tommy and Milo are best friends and Tommy hated coming in when Milo was outside, so that is why he was outside Friday night. Gavin was over and the kids were up until the wee hours of the morning and didn’t hear any type of ruckus outside. He was just gone. No trace whatsoever.

I put it out on 2 Facebook lost pet groups in my city. I put it on Nextdoor. I found the older gentleman that is always walking the neighborhood and asked if he had seen Tommy. He hadn’t. I asked our mailman. He also hadn’t but said he would keep an eye out for him. We looked EVERYWHERE for him. No trace.

The next morning I went out to let the hens out of the coop and noticed a pile of feathers on our side and our neighbors side of the fence. We have reinforced the fence, but apparently that didn’t stop what I know believe was a coyote. We know there is a den off of the trail where I walk and that they will come out of the park that is adjacent to the trail. To say we are all devastated is an understatement.

Tommy was the sweetest cat ever. He lost his leg 5 years ago when he got it caught in a louvered closet door (at least that is what we think happened since we were all asleep). During the flood when we were stuck on our roof, he fell off the roof and Donny had to wade through 4 feet of water to rescue him. He never hissed, never tried to fight other cats. He loved our dogs. His favorite thing was to climb up in my lap and be held like a baby. I will miss him so much. He was just a kind old soul. I hope he found Bailey in Heaven and they are playing chase.

Through all of the sadness, yesterday morning when I let the cats out Milo was chasing something and came around with a baby bird in his mouth. I chased him trying to get it, but I couldn’t. I went back inside for a few minutes and when I came back out Queso and Milo were both just sitting there staring at the baby bird. I scooped the baby up and put it in a box, covered by a dishtowel, on my bed. I thought for sure it was not going to make it because it did not move a muscle when the cats surrounding it.

I gave the poor creature a few hours to rest and then I went into our bedroom to pick it up and take it outside. That dang bird flew out of the box as soon as i lifted the dish towel. He flew up to my curtain rod, then onto the ceiling fan, then onto my closet door all the while I’m trying to catch it. He then flew behind our chest of drawers that has our TV on top. That thing is so heavy, because it’s an antique, so I had to lift the TV off and take out drawers to be able to move it enough to get my are back there.

He flew out before I could catch him and flew into Hannah’s room where I was finally able to catch him and take him outside. As soon as I opened my hand he just flew off into the great blue yonder. I now know he wasn’t hurt because Milo just wanted to play with him and not consume him. I got my exercise that day for sure.