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Post by Mari on Aug 28, 2018 16:16:10 GMT
Yeah, my Puck is the same way. Though he gained almost a kilo after we had to switch him to special urinary food. I've put him on a diet, but it's slow going.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 28, 2018 20:30:23 GMT
Yeah, my Puck is the same way. Though he gained almost a kilo after we had to switch him to special urinary food. I've put him on a diet, but it's slow going. Murray started on his diet a year and a half ago, at 17.5 lbs. Early this spring, at his annual, he weighed in at 14.0 lbs, so he is losing. I think he has lost a bit more, but probably not enough to make the vet happy. Cleo, on the other hand, is svelte. She is my 'yard shark'...always on the move.
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Post by Mari on Aug 30, 2018 16:55:49 GMT
Yes, my other one, Tybbe is a weird eater. Sometimes he eats normally and sometimes he decides to diet for a couple of weeks. Last time we went to the vet he was underweight. But I can't get him to eat if he doesn't want to. He usually starts eating again after a couple of days/weeks.
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Post by whollygoats on Sept 24, 2018 2:25:22 GMT
LOL...Well, I finally found a human food that Murray will actually go for, without being prompted.
Guacamole.
Swimmer had some guacamole in a tub that she set down on the bed before getting seated. While Swimmer was arranging, Murray stuck his face in the guacamole bowl and helped himself. He would not be waved away, either. (Which is unusual.) We had to take the bowl away from him to get him to stop. Five years of eating nothing but cat crunchies and the occasional muffin crumbs and now this.
Murray is a hipster.
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Post by JoeP on Sept 24, 2018 7:19:56 GMT
Holy guacamole!
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 20, 2018 19:09:37 GMT
Cleo:
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Post by whollygoats on Nov 10, 2018 17:21:13 GMT
Okay...Swimmer is spending a great deal more time, including nights, at her farm. This means I spend more time alone with the fuzzwads.
I have found that Cleo is far more demanding than is Murray. She wants to play with the string at least twice a day and is perpetually demanding that I open doors for her. And, I do mean demand. She does not really ask politely. Murray just wants to cuddle (at arms length) and get plenty of tummy rubs. He has learned how to ask to exit, but is still pretty oblique about it.
Last night, I was awakened at 3:30 am by Murray trampling over me. He kept it up and even tried the 'nosing around the sidetable' gambit, so it was clear he wanted to exit. I procrastinated and he started with the headbutts. So, I arose and padded downstairs to let Murray out....Cleo was nowhere to be seen. Usually, this requires that I wait for Murray to tank up at the food bowl before he's ready to exit, but last night, he went straight to the door, and then out. Cleo was nowhere to be seen. I held the door with the cold air surging in for a few more seconds. Still, no Cleo. I climbed back up the stairs and back in to bed. Just as I got my CPAP mask all adjusted came the stompy, stompy, stompy of overlady footies and definitive demanding yowl. This required a second trip downstairs. *sigh* I managed to return to bed by 4 am.
Out of this, I learned how nice it is when I don't have to stand around and wait for Murray to eat before he exits. I gotta work on teaching him to eat first, then wake me up.
Any hints?
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 20, 2018 4:39:11 GMT
Murray is MIA. I'm worried.
He got me up this morning at 4:15 am. That, in itself, is nothing to concern me, as it is done with fair regularity.
I was up long enough to allow him out...Cleo showed up, too. I went back to bed, but could not go back to sleep. I was up by 5 am.
I have not seen him at all for the remainder of the day. That is exceedingly unusual. He usually does a morning jaunt, a midday snooze session, an afternoon outdoor waltz, an afternoon snooze, wrapping up with an evening jaunt before coming in for the night. Each trip in and each trip out is an opportunity to visit the food bowl.
I have not seen him all day. I've called for him repeatedly.
Cleo is around, waltzing in and out of any open door. But, she has not brought Murray home.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 20, 2018 4:51:50 GMT
Well, nevermind. Murray showed up.
Out at 4 am, back home at 9 pm....
I think he has another home. Or, slipped in to somebody's garage as they were pulling out the bike or car and got closed in for the day.
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Post by JoeP on Dec 20, 2018 8:30:40 GMT
Worrying. But sadly not unusual with cats.
You need to fit him with a GoPro to see where he's been.
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Post by Mari on Dec 20, 2018 8:50:41 GMT
Yeah, cats can be strange (and worrying!) like that. Glad he turned up. He's probably wondering why you're making such a fuss over him.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 20, 2018 17:24:28 GMT
Yeah, today he is staying close to home. He goes out for 'bizness', but he's back in place, inside, soon after.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2018 18:57:49 GMT
Yes, fit him with enough camera equipment and trackers and he'll not be able to get away!
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 21, 2018 21:55:56 GMT
We can't even keep a collar on him. He is intent upon looking and acting as feral as possible, but once he's inside the doors here, he turns in to a creampuff bedlump.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 21, 2018 21:59:48 GMT
Right at the moment, Cleo is haranguing me to play with her. In the process of shifting the library down one floor, I've unearthed a number of items thought lost. Like the feather on a pole and string...a catfish pole. Once she found that I would play with her with that toy, and where the toy was stashed (in the living room, on the spinning wheel), she lurks there, waiting for me. I've come through in the dark, to see her sitting dutifully under the feather, waiting for me to play. It is the new fad with Cleo. She'll jump four feet vertically to catch it. Yardshark, I tell you.
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Post by Mari on Dec 22, 2018 20:15:02 GMT
Chuckles
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 9, 2019 5:51:34 GMT
Also, with Swimmer now mostly gone, I spend a lot more time in the house without television or radio on (with my hearing aids in).
There is a lot of 'things that go thump in the night' and most of them sound pretty fuzzy.
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Post by JoeP on Jan 9, 2019 8:42:21 GMT
Ah yes ... fuzzy thumps.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jan 15, 2019 11:38:05 GMT
I have two fuzzies now!! Neither of them go outside so no worries about them getting lost. Though even in a one bedroom flat it's amazing how they can disappear. They're getting along now but it was super stressful in the frst couple weeks, because I was worried about Louie not being happy. Then Louie got super sick. Everything seems to be better now.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 15, 2019 20:50:25 GMT
So...On Saturday last, I hauled a vanload of books out to Mulino and planted the iris rhizomes I'd culled from my beds. I was gone from home maybe four hours, and I'd made sure that all bowls were full and both felines were indoors before leaving.
What I obviously did not pay close enough attention to was the back door off the kitchenette. This is the door which Murray has figured out that if it is slightly ajar, enough to get a claw in to the jamside of the door, he can pull it open and bull his way out past the puny screendoor and....get outside on his own. When I arrived home and entered the front door, I thought it was a mite cooler than I usually set it for when I'm gone. Sure enough, the back door was standing wide open and Murray was on the outdoor side waiting for somebody to show up and let him back in so he could get to his food bowl.
**deep sigh**
It seems that once he learns something, he does not forget. Another reason he was all sweethearts and roses with Dave when he visited. Dave once poured foodbowls for him....
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 15, 2019 21:01:21 GMT
The other side of the feline equation here at Ravenswood is Cleo. She is the source of most of the nocturnal thumps in this household.
Moose sprung for a cat toy when it was the only thing I would accept as a holiday gift. I already had one that was steadily disintegrating under Cleo's ministrations, so a new 'back-up' would be useful. Well, now Cleo has yet another location to pester the shit outta her human to play what I call 'feavers' with her. This cat has an addict's mind (she is the household nip junkie) and must just jones for repeated adrenaline doses. She'll leap a good three feet in the air to snag that flying feather toy. So, last night I walked through the library to the French doors to entice Murray out for his evening jaunt. There, sitting in the dark of the library, pert and upright on the desk chair, not four feet from the new feather toy, was Cleo. As far as she was concerned, it was about time I'd shown up, as my purpose in the room was to play with the feather toy with her....for the next, oh, two or three hours.
When I'm upstairs at the PC, she'll come barging in yowling her fool head off....and she's got a robust yowl that can rattle the shades. But when she goes incessant, I am required to get up an move toward the door, or check the food bowls. But, she's adapted it so that she gets me following her, then diverts to the upstairs strings, or, if I barge past those, she tries diverting me to the feaver in the living room (which is at the base of the stairs from the attic), and, last ditch, if that fails, she'll try to divert me to the new feaver in the library (which is on the way to check the bowls in the kitchen or to the door out to the balcony). If I open the French doors, she may, or may not, decide to exit in feigned disgust at the palpable stupidity of her human. You can practically hear her rolling her eyes....
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 15, 2019 22:42:36 GMT
I have also begun manifesting FISP.
I awaken in the middle of the night being unable to move major portions of my body, sometimes my entire body. It is accompanied by a 'weighted' feeling and elevated temperatures....like sweaty warm.
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Post by Mari on Jan 16, 2019 10:53:39 GMT
You are so catwhipped
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 16, 2019 13:51:24 GMT
LOL. Yes, catwhipped....
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 19, 2019 18:10:15 GMT
So, Cleo's pestering now leads to the library. Murray follows and watches.
Cleo has decided that she likes to lurk under the bureau sitting in the middle of the room, particularly since the mirron leaning against it provides a screen. Hiding there, she can await the hapless transit of the feather toy and leap out like some moray eel. A fur eel, rather than an yardshark. Ambush is best and most satisfying. I, of course, am expected to keep this up for hourse on end, until my furry mistress decides it is time to exit or nap.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 16, 2019 0:14:17 GMT
So, today transpired their annual check-up with Dr. Zoe, our house-call veterinarian.
I was supposed to have drugged Murray with gabapentamin a couple hours before her arrival, but that was a big FAIL. He was on to me toute suite and managed to avoid being dosed. It was decided to try with Cleo as well, and I got close to dosing her, but she escaped. I did manage, however, to corral them in the library a couple hours before she arrived. That did the trick, because she is just a wonder and they became compliant lumps of fur in her hands. We decided that if that were the case, then just isolating them in an area with minimal hiding space was the ticket.
Doc Zoe is amazing.
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Post by Mari on Mar 20, 2019 17:29:45 GMT
Why would you need to drug them in the first place? Will they hurt the vet otherwise?
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 20, 2019 18:11:21 GMT
That was the initial concern, yes.
Murray is a former feral cat. He does not like being cooped up in a carrier and nearly injured himself during his second trip to the veterinary office. He also does not like to be picked up and will go full Taz when anyone attempts it. I received several torso lacerations in an attempt to pick him up and bring him in. That's when I decided to go with a home visit veterinary visit. The gabapentimine was recommended by both vets I've worked with. It is a mild sedative used to calm them before handling.
Well...I could not administer it because Murray did not cooperate. The vet and I had liked how it had worked last year with Murray and had problems with Cleo, so I was to attempt the sedative with her, as well. That failed, too. Come push to shove, it was having both cats cordoned in to the library which allowed the vet to work her mad handling skills without much impediment. We decided that, what with aging and the new setup, that no drugs and confinement to the library would be adequate.
It was a learning experience all around....with Murray and Cleo tutoring.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Mar 21, 2019 10:46:38 GMT
Cats are so different. Mine are so easy to take to the vet, at the vets they wander around perfectly at ease. My previous kitty Lily, would sit terrified at the vets after the car ride.
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Post by Mari on Mar 27, 2019 11:12:41 GMT
Oprah will chuck up her insides if she's moved in a carrier, but otherwise doesn't mind going to the vet. Nor do the other two.
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