Bits & Pieces

Nothing major has been going on at our dysfunctional cat household over the past week, so here are some highlights of smaller adventures...

Bear & Zayn Bird Watching

I couldn't find Bear or Zayn last week and discovered that they were inside of the box spring in our bed.  Augh.  Bear had already clawed a hole in the guest bed and we ended up taking it off the frame so it sits flat against the floor now.  Since I am not doing that with our bed, the kitties are now on bedroom probation until further notice:)

Zayn decided it would be a good idea to climb up the living room curtains.  Um, no.

Zayn has become quite the cuddler lately and loves to snuggle on our chests.  Yay!  Bear still isn't the cuddly type, but still loves to be pet.

All the cats got to meet my sister for the first time this past weekend.  They loved their Auntie!

And our really big news....   Tasha was the Catster Cat of the Day on Monday!!!  Yeah!!!  As a result, I think she now has more friends on Catster than I have on Facebook:)  If you're not familiar with Catster (and yes, there is a Dogster for dog lovers), it's basically Facebook for cats and hard core cat lovers.  Believe it or not, I'm not anywhere near the level of cat lady crazy as some of the people on there!  Scary, I know:)

One of the Catster members made this for Tasha!

CAT FIGHT!

Will they EVER get along?!

The first real meeting between Tasha, Bear & Zayn was pretty much an epic FAIL.  Bear & Zayn are healthy kitties again after battling twin URIs and Zayn having an eye infection that lasted a week.  So, Mike and decided to actually open up the bedroom door all the way when they were eating dinner last night because Tasha had been so good the last few days.  She hadn't hissed or freaked out when Zayn came right up to her between the door crack and they even touched noses without Tasha batting an eye.

So half-way through their dinner last night I opened up the door all the way and Miss Tasha (aka "Big Momma") strolled on in.  Zayn (the smart one) was already a safe distance away from her up on the dresser.  But, Bear (the brawler), had to be a little tough guy and stand his ground.  Tasha got him backed into a corner and the stand off began.   They stared at each other for what felt like 5 hours, but was really probably more like a minute, and then it happened.  I don't know who struck who first, but all 5 pounds of Bear was going up against 12+ pounds of Tasha and it wasn't pretty.  It was an all out FIGHT and Tasha was screaming her head off as she tried to claw the shit out of Bear.

Bear got a couple of swipes in before dashing underneath the dresser and that's where his little size worked to his advantage because Tasha couldn't fit under there.  Instead, she just kept swiping her paws under the dresser, hoping to strike fur.  Mike , who HATES these kind of situations,  looked at me and said, "I don't know what to do," so I grabbed a blanket, wrapped up my screaming, hissing cat, and flung her ass out of the room and shut the door. 

Then Mike and I looked at each other as the realization set in that we now have a crazed cat on the other side of the door and we're basically trapped like rats.  We sat in the room with the kitties until Bear would come out from under the dresser.  I think he was a little ticked that Zayn had not helped him, but, like I said, Zayn is the smart one and probably thought, "Hell no!  That bitch is CRAZY!  I'm sitting my ass up on the dresser until she's gone." Which is exactly what he did.

Mike braved going out the door first, but Tasha had already gone downstairs at that point and was back to her normal self.  I continued to play with the kitties until Bear showed no more signs of PTTS (Post Traumatic Tasha Syndrome).  So now we are back to square one.  Sigh, can't we all just get along?!

Two Sick Kitties

I have good news and I have bad news.  The good news is, Bear is sneezing less and even though when he does sneeze he sprays a disgusting amount of snot everywhere, the vet seems to think he's on the road to recovery.  She said the fact that he is sneezing less is a good sign and he may just have a lot of congestion that is working it's way out.  Yuck.

The bad news is that Zayn now has an eye infection in addition to his Upper Respiratory Infection.  Seriously, how does a cat that is already on antibiotics get a freaking eye infection?!  So now poor Zayn has to have eye ointment put in his infected eye twice a day IN ADDITION to the medication he's already getting squirted down his throat twice a day for his URI.  Jesus Christ, I feel like Florance Freaking Nightingale!  Anyone have any sick cats you'd like to bring over so I can give them their meds?  I'm an expert at it now!

In The Waiting Room...

I'm already having Viet Nam-esque flashbacks from the time we had to give Tasha eye drops twice a day last winter.  Mike and I STILL have claw mark scars on us.  At least Zayn is smaller and less bitchy than Tasha so it should go somewhat smoothly.  I'm too scared to tell the vet that Zayn's poops are  a bit loose for fear I would have to anally inject medication up his bung hole, too.  It's like, how many ways can I scar this cat for life by forcing meds into every orifice of his body?  If Zayn still snuggles with me after all this, it will be a freaking miracle.

So now, we're delaying Tasha full-on meeting them until they are all better (which the vet said could take up to a month) because I cannot afford a third sick cat.  BUT, for the past few nights, we've fed them with the door cracked and Tasha hasn't blinked an eye.  Thank goodness for small favors!  I am anxious to get the kitties well so that we can FINALLY integrate our little cat family.

I'm happy to report that we have cracked the bedroom door twice now when all the kitties are eating and Tasha did not freak out!!!  She just seems really curious about them, like she wants to play.  I think we are well on our way to having one big happy cat family:)

In other news, Bear and Zayn had to make a trip back to the vet on Monday because both had been sneezing profusely over the weekend, especially Bear.  So now they are both on a twice daily dose of Clavomox (?), which has to be given with food.  Its kind of a pain because we have to give them their wet food, wait for them to eat, then each kitty gets a different dose (based on their weight) of the medicine which we have to squirt in a syringe down their throats.  Fun!  This will continue for 14 days.  At least its not as bad as the time we had to give Tasha eye drops in both eyes twice a day, but it still sucks. 

Zayn stopped sneezing immediately upon getting the medicine, but poor Bear is still sneezing away.  I've now started to give him L-lysine, too, hoping that it will boost his little immune system:(  I'm also thinking he may have allergies and not a URI after all.  He has to go back to the vet anyway in a couple of weeks for his last round of booster shots, so if he's not better by then, I'll have her check him out.


And speaking of Mr. Bear, he had a bit of an adventure today.  I went into their room to let them out to play and couldn't find Bear.  He wasn't under the dresser or the bed and I began to panic.  All of the sudden, Mike and I hear a sneeze coming from the bed.  Mike got down to investigate and we discovered that Bear was IN THE BED.  He had chewed and clawed a hole in the box springs and couldn't get out.  So, we cut him out, then took the bed off of the frame and it's now sitting flat against the floor.  Never a dull moment when you're living with three cats!!!

Big Mamma's House

Well, we did it.  Mike and I went crazy and adopted two sweet little guys last week to complete our kitty family.  Bear & Zayn were adopted from our local Humane Society on September 19th and even though they were not litter mates (and had actually never been around each other before) they get along wonderfully.  They sleep in the same bed, groom each other, and even eat off the same plate.  I've never had kittens before (Tasha was almost a year old when we got her) so I had no idea how much ENERGY they have.  WOW!  They love chasing each other around and wrestling.  We let them out of the guest room several times a day so they can work off all their kitty energy while Tasha is kept in the lower level of the house.  They have yet to come face to face with their older sister but soon enough they will learn they are living in Big Mama's House.

Not only is Tasha literally double their weight (she's now a hefty 12 lbs), but she has ATTITUDE to match.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I LOVE my sweet Tasha Butt and she loves all people, but... I'm kind of scared she's going to beat up the kittens.

The first day we brought them home she hissed & bitched & yowled at the guest bedroom door where we have base camp set up for them.  So, I promptly went to Petco and bought Feliway Spray and Calming Cat Treats and basically drugged her up.  It worked!  She stopped hissing at the door after that and just remained curious about what was inside the room.  Oh, she also threw up for two days after that, but now she seems somewhat calm and there hasn't been anymore kitty puke, so I think we are over a major hurdle.

I'm following my cat guru, Jackson Galaxy's advice on how to introduce a new cat into the home and we are taking it SLOW.  I've done smell swapping & site swapping, but my stomach hurts when I think about cracking the bedroom door to let Tasha see Bear & Zayn.  I know she's going to freak out, but I also can't keep them separated forever.  We're going to have to do it soon because I don't like living in a segregated household.  I just hope the boys are ready for Big Tasha.

Is Tasha Ready For A New Brother Or Sister?!

I think Tasha would be perfectly content to live out her kitty years as the alpha cat of our little household.  She's already proven to us that she absolutely, without a doubt, hates any stray cats that are brave enough to wander onto our property.  The only one she tolerates is a black cat named Shadow, but I really think that's only because Shadow sticks to the yard and does not come up on the porch. 

I came THIS close to bringing home another kitty this week.  Mike and I went to The Humane Society (just to look, I said) and we fell in love with a little black kitten named Willow and a spotted black and white guy named Domino (yep, I would change that name immediately).  We spent over an hour playing with the cats, but I decided that two more cats would be way to much for us and I made us leave.  Of course, I immediantly regretted not getting them, but I keep telling myself if they are still there next week when I have my next day off, then its meant to be. 

Today, we went to another animal rescue that is in the country right outside town, which shall remain nameless because I am about to trash them pretty hard.  First off,  the girl at the front desk had the personality on par with a piece of cat shit.  Then, when Mike and I started to look around the front room ( they had some cats AND birds in cages), I noticed that the big bird cages in the back had MOUNDS of dried poop on them.  Like, hardened to a crisp.  I have two birds and know how quickly bird poop can build up, but this was ridiculous.  Red flag number one.

We were then told there were more kitties around the back in a barn.  As we're walking to the barn, we see all of Cujo's extended family barking fiercely at us and looking mangy as hell.  Once again, not a good sign.  Upstairs in the barn all the cats were separated into several little rooms.  The rooms were gross and so were most of the cats.  Some were super friendly, but so dirty I didn't want to pet them for fear of contracting scabies or parasites or some equally awful disease.  One was so matted I could feel the mats as I was petting her.  Poor Mike had some kind of cat bodily fluid leaked onto his shirt.  We couldn't tell if it was shit, or eye goop, but either way...vomit.

I really wanted this sweet guy named Sylvester who let me hold him like a baby, but even he didn't look very healthy.  Poor Sylvester.  By the time we got out of there, I felt like I needed a Silkwood shower and a rabies shot.  We will NOT being going back there ever again.  So, no new kitties and Tasha gets to remane top cat...for now:)