I have some videos I want to share but my two hard drives on my computer are full and I can’t even get them off the memory card. Fortunately, my new computer arrived today.
Unfortunately, I have a lot to do to prepare my current computer for retirement and to move everything over to the new one. I won’t even open the box until probably tomorrow night. I expect it will take several days before I can even think about posting something.
I do have a Photo Friday post ready to go so you guys won’t forget about me.
Today is Black Cat Appreciation Day, a day to appreciate all black cats and dispel those outdated beliefs and superstitions that black cats are bad luck. Did you know that some countries and cultures believe black cats are good luck?
We considered ourselves lucky to have Puck and we really appreciate him. He is like the eye of the hurricane around here. Puck remains (mostly) good while badness is happening all around him.
Our kitten Floki just loves playing with his mouse. Actually, it isn’t even his mouse. Chris took a liking to it long ago and now Floki thinks it’s his. He plays with other toys to but this particular catnip mouse gets a lot of play time. It seems it is always in a different place when I see it.
Here’s a video from a few weeks ago of Floki playing with the mouse..
I discovered a flaw in Frankie’s harness. I know it is a little big for him and not the most secure harness in the world, but it is very easy to put on him, and it has worked so far.
Walking a cat is not like walking a dog. You go where they want to go. On a recent walk, Frankie took me behind our house and across the next street. The roads get very hot in the summertime around here, and I saw that Frankie was being affected by it. He seemed to hurry across the street and stand in the grass where it was cooler. After inspecting the bushes for a while, we headed back to the street. A few seconds later, Frankie found refuge in the shadow of a car.
I normally try to keep him away from cars because I don’t want him under them, but in this case, I knew his feet were hot, so I thought I would give him a minute or two to cool down. Before I knew it, he was under the car, pulling at the leash. In an instant, I was holding a leash and an empty harness. It seems that the trick to escaping this harness is backing up.
I was not thinking like a news reporter, so I put my phone in my pocket and stopped taking pictures at that point. I tried to coax Frankie out from under the car, but he wasn’t having any of it. Eventually, I walked home and came back with a pool noodle that was in my shed. I thought I could intimidate him with the noodle, but that didn’t work. Instead, he growled, hissed, and attacked the noodle.
I gave up on the noodle ideas and brought it back to the house. I looked for something else that might work and found a water bottle. I thought a little water might encourage him to get out from under the car, but he wasn’t there when I returned.
I looked around for a minute, thinking he would be very difficult to find, but I found him hiding in the bushes next to the car. I picked him up and carried him home while he hissed at me all the way.
Frankie does not seem to have improved much, if any, since his vet visit on Friday morning. He started sneezing blood after that visit and that continues. His eye also doesn’t seem much better. In addition, Puck is now having problems with his right eye. We have been putting Frankie’s drops in Puck’s eye too but if it is a viral infection the antibiotic drops won’t do him any good.
Frankie this morning.
Rose is going to try to get him back to the vet on Wednesday, a day she works from home, instead of his scheduled visit on Friday, if he does not improve by this afternoon. If that happens, she will use the Friday appointment to bring Floki in for the remainder of his shots.
When we adopted our kitten, Floki, on the fourth of July, he had a slight problem with his eye. Along with the kitten, we received a tube of ointment that we had to put in his eye several times a day. Not exactly a good start in the bonding process.
Meanwhile, Frankie had a sneezing problem. It’s not a new problem. We brought him to the vet in February and the said it was a respiratory infection and gave him the standard steroids and antibiotics that all vets give for all problems (read about it here). Not long after we brought the kitten home we noticed that he would sneeze once in a while. We weren’t sure if he caught the problem from Frankie or if he already had it.
On Wednesday, maybe Thursday morning, we noticed Frankie seemed to have the same problem with his eye as Flokie did, although by then Flokie was almost better. I called vet that Frankie went to for his Urinary Track Infection but they could not get him in until late Monday. Since I was at work, I texted Rose the information and their phone number but did not hear back from her about it.
By Thursday evening, Frankie’s eye was worse and his sneezing attacks were also more frequent so I left a message with his other vet, the one that didn’t cure his sneezing problem, and was able to get him an appointment at 8:40 on Friday morning.
Since I had to go to work, Rose followed me to the vet, which is very close to our house. We got there around 8:30 and they ushered us into an exam room. Once inside I opened Frankie’s carrier but he was hesitant to come out. I think the sound at the end of the video below is the door opening, which is why the video is so short.
Frankie refused to come out for the vet tech so we had to take the top of the carrier off.
She carried him into the back room to get his weight and conduct super-secret experiments on him before bring him back. He quickly settled back into his carrier where, I suppose, he felt most comfortable.
A few minutes later the vet walked in and Frankie immediately hissed at her. I’m not sure why but maybe he remembered her from his last visit, or it could be she did something to him minutes before behind closed doors.
She mentioned something about his eye infection possibly being from herpes or a few other things I don’t remember. I also heard the word “ulcer.” She put some kind of dye in his eye to better see any scratches, which she did find one.
At that point it was 9:00 and I had to leave for work. When I got home it seemed that Rose didn’t have a clear idea what was wrong with him. Some kind of infection, which we already knew. She said he got a shot of antibiotics (shocking) and antibiotic eye drops as well as pain relieving ointment that we have to put in his eye several times a day.
This morning his eye seemed the same and his sneezing was worse because now there was drops of blood everywhere. Of course, I didn’t expect him to get better overnight.
Here is Frankie after 3 p.m. this afternoon.
I just don’t like that our cats get antibiotics, steroids and who knows what else every time they go to the vet. Those antibiotics have got to wreck havoc on their digestive systems. That is probably why Frankie is so susceptible to illness. They solve a problem in the short term but create long term health issues.
Chris is our oldest and fattest cat and has never been to the vet for a health related issue (knock on wood). He has been vaccinated a couple of times because it was mandatory for residence in a couple of places that we moved in to, but he never received an antibiotic, steroid, or anything else for that matter. Hmmm… I wonder why Chris is not sneezing?
I like and respect veterinarians and I think sometimes their services are invaluable, but other times I wonder why I keep going. What do you think? Am I being unfair to vets?
We have had this cat perch for almost a year and I have never seen anyone use the cubby hole on the bottom until a couple of weeks ago when Chris discovered it.
Bad Cat Chris 