f13.net forums - Cat thread

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May 06, 2024, 01:05:55 AM

we're back, baby

Bart likes malty beer and sometimes champagne. Not a fan of scotch, though he loves the ice (yes, I'm a heathen).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7ZA00Krz2Y

I think he's going after a Sam Black Lager.

Not funny enough for the funny thread, not cute enough for the cute thread, perfect for the cat thread.

There's a cat in that? why so serious?

Not that you made it, but why can't that just be in one gif? Six is annoying.

Do you want to stare at her doing a single pose for five minutes at a time?

Well, maybe... but the point is to watch the kitty adjusting with her.

Quote from: Lantyssa on February 02, 2012, 06:03:09 AM

Do you want to stare at her doing a single pose for five minutes at a time?

Well, maybe... but the point is to watch the kitty adjusting with her.

OH....there's a cat in there!

My mother gave me three birdfeeders for xmas. Put 'em up over the weekend.

Today at lunch had a couple chickadees out there and Bart started the loudest chattering I've ever heard. His whole head was shaking it was so loud.

Awesome.

Your choice of video codecs is not.

VLC gobbled it up just fine.

Quote from: Bunk on February 23, 2012, 06:15:09 AM

Your choice of video codecs is not.

Technically it was not my "choice". I did not program my phone. It however was my laziness. And hey, even my WMP played that thing.

So. I don't post in here all that much, but the latest stuff has been way too stressful not to just take a moment to blab on the internet as a cathartic release.

Ever since The Great Pet Food Scare a bunch of years ago, we've made sure to feed our cats premium foods...

Let me back up. We have three cats.

The first is Chi-Sai. She's awesome. She's my "kitty dog" who must be in the same room as me all the time and will sleep curled up directly nex to me whether I'm gaming, watching a movie, or sleeping. Very weird cat but also very smart. Unfortunately also a bit of a scaredy cat. She's about 6-7.

Next we have Belladonna, Destroyer of Cupcakes. Yes, the name is fitting. She eats anything. Especially lettuce and broccoli. That leads to her nickname of Fat Kitten. She's a smaller cat... at least length wise. She's adorable and weird and hilarious and devious. She is our youngest at only about 3 years. Oh, and she LOVES the smell of mint, so we have to hide packs of gum. She will also stick her head in your mouth after you are done brushing your teeth.

Then we have Miss Cheiva, our Apple Headed Goon. She's a LARGE cat (as some here can attest). She broke her leg when she was about 1-2. At he time the vet wanted to remove it, but Tina insisted on a cast, and she's doing great to this day. She can walk a little funky and sometimes you can tell it aches, but in general she's a great great cat. Extremely affectionate and loves people. She is Tina's kitty-dog, and much like Chi-Sai, she must be in the same room as Tina. She also fetches.

However, as I mentioned, she is a LARGE cat. We started to become concerned that as she got older what her weight would do to her leg long-term. So, about two weeks ago we decided to switch cat foods to see if we could find something that she didn't quite LOVE so much and would eat a little less. Well, this is where things go bad. See, you DO lose weight if you stop eating. Apparently cats do that.

Unfortunately at first we didn't think anything about it... I mean she was eating less and losing some weight! Success! Apparently not quite. We started to notice some jaundice in her ears and a bit on the gumline. The next day (Friday, March 9th), I took the day off and took her to the vet. They were concerned about this being a sign of liver issues. So, they hospitalized her for a couple days to give her fluids and monitor her eating, etc. On that Sunday we went to pick her up and talk to the Vet. Her bilirubin which should be at .3 was at 14. She was still not eating a lot but was eating more, so they sent her home with us with special foods to see how she does at home. Wednesday was to be her followup. Over the next few days she did seem to improve in energy and general... kittiness?

I took the morning off on Wednesday (3/15) to take her to her checkup. The head Vet at this point said that he was still concerned and the next step was a feeding tube. So, we admitted her again for surgery. That afternoon I was able to pick her up and be given a demonstration on how to feed her. This is perhaps the most difficult thing I've had to deal with when it comes to a pet. I've had pets with other conditions, like our dog who had seizures... but there is something that my brain can't quite process fully about a tube coming out of our cat's neck that we inject with a slurry of catfood, water and meds. The other issue I have is that... Tina does not always handle stress well. And she, having started a new job recently as unable to take time to go to these appointments... so I'm the one that gets to break the news to her and show her how to do this. Again, Miss Cheiva is her.. safety blanket; her teddy bear. It's the one thing (besides wine) that allows her to let go of all the stress of the day, and that thing is seemingly broken. Because of this, I have made sure to hold fast and be sensible and strong for her... However, it also means I'm not processing this entirely well.

The feedings are easy in concept, but it's just... weird, for lack of a better word. She's handling the 3rd and 4th feedings better but still reacts when the food first hits the stomach, which I have to imagine is SUCH A WEIRD SENSATION. Food just APPEARS in your stomach.

Anyway, needed to ramble about it and I know F13ers understand.

Hope she turns around. Although Bart would love to have a feeding tube. In addition to his regular noms. He's got a checkup coming up next month, not looking forward to his weigh-in. They use the dog scale to weigh him.

Whenever I put Smeagol on a low calorie food I think that fat bastard just eats more of it. I was told at a vet visit a while back that cats do have a problem losing weight, something that their livers don't do well in processing fat.

We have an overweight cat too, and we've resorted to segregated feeding. It turns out that I think they prefer to eat in their own rooms, even if that means Binkie gets locked up in the office for an hour while Burger the pokey eater finishes his food.

As far as weird treatments for cats, yep, I can sympathize. Our fatty Binkie tore her ACL, and we had to get her knee surgery, which was awful enough, but then the whole four weeks of confinement to a cage (a big one, meant for mastiffs), her conical collar so she wouldn't lick her wound or her time-release China White heroine bandage and then the ritualistic squirting of more opiates for two and a half week was just about as fabulous as it gets.

The only thing that topped that was having to give my now long gone cat injections every day for her liver condition. That was a riotous hoot too. Worth it? Absolutely, gave her at least a year more of relatively happy life.

That said, I could only do it because I have no kids and could afford it. All of this shit costs a freakin' arm and a leg.

Hang in there sickrubik, these things do become easier.

My other half struggled to deal with it when we had to start injecting Sputnik with insulin twice daily. It's always been me doing the injecting but I needed help to hold onto Sputnik at first, so it was a two-person job.

Just over a year on and it's completely normal now. We're still injecting twice a day, but it only needs me to do it now since the cat has become so chilled about it. More importantly her blood sugar is under good control and we've been able to reduce her insulin dose to less than half of what it was.

You'll all adjust - humans and cats alike - but it can take some time. The feeding tube sounds like a lot more hassle/strangeness than the simple insulin injections we have to do, but I'm sure you'll be fine.

I've had to give shots to pets before... the idea that there is just an open tube that sticks out of my cat'ss neck just weirds me out. :(

It sounds like you did everything right based on your description of events. My wife is an ER vet, and she sees cases all the time where owners bring in their pets with conditions just as serious, but they sit on it for weeks. When they show up with their dog/cat actively dying, there's not much she can do. You should take plenty of solace in the fact that your quick response after seeing the jaundice (potential liver disease) probably saved your cat's life.

As far as the feeding tube, both you and Cheiva will get used to it over time. Once she gets into the routine of getting fed that way every day she'll handle it a lot better, and her comfort with it will make it a lot less stressful for you too.

Miss Chieva's head is the size of a grapefruit, by the way. A big damn cat.

Anyhoo, medical nonsense can be awful, but you and she will gradually just get used to it (probably). Hope things perk up soon!

I ask all of you please hug your pets, and tell them how good they are an how much you love them. I had to put my Thumper to sleep last night. The world is not better for this. He was a part of me, and no matter how my day went, he was always there, purring, just wanting to sit next to us. congenic heart failure attached him suddenly last night sometime before we came home from dinner, he was fine that morning, and after work. He was even purring, even though we knew he was in pain. He was purring and happy and trying to sit on my mouse hand just before we went out. Cogenic heart failure and blood clots. I feel like I have lost a part of my personality, the part that purred with one simple look, and never would stop as long as there was someone to hear.

Hug your pets. He had no signs before hand. Hug them, love them. Because you never know.

Sorry about your kitty. Although, I must say, Thumper isn't a name I'd normally think of for a cat.

Arg, that sucks. So young.

I cherish Bart every day, I've lost so many pets I know how fleeting the time is. Bart is 4 already (as of last weekend)! It's also why I keep him indoors. I prefer to let cats outside to play in the woods, but I've lost too many to cars; it would crush me to lose Bart that way.

He was laying oddly on the bed last night, so I went over and laid with him, he was all friendly. Got up to shut off the lights and noticed a big sticker on his belly, a MIR from a case of beer I had put on the desk (he normally doesn't get up there). It was across his belly the long way, like a 6"x4" sticker, must have been uncomfortable to curl up, so he stretched out. Didn't even complain when I ripped it off him, he must've been tired of trying to sleep with it on. Wish I had snapped a pic of it.

RF - if you saw Bart's back feet....thumper would be accurate. They look like giant bunny legs.

Quote from: Sky on March 22, 2014, 07:34:58 AM

I prefer to let cats outside to play in the woods, but I've lost too many to cars; it would crush me to lose Bart that way.

This is part of why we don't let ours outside, the other part being that cats are non-native predators in North America and they tend to do a lot of damage to songbird populations, etc.

Sorry Mr.B. cry

Sorry man, that's far too young for a cat.

I assure you I hug my cat every day - she would kick my ass if I didn't.

Sorry to hear about your cat, it always sucks.

Sorry BW. First one I lost was 7 yo and my other one was 9 yo, so yeah... sucks regardless.

In other news, I am going to plop this insanity down here for posterity...

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/22/10812365-cat-plunges-19-stories-from-high-rise-and-walks-away

Quote

Sugar, a white furry cat who is deaf, plunged 19 floors from a window in a high-rise building in Boston and – aided by her fall into a tiny mulch patch and the feline’s ability to glide a la the "flying squirrel" – lived to walk another day, animal rescue officials say.

Sorry to hear that BW, sucks :(

With Bart's...ahem..."running flap"...he could probably survive a 19 floor drop. He'd probably go paragliding out over the city.

One of those trivia books I keep next to the shitter says that survivability decreases as the number of floors rises and then it actually starts to increase at a certain point because of that flying squirrel effect.

Quote from: RhyssaFireheart on March 22, 2014, 07:32:24 AM

Sorry about your kitty. Although, I must say, Thumper isn't a name I'd normally think of for a cat.

His fir was like a rabbit. He would purr if you just looked at him, loudly.

Sorry for your loss.

/mod_hat_on

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20665.0