This is Jackson, one of our two cats who recently joined our household. He haunts our kitchen sink like a giant black cockroach covered in fur. I don’t leave dirty dishes unwashed for long, but he likes to stick his nose in the drain anyway. He traipses about the counters leaving a fine dusting of kitty litter on the white surface. Celestia, the calico, is better-mannered, but the other week she gashed a hole in my artwork, which was hanging on our walls.
I am allergic to cats. They arrived in our apartment early spring, and I was doing alright for 5 weeks. Then the pollen began flying off the trees and tipped my allergies into overdrive. And I hate my allergist. Honestly, I often kick myself for buckling under years of my son’s pleading to get a cat… Two cats. I love cats… just don’t want to take care of them, but I fell for it: my child’s sad does eyes and a passionate vow to feed and clean up after pet in question. Everyday, I said. Everyday, swore Max. What idiot parent trusts a ten-year-old?
These two strays developed diarrhea soon after the animal rescue person dropped them off at our place. The minute one of these small elegant animals dropped a bomb in the litter box, I could smell it all the way at the other end of the apartment. And after a period of traumatizing these formerly feral felines by “scruffing” them to squirt medicine into their mouths (and getting shredded when I miscalculated) one of them still has sketchy poo. Max whines and whines about having to mix a probiotic into the wet food. He drags his feet in cleaning the litter box, and if there’s a mushy clump… forget about it. “I meant I’d take care of healthy cats everyday!” protested my son. And so I join the club of sucker moms, who have gotten stuck with pet care after some other family member swore up and down that he’d take care of that critter we reluctantly agree to adopt.
I hope when the tree pollen stops I’ll be able to stop the medication and the sniffling. Until then, I leave you with this cute video, which may explain why these two felines have not been accidentally dropped out the window. Yet.
Awww so cute! Balances the bad things. Hope your allergies will get better soon. I have them too so no pets for us even if my son is begging for one.
Iffy poo? Cats very often have this when given wet food. I know mine always got gooey stinky stools when they were given wet food. We’ve had cats in Kuala Lumpur( ’85-’88) and ever since moving to Belgium after High School, I’ve had a formerly feral feline winding its way around my ankles. There’s been Mihoshi, Shadow, Immeh, Hercules (don’t ask), Curry and now, there’s Stella. All have tried a mixed diet of dry and wet food. All really, REALLY loved the wet food. And all have shat me out of house and home when they got wet food. Now wet food is for administering medication only. A teaspoon at a time and NO MORE! More than a teaspoon and the unmistakeable aroma of sick cat faeces wafts through my home in clouds so thick you can cut them with a blunt knife.
Dry kibble. If kitty doesn’t like it, kitty goes hungry. Guess,what? After a few days, kitty didn’t go hungry anymore. Kitty wolfed it down and clamored for more.
Interesting. That’s good to know. The animal rescue we went through, plus the ASPCA, follow the line that cats should only be fed wet food. There’s a movement saying that cats shouldn’t eat dry food at all, that it’s a misconception that they need dry food to clean their teeth, and that cats need the moisture from the wet food since they don’t like to drink water. I still do a mix: dry in the morning, wet at night. But now they’re on a prescription diet from the vet’s, both wet and dry. Vet says that’s just the way some cats’ digestive system react to everyday cat food. I’ll have to experiment with the dry vs wet. Ach! Too much thought involved.
We were feeding our cat wet food once a day, but cut back because he started getting gingivitis and the cure is to feed them dry food, esp. the large kibble.
(I’m annoyed that I put my name as the name of the linkup~)