I intended to write much sooner but it’s been a bit crazy around here.  Most fortunately, our Baby has been home since last Monday.  I was so very happy to see her.  I think she was happy to see me too but, of course, that would be totally beneath acceptable kitty behavior to exhibit that much emotion. 

Hubby-honey sleeping but Baby caught me taking her picture

When she first came to live with us, she was absolutely insane when we put her in the carrier and after being kept in a cage all weekend, I expected the same behavior.  I was wrong, thank goodness.  She did let me know she would really rather not but she was  pretty good all the way home.  (It’s about 25 miles from Keizer to the vet’s office in Albany, Oregon so it takes about 30 minutes to get home.)

I was also afraid Gizmo would have “forgotten” about Baby and she would relapse into her old snappy behavior, but again, I was most happy to be wrong.  Giz gave her a good sniff (from a safe distance of about 2 feet) but she didn’t hiss or slap.

I understood the nurse to say  Baby could not have any fish but she could have a variety of other flavors of foods.  I thought she could still have Fancy Feast but not the fish flavors.  The next day Baby threw up in the doorway to the livingroom and sometime during the night, she threw up in the laundry room.  I called the doctor as soon as he opened on Wednesday morning and asked if I should bring Baby back to see him. 

Baby sitting on the hood of the Ford finally looking at me.

I was most grateful that Dr. Braat took the time to talk to me himself so I finally understood exactly what he wanted me to do.  I’m not criticizing the nurse in anyway; I am hearing impaired and I may not have heard her instructions correctly.  He explained to me that  Baby was not to have ANY Fancy Feast at all.  The ONLY brand of food she was to eat was any non-fish flavor of Friskies.  I went out and got several Friskies flavors for her to try. 

As I was fixing a plate for Baby, I got a surprise from my other little darling.  I thought Baby was waiting at my feet to be fed but it was actually Gizmo.  She LIKED the smell of the flavor I was feeding Baby.  I was really surprised because it was Turkey/Giblet pate for Special Diets.  Giz hasn’t liked turkey in a long time. 

I started feeding her the same food as Baby.   Most unfortunately, after eating the Turkey/Giblet stuff for a couple of days, she suddenly went off it.  She hasn’t been too keen on much of anything for the last two days so I’ve been giving her an extra  dose of tagamet.  She’s shown some improvement but is still a bit fussy. 

Giz playing with the new squeeky toy mouse

For the last two years, Giz has had to take Tagamet for her ulcer along with two other medications.  I thought she was having an ulcer because she licks herself a lot and ingests a lot of hair.  She throws up a lot of hairballs, which I thought kept her tummy upset and caused the ulcer to constantly return.  Now, I think she was having food problems along with her hairball problems.  I’m hoping that changing her food will help her have fewer ulcers.  Only time will tell at this point.

Yesterday, I talked to my sister who lives in Michigan with her family and two kitties.  She says that both of her kitties can eat neither Fancy Feast nor 9 Lives.  The only food they can tolerate is Friskies.  Unfortunately, we had never discussed her cats having feeding problems or I might have thought about allergies in my own cat.  I feel really guilty about my poor babies having needlessly suffered as they have but I had NEVER heard of food allergies in cats. 

Changing from Fancy Feast to Friskies will have a positive impact on our finances.  The Friskies is a lot cheaper than the Fancy Feast, but the thing I liked about the Fancy Feast is that they have the individual serving size cans.  When Gizmo was my only cat, I had a lot less waste with these cans.  So far, with both the cats on the same food, I don’t have a lot of waste either. 

Giz is scratching but she's also keeping the toy mouse from Baby

I do worry about spoilage.  Gizmo has always been partial to having her food warmed.  Often, I microwave her food for 6 or 8 seconds and she will eat it much quicker.  Baby really likes the Friskies but she doesn’t like it really cold from the refrigerator either so I’ve been leaving the open can on the counter.  I’ve tried several flavors but for buying convenience, I bought two cases of Friskies Turkey and Giblet Pate for Special Diets.  Baby still likes this flavor but Gizmo seems to be “not so much” about it right now.   I’m still experimenting with different flavors for her.

One of the very best benefits of the change to Friskies is that Baby has completely stopped vomiting.  I was very concerned she was going to have continuing problems with the gingivitis and would have to take medication for the rest of her life.  Because the medication was causing her to have diarrhea, I really didn’t want her to have to be on it long-term. 

Also, our house has been much quieter since Giz continues to have a quieter relationship with Baby.  They haven’t been hissing at each other very much.  Occasionally, if they come upon each other unawares, they will have a bit of posturing but other than that, life is pretty quiet, thank goodness.  We are comfortable enough with the situation to leave them in the house together when we go out.

Baby has to spend the weekend with our vet, hurt my heart so very, very much. 

As you know, when we got Baby, she had the world’s worst case of gingivitis.  Even after the vet had cleaned her teeth and scraped her gums. (Bllllrrrrrr), she spent another month getting antibiotics and shots of prednisone to reduce the inflammation.  In August, she finally started to show some improvement and in September, her gums and teeth were finally healed.  Unfortunately, every time we started to take her off the antibiotics, she started vomiting, which is why I took her to see the vet today.

Vet's office

I explained to him that my job is going to disappear forever in a couple of weeks and as reasonable as he is, I was not going to be able to bring either Baby or Giz back in the foreseeable future unless he was willing to let me clean out the horses stalls or sweep and mop his office.  He laughed and patted my hand – comforting but hardly a solution for poor Baby’s problems. 

While he was looking her over, I explained that about her situation.  I told him that if I forgot to give her a dose or if she started to get diarrhea and I decided to stop giving her the antibiotics for a couple of days (his suggestion), she would vomit.  He asked what she threw up (double bluck).  I told him it was always undigested food, which is why I knew which cat had the problem.  (The girls like different kinds of food and they are easily distinguishable if you’re unlucky enough to see them again.)  I announced with some pride that she only liked Fancy Feast Yellowfin Tuna with Delicate Sauces.  He said he wanted to keep Baby for a few days.  He told the assistant he wanted her fed anything but fish.  He didn’t want her to have any form of fish or anything with fish in it.  He suspects she has a food allergy to fish.  At first it didn’t make any sense but as I was driving home thinking about her eating habits, I thought he might be right.  Maybe the antibiotics make the fish tolerable for some reason but when she didn’t have them, the allergy took over.

The vet is so wonderful and understanding, he’s not going to charge us anything for housing her over the weekend.  Of course, if he has to do any tests or x-rays, he’ll have to charge us for that but nothing for food or observation.  I can’t begin to express my gratitude to this marvelous human being.  Still, it was horrible to leave her there for three days.  As soon as she was out of sight, I started crying.  I cried all the way to the car and half the way home.   I called Hubby-honey and told him his best-bud was going to be staying with the vet.  He loves having her spend the night on his chest.  I know he’s bummed about it but he thinks she’ll have a short memory about the whole thing.  I hope he’s right.

Baby a the Vet

What broke my heart was that I knew it’s taken a long time for Baby to trust us.  Now, she’s going to be spending three days cooped up in a cage with strange cats around her and strange people handling her.  I pray she still trusts us when I pick her up.  I miss her too.  You know what, Giz would rather go bald tonight than admit it but I think she misses Baby as well.  She’s been sitting in the window all afternoon, looking at the place under the bush where Baby usually sleeps.

Hubby-honey and I know it’s for the best especially if the vet can find out what’s causing her to have problems so she can live her wonderful life in peace, but we miss our little girl.  Such a tiny little beast and yet she’s found her way firmly into our hearts forever.

The last couple of days have been REALLY interesting.  Two days ago, Baby, Gizmo and I were not feeling our best.  I had a sinus infection and my girls were having tummy problems.

Baby playing with the cane

When I took Baby to the vet a couple of weeks ago, he said her teeth and gums looked better than he’d ever seen them.  He really had a point.  When she came to us, her teeth were covered with icky stuff and her gums were bleeding a lot.  Now her teeth are really white, very strong and sharp and the gums have stopped bleeding completely.  She still has some issues though because if she doesn’t have antibiotics for a couple of days, she goes off her feed and starts vomiting.  The one she had been taking for almost a month started giving her loose stools though so the vet changed it to something else. 

I’d had her on the new medication for over a week and it seemed to be fine but then on Wednesday, she started vomiting.  I called the vet and told him I thought she should be back on her old medicine for a while.  He agreed and I’ll take her in around October 15th.  I think he’s going to want to do some additional tests to find out why this continues to happen.  He’s fairly certain it’s some kind of bacteria but he’s not sure what it is or how to treat it.  We’ll get to the bottom of it I’m sure. 

Baby's Pretty Face

Gizmo was also having tummy issues.  I got up in the middle of the night and found a HUGE hairball in the livingroom.  Gizmo’s ulcer needs to have the Tagamet twice a day and not once a day as we were very much hoping.  She was hungry but she just wasn’t keeping it down very well. 

Giz sprawled out on our bed

After a full day of everybody hissing at everybody else, I was starting to lose my patience with both of them.  I was having a roaring sinus infection headache and I was not amused by the continued posturing.  I have to say neither of them really cared whether I was miffed about their constant needling; they just continued with gay abandon.  So far, they haven’t really come to blows.  It’s usually just a lot of hissing from Gizmo in Baby’s direction if Giz thinks Baby is getting a little too close.  However, Baby can give back as good as she gets and sometimes she just goes looking for trouble.  It was a very long day.

By the time we went to bed, they’d both had two doses of medication and were obviously feeling much better, but they weren’t ready for peaceful coexistence just yet.  Hubby-honey and I would just start drifting off to sleep and one of them would do something to set the other one off and somebody would be doing the deep throat growling.  It was a long night.

To my surprise and relief, yesterday wasn’t too bad.  The girls were feeling better and food was staying down pretty good.  I think this helped a lot toward keeping tempers tamped down a bit.  Giz finally got tired of staring at Baby, because Baby had gotten bored with the whole thing and just up and went to sleep.  Giz finally went out on the couch and went to sleep on her blanket. 

I hadn’t been sleeping too well for the past two nights because of my sinus infection with its attendant headache and face pain, but I slept pretty good last night. – until about 3:30 in the morning. 

Giz In Closet

I had just gotten up to use the bathroom and while I was up, I fed the girls because they were both looking expectantly at their feeding bowls. While I’d been feeding the girls, Hubby-honey had gotten up to use the bathroom as well so we were both awake a half an hour later when the thundering herd ran up the hallway, making such a screeching noise as to wake the dead.  With my heart pounding a mile a minute, I ran into the hall to break up the fight but no fight came.  Baby ran to the left into the guest room and hid under the bed.  Gizmo ran to the right into the computer room and that was the end of the argument.

Hubby-honey has to get up to go to work at 4:00 so I don’t think he got back to sleep.  I must have dropped off because I was asleep when he came in to kiss me goodbye and wish me good day. 

Today has been fairly quiet.  It was raining this morning so Baby was in the house until almost 11:00.  When the sun started shining, I let Baby out to catch some rays.  She really hates being cooped up in the house all day. 

I’m beginning to wonder if they don’t get along better when no human is around to pay attention.  Hmmm – definitely a point to ponder.