As requested..............pictures of Cagney

I took Charlie back to the vet on Friday and brought Cagney with us.  She has gained 6 ounces since Saturday.  She also likes to sit on shoulders.  So here are the pictures taken by one of the folks at the vet's office.

Isn't she adorable?

 Charlie had finally gained some weight, although not much - 3.5 ounces.  He has a raging herpes infection in both eyes so - yay! - not so much - even more daily meds for him.

I thought I'd found a home for Cagney with my assistant and his girlfriend.  Both of them fell in love with her.  Why not?  She's adorable.  Unfortunately, their cat Bella wanted nothing - but bloodletting - to do with Cagney.  So, Cagney just came back to me a few minutes ago.  Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be......

I lied!

As of yesterday, there is a new addition to the household.  A teeny, itsy bitsy, black & white kitten, gender undetermined.  Weight, only 1 pound and 4 ounces.  The baby's name is Cagney, although Screamer might be more appropriate.  She/he has very definite opinions and doesn't mind expressing them loudly and often.  I love vocal cats....................probably not very surprising.  I swore no more critters - I don't want them to outlive me.

She/he was most probably dumped at or next to my vet's office.  A man found the other kitten in the street a week ago Saturday.  He brought the kitten to the vet where the kitten was euthanized.  From what I was told, the kitten was suffering from heat exhaustion and appeared to have been hit by a vehicle.  I spotted Cagney on Tuesday, under a car in the driveway of a house next to the vet's office.  A few employees knew the kitten was there, but no one attempted to catch the kitten.  I was finally able to get a trap and dropped it off on Friday.  The young woman who lives in the house caught Cagney Saturday morning and I picked her/him up and brought her/him home.  Cagney is residing in my bathroom for the time being.  Prefers being held and will try to climb my legs if I don't pick her/him up.  Sharp, dagger like claws digging into bare legs - not a pleasant experience but, somehow, endearing. 

I'll post a picture once I get my camera operational again.

Charlie, Claudia and Cissy are hanging in.  Cissy had 4 teeth pulled on Tuesday and finally started eating normally today.  It's been a chore running a MASH unit for 3 cats lately.  I really am way too old for this!

For the Cat Lovers out there…….

With a house full of cats I usually can’t always react immediately when I notice something slightly wrong with one of the cats.  Last May I decided to take Charlie to my cat vet.  My previous vet, who treated both my cats and dogs, did not have a good track record when diagnosing or treating my cats, so I went back to the exclusively cat practice I had used years before.  PERSONAL OPINION – in my experience most vets know more about dogs than they do about cats.  Most of the vets I’ve used over the years have personal dogs, rarely do they have a cat or cats.  I don’t know if vet schools focus primarily on treating dogs or if dog “owners” comprise a higher percentage of veterinary clients than do cat “owners.”  Personally, I think that the veterinarians who specialize only in cats generally have a better track record when diagnosing and treating cats.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case this time with Charlie.

This is Charlie last Friday, after his last vet visit.  Thanks Carla for the photos.

Charlie was always the first face in the food bowl, but he was losing weight.  My first thought was hyperthyroidism, possibly even diabetes.  His blood panel said no to both.  In fact, his blood work didn’t point to anything wrong.  He had some teeth extracted several years earlier due to plasma cell stomatitis.  The vet said he needed the rest of his teeth removed and felt this was the reason he was losing weight.  Although he was severely under weight, I agreed to the surgery, and he came through it quite well.  In fact, he started doing a bit better…..for a while.  Fortunately, he stayed stable while I was in the hospital in August and September.  Focusing primarily on my slow recovery, I didn’t take him back to the vet until February.   He had lost even more weight.  His blood work did show elevated levels for his kidneys, but not renal failure.  Nothing else appeared to be troubling with this second blood panel.  I continued to feed him 4, 5, 6 times a day, whenever he wanted to eat.  I gave him from 60cc to 100cc of fluids daily.  He was seriously dehydrated in addition to the weight loss.  I lost his brother Chaz in March and my eldest dog, Caleb, and another cat, Colin, in the ensuing months.  I took Charlie, Cissy and Claudia to the vet.  Cissy’s kidneys weren’t in great shape and Claudia had developed hyperthyroidism.  Charlie remained undiagnosed – his problem was a mystery.

Back in May, 2010 I had suggested to the vet that I thought Charlie had a malabsorption problem.  Basically, I felt that although he ate well enough, he simply wasn’t absorbing the nutrients from the food.  I was told that definitely could not be the problem.  During the past year, with the loss of so many animals and my health at its lowest ebb, I was frustrated and depressed.  I was watching Charlie struggle to stay alive and depending upon me to make him feel better.  I had declined a sonogram and the TLI/PLI test (which requires fasting – something I didn’t think he could or should be subjected to).  I had continued, throughout this treatment period, to ask about malabsorption.  The vet felt that he could have IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, although he had none of the typical symptoms.  I asked to try the treatment for IBS – steroids – but they failed to produce positive results. 

I took him back to the vet last week and asked to have a T4 test, for thyroid, run.  The vet ran a full blood panel and the T4 came back normal.  His kidney values had decreased somewhat, which was a good thing.  We talked for an hour after the results were in.   Malabsorption and IBS were discussed again.  I explained that I had suffered from IBS several years ago and I was/am convinced that was not his problem.  I don’t remember how she finally told me about exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.  This occurs when the pancreas does not produce the normal digestive enzymes.  Needless to say, I latched onto that.  It was the answer I had been searching for since last May.  I feel certain this is what has plagued him for all this time.  I’m also convinced that this is what killed Clark last year.  He wasted away until he simply no longer had the strength to eat.  I am, at least, hopeful now that Charlie has a chance to recover.  He’s on medication that gives him the pancreatic enzymes needed to digest his food.  He’s had a shot to bolster his production of red blood cells as well as a B-12 shot.  He also has to take folic acid tabs to help boost the iron he needs. 

The moral of this story:  don’t take “I don’t know” for an answer.  No vet has all of the answers and your cats/dogs are depending upon you to be their advocate, to search for the cause of whatever is causing their illness.  It’s okay to question a vet.  If your vet won’t listen to you – FIND ANOTHER VET!  Your animal’s life depends upon it. 

NOTE:  my favorite veterinary website online is - http://marvistavet.com/html/the_pet_web_library.html  It was this site where I discovered plasma cell stomatitis, which affected so many of cats several years ago, and nearly killed Chase.  My vet, at the time, was not concerned that I had so many 5-6 year old cats who needed multiple tooth extractions.  Even though I frequently expressed my concern that there was some root cause, she did not bother to dig any deeper to find what could be causing this.  My cats had been exposed to calicivirus years before, with only some of them getting sick from it.  Calici is a known cause of plasma cell stomatitis.   

BTW, according to the internet, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is RARE in cats.  It is most commonly seen in dogs.  Personally, I don’t think it’s rare.  Instead I think it is misdiagnosed.  I doubt that most people request a necropsy to determine cause of death.  If they did, I think the incidence of this disease would show that cats suffer from it much more frequently than veterinarians believe.  

Charlie & me last Friday

My World - It Sucks

Wow, I hadn’t realized that I haven’t blogged since the end of January.  Life has been getting me down even more than usual lately.  The visits to the hospital for wound care slowed down to once a week.  I had about 11 derma grafts, to stimulate skin growth on the wound.  Then, surprise!  I got another infection and was back on antibiotics and the derma grafts stopped.  Once the antibiotics were done, we’ve been in slow motion, allowing the skin to grow at its own pace.  This fun stuff has been going on since August……………nearly 8 months.  At least now, I can get into the shower instead of giving myself sponge baths at the sink.  Showers are a wonderful thing!

On the critter front, life hasn’t been any kinder.  I found Chase dead about a week before Christmas.  I haven’t blogged about it because it simply hurt too much to think about it.  Several years ago I nearly lost her due to plasma cell stomatitis.  After vet bills of nearly $2000, which put me deeply into credit card debt, she pulled through.  She remained terribly thin, but a real pistol.  She had been a feisty girl since she was a tiny kitten.  She got her name because she would make me Chase her every night when I tried to corral her and keep her in the bedroom.  I started loving on her for an extended period of time once I caught her in hopes of conditioning her to come more willingly to me.  Ever since that time she would so love to be held and petted.  I told people she was the cream cheese and I was the bagel – she would smear her entire body over my arms and chest, ecstatic with the petting/rubbing/loving.  She also liked to eat with her paws, scooping food from the bowls and plates and eating what she had “caught” off her paw.  Sloppy, messy eater but darling, none the less.

When I returned home from the hospital last September, both Chaz and Charlie (littermates) were sickly.  Charlie is still hanging in, with numerous ups and downs in his weight.  The vet can’t tell me exactly what’s wrong with him.  We go through periods where I have to give him sub-cu fluids frequently and he’ll only eat baby food.  Chaz developed an inoperable tumor in his left ear.  It had a major growth spurt in February and I finally euthanized him.  He was such a mellow, sweet and unassuming cat.  He was just a well mannered gentleman cat.  Then Colin and Claudia both got sick around the same time.  Colin succumbed to kidney disease and I euthanized him in March.  Claudia has hyperthyroidism and is on daily medication.  My friend Barb treks across the street twice a day to hold her so that I can pill her.  She managed to bite me last Monday and I ended up at my doctor’s office and on antibiotics.  Thumb is healing nicely.

 Sorry, no picture of Charlie or Claudia.  This was Colin in much better days, several years ago.

Last Friday, Barb called to say that Caleb, my eldest dog, wasn’t able to stand.  Although he’s had bouts of spinal problems for the past several years, this was something different.  She feared that he had a stroke.  I came home from work and we took him to the vet.  Even with injections of steroids, muscle relaxants and pain meds, he remained throughout the night in bad shape.  Around 4:30 Saturday morning he tried to stand unsuccessfully and was obviously in pain.  I gave him a pain shot, which didn’t help much.  Barb went with me to the vet when the office opened on Saturday.  The vet felt that he had most likely had a stroke and I chose to euthanize him since it was highly unlikely that he would recover from this.  I had written about him earlier this year and his recovery from his previous spinal problem.  I think he was about 15 or 16 years old, which is remarkable based on his early life and his size.  It’s unusual for medium sized dogs (shepherd mix) to live quite that long.  He was a sweet old boy and is sorely missed.  

With all of this going on, I haven’t been able to muster my regular outrage over the political climate.  Suffice it to say that what is going on in our nation’s capital, Wisconsin, my dear Florida, my birth state of Ohio, Japan and the Middle East qualifies as CRAZY.  The only bright spot on the political front?  JON STEWART!  He never fails to make me laugh at the lunacy.  If you don’t get Comedy Central, check out the videos on their website.  His recent imitation of Glenn Beck had me in stitches.  At least I’m still able to laugh…………………………………occasionally.

Killing Cats IS NOT the Answer

In a perfect world, all cats would live indoors where they are well cared for.  We don’t, however, live in a perfect world.  People still dump their cats when they no longer want them.  Even well educated people will allow their beloved cats to go outside for at least a few hours a day.  Other people leave their cats outdoors 24 hours a day, with no concerns for their safety nor what the cats might be doing, either to a neighbor’s yard or the local wildlife. 

Cats have been documented as a part of human society since the great Egyptian dynasties.  When Europeans began sailing the world, cats were on board those ships to control the rat populations.  As humans colonized/invaded other lands, the cats (and rats) came with them, and were often left behind.  Humans were the first invasive species, and to this day continue to be the most detrimental of any invasive species to all natural habitats.  We have created a swath of destruction wherever we have gone, and this continues to this day.  Yet, instead of placing the blame for declines in native species on humans, governments and wildlife agencies have chosen to place cats in their crosshairs.  If only they could simply KILL all of the cats, all would be right with the world.  At the very least, this is faulty logic.  At the worst, an unattainable goal has been set. 

The best way to work toward a solution to the concerns of governments and wildlife agencies about cats preying upon threatened and endangered wildlife would be to work with the people who KNOW the domestic cat and cat behavior.  Although a few, and mostly flawed studies have been done about cats and predation, scientists do not consider cats worthy of SERIOUS scientific study.  However, the much maligned, so-called Cat Lovers actually are experts on cat behavior and the issue of community cats. 

Choosing to KILL cats has NEVER worked.  There are plenty of examples to support this fact.  Community animal control agencies have been rounding up “loose” cats for many, many years.  Even so, the number of cats picked up and killed has increased, instead of decreasing over that time.  Government agencies have trapped cats on public lands for many, many years, yet there are still cats to trap.  The “supply” has failed to diminish despite these efforts.  Hundreds of millions of cats and kittens have been killed through these practices, yet estimates say there are still millions of cats out there.  WHY?  It certainly isn’t due to lack of will on the part of government employees – either city, county, state or federal – to kill each and every cat they can catch.  Put simply, it is because the real culprit and cause of this so-called problem has been ignored.  It’s not the cats – it is the humans. 

Our government, on all levels, has taught their lesson to the people well.  Cats, and animals in general, have NO VALUE.  Killing them is okay.  They are easily replaceable.  There are plenty more where those dead ones came from.  So, people continue to move and leave their cat(s) behind, or they drive to the “country” and pitch their cat(s) out of the car and drive away, or they dump them at a “shelter” and absolve themselves of their responsibility. 

Without a shift in our cultural values, there will always be free-roaming cats.  By working together with people who care about and understand cats, a campaign to change attitudes, to attack the problem at its source, a viable plan could be formulated.  Instead of working at odds with, or simply dismissing the concerns of those who are trying to humanely decrease the populations of free-roaming cats, it is time to work together.  

Yes, SOME cats kill wildlife.  SOME cats are more prolific hunters than other cats.  Some habitats cannot tolerate another predator.  But, not all free-roaming cats hunt, not all habitats are seriously impacted by the presence of cats.  There are HUMANE solutions and that is the choice that should be made.  

For more information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's proposed plan, go here:  http://www.fws.gov/nationalkeydeer/predatormgmt.html 

To send a quick and easy response, go here:  http://capwiz.com/alleycat/issues/alert/?alertid=24181501&PROCESS=Take+Action&external_id=10519.0

Caleb

This is my old man – Caleb. He became a part of my household in October, 1997. I figure he was born in either 1995 or 1996, which makes him between 15 & 16. Pretty darn old for a german shepherd mix.

He started his life with someone else, someone I never met even though he lived on the other side of my street and a few houses west of me. He was living in a house that had recently been purchased when the used car lot on the corner of my street expanded and bought the adjacent property with 2 houses on it. He worked at the car lot and the owner let him live there with his dog. When his boss found out that he was doing drugs, he fired him and kicked him out of the house. He left the dog behind to fend for himself. He did tell someone in the neighborhood that he would be back to get the dog. He never came.

Before the car lot owner bought the property, and before the last tenant in the front house moved in, the people before him moved out and left their cat and her kittens and their 3 legged dog and her puppies. The dog lost her leg after getting hit by a car. The house was (it’s demolished now) about 5 car lengths off a very busy major road in Orlando. The momma dog was very protective of her pups and all went to animal control. No doubt all were killed there. I took in the momma cat and her 2 remaining kittens – Climber, Chloe and Cleo. All 3 of those girls have passed on.

So, back to Caleb’s story. I started feeding him when he was abandoned. He had no collar, so I couldn’t put a leash on him. He would let me pet him with one hand, but not two. I wasn’t able to slip a collar over his head. If I brought both hands toward his head, he would run off. Every time I put his food bowl down, however, he would lick my face. He was obviously frightened, but friendly. After about 2 weeks, I was despairing that I would never catch him and he would get killed by a car either on the major highway or our street. He took to sleeping under one of those hot dog carts further down our block. Then a friend who did dog rescue came to help. She brought a couple of burgers and a slip noose. She held up the slip noose and held the burger on the other side. Caleb put his head through to get the burger and Voila he was finally caught.

My initial plan was to get him checked out with the vet and then turn him over to one of the area rescue groups to find him a home. Unfortunately, Caleb turned out to be very frightened. It was obvious that he had been beaten, smacked and probably kicked by his worthless previous owner. If I laughed too loud at something on TV, he would cower. If I raised my hands for anything, he would shake and cower. He wouldn’t let anyone walk behind him or touch anywhere near his tail or back legs. He just wouldn’t have been able to find a home because of how timid he was. The sad thing is the abuse I suspected isn’t the only thing that happened to him before I took him in.

About 5 years ago, his back legs went lame. He couldn’t stand up and his hind legs would get twisted when I tried lifting him to his feet. I took him to my vet, who took an x-ray. I took a look at it before the vet came in and was puzzled. There were spots all over the x-ray. I thought there was something wrong with the film. I was wrong. When I asked the vet about it, he told me that those spots were buckshot. Someone had shot Caleb with a shotgun and his body was peppered with the buckshot. The x-ray also showed that Caleb has degenerative disc disease. He was put on aspirin and prednisone. The vet wasn’t hopeful it would work, but within less than a week, Caleb was running through my backyard and acting like a puppy. He was obviously glad to be feeling so much better. He has had a couple of recurrences since that time, most recently this past weekend. Back on the pills, a muscle relaxant along with the prednisone, and getting his nails trimmed and he’s back to being his old self. At his age, he is nearly blind and totally deaf. He can’t hear the other dogs bark, thunder or firecrackers. At least the deafness is a blessing in disguise for him. He would always shiver in fear when we had a bad storm or someone nearby was shooting off firecrackers.

I thought I was going to lose him for sure in December, 2009. He had a tumor in his lower intestine and needed to have surgery. With his back problems, the location of the tumor and his age, I doubted he would pull through. He spent the night at the surgical specialists, following the surgery. I picked him up the next day, and you would think he was coming home from a spa visit. He not only pulled through, but did it like it was no big deal. The ability of animals to, so often, bounce back from surgery never fails to amaze me.

I don’t know how much longer Caleb will be with me, but he certainly has a strong spirit and desire to live. He’s come through so much and is such a sweet guy. Us humans could learn something from him.

My Critter Herd

I’ve gotten a request to post pictures of my cats.  Unfortunately, I am not that proud of the quality of the photos and most of the photos are a couple of years old.  However, I shall proceed despite these shortcomings.

I thought I would do this in short, descriptive narratives on different groups of cats. Most came in together and so I’m going to do their “stories”.

My oldest cat is Cissy. 

I was already running out of “C” names when she and Carly came into my life.  Diane Jones, my mentor in the cat world & battling the Powers That Be (Orange County government in 1990 was when it began), asked me to take 2 kittens from her.  When I first saw Cissy, Diane had flea treated her with Vaseline, so the poor little kitten looked like a punk cat, with spiked hair.  Pitiful looking tiny thing.  

I wasn’t good about keeping records back then and, to the best of my knowledge, it was around 1995 that I brought home both Cissy and Carly.  Here is Carly: 

The two of them became “bedroom cats” because Chloe, one of my older cats, would constantly pick on them.  The kittens took to hiding behind the entertainment center and wouldn’t leave even to use the litter box.  Once moved into the bedroom and away from Chloe, there were no more problems.  Carly unexpectedly became sick one day and by the time we got to the vet, she was in such bad shape that I had no other option but to have her euthanized.  That was in May, 2008.  She was always such a sweet and loving cat.

Cissy is quite talkative and will answer you with a meow when you call her name.  When she wants attention, she won’t take no for an answer.  Pet her or suffer the consequences, trust me.  Her worst trait:  she LOVES to lick my nose and occasionally bite it.  She hasn’t drawn blood yet, probably because I do my best to keep my nose away from her!  She isn’t particularly patient about being brushed or having mats removed.  I found the greatest tool for mat removal at my vet’s office.  One evening, I was thinking that something similar to those compact, fits in your palm, plastic letter openers with an embedded razor blade would be great for removing mats.  Within a week I was at my vet’s office and THERE IT WAS!  It looks like a letter opener with a handle.  Cissy will tolerate longer sessions with this than anything else that I’ve tried and I don’t have to worry about accidentally cutting her or stabbing her with scissors.  It’s called Mat Magician, which it most certainly is!  Here is a link to their website:  http://matmagician.com/

Cissy still resides in the bedroom with many other cats now.  Most of them come rushing out when I go in to scoop litter boxes, vacuum, change the bed and feed them.  Tapping the cans together as I go back with food causes a stampede, with everyone (most of time) answering the “dinner bell” and diving into their canned cat food. 

Stay tuned for further ramblings on the rest of the herd……………….