Christy Marx Rambling WriterKelly decorates himself with rainbows.
As I feared, Kelly’s tooth will have to be removed. Per the vet, any kind of chip in a cat’s tooth leaves the root open. It’s probably causing him pain, but even if it wasn’t, the root will eventually die and create an abscess, so that’s not an option.
I scheduled the dental, but I can’t believe how much it’s costing. It used to run around $500-700. Now it’s over a thousand bucks. Ouch, ouch, ouch. He’s become our most expensive cat.
When I posted those photos of Kelly yawning, I realized that his left upper fang is broken off. I think this must have been something recent. I called the vet clinic and asked them to check his records. He had dental work last Aug. There was no note of a broken fang at the time.
I was able to get an appointment tomorrow afternoon to have it looked at and determine whether it’s causing him pain or problems or needs to come out. Poor boy.
Kelly hanging out with the snapdragons.
On one of our sunny days, Kelly had a good time rolling around on warm pavement. Unfortunately, he followed this by killing a Spotted Towhee and depositing it at the front door. One of the reasons I do not like letting cats go outside is their negative impact on birds and other wildlife. If Kelly didn’t have such severe problems inside with Ozzy and Tilly, I wouldn’t let him out.
Later in the afternoon, I looked at the back deck in time to see Smokey emerge from under the deck and go after Kelly. We ran out to break that up, but it’s not a good sign.
A few days ago, we heard battle yowls and hurried onto the front porch. Obie was sitting not looking especially worried, but Kelly was pouffed up like a cat-shaped bristle brush. We’re not sure who was fighting with who, but down on the front steps we found gobs of long-haired, gray and white fur. Best guess is that Smokey may have been fighting with the neighbor’s cat, Stefan, that still comes around. It’s a bloody circus around here.
We had to take a short trip and were gone for three days. We knew there was no way a petsitter could take care of Obie if we left him outside, so we made the decision to keep Obie inside while we were gone. We also had the sitter leave food out for Smokey.
We also knew the sitter wouldn’t be able to get a pill into Kelly. Kelly got to spend those days boarded at the vet’s, and while he was there I asked the vet to do a complete work-up on him to see whether there was a problem with Kelly’s guts that caused him to keep getting backed up.
When we got back, all the cats were obviously happy to see us. It was not only the first time for Obie to be inside and be without us, it was Tilly’s first time as well. For the whole next day, Obie was constantly crying to go in and out, in and out, in and out. It seemed like he simultaneously wanted to be outside and be with his people. We figure he was insecure and wanted to keep checking that, yes, we were still there. He’s calmed down since as we’ve gotten back to the normal routine.
Kelly was another story. I was going to pick him up late in the day when we got home, but the vet hadn’t been able to do the kind of exam I’d asked for because Kelly had refused to either pee or poop for two days! They tried him on three different types of litter to no avail. I left him there for another night and day, during which they had to trank him and he finally gave up the goods, as it were.
The results of x-rays, ultrasound, and a very expensive special blood test came back as – there’s nothing physically wrong with this cat. When I came to pick up Kelly, I had a long talk with the vet. She couldn’t believe that Kelly was able to hold his pee that long. Based on how behaved under stress, we’re pretty sure now that Kelly’s problems come from Ozzy trolling him when he tries to use a litter box.
Kelly was delighted to be home and even more delighted to get back outside the next morning. Being outside has helped the situation a lot, and Kelly has the entire outdoors to use at a cat box without Ozzy interfering.
This afternoon, I saw Obie, Kelly, and Smokey hanging out on the back deck together like frat brothers. I loved seeing it.
#MoggyHorde #cats #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #ObieCat #KellyCat
Smokey decided to engage in some superior, subtle cat trolling. He laid on the deck a short distance from where Kelly was perched, then he inched closer by lolling, rolling and finally making a looooooong stretch. That was the point at which Kelly decided he’d had enough and took off. Smokey took off after him, but luckily it didn’t come to anything. They parted ways and Kelly came inside shortly after that.
Yesterday morning, while Obie was waffling on the doorstep about whether he wanted to come inside, Kelly managed to shoot past him and get outside. Rather than panic about it, we let him stay out for a couple of hours until he was ready to come inside by himself.
We had given up letting him go outside after he got into a big fight and ended up with a tear in his right ear. But he’s so bad-tempered inside, that we decided to give it another try. Our main concern was how he might interact with Smokey.
So far, Smokey gets along fine with Obie. I even saw him come onto the back deck and try to go nose-to-nose with Obie. Obie wasn’t quite sure about that, so Smokey retreated, but there was no drama.
This morning, we put Kelly’s collar on him and let him go out with Obie. The two of them spent a long time eating grass together in the front yard. And then, amazingly, Randy saw Smokey hang out with both of them and Kelly was okay with it. That’s a relief. We probably will continue to let Kelly outside first thing in the morning for an hour or so. Not that it’s made him any less bad-tempered once he’s back inside. I may have to go back to his original dose of Prozac. We’ll see.
I got out of bed immediately after my alarm went off, rushed through my morning routine, skipped my PT exercises, grabbed the cat carrier, and hurried out to see how Kelly was doing before I called the vet hospital.
To my tremendous relief, he was alert, aware, and moving about normally. He ate a small amount of food for me. I think that enough of the Lactulose must have gotten into his system to make a difference, and it takes 24-48 hours for it have an effect. Meaning, I think he finally pooped during the night and is recovering.
I gave him another dose of Lactulose this morning. It’s some kind of non-digestible sugar that acts as a laxative. It’s also sticky as hell. Kelly doesn’t like it, of course, and shakes his head, which gets it all over the place. It sets up stiff in his fur and is hard to comb out. If you’ve ever been doused with champagne, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t, take it from me, it sucks.
He’s actually asked loudly for more food during the day. He’s not fully back to normal, and not eating his usual amount of food, but he’s way better than he was. He also hasn’t had his Prozac for a couple of days, so his bad temper toward Ozzy and Tilly is on full display. I’ll let it slide for a day, but will have to get him back on it by tomorrow.
Kelly remains extremely sick. He won’t touch food and we haven’t seen him drink water all day. He kept throwing up until I think he simply ran out of anything to throw up, even phlegm. I gave him more Lactulose this morning, but a while later he threw up again and what I cleaned up looked a lot like the medicine. I think he urgently needs fluids, but we don’t have any. We used to give fluids frequently and had ringer sets around, then all of our old cats died, so we didn’t keep any on hand.
I contacted the emergency vet clinic in Redding. The tech said there’s a shortage of veterinarians and there wouldn’t be one available by the time I got there. Plus we have a winter storm coming in. There’s a high pass I have to get over to even get to Redding, and making that drive with possible snow and ice is risky.
My local vet hospital isn’t technically open on Mondays, but there’s always a tech there and they all know me. I plan to get Kelly there as early as possible tomorrow morning. Even if there’s no vet available, they can get him on fluids and maybe an IV until a vet can look at him.