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And now we wait…

7 Dec

Image Source: http://gooddogcoaching.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/xmas-cat-w-ribbon.jpg

When your *best case* scenario relies on hoping for your cat to shit out three feet of Christmas ribbon, you know some poor choices have been made somewhere, by someone.

In my case, I can’t decide if I’m at fault for pulling out green curling ribbon when wrapping a birthday present for my friends’ baby. Or if Miss Moneypenny – who suddenly decided that curling ribbon looked DELICIOUS – is to blame.

Regardless, one minute I was sitting there listening the Christmas carols and wrapping a present. The next, I was online googling “cat ate ribbon” and finding that I probably needed to rush her to an emergency vet.

Nevermind that it was 9pm on a Saturday and it was pouring rain outside and I don’t have a car. And the vet is located up near Maryland. Sigh.

Don’t get me wrong – I did consider just riding it out and seeing what would happen. After all, Miss Moneypenny didn’t seem to be distressed. In fact, she seemed oddly sated – and newly obsessed with curling ribbon.

Let me back up.

After wrapping my friends’ baby’s gift, I decided it would look better with a wee bit of ribbon on it. So I pulled out a spool of thin green curling ribbon – ribbon that I’m pretty sure was out frequently last year during the holidays and that seemed to have escaped Miss Moneypenny’s notice at the time.

I cut a four foot section of ribbon and draped it over the back of my chair while I returned the spool to its drawer. When I turned around, the ribbon was on the floor, Miss Moneypenny was sitting on top of it, licking her lips – and only a foot of it remained. I was baffled.

“Did you just eat that?” I asked. By the way she attacked the remaining foot of ribbon, it was obvious that she had. If I hadn’t moved quickly, that last bit of ribbon would’ve been down her hatch as seamlessly as a snake swallowing a tiny mouse. (This, from a cat who is super picky about her REAL food.)

Immediately, I thought of my childhood friend’s dog, Toby, who had once eaten an entire spool of dental floss – all 25 yards of it. My friend’s family had returned home to find the plastic dispenser hanging out of his mouth, and were able to pull about three yards of it out before it seemed to stick on something. They took Toby to the vet, where a chunk of his intestines were removed. Apparently that’s common when an animal eats an excessive length of a linear object.

I did what everyone does when faced with the prospect of bundling up their animal for a weekend/late night ER trip. I a) posted a query on Facebook, hoping my cat-owning friends would tell me I was over-reacting and could just stay home, and b) googled to see if the wider internet community could offer some reassurance that cats regularly ate three feet of curling ribbon and lived to tell about it.

Sadly, on both counts the response was, “Better get to the vet.”

I made one last attempt at avoiding the vet by calling the emergency line and asking if I could just monitor Miss Moneypenny and bring her in if she seemed distressed? Answer: No, get thee to a vet.

So we did. Thank you, Uber, for making that relatively easy. And the animal hospital was surprisingly well-staffed at 10pm on a Saturday. There must’ve been at least a dozen people working, and they were all really friendly. Fortunately, it was also a quiet night, so there were only two other people in the waiting room: one was a woman whose Labradoodle was having an allergic reaction to his vaccines, and the other was a man whose two daschunds had gotten into a tin of pure cocoa and needed their stomachs pumped.

Explaining that my cat had just ingested 2-3 feet of curling ribbon made me feel like they might send us home with a Darwin Award.

Instead, they sent us home without treatment and instructions to just monitor her for lethargy, vomiting or any other evidence that the ribbon had created an intestinal blockage. (I’d like to point out that that was the plan I’d originally proposed, and which they’d shot down over the phone.) There’s a 50% chance she’ll be able to pass it on her own, and a 50% chance we’ll need to go back for emergency surgery.

“Was there nothing that could be done NOW?” I asked, hoping to head-off both the possibility of surgery and having to monitor her litterbox for evidence that it had passed. I also didn’t want this trip to the vet – which would end up costing $200 – to be in vain. “Can’t we pump her stomach and make her puke it up? Or do an endoscopy and retrieve it before it works into her intestines in the first place?”

Apparently the answer to both questions is, “Not unless you want to spend an even crazier amount of money” – at least at 10pm on a Saturday night when their Surgical Internist is home in bed.

So I packed up Miss Moneypenny and we returned home.

Side note: The Uber driver on our way home puzzled me. He seemed to really like animals and was awesome about letting me bring a cat into his cab, but had some questions that indicated a lack of familiarity with cats. To wit:

Driver: How often do you need to cut her hair? 

Me: Cats don’t really need haircuts.

Driver: I take my daughter to PetSmart to see cats get their hairs cut. But there are never any cats. Just dogs.

Me: Yeah, I don’t think cats ever really get their hair cut.

Driver: How long can their hair get though? Very long? 

Me: No, it stays a pretty set length. You know how they have a winter and a summer coat? Maybe they just lose all their fur frequently enough that that’s why we never see it grow past a certain length.

Driver: Do you shampoo her? 

Me: No. Cats do a good job of grooming themselves.

Driver: What does the groomer do then? Just cut their hairs? 

????

So now we’re home. I’m monitoring her. And while I certainly don’t want to return to the vet for emergency surgery, I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing that three feet of ribbon resurface.

My friend Andrew reminded me that he had an equally distressing situation some years ago when his doberman ate a box of dryer sheets. How’d it work out? According to his roommate, who witnessed the entire thing: “He looked like a tissue dispenser for about 20 minutes.”

At least dryer sheets smell nice.

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The vet’s office is a zoo. Almost literally.

1 Sep
I said STOP WEIGHING ME.

I said: STOP. WEIGHING. ME.

Five months ago, I was given a lecture when I took Miss Moneypenny to the vet. “She’s gained two pounds since you owned her. Careful with the treats. Her ideal weight is 10 lbs.” So when we got home, I scaled back her treats. And maybe her dry food a bit. And I may have made a few jokes in her presence about kitty cat fat camp.

In any case, when we went back to the vet a month later, they said, “Yeesh! She’s down to almost nine pounds. We better do a blood test.”

I tried to explain that her weight loss was deliberate, but they were hearing none of that. They did a blood test and called me two days later to say, “It’s as we suspected. Miss Moneypenny has a hyperactive-thyroid. It’s off the charts and you need to put her on medicine now or she’ll waste away.”

Here I thought I was the Jillian Michaels of feline fitness. So much for the Biggest Mewser™ business plan I’d started writing.

I have enough medical fights in my life with my GI Specialist, who is always trying to guilt me into taking medicines I fundamentally disagree with, so when it came to Miss Moneypenny, my response was, “Fine. What do I need to give her?”

Long story short, thirty days after beginning her medicine, we were back at the vet for a follow-up blood test to see if the medicine was effective. I made the mistake of showing up at 6pm on a week night, which is apparently when *everybody* takes their sick pets in. I feel like I can *almost* refer to the waiting room as “literally a zoo” and not be completely deserving of a grammar infraction.

The cast of characters featured a French Bulldog named Lily, a Whippit, a Great Dane named Annie, three other random dogs (beagle, boxer and chihuahua) and a few cats in carriers. Miss Moneypenny hates being in her carrier, which – considering it looks like a gym bag that a mobster might toss in the river – is not completely without reason – but she was surprisingly calm in the midst of the chaos. After screaming at everyone to announce her arrival, she kicked back and took a bath.

Hint: One of these is a falabella.

Hint: One of these is a falabella.

While we were sitting there, a woman showed up with a cute puppy named Teddy, who was to Golden Retrievers what a Falabella is to regular horses. (I’ve included a photo in case you’re too lazy to Google that reference.)

The dog was adorable, but wildly out of control. When his other mother showed up, he was so excited, I watched him scale her like a mountain goat. She was seated in a chair and Teddy was standing on her shoulders, totally wrapped around her  head.

As we waited (and waited) for Miss Moneypenny to get called back, I had ample time to observe Teddy and his lack of discipline. He was on a retractable leash and his owners let it out with abandon. They were lost in conversation so they didn’t notice when Teddy began chewing on a dog wearing a cone, or when he tried to butt-sniff a dog who clearly wasn’t feeling well.

Everyone in the waiting room began exchanging glances. Teddy was undeniably adorable, but his clueless owners were allowing him to be a bit of a nuisance. About this time, Teddy walked to the center of the waiting room and proceeded to take a leak that would do Austin Powers proud. The puddle was not insignificant.

Amazingly, his owners didn’t notice this, despite my repeatedly looking at Teddy, then looking at them. Everyone else in the waiting room was doing the same as we all wondered if we should say something or sit back and see how long it would take them to notice. We silently agreed to go the latter route until a few minutes later, when the pee was flowing along the grout between tiles and was about to soak the bag of one of the women.

“Excuse me,” another (nicer) woman called to her, “You might want to move your bag.”

At this, Teddy’s owner looked down, saw the approaching pee and grabbed her bag up with disgust. Then she traced the stream back to its pool of origin, which by this time had little Teddy paw prints in and out of it. If it were a crime scene, it would be an open-and-shut case.

And yet, she turned to her partner and said, “Oh my God – there’s a whole puddle of pee on the floor. Someone’s dog peed there!”

To which her partner asked, “Do you think it was Teddy?”

Without missing a beat, she said, “No – he went right before we got in the car.”

Let me point out – there were no other dogs remotely near the puddle and the only wet foot prints tracked directly to their dog. Everyone in the waiting room again exchanged wordless glances that – had we been playing charades – would’ve prompted a win for the phrase, “You must be shitting me.”

After sitting there for a few minutes, Teddy’s owner finally said – loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Well, I guess if the owner isn’t going to clean it up, I will.” And she huffed over to the desk and asked for paper towels. Um, thanks for the favor?

Let’s just hope she decides not to ever have a baby. Ever.

…

Oh – and in case you’re curious, Miss Moneypenny weighed in at 11.8 pounds, which apparently is now great. Whatever.

 

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Image

Arm Chair Gratitude: Day 2

19 Mar

Image Source: 2014 pithypants.com

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My cat is either sadistic or a neat freak.

19 Nov

I bought a new pair of slippers and although they’re super comfortable, they came with two ridiculously huge pompons on each one. Naturally I whipped out some scissors and cut them off.

They are about the same size as Miss Moneypenny’s toys, so I thought I’d toss one to her to bat around. She loved it and scampered through the house with it. A couple hours later when I was putting away laundry, I noticed that the ball was sitting in the bottom of her water bowl, drenched.

“Hmm,” I thought, “She must’ve accidentally swatted it in here.”

I retrieved it and set it in my bathtub to dry.

Tonight when drawing a bath, I reencountered the fuzzball and tossed it out for her to play with. Again, she knocked it and took off chasing it out of the room. A few minutes later, when I was sitting in the bathtub, she returned, carrying the ball in her mouth.

Without even looking at me, she walked in and dropped it in her waterbowl. Then she batted it around until it was soaking and – as if she were bobbing for apples – reached in and picked up, then left the bathroom with it.

About fifteen minutes later, she came back, again carrying the ball in her mouth, and dropped it on my iPhone (which was sitting on the floor). Then she left.

So clearly her dunking is deliberate. If I imagine it’s a mouse she’s playing with, I have two possible explanations for what she’s doing: Either she’s trying to drown it, or she wants to clean it off. I’m not sure which is better.

At least I don’t have this to deal with:

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In case you’re looking for extra work. Or a cat.

24 Oct
Unless you want this cat in a box to become a dick in a box, you better feed it.

Unless you want this cat in a box to become a dick in a box, you better feed it.

Alan and I are getting ready to venture to California for vacation. It’s the first time we will both have been out of town together, so we need to get a cat sitter for Miss Moneypenny. Sure, I have friends who would probably help me out, but I don’t want to saddle someone with kitty care for a full week, so I decided to bring in a professional.

Specifically, the professional is a woman named Mike who lives a mile from me and seems to love cats. (Actually, I wrote that sentence before she came over for the intro visit, so I was making a few assumptions, not least of which was that she loves cats. And also that Mike is a woman. As it turns out, Mike confessed to being somewhat allergic to cats, but I remain optimistic that Miss Moneypenny will charm her into some snuggles.)

So at this point, she has come and met Miss Moneypenny, and I think they’ll get along well enough. I mean, Miss Moneypenny is a cat and Mike will be feeding her. For most cats, that’s enough, right? Cross your fingers, because I don’t want to come home to any revenge pee.

Anyway, I jotted down some notes from my conversation with Mike, in case YOU ever want to catsit Miss Moneypenny. Here are the highlights:

So this is Miss Moneypenny. But you can call her whatever you want because she doesn’t really respond to her name. 

She likes to play with this rainbow toy, and this feather toy – but don’t tug too hard when she has it in her mouth because I’m scared you might rip her tooth out. 

Here’s her litterbox. I scoop it in the morning and the evening so that my place doesn’t smell like cat shit. And please go straight to the garbage chute down the hall and throw it away so it doesn’t sit in my trash can.  Also – this Swiffer duster is so you can sweep any random dots of litter back to the box so it doesn’t get tracked around my place.

And here’s her food area. She gets this hairball control dry food, with a bit of this protein kibble sprinkled on top for kicks. And this dish here is for her wet food, which she gets twice each day. A few things on that – and this probably sounds OCD, but it’s why I’m paying you instead of just leaving a pile of food out for her…

Please recover the tin of food using this piece of saranwrap and rubberband between meals rather than using a new piece of saranwrap each day. When you finish a tin, please rinse it out so I can recycle it. And you’ll need to add water to the food, stirring it until it’s the texture of runny refried beans. She likes it that way. Oh – and please only use THESE forks. I don’t like anything that touches human food to touch cat food. 

When you get here, she’ll probably be excited to see you, so if she runs toward my bedroom, it means she’s going to flop down on the rug and roll around so you can pet her.

And I forgot to tell you… she is very talkative, so be sure to ask her lots of questions. She’ll answer you, but her response always sounds like she’s saying, “No,” or, “Now,” so you’ll probably want to come up with questions that work with those responses. Unless you want to sound crazy. 

Image Source: https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/863968512/h1B9DBF01/

PS: When I just spell-checked this, here’s what WordPress accused me of misspelling: rubberband, refried, kibble and chute. I’ll admit, chute made my scratch my head. But then I remembered “Chutes & Ladders” and knew that I was still smarter than my computer. For now.

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