I've had a "first" with Puck. I got tired of hiking back up to the house every day after lunch to search around for him and carry him down to the office. I decided to try simply calling him from the door of the office. And five minutes later, he "knocked" on the door!

Then, the next day, he did it again and answered when I called. What a good boy!

Tribble is back to being enthusiastic about his treats and eating more regularly, as well as being more active. I'm hoping he'll put on some weight.

Amazing how much pain one little claw can cause. Puck hasn't come to terms with the comb yet. He came in covered with burrs that I was trying to comb out, but he keeps attacking the comb. On one swipe, he sunk a single claw deep into my finger, so deep I couldn't get free. He's pulling his paw away and I'm going with it, frantically trying to get the claw loose. That sucker hurt like fury. Bled a lot, too.

Tribble continues to eat and pick up steam, to my relief.

Diva adorned her head in Goth Princess spiderwebs again. Very chic.

I was pleased to see Tribble digging into the dry cat food with good appetite this morning. He lost two pounds that he needs to regain.

Uni seems to be slowing down a lot. We think the arthritis is the culprit. He isn't quite as eager to go outside at night as he used to be, and he hasn't caught a gopher in months. He spends more time sleeping on the bed. I wish there was something more we could do for him.

It took a while to get back the results of Tribble's blood tests. I talked to the vet this morning. Basically, it looks like I screwed up badly giving him the Tapazole. It drove his thyroid level so low as to be almost non-existent on the test. That would make him lethargic and disinterested in eating, which he was. One kidney test was normal, one was borderline abnormal. That could be from the Tapazole as well. Overall, nothing serious, except that he needs to recover from being on the Tapazole.

He's gotten much perkier in the past couple of days. This morning, he started showing interest again in his treats and I saw him eating the dry food. I'd say he's getting back to normal. I think his nose color might be coming back to normal, too, but that's a subjective call. I'm not quite sure yet, as it remains rather dark in color.

The important lesson of the day -- never self-diagnose your cat's condition. I thought I knew what I was doing and I could have seriously harmed Tribble in the process. Shame on me.

For some reason, Artemis has taken to sleeping under my desk lately where she tends to spread out and push my wastebasket slowly, inch by inch, from under the desk.

I have a footrest under the desk, and this morning I suddenly felt a warm, soft, furry sensation on my right big toe. Artemis had reached out and rested one of her giant polydactly paws on my toe. Kinda like having a mitten on my toe. I quite enjoyed it.

Moments when you wish you had a camera: I looked onto the deck this morning and saw Unicom and Puck lying side by side, only a foot apart without bothering one another. And they were in identical positions.

I hauled pathetic old Tribble off to the vet's this morning. I had to drop him off because my vet is so overworked, she had to fit him in between other appointments. He's been losing weight, looking more frail, and not eating well. In fact, I think he's pretty much refusing to eat anything but canned food now.

Another oddity I noticed is that his nose has gone very, very dark in color instead of the usual healthy coral-pink.

He is 14, after all. That's getting old. I decided I wouldn't give him a Tapazole (thyroid med) this morning as a precaution, because I knew they'd be giving him blood tests. Which they did.

It takes 20 minutes to drive to the vet's, so a round trip eats an hour out of my schedule. I dropped Tribble off around 10:30, did errands in town and called at noon just in case I could pick him before driving home. I was told he wasn't ready yet.

But when I got home, there was a call from the vet from around 11:30. I got hold of her. She couldn't find any obvious problem with Tribble. His teeth and mouth look fine, his general condition seems okay except for losing a couple pounds. She gently chastized me, and with good reason, for self-diagnosing Tribble and giving him the Tapazole without having him tested. Although I was probably correct about him being hyperthyroid, the Tapazole can cause problems with the kidneys.

"He could die of kidney problems," she told me, "long before he died of the thyroid disease." Meaning that I may have done him more harm than good. She did a full blood panel and will have the results tomorrow.

Then I had to schlep back to town and get Tribble out of hock. He was a very unhappy moggy and is quite glad to be home again.

It's been Business As Usual with the Moggy Horde. Bouncing around after crickets. Getting into the catnip. Taking naps. Begging for treats. Heaping around the keyboard until I can't work. Sprawling or curled in contented heaps around the office.

I went to the feed store to pick up some more lay crumbles. As I drove off, a black cat trotted quickly away from the feedstore across the road in front of me with a big mouthful of rodent. Good moggy! I'm sure the feedstore appreciates it.

After being gone for a couple of days, Puck's idea of welcoming me home was to get into a brawl with Knobby. A full-on brawl that I had to break up by using the Water Squirter of Doom on Puck. Puck is used to being an outdoor cat, so I don't think he's happy about being locked inside for days at a time.

There are times I want to throttle a cat or two. I was "pucked over" today. First, Puck sprayed my car, which is not such a big deal. You can rinse off the spray and I did. Then he tried to jump onto the back, misjudged, and tried to stop his fall by digging in with his claws. He left two sets of three claw marks ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SIDE OF MY CAR, top to bottom. He has just gouged a large chunk of value out of my car. GAARGGGGHHHHH!

I was worrying about Nefreet's eye last night because her upper eyelid remains swollen and red. I looked at her again as soon as I woke up this morning, called my vet and asked if there was any way at all to have it looked at. My vet is only open half a day on Sat., but they told me to come on in.

The battle of temper and wits between Nefreet and my vet leaves us both laughing our asses off. The vet wrapped Nefreeet in a towel for the eye exam, Nefreet would wriggle out and attack, be rewrapped, would growl and hiss and spit while we chuckled. Oh, she was not happy with us. The vet was also impressed by the nastiness of the gash under Nefreet's front leg. She used some "Superglue" to fix a flap of the gash so that it will heal properly.

Nefreet had a small amount of ulceration in that eyelid, and she may have been having an allergic reaction to the ointment I was using. So the upshot is that I keep giving her the Amoxi, stop putting anything in her eye, and put Neosporin on the gash -- and give everything time to heal. There was a final spat with the vet as she put Nefreet back into the carrier, as Nefreet was determined to get the final swipe in, as it were. Ah, dear little Psycho-kitty. She lives up to her name.

As I started the Moggy Round-up after lunch, I found the Puckster around the side of the house showing no interest in coming down to the studio. He was also encrusted with burrs, the tiny but nasty kind covered with microscopic needles that hurt like blazes when they get in your skin. Every time he brushed up against my legs, he left half a dozen burrs on my pants.

I gathered the rest of the Horde inside, then headed back up to the house with a cat comb. I removed a few thousand burrs, then hauled him over my shoulder and brought him inside.

THE GREAT CHICKEN FEED CAT LITTER EXPERIMENT: For those who remember, toward the end of April I began experimenting with using chicken feed as cat litter. To be specific, I'm using Purina Laytena lay crumbles. It works exactly like clumping litter, but is entirely organic.

I've now passed the three month mark and I love the stuff. It's super-cheap, easy to deal with and after three months there has been no sign whatsoever of moths hatching in it. I go through it more rapidly that other people would, perhaps, because of the number of cats I have, but at this point I have no complaints at all.