Saffy continues to crack me up with her devotion to her favorite toy, scraps on a string. She will drag the entire rig back if I throw it, like a proud lioness with her prey. The brand-new version of the toy is ignored. Here's a pictorial essay. First, meet Mr. Fuzzy Ball and his predecessor, Mr. Scraps.

To the discriminating cat consumer there is no choice...

Mr. Scraps wins again!

Dear old Katie-cat came through her dental work with flying colors. In fact, it went much better than I expected. They didn't have to pull any teeth, hoorah! She did so well that the vet didn't need to do everything that was on the estimate, so instead of costing over $500 it came in at under $300.00. I'm happy about that, but I'm even happier she didn't have to lose teeth at her age.

She came out of the carrier looking quite chipper. I gave her a mix of canned food and baby food, lightly warmed up, and she ate enthusiastically. Her appetite has been good since and I'm hoping she realizes soon that she can eat dry food again as well.

However, she's not thrilled about taking the antibiotics (again) and the first pill required prying her resisting jaws open. She ended up biting me in the process, not badly and not on purpose. It was more a matter of saying, "Do not want pill! Do not want pill! DO NOT WANT!" The following pills have been a bit easier with no blood shed.

Kate forgave me instantly and was eager to be in my lap the same day. She was in my lap a few moments ago as I began writing this entry, then got annoyed that I dared to move my arms to type and left. She has much competition these days from Saffy who as taken over as my Lap Ornament. She's doing a lovely job of filling the void left by Zebedee.

Pippin and Opal, being brother and sister, have the oddest way of drinking water. They drink it in tandem, in ways that look utterly uncomfortable to the watcher, but they insist on it. Here's what I mean. Note Opal's ears pinned back as she drinks under Pippin's chin, while he has to crane over her head for his drink. Silly moggies.

Opal and Pippin sharing water.

The new petsitter worked out nicely. No problems and she was able to get Kate to eat for her.

Long-time readers of the Moggyblog may remember Artemis, the Princess of Thumbs, the polydactyl girl that Randy's sister adopted. Artemis has been on a diet for years, so she is down to a more manageable weight, though still fairly hefty. She is also such a scaredy-cat that I hardly got to see her at all during our visit. She hid the entire time. I reached into her hiding place and gave her a scritch under the chin one time, but other than that, I left her alone. It would seem that she's completely forgotten who I am. That's okay. She has a person who dotes on her, so it's a good life when she isn't hiding from strangers.

Kate goes to the vet first thing tomorrow morning for her teeth cleaning/extraction. She's a little bit dehydrated, so I tried getting some fluids into her before I left on the trip. You would have thought I was committing vivisection! I managed to get some into her, though not as much as I wanted. She seems fine today and I'm going to refrain from more torture.

A couple of obligatory adorable moggy photos.

Pippin and the Lump aka Opal.

The green-eyed Pipster.

A joyous Solstice and happy Sun Return to you all. We're off to visit Randy's sister for a couple of days. We have a new petsitter coming by this time around, someone recommended via the new vet clinic. They gave me business cards for two petsitters, but both of those people were booked up solidly for the holiday. Fortunately, they had people to recommend who handled their overflow and the new sitter is one of them -- a kindly woman who is a true animal lover. The cats all took to her when she came around to meet them.

Enjoy the holly daze!

Last night I gave Kate the last pill from this course and I can't say which of us is more relieved. She hates pills with a passion. For an old cat, she can put up a lot of resistance, so every pill is a struggle. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to go through this all over again when they do the teeth cleaning. Sigh....

Good news on Kate's tests. Her blood work and urinalysis came back with very good results, especially for such an old cat. There were a couple of minor points to watch, but weren't unsual for her age. So in general, she's in good shape, which means I can get her teeth cleaned. The vet suspects she may have to extract one or more teeth in the process. I was absolutely staggered by the price. When they told me, I almost fell off my chair. It's going to cost OVER FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! Plus it has to be paid at the time in one chunk. How can it possibly be that expensive? How can people afford that? I called one other clinic to confirm that this is a standard rate and their price was the same. Good grief. There's goes another chunk onto my credit card. It's a lucky thing I have a job now and starting tomorrow, Randy is also going to be working at my game company, so that will help. And it's not like I can let the poor girl live with rotting gums and teeth.

She's thrown up a few times on the Clavamox. I suspect it upsets her stomach. Fortunately, she's almost done with it. Unfortunately, I can't get her in for the teeth cleaning until after Christmas. Meanwhile, I'm giving her canned food three times a day as often as I can. I bought a new type of canned food from Innova called Evo which they're touting as being a formula that is more like what a cat would get in the wild. They sure seem to like it.

And now, for some Opal cuteness. She decided that Randy's Polartec shirt was THE best place to burrow in.

The only time Kate has a voice is when I take her to the vet.

I had one of my main suspicions confirmed. Her loss of weight and her enthusiastic interest in canned food are the result of her teeth being quite bad. Part of her gums are infected, so she's now on Clavamox. I'm having a full blood panel and urinalysis done. If the results are good enough, I'll have her teeth cleaned, but I won't risk putting her under anaesthesia if she might run into a problem.

The vet explained the FIP test to me in greater detail. The reason it's not conclusive is that it's really a test for exposure to a coronavirus. FIP is the deadly end of the coronaviruses, but there are plenty of others that are far less dangerous, like something that is the equivalent of a common cold in humans. Unless there are other signficant indicators on the blood work, it doesn't seem to justify the considerable extra expense.

That leaves me in a quandry where Tosca and Saffy are concerned. I wish they had a definitive test for FIP that didn't involve having to cut open the cat and take a biopsy. I'm slightly more concerned about Tosca because she's been having borderline diarrhea. Once my budget recovers from Kate's expenses, I'll have to do the same routine for Tosca. Saffy seems completely healthy, so I may hold off on taking her in for any tests.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who sent me such kind email of sympathy and support.

I'm taking old Kate to the vet tomorrow morning to have her checked out and tested for FIP. She's been getting thinner, but that could well be a function of her age. At 16 1/2, she's getting up there. She might also have a kidney infection. She's prone to getting those, so I'll have her checked for that.

I'll be getting the FIP test done on Tosca and Saffy, too, just as a precaution.

Zebedee c. Sept. 2006 to 8 Dec. 2007

His bright little spirit is gone. I listened to him struggling to breathe with the bad respiratory infection and knew that it would be selfish and cruel of me to prolong what had to be done. He was so thin and weak that he didn't want to do anything more than sleep.

I held him in my lap for hours on Friday night, and held him in my lap for hours Saturday until it was time to go to the vet. He had as much love and caressing as I could give him. There was a kind woman in the waiting room with her own two cats. She immediately saw what I was going through. She came over with a tissue, comforted me, talked to me about Zeb, and was just wonderful in helping me get through those moments of waiting. I didn't allow Randy to come with me. He loves animals so much and is so sensitive that doing something like this is even harder on him than it is on me.

Zebedee went very quickly, almost instantly. I've had to endure this tragic ritual many times and I've never seen a cat pass so quickly. The spirit had been willing, but the body had reached the end.

Saffy and Kate climbed into my lap the minute I saw down at the computer after I got home as though sensing the emptiness that was left there. Saffy has been in my lap a lot to give me comfort, and she's been crying and looking for Zebedee. I hadn't realized she'd formed that much of an attachment, but clearly she had.

Even in his short, short life, he sunk himself deeply into my heart and there's a gaping hole now that he's gone. He was a special, unique being and an endless fount of love and affection. May he romp forever in sunny fields of catnip filled with slow, fat mice and low-flying birds.

All of the test results came back and together they have confirmed that Zebedee has the dry version of FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) and the results have gotten worse over the past month. It means there's nothing I can do to save him. I've been crying my eyes out for days and will do a lot more crying before this is over.

He is thinner, anemic, still wheezy and not at all the bouncing ball of energy he once was, but he's not ready to go yet, nor am I ready to let him go yet. Mostly, he wants to curl up in my lap. I figure he has a week, maybe two weeks, maybe more before he reaches the point where I have to make that terrible decision. My main concern right now is for my other cats. I figure they've been exposed to him for a year. They've either caught it from him or they haven't and they all seem to be healthy and doing well. I suppose it would be more responsible of me to have Zebee put to sleep right away...but I can't bring myself to do it. I adore this little cat so much. After only a year, he has a powerful hold on my heart. I'll give him all the lap time I can with the time he has left.

I believe I've found the vet I've been looking for. I probably should have gone here first because this was the clinic some cat people recommended. I went to the other two places before this because they were extremely close and convenient. This one isn't as conveniently located, but it's not as far as I thought either. They seem mostly focused on cats and I was impressed with the vet. He knew his stuff, no messing around. He was straightforward honest with bad news, tempered with obvious compassion.

As I feared, Zebedee is declining. He's lost nearly an entire pound in the past month and he was only a little over six pounds to begin with! Looking at the previous tests, the vet is pretty sure he's an FIP kitty. Zeb developed a wheeze and congested nose over the weekend, so he hasn't been eating well. He has a fever. It all adds up to a bleak outlook. The vet is retesting the FIP titres and redoing some other blood work. I think it's not a matter of if, but of when.

He's curled up like a little orange angel in my lap. My heart is breaking.

We started putting out unshelled peanuts to attract bluejays. Instead, we have five crows who sit in the peach tree or one of the juniper trees and spend a lot of time working up the courage to swoop down and snatch a peanut.

Opal cannot BELIEVE the size of the crows. She chatters like crazy when she sees those. What drives Pippin crazy the most is the hummingbird because it tends to hover close to the glass doors.

I brought home a new mousie for Opal that was made of lambskin. It was soft and lovely and I figured she might like it. I left it on the kitchen table to wait for Randy to get home so we could give it to her then. When I came back from an errand, the mousie was already on the floor of the dining room. I went ahead and let Opal have it. She enthusiastically trotted off with it and the next thing I know, it's floating in the water bowl. It had a proper cat christening. Since then, she has ripped half the fur off it. We find tufts of lamb "fur" all over the house. Now we know why she was doing the hairball hack-up last night. Somehow I don't think we'll be buying more of these.

I opened a can of the gourmet food for Zebedee that was rabbit meat. He wouldn't touch it! I have never, ever seen Zebedee reject food. He usually inhales whatever I put in front of him. I tried giving the rabbit dinner to all of the other cats. The only one who would even eat a small amount of it was Saffy. The rest outright refused to have anything to do with it, including major Hoover-cat eating-machine Tosca. Silly moggies.

		Animal	All Bird Cat Dog Horse Pig Rabbit Reptile Small&Furry	Breed		Zip Code