Soul-Sucking Cuddle Bunny

One of the very puzzling creatures that roams my abode is my upstairs cat, Nelly. I call her my upstairs cat because she isn’t brave enough to come downstairs. We’ve lived in our house for two years now and the only time she ventures down to the first floor is if I’m late with her dinner. Dinner, mind you, is served promptly at four and Nelly has health issues so she gets to eat prescription food in her own room. Her own room is the master bathroom and she loves it. It’s her twice daily dose of sanctuary.

Nelly is a rescue who is supposedly part manx part persian. She looks nothing like a persian as she has short hair, but she does have a little tuft on her rear end like a bunny rabbit, instead of a tail. Whatever her genetic makeup, she’s adorable in a creepy kind of way. Like she’s just too cute to be real. And sometimes, for hours, she’ll just sit and stare at you… I love her to death, but it’s very disconcerting. I read once about an African tribe who believes in people called soul-suckers. These soul-suckers sometimes transform into animals (I assume that makes sneaking up on your victims easier), but they always have something slightly amiss about them, like a missing leg, or a missing tail. So yes, I do sometimes call Nelly my Little Soul Sucker.

Nelly has two issues really. One is that she hates cats. I’m not sure if this means she also has self-esteem issues, and I don’t really have the scratch to hire a pet psychologist so I may never know. But whenever Nelly sees another cat, she throws a little tantrum and hisses and growls. She’s lived with two of my other cats for almost seven years and still growls every time she sees them. So the upstairs downstairs separation works pretty well most of the time. I also call her my Cuddle Bunny, because as much as she hates cats, she loves people. Which, incidentally, makes sense if she is a soul-sucker stuck in a cat’s body… something to think about.

The only time Nelly’s feline loathing is an issue is when my monster Teka walks into the room. Teka was hand raised so she’s a little on the nutty side (a long blog for another day).When Nelly growls at her, instead of turning tail and walking away like the other cats, she attacks. Poor Nelly’s pretty face is always marred by Teka’s scratches. I’m convinced if I could get Nelly to stop growling, Teka wouldn’t attack her, but alas, cats aren’t dogs and a simple, ‘Nelly, quit it,’ doesn’t suffice. In fact, this is a good segue into Nelly’s other problem.

She’s a vengeance pee-er (I don’t even know if that’s a word, pisser maybe? Seems vulgar). If I don’t save her from Teka’s attacks, she’ll pee on the floor right in front of me. If I don’t move the dog out of the doorway so she can run from one room to another, she’ll pee on the floor by the door. If anything loud or scary happens, she jumps in the litter box and pees over the edge onto the floor.

According to Dr. Stuart, it’s because she has a fluted bladder, which, from what I understand means it’s shaped funny and is frequently uncomfortable. So stress makes her feel like she has to pee. The good Doc assures me it isn’t really personal. The key, is not to let her get stressed and to encourage her to drink lots of fluids. Again, asking nicely is just never going to work with a cat. So she gets chicken broth with her meals and we have a Drink Well fountain upstairs just for her. Her prescription food is meant to make her thirsty as well.

Cats with fluted bladders can have ‘attacks’ where their bladders get inflamed, they start to pee constantly (and on everything), this can lead to crystals and peeing blood. It’s all very terrible (and expensive I might add) to treat these attacks. The best remedy is a fluid IV. Which I do know how to administer myself, but it’s a very nerve-wracking process involving really big needles and I prefer to leave it to the professionals. Stress and diet are the main reasons cats with fluted bladders will have an attack. So when Nelly’s around, everyone is ordered to be very mellow. It’s nice actually, she’s a visual reminder to just chill out and breath. And she super soft and loves to be scratched. Better than Xanax any day if you ask me.

Odd Cat's Bum Foot

About four weeks ago my old tom cat started limping. My first thought was arthritis, but within a day his left rear foot started to swell and he could barely walk.

Odd Cat has a kitty arch nemesis that lives across the street and they are always causing each other injuries: bitten tails, neck bites, scruff bites, the works. I hoped it was a bite (weird, I know, but less expensive to fix) and that he hadn’t been run over by a car or something equally mechanically wicked.

So we hauled the old man in to Dr. Stuart (who we LOVE, seriously) and she immediately diagnosed it as gangrene. I looked down at Odd Cat’s foot which was swollen, but still looked quite… alive, and then back up at the good doctor.
“Gangrene?” If you’ve ever seen a picture of the infliction known as gangrene you’ll know it’s a puss-filled, black and green, mess of dead tissue. Really quite revolting and nothing at all what my cat’s foot looked like. Dr. Stuart smiled.
“No, I just like saying that.” I mentioned above that my husband and I love Dr. Stuart, and this one reason. Her sense of humor is just the dark and disturbing kind of thing we enjoy. The other reason is, of course, she’s an amazingly talented veterinarian.

What he ended up having was an abscess. How did he get the offending abscess? Probably a bite, from one arch nemesis aptly named Tiger, that healed over but left an infected puss pocket under the skin. Fortunately, or so we thought, the old man had licked the wound enough to pop the abscess. Sweet! Antibiotics and bed rest.

Ah…. Nothin’s ever that easy at Monk’s Zoo. Five days ago, the poor old kitten’s foot started to swell again. Back to the Doc. More puss, more infection. And almost gangrene, kind of. In addition to a stubborn abscess, he had what is called cellulitis, where the skin cells get infected. In acute cases the skin cells can *gasp* die. Eh, ok, it’s not gangrene, but now that we know he’s on the road to recovery and going to be just fine, we did have a little laugh about it, the Mad Doctor and I.