Heart Attack From the Furry Children
One of the biggest problems with pets (and animals in general) is that they don’t talk. Notice, I didn’t say they can’t talk. This is because I firmly believe they actually can but choose not to say anything to us. This can be a problem when there is something medically wrong with them.
We were off for the weekend to Ottawa (only a few days), and our cats are generally good on their own. They keep each other occupied and sleep all day.
Our landlady was fixing up something in our bathroom, so we moved the litter boxes outside to a different place so that she could keep the bathroom door closed (to keep the cats out of the construction zone).
Unfortunately, we ran out of our normal litter, so we were using the back-up one. And we’d just finished adjusting their diet as well. Perhaps too many changes at once caused what we came home to.
When we arrived home from Ottawa, Logan was not really his freaky-energetic self. He was shaking, and there were telltale signs of cat urine all over the place. It seemed like it was really painful for him to urinate, and he would visit the litter box at least thirty times an hour to pee, and not actually manage to go through with it half the time. Sometimes he just ended up peeing wherever he was standing because it was just too unbearable to keep it in anymore. We didn’t know what was wrong (the lack of speech to tell us what was up).
We called one clinic, and they said it was a behavioural issue, and that everything would be fine now that we were home. We didn’t really think that diagnosis over the phone was accurate, so we called another place, and they told us to bring him in right away.
So we tucked him into the pet carrier while our other cat watched, and meowed, and then drove to Mississauga to the 24-hour clinic. After an hour or so, they figured out he had a bladder infection, and needed to hydrate. So they injected him under the skin with water (giving him a big, wet hump on his back), and gave us some pills to take care of his problem. This all took place on the morning of my Birthday. Not really the best way to celebrate, but our little guy needed help.
What really stuck with me is how the Mississauga clinic guy told us that it was good that we brought him in because he may not have lasted until the morning if we didn’t. A pox on the other clinic, I say!
The Poocano
The pills that we were given were to last about two weeks. We had to give Logan a pill in the morning and one at night – every day. This was challenging, but doable.
The problem with the pills was that they caused him to have the runs. He would use the litter box, and then go somewhere to clean himself, but the telltale signs of runniness were everywhere. It wasn’t really his fault. When your stool is softer, gravity seems to play a much more active role in distributing tracks all over the place.
One of the games that cats play is called hide and freak. Essentially one cat will hide around a corner and jump out at the other one, who was most likely minding their own business. Cats always leap vertically ass first usually turning in the air to land facing whatever startled them.
Unfortunately, poor Logan was on his way to the bathroom. Laila jumped out and Logan jumped high in the air, ass first, spraying crap in a wide arc all over the wall.
He landed, composed himself, and then ran into the bathroom.
I cleaned up the mess (which wasn’t too bad) and then made sure that Logan knew that he wasn’t in trouble.
The next day, I was chuckling to myself about what had transpired the night before. Mrs. Jorge was curious as to why I was laughing…
Mrs. J: What’s so funny?
Jorge: The cats last night.
MJ: What happened? Is everything okay?
J: Well, Laila scared the crap out of Logan!
The best material writes itself.
It has been a few years since he had that problem. It has never returned.
Stats Whore!
So, in this world that is obsessed with Stats, I figured I would just rattle off some numbers..
So….
Total Hits to Barking Space: 19363
Total Number of Haiku Written: 810
Links To My Blog (According to Technorati): 52
Sites Linking to my Blog (Technorati): 40
Technorati Rank: 46967
Number of Posts Linking to my Photography Page: 9
Number of Hits to my Photography Page: 1596
Craziness.
Filed under: Anecdotes, Humour, Spaces Archive | 13 Comments »
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