Happy Mother's Day and Mimi Sitting Upon Things (Again)

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, whether your kids are human, feline, canine, or a combination of some or all. Fur kids can be just as demanding and time consuming as the human ones, but at least you don't have to buy them a car. And they don't talk back as much.

One of my fur kids gave me a great Mother's Day present, a present other than the pile of vomit that Genie left for me on the back patio this morning. The gift was actually my fault and cost a pretty penny. We had been giving the cats some semi-premium dry food and the last time we went to get more of it, we saw that the same brand had some with no grains in it. We had been under the false impression that less grains was better and so bought some of the food. The cats loved it, despite it being really stinky, so we bought even more of it. Well, when the dry food has no grains it it (fiber) all that protein makes your cat constipated. I had noticed that Pepper was pooping out hard little balls (gross, sorry!) and then on Friday she was leaving the cat box while still pooping, leaving hard little balls on the carpet. Stupid me still did not make the connection between high protein and cats not being able to poop, and now in hindsight, I realize that Pepper was associating the cat box with pain in her ass, so she was leaving the cat box and the pain it was causing her while still pooping.

Well, yesterday morning (actually well before morning) Keith was woken up with snarls and growling from Pepper, who was extra extra cranky and didn't want any other cats around here because she couldn't go poop and her stomach was hurting and I know exactly how she felt because I've been there. Her whole belly area was hard and she was just miserable. So miserable that she couldn't even eat. So, Keith called the 24 hour vet that we took Genie to last summer and we got an appointment for 8 am, and shoved poor Pepper into the cat carrier which she really didn't like, and off to the vet. Who gave us three options, each one costing more, one was to just give her laxative meds and send her home, the other was to take an x-ray to see how much poop was backed up inside her, then sedate her and give her an enema or two, and the most expensive was blood work, x-rays, removing the poop, etc. We went with the second option and saw the x-ray of poor Pepper's blocked up colon, and then while we were still discussing things in the exam room, Pepper started acting weird and trying to jump from the exam table to the nearby counter where the sink was. Turns out she was looking for a litter box, because whadda know, the trauma of being held down and having your belly x-rayed caused her to go poo right there on the exam table. Not all of the poo that was inside her of course, so we still left her at the vet to have her enemas, and went back to pick her up yesterday afternoon. All to the tune of aboput $250.00. But she feels much much better and we came home with some stool softening meds and we got rid of the constipating food and bought some high fiber food for fat cats and I guess I learned a very expensive lesson on cat care and feeding. The food that we got is actually called Fat Cat, how appropriate, considering Pepper weighs over 16 pounds, which is like a human who should weigh about 150 weighing over 200. No wonder she is so cranky! So, diet time it is because all of the indoor cats are kind of pudgy (like their owners, only not just kind of pudgy, plain old pudgy) and we all need to lose weight. Part of my plan is to pick up all the cat food dishes after they eat, no more grazing. Which is something I need to do with Keith because he is so bad about constantly snacking. We went out to eat last night and he had a big dinner, but then not an hour later is eating chips and popcorn.

Well, hope the Pepper and her poop story didn't gross you out too much on Mother's Day, here is a cute cat picture to take your mind off of it.

I was working on stuff yesterday and had my box of scrapbook paper on the bed and of course if something is laying somewhere, somebody absolutely has to sit on it.