Archives for Animal Tales category
Alternate title: Clindamycin all around!
As you may remember from this post, I was not looking forward to dragging Mr. Tabby out of his comfortable closet to the vet for a dental cleaning, but I suspected it needed to be done. Turns out I had good reason to be wary, and good reason to suspect his teeth were really bad…
When I went to scoop him up, Mr. T. went ballistic. As in, I have never in my life seen a cat that freaked out. He raced around the room, bounced off the walls (literally!), and attempted to sink his teeth into whatever part of my body was closest. He got my hand and my calf pretty well–my finger was gushing blood and I felt like someone had whacked the back of my leg with a hammer. $(%*!!
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Mar 14, 2010 | | Animal Tales
Right after Thanksgiving, I adopted a cat who’d been in a shelter for ten years. Needless to say, it has taken some adjusting to get him used to being in a home.
Essentially, he’s been hiding in the closet for two months. He lets me pet him, but only if he’s in the safety zone of the closet. Just this past week or so, he has been brave enough to hang out in the open when I’ve been nearby, but he dashes for the closet if I get too close.
I knew when I adopted him that he needed a dental cleaning–something that could have been done before I took him home, but, long story, I elected to take him “as is.” Last night as I was petting him, I realized the towel underneath his mouth was sopping wet. Argh! Drool! Sure, maybe it’s the kind of drool that some cats ooze while being petted, but, given the fact that he could knock you over with his breath, and the fact that the towel was soaked and I’d only just begun to pet him, I figure it’s something to do with his dental disease (and pray it isn’t something worse).
They told me when I adopted him that I could probably put off his teeth cleaning for three to six months. It’s been just over two and I think I’m gonna have to suck it up, like NOW. So, yay! All the trust I have built up with him will be thrown out the window as soon as I grab him and drag him to the vet. *sigh*
My only hope is that his teeth are making him feel so crappy that it’s affecting his behavior, and once he gets some sparkly whites and some antibiotics, he’ll feel better and become a whole new cat. Knock on wood.
Feb 14, 2010 | | Animal Tales
Alternate title: Polyphagia + Pruritus Sucks
So Cat Mandu’s head is healing, slowly, from the previously mentioned eosinophilic-crapola-flareup. Yay for steroids.
The downside of steroids is that one of the side effects can be polyphagia, a fancy word that means “I want food. All. The. Time.” Granted, one of Cat Mandu’s great loves in life is whatever food she can get her paws on, so this isn’t entirely new to us, but lately it’s gotten more insistent and annoying.
Couple that with the pruritus (fancy word for itching) from her eosinophilic-crapola-flareup, and you have a downright menace to society. Why? Because she knows that if she starts scratching a lot, I will stop whatever I am doing and put salve on her itchy spots. And her reward for sitting through the uncomfortable salve-slathering treatment is usually a little piece of freeze-dried salmon.
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Jan 30, 2010 | | Animal Tales
I went to the pet store this week for three things:
1) some ear wash
2) food for two different cats
3) to poke around
When I am in a pet store, and I have time to kill, I like to take my time and look at every single product. I read the ingredients, look at how much they sing to me from the shelf, that sort of thing. Why? I figure if I’m going to be a veterinarian, I better be really familiar with as many products as I can be, from a client’s perspective.
This behavior of mine, apparently, makes store clerks nervous.
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Jan 23, 2010 | | Animal Tales
Poor pooky in the ProCollar is ready for her voyage on the Titanic.
In my quest to prevent Cat Mandu from scalping herself, I purchased way more e-collars (see
this post) than was necessary.
I first tried the ElizaSoft Recovery Collar, and, although she tolerated it WAY more than the Comfy Cone, she still didn’t like it all that much. The material is sort of like a very thin tarpaulin, and it held its shape nicely, away from her head, but it still obstructed her peripheral vision, and caused her to shake her head a lot.
Next, I tried the ProCollar, and, yes folks, we have a winner. It effectively stops her from scratching her head, and most the time she doesn’t seem to notice she has it on. It does pose a problem when trying to maneuver around objects, but since it doesn’t obstruct her peripheral vision, she seems to find it much more tolerable than the others.
Now if we could just get the @&$!* miliary dermatitis to heal, we’ll be golden.
Jan 10, 2010 | | Animal Tales
Remember Mr. Tabby, the little cat I drove across two states for?
He and I are featured on the Best Friends website today… lucky us! I was really impressed with what a nice job the Best Friends staff did.
There’s even a video (and if you watch Mr. Tabby’s face closely, you can see that he isn’t as happy about the whole thing as I am…)
After being at Best Friends for 10 years, he is still pretty freaked out about having been thrown in a car and dumped in a house! He’s been living in my closet, but he comes out to eat & use the litterbox, and there is evidence that the catnip toys get attacked at night. 
I adore him.
Jan 06, 2010 | | Animal Tales
I’ve sent many a pet home wearing the dreaded lampshade, but, until now, have never had to deal with the lovely contraption myself.
Enter Cat Mandu’s miliary dermatitis–she’s been scratching the bejeezus out of her little head. I’ve had Soft Claws (nail caps) on her back claws, and they’ve been doing the trick for awhile, but lately it’s been getting out of hand. I knew I had to act, but I just couldn’t bring myself to put a lampshade on her.
Off I went to the local pet store in search of an alternative. I basically had two choices available to me locally. The Comfy Cone:
Comfy Cone
And the ProCollar:
ProCollar
I think we both would have preferred the ProCollar, since it doesn’t obstruct vision, but they didn’t have the right size in stock. So, I ended up with the Comfy Cone.
At over 5″ deep, I decided the Comfy Cone would obscure too much of her peripheral vision. It’s also fairly thick, and, I imagine, would seem heavy to a cat. I spent an hour whacking it down to 4″ deep, held my breath, and put it on her.
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Jan 05, 2010 | | Animal Tales
My handsome boy
At what point is crazy cat ladydom achieved? Greater than three cats per individual? Is it just the number of cats that seals the deal, or is it your level of slavish devotion to them? Angela Martin of “The Office” licking her cat=definite crazy cat lady material. Me… well, I’m not quite there yet. But I’m about to take a step in that direction.
A few years ago, I paid a visit to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah. If you’re unfamiliar with Best Friends, go take a look at their website right now and become a member. Seriously. They’re awesome. I’ll wait.
Best Friends is the nation’s largest no-kill shelter. It’s located in a beautiful red rock canyon, and on any given day is home to about 2,000 animals. Visitors can take tours of the sanctuary and see DogTown (of National Geographic series fame) and Kittyville, among other things.
Being a cat person, I was especially interested in seeing Kittyville, which is sort of like cat paradise. Cats have large indoor areas with plenty of snuggly spots, and access to large outdoor enclosures–complete with climbing towers and catwalks crisscrossing here and there.
Upon walking into one of these enclosures, I spied a beautiful tabby up on a catwalk. “Hello, handsome,” I said. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 24, 2009 | | Animal Tales
Last night I went to see The Cove, a documentary about dolphin slaughter in Japan. I had an entire box of Kleenex with me, many of which I ended up using, but not because of the movie.
I walked in and my friend Mark, who owns the theater, said, “Oooh, you’re a vet type, come look at this.”
He took me outside to a little drainage ditch and shined a flashlight into the 6″ wide PVC pipe that emptied into the ditch. The entire opening was blocked by a raccoon head.
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Sep 25, 2009 | | Animal Tales, Wildlife
I remember (unlike 99.999% of my classmates) when Sally Field won her Oscar for Places in the Heart and delivered the title line of this post. Not that this post has anything to do with Sally Field.
Nope, it’s about the two different animal encounters I had today in which I felt as though this whole vet school thing was a good choice for me. During which I found myself thinking, “You like me!”
The first occurred while the handsome boyfriend and I were out hiking and came across some Forest Service volunteers with a couple of pack llamas. We got to pet the llamas, and one of the llamas kept leaning his head in toward me to nuzzle. His handler said, “Wow! He really likes you!” That always makes me feel good, when animals like me. Read the rest of this entry »
May 31, 2009 | | Animal Tales, Miscellany
