Damn Animals!

So, I think I wrote a few weeks ago that Lily, our dog, has learned how to open doors that open inward. That means if you shut a bedroom door with her in the hall, she knows how to jump up and hit the handle so the door opens.

Turns out, our almost 12 year old cat, Luke, has also learned this trick.

We had been shutting our bedroom door (with Lily on the inside) but Luke on the outside because Luke has decided (since we used to get up at 4:30 a.m. to take Lily out when she was a smaller puppy) that 4:30 a.m. should be wake up time. So, every morning at 4:30 he comes in and wakes up the dog by doing full body dive rolls on her head and purring like a truck. Lily wakes up and starts whining and pawing at the bed to go out. Without the interruption, she sleeps peacefully until 6 or 6:30 a.m.

We thought we solved this problem by just shutting the door. But now Luke is opening the door and coming in to wake her up -- and the problem continues. Now we're going downstairs, filling the food bowl with the cats' breakfast, letting Lily out and then bringing her back upstairs, closing the door again, and giving her a toy to play with, which she chews and then goes back to sleep.

Next house is so totally going to have doorknobs and I don't want to lock the door in case X-man needs something in the middle of the night.

I Can't Wash My Hands Enough Today

Today, my dad came down to take X-man out and about so that MacTroll and I could clean the garage. It was in dire need. We had all that flooring put in during the cold months, and they did all the cutting in the garage. So dust was everywhere. Plus, we had the whole mouse issue, which means there were mouse turds. And then... Quigs' favorite... the spring spider infiltration. Our garbage is full, our recycling is full, and things are more organized. Although I'm still hoping for some peg board to put all of our tools on and a work bench, just because it'll give me a chance to clean out all the "tool" junk drawers in the house. (When MacTroll can't find something -- he just goes and buys something new. No lie. We have four different sets of Allen Wrenches because he keeps losing the 5/32.)

If anyone needs a hammock stand or a seed/fertilizer spreader (we even have some pet friendly fertilizer unopened in a bag) let me know. If not, I'm cleaning them up and dropping them off somewhere.

Afterwards, MacTroll ran out looking for a studfinder and in search of a new pole to fix a broken shelf support in our garage. I ran to Target... to get to Target. :-)

You can totally tell I haven't lived in my house for the last four days. I ran in yesterday for a moment to change clothes and it was disgusting. It's looking a bit better. But Holy Cow, MacTroll should never be left alone to his own devices. He just doesn't notice things... for example: I have to make an appointment on Monday for my two boy cats -- Luke and Clawdio. Something is going on... either healthwise or between them, because one keeps peeing out the front of the box and randomly pooped near the front stairs the other day. And the other pooped under X-man's bed and peed in the bottom drawer of his dresser where his pjs are. How a boy puts on PJs, and doesn't notice that he stinks, I don't know. How a grown man lives in a house and can't smell the pee and poop until it's placed right in front of his doormat, I don't know either. But you know they're used to me and my scooping practices.

So, yeah, it's gonna be that kind of weekend for me. If it would freaking dry out I could do something about the mulch in my driveway. Last weekend was crazy gusty wind. This weekend is torrential downpours. Apparently, Mother Nature doesn't give a shit about my schedule.

Oh, and as for Riley, he's doing a bit better. His movement has greatly improved on the medicines. But his left hind leg is still gimpy from time to time. He's being spoiled with wet food. :-)

Animal House

Last week in the middle of snow central we came home to find Riley in our bare living room with his tail between his legs. I took a closer look and noticed a puncture wound on top of his head. What the hell? I thought, as I inspected it. There was a little blood, but it was pretty recent. I ran around the house looking for whatever he might have bumped into. It looked like the corner of a picture frame or something sharp might have fallen on his head.

But nothing in the house was out of the ordinary. 

Then I noticed he also had a similar mark at the end of his nose. But instead of being a hole. This looked like a cat scratch. Oooohhhhh! Really? Huh. Well, okay then.

I treated the cuts and then applied antiseptic to them. But -- within 24 hours the areas began to swell. Then on Sunday, a bunch of black on my dog's nose literally fell off. It was pretty disgusting. So, on Monday, I took him to see our vet, Dr. Mary Welle. He's on antibiotics now, and we're putting Vaseline on his nose to try and keep the area most, which is hard, because my dog is a licker. 

Anyone who knows us, or read the paper last Saturday, knows that we have five geriatric animals. They're all rescues. Our three black and white cats: Clawdio, Nyssa and Luke were all adopted over a decade ago from Fancy Cats Rescue Team in Fairfax, Va., when MacTroll and I served on their board of directors and volunteered between 5-30 hours a week doing adoptions, the newsletter, the volunteer schedule, etc. Later, after we moved to Champaign in 2003, we adopted Maya from the Champaign County Humane Society.

In 2001, we adopted Riley, our dog, from the Washington Humane Society in Washington, D.C. His prior owners had been arrested and incarcerated on drug charges. Riley was six months old at the time. And his name was Sergeant when we got him. As a puppy, Riley was very curious about our cats. And all of our cats pretty much ignored him, stayed up on the counters and out of his way. Until one day, Riley got too close to Clawdio, and Clawdio didn't like it. He flicked his tail at the dog, meaning, "Get away Blockhead!"

In puppy lingo, flicking your tail is a wag. It means you want to play. He moved forward trying to play with Clawdio. Clawdio puffed out his fur, hissed and opened his paw (but didn't use his claws) and smacked Riley on the nose. Riley got scared and ran. (Keep in mind, the two had been living together for over 4 weeks at this point.) Clawdio, much to everyone's surprise, PURSUED Riley. He chased him around in a circle from the living room to the dining room to the family room of our little condo twice, hissing and smacking Riley on his hind quarters the whole time, before I was able to intervene.

That is the one -- and ONLY -- cat/dog confrontation we have ever had in my house in the last 10 years--before last week.

Riley isn't talking about which cat kicked his ass. As far as I know, since the dog's pretty much always been at the low end of the dominance totem pole in the house, his interactions with the cats haven't changed. He's not going out of his way to avoid anyone in particular. I know it wasn't Nyssa because she's the only cat we have that's declawed. And, of course, the black and white mafia aren't selling each other out.

But this is what my dog looks like today. 

I guess it's a good thing we got that living room furniture yesterday. Here's Riley enjoying the oversized chair. :-) I'm pretty sure he wants to claim it as his own. 

Part-time employment -- Hooray!

I got hired as a "floater" today at Mother's Morning Out in Champaign. I'm pretty excited about it. Every Tuesday and Friday morning, I'll report to the director who will assign me to a classroom to either fill in for an absent teacher OR assist the current ones. Today, I was in the nursery, which was so much fun. My favorite age groups are infants through 2 1/2. Once they start the potty training period and the name calling, I figure I'm still getting enough of that at home. :-) And honestly, I'm hoping that maybe next fall I'll be able to make it a Monday through Friday gig when X-man goes to kindergarten.

That's right freaking kindergarten.

On Monday, we're hopefully touring two schools. I've got a quick pelvic ultrasound at 8:30 a.m. to make sure I don't have any uterine fibroids that are randomly bleeding and causing my low iron, low protein and now low platelet issues. And then zoom - off we go to the first tour. Since MacTroll will likely not be around for the February 7th tours, we're hitting our soon-to-be neighborhood school first, Carrie Busey.

Then on the same day, we plan on checking out Robeson. I've already been to Barkstall, Southside and Westview. So I think on the second day of tours I'll look at Stratton and Washington. And then since we'll be in Paris the week of the evening open house, I'll have to arrange a time to visit the other schools like Kenwood, Garden Hills and Doc Howard.

Today, we also took Nyssa back for round two of the blood work on her thyroid. She's borderline low, so they sent the second vial out to do some more intensive tests, and we'll know if we have to start her on thyroid meds by tomorrow afternoon sometime.

Tomorrow, I'm going to work in the morning. Then I'll have time for a quick lunch, grocery shopping, a 90-minute workout at the gym before getting ready for our weekend guest. :-) I have a college friend coming to spend a couple nights with us, which is very fun. I don't think she's been down to visit since 2004.

Yellow belts and Nyssa

I got the nod from Master Hyong today. X-man is scheduled to take his yellow belt test -- Feb. 12. What an awesome day for a test! Hopefully, there will be a lot to celebrate. :-) It'll have taken him six months to master. Think about the last thing it took you months to master practicing 5 days a week and going to class 2-3 times a week. I mean, this is like when I freaking managed to somehow NOT fail second semester Algebra II in high school. You'd think with all the time and effort I put into it, my teacher put into it and my two freaking tutors put into it I'd have gotten an A. Alas, I got a D+, and I was more proud of the effort I put into earning that grade than I was of the six A's on my report card in the classes where everything came easy that semester. Well, I was 16 and had college as a motivator... now imagine being 4.

I'll give the Facebook shout out when he's for sure got it -- and then if you guys wouldn't mind praising him like crazy, I'd really appreciate it.

In cat news, another cat seems to have become susceptible to the elderly cat diseases. Nyssa had been sneezing over the holiday and not eating much. So MacTroll took her into the vet today. She's not so good at the vet -- when we're not in the room. They checked her over for upper respiratory, but although she's still a bit congested, they think it's related to being a bit dry in our house lately. Unfortunately, she's lost a pound in weight since her physical in July. Her blood work came back abnormal. So, we're taking her back in next week to do a follow up blood test (She was so not doing well after the examination and was putting up a pretty nasty fight with the vet techs) that will mostly likely confirm that she has hyperthyroidism.

So the pet scorecard looks like this at our house:
Clawdio, age 13, stage 2 heart murmur, pancreatitis, feline herpes and beginning stages of kidney failure.
Nyssa, age 12, arthritis in the hips and probably hyperthyroidism
Luke, age 10 1/2, still voted most likely to either somehow get eaten by a hawk, even though he's an indoor-only cat or to run repeatedly into a wall head first until he suffers brain damage from chasing flies.
Maya, age 9 1/2, chronic cystitis, random BB lodged in her spine
Riley, age 9 1/2, the only dog, heart murmur, significant fall seasonal allergies when they take in the crops

It's not easy watching them all advance in age. They were all young adults when we got them, and as of this April, we'll have cared for all of them for over a decade. I only hope we're loving them as well as they've loved us.

Lice, Mice and Elderly Animals

Four students in the Next Generation All Star building have lice. This is a big thing, apparently. Lots of parents with the willies over the bugs in the hair. Lots of crossed fingers hoping to avoid the medicated shampoo and combing involved by not only parents, but the teachers who are checking hair every day, particularly for one of X-man's teachers who had lice once -- when there was a breakout at school. And she got it from checking heads. :-)

Other annoyances that we're currently keeping an eye out at our house also include: mice. The temperature dropped to single digits, so we've found mice in the house. We back into a field of soon to be empty housing lots that backs into a corn field. Once they start building the neighborhood behind us, this issue should go away (it happened in our last house, too). But until then, I have Maya and Luke going after the suckers. Whenever we get a live one, it goes into the blue garbage bin. It'll either live off our garbage and find it's way to the landfill OR it'll freeze to death. I try not to think too much about the life/death situation and which would be less painful -- being toyed with by a cat until death or freezing in a garbage can. Personally, neither seem very exciting to me. But it also means, that I'm constantly washing out things that they figure out ways to crawl into -- like the drawer under the stove that is empty. 

Yesterday, I took Riley in for his first doggie dental. He'll turn 10 in April, so it was time. His teeth are now as white as when he was 4. And his breath has improved considerably. His gums are still a little tender (but he had no extractions), so I bought one of those fancy slice off a hunk of meat foods to spoil him with for the next couple of days. He has a heart murmur, and the x-ray they took of him shows no enlargement of the heart, which is good. But it could also limit his ability to "go under" for treatment in the future.

Clawdio also made the trip to Dr. Mary's yesterday. He also has a heart murmur, but murmurs with cats are very different than murmurs with dogs. With dogs there are all kinds of treatments available. With cats, not so much. On the scale of cardiac crappiness, Clawdio is a 2/6. He's had the murmur for a year now and has advanced one number. His x-rays also show no enlargement, which is good. He's 13 years old. The trick is that his creatinine level is now abnormal. He's got kidney disease. We're starting him on Pepsid long-term. But it looks like he's going to go down the same elderly cat road as Looseyfur. Now the question is: will his heart fail him before his kidneys do? Clawdio takes his nine live seriously -- I've almost lost him twice before. So, I'm not counting him out. But he is spending more and more time in his cat bed up on top of the cupboards in the kitchen these days.

Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell cat pee

Last week, I walked into my bedroom closet and got knocked over by the smell of cat urine. One of our four felines had felt the need to empty his or her bladder all over my shoes, which were neatly lined up under some shelves on the floor of my closet. I swore. Then I shook my head. I checked out the damage. Three pairs of leather shoes straight into the garbage. My Converse went into the wash. Damn. It's not like I have a lot of shoes as it is.

Then I went in for surgery. When I returned there was another cat accident in X-man's bathtub. And then, eyeing MacTroll's office I got a feeling that if it was happening up here -- it most certainly was happening in his office. He checked, and sure enough -- yuck. But we'd been a bit preoccupied the last five days with hospital stuff and surgery and some overall harmless, yet unpleasant, bickering.

We took the two prime candidates in: Maya, the big fuzzy, who has chronic cystitis and Clawdio, the invisible cat, who has had a urinary tract infection every winter for the past two.

They both got urine analysis drawn and Maya came up the winner, so she went back into her carrier looking smug while Clawdio got an examination. Turns out he's lost a half pound since December and has also acquired a heart murmur. His blood pressure test was inconclusive. The systolic was in normal range, but the diastolic wasn't. We also did a thyroid panel because weight loss and heart murmur can also mean hyperthyroid. Clawdio is currently the oldest animal in the house at age 12 1/2. My mind flips back to last January when Looseyfur started to go downhill. In the pit of my stomach, I'm hoping that the bloodwork will show something we can control. At the very least, he's on meds to cure his urinary tract infection, so hopefully when we take him back in two weeks and get his urine tested again and get another blood pressure reading, they'll both be normal.

For the time being, doors to every interior room are being closed all day. And we'll hope the meds clear up his infection quickly. Clawdio is the cat on the left... Luke is the cat on his back.  Clawdio is entirely my cat. He doesn't care much for human males of any size or age or dogs of any kind. He puts up with them, but he'd really rather just have me in a quiet apartment, in a sun beam with a warm laptop all to himself. Mmm, that sounds good. Really good. Maybe it's nap time.

Oh, the Guilt!

Our dog tested positive for ringworm, so we've been treating him with meds and baths, but we also have to bathe our cats twice a week. Today, we had two casualties to the chaos. One problem was that we did it when X-man was home, which is different, but it couldn't be helped due to our schedules.

Maya and Nyssa are easy to crate. Luke and Clawdio are not. The shampoo requires the cats to sit for 5 to 10 minutes. So we wash one, put them in a carrier with a towel, get another wash, etc. When we're done with all four, we start rinsing and putting in the leave-in lotion. I got nipped by Clawdio. It didn't break the skin, but my thumb is bruised a bit.

The neurotic boy cats know when something is up, and they hide under our bed. So we have to take our bed apart to get them. X-man wanted to be present and refused to play in his room or downstairs. So he parked his butt next to my closet. I told him to stay there out of the way because the cats were scared.

As MacTroll and I are putting the mattress up, Luke, our 15 lber, goes crazy and starts trying to jump through the slats of our platform bed. And, of course, our 3 year old runs to try and help him get out so he doesn't hurt himself on the wood. I've got my hands full of pillowtop mattress and there's a king-sized bed between me and the situation. So I shout, "MOVE AWAY" as my child gets a face full of cat paw. The scratch isn't very deep because thankfully before we started this whole mess we clipped everyone. Plus, X-man apparently shut his eyes, which is great because holy cow that could have been even more terrible. He was fine after I cleaned the cut, put Neosporin on it and gave him two popsicles.

But I still feel like the worst parent alive.

Something I did right

We built our house in 2007. One of my wishes was that the back of our house would get a lot of natural light and southern exposure. Why you ask?

Because I love my cats. :-P

Here are Clawdio (12) and Maya (8) baking their brains out at 11 a.m. Can't you tell they're completely stressed out?

Kids are animals

So, it's a known fact by any animal owner that if you clean it your pet will either puke on it, poop on it or knock something over all over it.

I've been witness to this apparent fact for over 10 years. I cleaned our first apartment kitchen thoroughly when I was 22. I was so happy with the Ikea metal baker's rack we purchased to put our new microwave on. I splurged that day and bought "cat grass" for Clawdio and the old gray. They showed no interest in it whatsoever -- until I was done scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees. 

I grabbed a beer and went into the living room. Joel and I were watching TV and then I heard a scratching noise. I ran into the kitchen to see our shy cat, Clawdio, straddling the 9"x4"x4" planter THROWING the wet watered dirt and seeds across the room. 

Now most people would start screaming and throwing their arms. But I was fascinated. Mostly because our cat never acted this enthusiastic about anything. I got Joel to tiptoe over and he said, "Ooooooohhhh, Clawwwwdddddiiiioooo!"

The cat stopped in it's tracks, dirt all over its paws. Then it ever so slowly turned to face us with a "oh shit" facial expression that transcends species. We laughed, he ran by us, I handed the broom to Joel and went to watch more TV. 

Similarly, we celebrate "Clean Sheet Night" in our house. It happens every week. I shuck the old sheets off and put on new ones. And it's as if the pied piper led all five cats and our dog to our room. They all wait until we get settled and then curl up with us. Because, damn it, those sheets don't have animal hair on them! I think they think this is what they get paid for...

Well, my kid is a complete animal. No matter what I spend my day cleaning and picking up, he zeroes in on the space and undoes all the cleaning I do. Today, I did a lot of laundry. It was all X-mans, mine and household (sheets and things). I scooped the cats. I picked up and vacuumed the basement. I vacuumed the basement stairs. I did two loads of dishes, picked up X-man's room and packed for our trip tomorrow. 

This was no small feat with a 2 year old under foot. I even served the little man hot lunch. Sure it was only grilled cheese and chicken noodle soup. But he's into cooking, and he helped butter the bread and I let him stir cold soup for a bit until I was ready to warm it up on the stovetop.

Anyway, right now, I'm upstairs in the living room listening to X-man "rediscover" the playroom downstairs. And I know when I go down there it will be trashed, and it'll take me 20 minutes to convince him that he should be the one to pick it up. 

Sometimes I think he forgets he has toys down there. He only seems to remember when we have friends over. But I've been rotating the toys in the living room a bit, so he was excited to see the music toys come up. We've been jamming a bit today, in between building towers and garages for Mr. The King (from Cars).

I'm off to watch the IT Crowd. If you haven't seen it, it's a British sitcom. I believe they want to make a U.S. version and carried one of the guys (Moss) over the pond for it. 

But Roy reminds me of a certain IT friend I have. So I find it particularly entertaining.

Christmas Kitty

This is our cat Maya. She is 7.5 years old. And she is the first one to get into the holiday spirit. In her attempt to drink from the Christmas tree... she managed to get her entire face covered in sap. Nothing like a cat that comes up to headbutt you for affection and sticks to your hand. At least she has the pleasant pine fragrance.

Cats and Canadian Geese

Yes, I know I just fell asleep 4 hours ago. So, why the hell am I up? Well at 4 a.m. I heard a cat barfing a different barf than a hairball. I got up to find Clawdio scampering out of the bathroom leaving a white foamy vomit on the tile. This is a sign that his belly is empty, and he needs some food to help keep from trying to digest his own pancreas. 

I run down and serve him up an extra half can of Prescription ID food as a snack. This brings out Looseyfur, who starts whining because heaven forbid one of my two geriatric cats gets something the other doesn't. So she got a 1/4 can of Friskies. 

Clawdio was diagnosed with pancreatitis in 2005 on top of his feline herpes. Yes, that's right, I said herpes, which he has had since we adopted him in November 1998. He has not had a flare up of either condition, since 2005. I'd like to keep it that way. But as we just got back from a week away, he likes to remind me that the only person he likes is me by being high maintenance and really needy for a few days. Clawdio will turn 11 in October.

Looseyfur, our oldest cat (estimation has her turning somewhere between 19 and 23 this January), has been on fluid therapy (she gets 100cc of an IV solution drained into her shoulder area each day) for over a year now to help her kidneys, which were in renal kidney failure last year, but improved to being "borderline" within 2 months of starting the therapy. In addition to the fluids, she receives a pill and a half of tapazole for her hyperthyroidism a day and the supplement azodyl. We know we don't have much time left to spend with her, so we humor her. She gets anything she wants at this stage, as she slinks around the house in her tiny 6 lb body that is made up mostly of bone and fur. 

While we were on vacation, we put the cats in our bedroom/bathroom, to make it easier for Quigs, who so graciously pet sat for us for a week (really, I mean, that's friendship, her thank you gift is on the way, even though she says it's unnecessary), to wrangle them. She had to utilize her pet care training from her own cat ownership experience of a cat with pancreatitis (the lovely Cheeto) and her years working in a vet clinic. She reported that they hated being kept in here and not able to roam the rest of the house, even though they have a king-sized bed to lie on and a cat tree to sleep in. Plus, this is where both of them normally sleep all night long. But it's safer for them to be quarantined, since they need to be watched and monitored on a daily basis, particularly for folks that aren't me and don't know their strange habits. 

Anyway, now the little bastards who have full run of the house again think that there should forever be a bowl of food in my bathroom and they sit in there and WHINE LOUDLY. I picked up the litterbox that we used and washed it out when we got home. I put away the dinner bowl. But apparently, they liked having a second service station on the top floor versus eating in the kitchen and using the bathroom facilities in the basement. 

Lord help them if they decide they're too lazy to go to the basement to use the boxes. Cause the secret to this is, when they get old and crazy, they're going to spend their days stuck in here with me, so I can watch them and care for them. No more lying on the kitchen floor in the southern exposure. No more thundering around in circles around the first floor. No more trips out into the backyard to pretend like they're tigers as they stomp on giant crickets, maim them and move on. (Well, okay Clawdio isn't really allowed out there because he's afraid of his own shadow.) They'll be stuck in here with the cranky old lady who pills them and pokes them dutifully because she loves her cats and has had both of them for over a decade and isn't about to just give up on them. 

So what the hell do Canadian Geese have to do with this? We have two "lakes" (i.e. retention ponds) behind our house and it's migratory season. Apparently a gaggle of geese have decided to slumber 20 feet behind my backyard fence in the open field that will in the next year be more houses. And man are they seriously freaking noisy ALL NIGHT LONG. Honk. Honk. Honk.

Recap, elderly cats woke me up for food by vomiting and shouting. And now 60 minutes later, I can't sleep because I can hear the constant honking outside my window. Seriously, thank goodness X-man was so easy tonight cause the rest of the world is obviously a nuisance.

Seriously

Is there a rule that as soon as I clean a room a cat must throw up a hairball on it?

(You don't really have to answer that question. After 10 years of cat ownership, I know the answer. I just wanted to see if it was just me with this curse or if other pet owners had it, too.)

Riley is not exempt... he's a counter surfer, i.e. he gets up on his hind legs and pulls food off plates from the counter when we're not looking and eats them on the family room carpet. 

The Usual Suspects (They look like trouble, don't they?):