Blogcutter's Impractical Cats Part 3
Jul. 27th, 2015 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterNote: To read these in chronological order, you will likely need to scroll down to Part 1.
One thing we learned from the cat bite episode was that the carriers we had for the cats were not really very practical. We needed to invest in carriers that were a little more human-accessible and human-controllable. Our vet told us about some that had a door on top in addition to the door in one end. I located a picture of a model that looked ideal, on the PetSmart site. Better yet, I was able to search the inventory of local stores and find out that the PetSmart closest to us had them in stock. I get frustrated with our online world at times, but it does have its uses!
When we took the carriers home, Reigning Cat took to them right away, wanting to explore them through both the skylight-door and the end-door. It remained to be seen what Queen Victoria and Uncle Albert would make of them.
Since Albert's neuter/dentistry appointment on July 2 was scheduled for a bleary-eyed 7:30AM AND he had to be deprived of food for 12 hours beforehand AND the veterinary hospital is much closer to our place than to the inlaws', we decided to relocate him to our place on July 1. And we didn't really want to separate him from Victoria, so that meant relocating both cats on July 1. An added bonus was that since it's a public holiday, additional family members were available to help calm them down.
Surprisingly, Albert was pretty calm throughout most of the car trip. This time it was Victoria who was stressed out, vocalizing and salivating and at one point, throwing up. But we got them both safely home, and settled them in a bedroom with their familiar accoutrements - cat beds, scratching posts, food dishes, litterboxes, etc. And once we opened the doors in the carriers, Victoria soon reverted to being her affectionate, sociable self. Albert, on the other paw, just stayed in his carrier for quite a while - maybe figuring that if he couldn't see us, we couldn't see him.
We soon learned that unlike most cats, Victoria and Albert are totally unpicky about food - they'll eat whatever is put in front of them (and often what ISN'T as well)! So it's easy enough to give them what the vet recommended, a high quality brand seniors' food. But it does mean feeding them separately from Reigning Cat, who is young and still pretty active.
Next morning, we got Albert to the vet's on time... but for reasons I'll reveal in the next episode, he didn't get the snip that day.
One thing we learned from the cat bite episode was that the carriers we had for the cats were not really very practical. We needed to invest in carriers that were a little more human-accessible and human-controllable. Our vet told us about some that had a door on top in addition to the door in one end. I located a picture of a model that looked ideal, on the PetSmart site. Better yet, I was able to search the inventory of local stores and find out that the PetSmart closest to us had them in stock. I get frustrated with our online world at times, but it does have its uses!
When we took the carriers home, Reigning Cat took to them right away, wanting to explore them through both the skylight-door and the end-door. It remained to be seen what Queen Victoria and Uncle Albert would make of them.
Since Albert's neuter/dentistry appointment on July 2 was scheduled for a bleary-eyed 7:30AM AND he had to be deprived of food for 12 hours beforehand AND the veterinary hospital is much closer to our place than to the inlaws', we decided to relocate him to our place on July 1. And we didn't really want to separate him from Victoria, so that meant relocating both cats on July 1. An added bonus was that since it's a public holiday, additional family members were available to help calm them down.
Surprisingly, Albert was pretty calm throughout most of the car trip. This time it was Victoria who was stressed out, vocalizing and salivating and at one point, throwing up. But we got them both safely home, and settled them in a bedroom with their familiar accoutrements - cat beds, scratching posts, food dishes, litterboxes, etc. And once we opened the doors in the carriers, Victoria soon reverted to being her affectionate, sociable self. Albert, on the other paw, just stayed in his carrier for quite a while - maybe figuring that if he couldn't see us, we couldn't see him.
We soon learned that unlike most cats, Victoria and Albert are totally unpicky about food - they'll eat whatever is put in front of them (and often what ISN'T as well)! So it's easy enough to give them what the vet recommended, a high quality brand seniors' food. But it does mean feeding them separately from Reigning Cat, who is young and still pretty active.
Next morning, we got Albert to the vet's on time... but for reasons I'll reveal in the next episode, he didn't get the snip that day.
