So I broke up a fight a few days ago in exactly the wrong way, but grabbing one of the pugilists with my bare hands. Intellect gave way to emotion, I guess. Henry got me really good on my hand, a really deep claw-puncture. Mistake #1, don't grab fighting cats. They tend to lose track of who they're...

For those of you unfamiliar with St. Paul, Minnesota - it's a very wooded city. There are few urban areas very far from large parks or wild train-track areas. Five blocks away from my house is several dozen acres of wild wetlands, and a lake park. Lots of room for a colony to establish, hide and...

I'm a big Lovecraft fan. If you haven't heard of him, he was a pulp-fantasy writer of the early 20th century whose fame only grew after his death. He's now regarded as a seminal horror/fantasy/sci-fi giant in America. I'd be grateful if someone could point out a compendium of fiction revolving...

I ****ed off Megan a while ago and she won't talk to me anymore. I really can't tell anymore whether it's cause I'm a moron or she's a harridan. Doesn't really matter now, I guess. We found a stray, nursed him back to health and then were unable to manage integrating him into our two cat...

When we had Henry, he was famous for scooting after using the litterbox. We brought him to the vet who trimmed his fur in the nether-regions. Tiger has been doing this now for a couple days. He's a long-hair, Maine-Coonish moggie that has never had this problem before. I'm suspecting it has...

Our newest cat, Chloe, has more or less been integrated into the household. It's not the outcome I would have wanted - she and the other cats keep their distance - but there's no killing. Well, not much. Chloe has always had some behavioral problems, possibly related to her declawing. 90% of the...

I'd been suspecting Tiger had some issues for a while. He stopped eating his dry food (we put out both dry and wet), he was getting sensitive to being pet on one side of his mouth, his breath stank, and in general he was acting out quite a bit more. The vet looked at him and saw some dental...

....besides a biopsy, that is. (I'm currently unemployed, and we can't afford an exam right now for Tiger, let alone any surgery or testing.) So while I'm worrying, I wonder whether there's some other way to get a feel for what the lump could be. It's about nickel-sized though oblong, above the...

I knew it wasn't like Henry's fibrosarcoma, but was still worried. You don't just find a lump on your cat and expect everything will be fine. The vet confirmed my suspicions, and Tiger's gonna be just fine. Some fluid-filled cyst, currently free from cancerous cells. He also got a blood-screen...

A lot of you are pretty ****ed by the kwazy kat's recent fascination with this group. Not all of you are Usenet veterans, though, so I thought I'd pass on a short word of comfort. This particular asshole is savvy enough to change its nym frequently enough to defeat filters. It delights in stirring...

Okay, this is a tough one. The situation is: we've decided to let my son's girlfriend spend her senior year in high school here. This in itself has a rich and interesting background, but since this is a cat newsgroup, I'll get on to the cat part. She has a six-year old, spayed female moggie in...

We have a nice dusting of new snow (mebbe half an inch) tonight in Minnesota. I took Louis the Bengal outside on his leash, and he scrupulously avoided even going near it. He found all the dry spots under the porch and the second-floor roof. Tiger frantically pawed at the picture window. Louis...

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3052691 BLink

Well, Henry's been gone for weeks, and Louis has started spraying again. No other changes in the household, except I was out of town this weekend. My wife caught him spraying our closet door upstairs (where no one's peed before), and the closet downstairs (where he used to pee). I've gone through...

First thing he did after I plugged it in was walk over and try to pull it out of the wall. Like the electric filtering water-fountain we bought for the cats. Within five minutes Louis had it dissassembled and was chewing on the filter. Some duct tape fixed that one - now we need to solve...

This is a case study in the point I made in an earlier post. Some of us are hopelessly sentimental about animals, despite the fact that sometimes things are really difficult. I'm watching a squad trying to capture a colony of 60 cats resulting from one gal collecting 8 strays without fixing them....

Our vet told us about interstitial cystitis being aggravated by stress. Since Louis continues to be freaked out and occasionally tagging a door, I'm considering trying the antidepressant he suggested. Anyone have experience going down this route? Thanks. BLink

My brother lost both his beloved kitties over the last few years. He's living with my sister, who owns a 14-year-old, rather unsociable female (the cat likes my sister, but hates my brother and visitors). This cat is one of those Maine-Coon-lookalikes, who always had issues with the other deceased...

Okay, I'm on one of my posting binges here, so here's the last of the night. Our local Humane Society had an outbreak of feline distemper, and it killed a lot of their kitties. The newspapers reported it, and folks leapt into action and adopted tons of the shelter's kitties to preserve them from...

At first we looked for the usual suspects - bladder infection, misdirected pain, anxiety. Then we discovered it may just be the breed, who (bless their little hearts) haven't made the move to domestication that well. My first tip-off was a correspondence with Tammy Quist, who runs The WildCat...