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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
Minnie is going to the vet tomorrow to be spayed, get her shots, and be microchipped. It'll be her first time ever going to a vet so I don't expect her to be happy about it. I hope she won't hate me forever after we get home. She'll get plenty of attention if she'll tolerate it, and I won't be too proud to resort to bribery - for which purpose I've got three different kinds of kitty treats and a bag of catnip in a kitchen cupboard. Any additional advice from fellow ailurophiles who have successfully convinced their cat not to hold a grudge after a trip to the vet is appreciated. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY |
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On 2/9/2017 4:38 PM, John Kasupski wrote:
Minnie is going to the vet tomorrow to be spayed, get her shots, and be microchipped. It'll be her first time ever going to a vet so I don't expect her to be happy about it. I hope she won't hate me forever after we get home. She'll get plenty of attention if she'll tolerate it, and I won't be too proud to resort to bribery - for which purpose I've got three different kinds of kitty treats and a bag of catnip in a kitchen cupboard. Any additional advice from fellow ailurophiles who have successfully convinced their cat not to hold a grudge after a trip to the vet is appreciated. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Just don't give up. Most of the cats I've known have gotten over it fairly quickly. I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now. However, probably part of how long it takes depends on the personality of the animal. In my experience, pets don't hold grudges. She may very well punish you at first, but she'll get over it. A previous cat I had used to punish me for going away on a trip. She'd hide for the first few hours after I got home. About the time I was getting serious worried, she would show up, make sure that I saw her, and sit with her back to me, as far away as she could get and still be in my line of view. After a while she'd forgive me. |
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On 2/9/2017 7:38 PM, John Kasupski wrote:
Minnie is going to the vet tomorrow to be spayed, get her shots, and be microchipped. It'll be her first time ever going to a vet so I don't expect her to be happy about it. I hope she won't hate me forever after we get home. She'll get plenty of attention if she'll tolerate it, and I won't be too proud to resort to bribery - for which purpose I've got three different kinds of kitty treats and a bag of catnip in a kitchen cupboard. Any additional advice from fellow ailurophiles who have successfully convinced their cat not to hold a grudge after a trip to the vet is appreciated. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Cats may not like going to the vet but they don't usually hold a grudge for very long. The thing is, after just being being spayed she will not be as active. She will need some time to heal. Give her some space, talk to her softly. She'll be fine. You'll both be fine. Just don't try to rush it. Jill |
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote:
I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY |
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On 2/11/2017 12:13 PM, John Kasupski wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote: I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY I'm glad she came through all right and that she obviously doesn't bear any grudge. Maybe she remembers that cigarette pack as her first toy at your house. Anyway, she's obviously happy, and I know that's a great weight off your mind. Joy Simi Valley, CA |
#6
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On Sat, 11 Feb 2017 12:45:13 -0800, Joy wrote:
Maybe she remembers that cigarette pack as her first toy at your house. Now that you mention it, that's exactly what it was. I remember crushing it up into a ball and I was going to toss it into the waste basket, then remembered that I now had a kitten in the house who had literally nothing to play with and rolled it across the floor and watched her pounce on it. So, yes...and wow, she went all the way back to her very first toy here. Guess I just learned something about my cat...and also, I guess she was even happier to be back home last night than I realized. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY |
#7
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:13:58 PM UTC-5, John Kasupski wrote:
On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote: I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Rusty (RB) was an orange cat, and he didn't like going to the vet. In fact, he developed a bad reputation at the vet. I told the vet Rusty was a different cat at home. He was very aggressive, lunging at the vet tech who tried to get him out of the cage and into the carrier to go home. But once home, he was his usual self. |
#8
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
Rusty wrote:
On Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:13:58 PM UTC-5, John Kasupski wrote: On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote: I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Rusty (RB) was an orange cat, and he didn't like going to the vet. In fact, he developed a bad reputation at the vet. I told the vet Rusty was a different cat at home. He was very aggressive, lunging at the vet tech who tried to get him out of the cage and into the carrier to go home. But once home, he was his usual self. I used to have a cat - orange, but female - who once had to spend the night at the emergency vet. (Boy was that expensive.) Granted she was very ill with severe anemia, caused by a slow-bleeding stomach ulcer. So she had to have a transfusion. The emergency vet hospital was staffed all night, so they checked up on her regularly and wrote notes on her chart. At one point, someone had written, "This cat has a very bad attitude!" LOL. Good sign she was going to make it, which she did, and she went on to live until she was 21. -- May the great galactic kitten always purr you to sleep. |
#9
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 10:21:07 PM UTC-5, Bastette wrote:
Rusty wrote: On Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:13:58 PM UTC-5, John Kasupski wrote: On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote: I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet.. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Rusty (RB) was an orange cat, and he didn't like going to the vet. In fact, he developed a bad reputation at the vet. I told the vet Rusty was a different cat at home. He was very aggressive, lunging at the vet tech who tried to get him out of the cage and into the carrier to go home. But once home, he was his usual self. I used to have a cat - orange, but female - who once had to spend the night at the emergency vet. (Boy was that expensive.) Granted she was very ill with severe anemia, caused by a slow-bleeding stomach ulcer. So she had to have a transfusion. The emergency vet hospital was staffed all night, so they checked up on her regularly and wrote notes on her chart. At one point, someone had written, "This cat has a very bad attitude!" LOL. Good sign she was going to make it, which she did, and she went on to live until she was 21. -- May the great galactic kitten always purr you to sleep. Rusty (RB) went to the emergency hospital countless times because of repeated urinary blockages, and some false alarms. Spent a small fortune there. One time he was hospitalized for a weekend with a catheter stuck in him to unblock. The vet called me and said he was a naughty boy and pulled his catheter out. I wanted to say what did you expect? He lived to 16 when he was diagnosed with pancreatitis. He was in pain, kept vomiting and was skin and bones despite a very good appetite. So he was sent to RB right after Thanksgiving when he had his last supper of turkey. Prio to that, he never had people food. Cried my eyes out over his passing. |
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Advice Shamelessly Solicited
On 2/15/2017 10:43 AM, Rusty wrote:
On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 10:21:07 PM UTC-5, Bastette wrote: Rusty wrote: On Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:13:58 PM UTC-5, John Kasupski wrote: On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:38:00 -0500, John Kasupski wrote: I did read all the replies I received yesterday afternoon while Minnie was at the vet's and I was waiting for it to be time to go pick her up. I didn't write anything back then because I was a nervous wreck worrying about her, and then last night I was more concerned with keeping an eye on Minnie than anything else. Thanks to all of you who replied. It meant more to me than I can say, because...well... Before yesterday, the last time somebody put Minnie into a carrier and took her on a long ride somewhere, they left her there and never came back - which was when her previous owner left her with me...but cats have long memories, and when Minnie saw the carrier yesterday morning, she got scared and went and hid in her most secure hiding place under a piece of furniture from where I had to reach in and remove her against her wishes, which I had never, ever done to her before. So the last thing I said to her before I handed her over to the vet's assistant at 7:30 AM was, "I'll be back for you, sweetie, It's okay. I'm coming back. I promise." Then they ask me...if we find that she's positive for FIV or FeLV do you want us to just euthanise her? I almost exploded. They'd just seen me promise my cat that I would be back for her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had broken that promise - and then let them kill her besides! I managed to keep calm, smile, and say no, I want her back...she might only live a year or maybe two if we're lucky, but I'll take whatever time we have together and deal with that when the time comes. I was a basket case the rest of the day, though. You see, Minnie was part of a litter of...well, I don't remember now if it was 7 or 9 kittens. I do know that only Minnie and one other survived, and I was told that the others all came down with some kind of eye infection before they died. Knowing that conjunctivitis is one of the symptoms of FIV, I was concerned that the other kittens may have inherited that virus before birth or been exposed to it soon afterward...and that Minnie may have been too. So I must admit I was basically terrified all day yesterday until I went to pick her up and was told she was negative for both. OK...so she got her rabies and FVRCP shots, the flea protection revolution, tapeworm injection, got spayed and microchipped, and had her nails trimmed. When I picked her up at 5:00 PM, they handed her to me, and I looked into the carrier and talked to her, but even though she was looking at me, she wasn't really reacting - she was still woozy from the anesthetic and the pain medication (meloxicam). Once I got her home and put the carrier down on the klitchen floor, though, she started moving around in there and letting me know she was definitely ready to come out of that thing. I got her favorite blanket and put it on the living floor, went back to the kitchen and got the carrier, brought it in and setit down on the blanket, got down on the blanket on all fours next to the carrier, and opened the door. For about three seconds we just laid there making eye contact. Then I said quietly, "It's okay now, baby. You're back home. I love you." Minnie immediately came out of the carrier, walked over to my right hand and licked it a few times, then turned around and took two steps and gave my left hand equal treatment. Then she walked once around the coffee table, stopping at each leg to rub her whiskers on it. When she got back to the blanket, I was there lying with my face on it on the floor so I could see under the coffee table to watch her in case she fell over due to still feeling the anesthetic and pain meds. She plopped herself down next to me, put her head on my right hand, rolled over on her back, reached up with her front paws and gently placed them on my cheeks with one on each side of my face, licked my nose several times, then closed her eyes and fell asleep that way. It took several minutes for me to decide to carefully extricate my hand and face and give her space so she could sleep off the effects of the day. It seems so far today that she's harboring no hard feelings about yesterday. She's been sleeping a lot, but when awake she's been the same affectionate little creature she's been since the day she first arrived here. Joy - You wrote in your reply, "I think it depends partly on how happy Minnie is with you now." If that's the case, I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jill - You guessed that "after just being being spayed she will not be as active" - and she has been a lot less rambunctious than she usually is. Oddly though...out in the kitchen there's a cardboard box with the toys she seldom plays with anymore since she found those rawhide shoelaces. One of the items in it was a balled-up empty cigarette pack I'd given her back in November when I'd just gotten her and didn't have any "real" kitty toys to give her yet. Last night she took that cigarette pack and went marching all around the house carrying it in her mouth with Happy Kitty written all over her. She hadn't even touched the thing for more than a month and I suppose most other people would have thrown it away by now. I was going to and just never got around to it. Now it'll probably be months before I'll again consider disposing of it. "The Newest Other Guy": You said, "I had an orange cat who loved going ANYWHERE, even the Vet" - I found that interesting because my Goldie (RB) was an orange cat too, and he seemed to regard it as a personal insult when we went somewhere and didn't bring him along. We'd come out of the house and he'd be waaay over on the other side of the yard, but if he saw or heard keys or if we seemed to be heading anywhere that was even remotely in the direction of the truck, he'd be already there waiting for us when we got there. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Rusty (RB) was an orange cat, and he didn't like going to the vet. In fact, he developed a bad reputation at the vet. I told the vet Rusty was a different cat at home. He was very aggressive, lunging at the vet tech who tried to get him out of the cage and into the carrier to go home. But once home, he was his usual self. I used to have a cat - orange, but female - who once had to spend the night at the emergency vet. (Boy was that expensive.) Granted she was very ill with severe anemia, caused by a slow-bleeding stomach ulcer. So she had to have a transfusion. The emergency vet hospital was staffed all night, so they checked up on her regularly and wrote notes on her chart. At one point, someone had written, "This cat has a very bad attitude!" LOL. Good sign she was going to make it, which she did, and she went on to live until she was 21. -- May the great galactic kitten always purr you to sleep. Rusty (RB) went to the emergency hospital countless times because of repeated urinary blockages, and some false alarms. Spent a small fortune there. One time he was hospitalized for a weekend with a catheter stuck in him to unblock. The vet called me and said he was a naughty boy and pulled his catheter out. I wanted to say what did you expect? He lived to 16 when he was diagnosed with pancreatitis. He was in pain, kept vomiting and was skin and bones despite a very good appetite. So he was sent to RB right after Thanksgiving when he had his last supper of turkey. Prio to that, he never had people food. Cried my eyes out over his passing. You did the right thing, painful as it was. |
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