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Tuxita Chiquita Lolita enjoying the sun.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #Tuxita
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Tilly is slowly coming out more and exploring a little more. When I first came into my office in the evening, she was in the top bed of the cat tree. Later, when she was on the floor, she came over to me and let me pet her for half a minute. She’s a sweet little thing.
Unfortunately, Kelly is being totally pissy toward her. He’s spending most of his time outside my office and is eating in the living room instead. That’s a big change.
We had a first with Kelly tonight. While Randy and I were watching TV, Kelly got onto the sofa and curled up between us. He’s never done that before. Randy figures Kelly is feeling insecure, and I agree, but it was a nice moment for whatever reason.
[#]MoggyHorde #TillyCat
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I came into my office this morning to find Tilly way up on the highest shelf lying on Kelly’s bed. That is his favorite Safe Place, so he hasn’t been a real happy camper. Nor did he try to chase her away from there. He’s far too gentlemanly to do that. Instead, he barely ate yesterday and only started eating again when I fed him in the living room.
She ate some food overnight and she used the cat box, which was great, but she didn’t budge from the high shelf all day. I talked to her whenever I came in. She didn’t give me a response.
So I was surprised when I came into my office after dinner around 8 pm, to find her ensconced in the cat tree next to my desk! As soon as I got close, she went to the floor under my work table. I offered her another bowl of food. She plopped over and rolled and gave me some cute meeps, but ultimately decided to stay away. She jumped up to the second highest shelf, so…progress? I’ll call it progress.
[#]MoggyHorde #TillyCat
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Today did NOT go as planned. It started with us feeding Obi and Tilly the Tabby. She let me pet her up, though she remains skittish and quick to bolt.
With the temps getting down to 23 tonight, we worried about her being out in that cold. She small, a bit skinny, and doesn’t have nice, thick fur like Obi has.
I called my vet’s, which is closed on Mondays, and talked to one of the techs that I know well. Because it was me, she said I could bring Tilly in if I could catch her.
We put the other cats into our offices, closed the doors, and laid our plans. I set the carrier on Ozzy’s ottoman right next to the front door. I lured Tilly over to get some food in the usual place on the front porch, petted her a few times, then grabbed her by the nape of the neck with my right hand.
I was trying to support her with my left hand, but she went more berserk than I expected and fought me pretty hard. We managed to get her into carrier, at which point I realized my hand was gushing blood. There was a LOT of blood. Blood all over the place.
She managed to give me a deep puncture in the webbing at the top of my hand between the forefinger and thumb. Randy kicked into gear with the first aid, applied a pressure bandage, and had the area thoroughly wrapped up in no time. Even though it was a puncture rather than a bite, he adamantly insisted I go to the ER and get antibiotics. I totally agreed with that.
First, I dropped Tilly off and warned the vet tech that she may be more feral than I anticipated. Tilly was quiet in the carrier -- after an initial bout of complaints -- and remarkably calm.
Then I hied myself off to ER where I was tended by an older female doctor with the absolutely wonderful name of Dr. Amber Flowers. It turns out there’s an artery right there between the forefinger and the thumb, so Tilly had punctured an artery, which explains the excessive bleeding. By the time the doc removed Randy’s pressure bandage, the puncture had stopped bleeding. She went off to order heavy-duty antibiotics for me.
A male nurse, a tremendously nice person, cleaned it up and applied a regular bandage. After checking my records, he saw that I hadn’t had a tetanus shot in the past five years and insisted that I have one. When I pulled off the top I was wearing, I discovered I had a long gouge and another minor puncture on the underside of my forearm. So he cleaned that and bandaged it up. I hadn’t even felt it. Maybe because the big puncture took all my attention. I got the shot and it was painless, plus he gave me a first antibiotic pill to take until I could pick up the prescription. He suggested I get a probiotic as this is a wide spectrum antibiotic.
I was on my way out the door when I got a call from county animal control. Part of the procedure when I checked in was to fill out an animal bite report. I had made it clear that it was a claw puncture, not a bite, but I guess they have to follow up just in case. I went over it with him and he didn’t sound worried, but he was also insistent that I have a tetanus shot.
I’ve never heard of an animal bite causing tetanus. This was news to me. I associate it with rusty nails and that sort of thing, but not animals. Now I know.
I got the prescription and probiotic after first going home to have lunch, as it was about 2 pm by then. The vet tech called to let me know that Tilly tested negative for leukemia, had the necessary vaccinations, confirmed she had been spayed, and estimated her to be about two years old. I’ve left Tilly there for the night, where she will be nice and warm.
Unfortunately, I’ll be in Redding all day tomorrow. Tilly may have to spend another night there. Randy and I are having many discussions about how to deal with her when I pick her up. If we just let her go, we may never see her again. I’d like to have her inside and test out whether she can adjust to being a domestic cat, but it will be an exceedingly tricky thing to pull off. We’re undecided.
[#]MoggyHorde #TillyCat
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Dear gods, yet another possible stray showed up today. Another beautiful little cat. Couldn’t tell whether male or female. They hung out with the tabby girl as though they might know one another. Oberon was napping on the porch, so we don’t know what he thinks of the new stray. We haven’t seen it around since this one time. It was quite scared of us.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon
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I had a chance to feed and pet the tabby girl this morning. As I thought, she’s quite sweet and likes being petted.
I learned:
Yes, she’s definitely a girl.
Yes, her ear is definitely tipped.
She has the cutest little voice and she trills.
She will steal Obi’s food without hesitation. And Obi will steal her food without hesitation. This has given us fits all day as we try to work out a method of feeding both of them at the same time. She isn’t quite brave enough to come right up to us each time, so we can’t simply put the food down and stand guard. The last time around, I fed Obi, then distracted him with the string while tabby girl got to eat her food.
Obi got jealous of Randy petting the girl and started striking out at Randy because he was giving HER the pat-pats and attention and not HIM. Obi has become an affection sponge. He readily accepts scritchies on head, neck, and butt, almost like a normal cat. But not quite, as the new scratch on the back of my hand proves.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon
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Bast help us, we have a new stray. A small, young dark tabby & white that has taken up residence in our yard. So desperately hungry, it was eating bird seed from the ground beneath the feeder. We haven’t been able to determine what sex it is, but for reasons to be explained, we’re rather sure it’s a female. So for now, the stray is a she.
She seems sweet, but scared and too shy to come up to us, though she will meep at us from a close distance. She’s gone through four bowls of food so far today.
Both Obi and Kelly are already in love with her. Kelly ran himself ragged going from window to window to follow her progress.
And we were truly astounded by Obi. Before now, we’ve only seen him go up against male cats and he goes after them with a vengeance. He is absolutely intolerant of a male cat coming anywhere onto our property. In fact, this afternoon he disappeared for hours after chasing off a male cat. It’s a cat that looks like it could be this girl’s father, a dark tabby and white, but quite big. That other cat has been around for over a year and Obi has chased him off a number of times.
And yet Obi allowed this little cat to sniff his tail while he was lying on the woodbox. He hung out near her in the back yard. When we gave them both bowls of food, he went over to her, gently went forehead to forehead with her, then sat back and let her eat. Tonight, he didn’t react at all when she jumped onto the woodbox with him. We were gobsmacked.
That’s main reason we think she’s a she. We simply can’t see Obi allowing even a young male cat to be so friendly with him.
Randy’s been in touch with a new neighbor that lives behind us because she moved in with some cats. She confirmed that this is a stray that’s been around since Oct. Her roommate used to feed it, but now her roommate has moved out. This young woman is away from home most of the time and can’t be there to feed a stray. So it’s no wonder the stray has come over to us.
It's also possible that her left ear has been tipped. I’m not absolutely sure, but it doesn’t come to a point the same as her right ear. If it has been tipped, that would indicate someone treated her as a feral, and that maybe she’s been spayed. It raises a lot of other questions, though.
The problem is two-fold: a) we have too many cats to take care of already; and b) she’s young and we’re old. It would be irresponsible of us to take in a young cat that would almost be sure to outlive us.
Tonight, I’m going to reposition the cat shelter on the porch and see whether we can get her to use it. Obi has refused to use it and frankly, he’s now too chonky to even get into it. But it would be a perfect size for a little cat like her. She doesn’t have a thick, fluffy coat like Obi to protect her from the cold.
I’ve posted these pictures of her on a local pet FB page in the hope someone will either claim her or be willing to take her in. Bast show us mercy.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon
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We’ve made wonderful progress with Oberon. He’s come to truly enjoy having his head, ears, and neck scratched, and loves his butt scritchies. He’ll push his butt into our hands when we scratch him there. He rolls around on our feet whenever we go out and purrs non-stop, whether he’s being petted or not. I think he’s a naturally affectionate cat who never had the chance to be domesticated or learn to trust humans.
That doesn’t mean we can relax. Randy and I were standing in the kitchen the other night comparing our Obi scratches. One of Obi’s nicknames is Mr. Whackadoodle. He continues to strike out at hands that are in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s worst in the morning when Randy brings him the first food. Randy figures it’s because Obi is hungry and has had to endure a miserably cold night. For that reason, Randy has taken to wearing heavy leather gloves for the first feeding. He lets Obi whack the gloved hand, then leaves it there for Obi to smell. When Obi realizes his whacking isn’t having an effect, he usually gives up.
This morning, Obi got so excited about the scritchies that Randy was giving him, that he gave Randy a bite on the hand. Luckily, it didn’t get through the glove. We’ve made a note to watch out for excessive enthusiasm on Obi’s part.
Obi expresses his unhappiness when we have to go inside by attacking our legs and feet. He has strong opinions and uses his claws to express them. He wants us to stay out there with him all the time now.
It breaks our hearts to see him outside on these bitterly cold nights below freezing. We’ve discussed it and have decided that if it gets too much colder, we’ll put Kelly in my office, put Ozzy and Tuxita in Randy’s office, and try to get Obi to come inside, at which point we’d have to herd him into our utility room and close him in there. He probably wouldn’t like it, but at least he’d be warm overnight. I suspect many things could go wrong with this idea (understatement much?).
We’ve also had to change how much we’re feeding him. We were feeding him indiscriminately and turned him into a major chonk. The new approach is to measure out the correct amount of dry food in the morning in a container, then dole that out more carefully during the day and into the night. He’s still getting two bowls of soft food a day, so we’re not exactly starving him.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #ObiCat
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Kelly is now able to spend nearly all of the day and part of the night free in the house. Ozzy continues to troll him when he gets a chance, but Kelly is adapting and working around Ozzy’s presence. But we can’t trust Ozzy enough to leave them unsupervised, so Kelly is locked in my office during the night, something he’s no longer happy about.
Kelly’s favorite new place is what we call the crow’s nest – the top platform in a large piece of cat furniture in the living room next to the glass doors. He’s always preferred being in the highest place he can find.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #KellyCat
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A shout-out of thanks to my stepson and his wife for coming across this book and sending it to me. It was published in 2021. I have no record or memory of being interviewed for it, and based on the write-up, the author found the info in various other interviews with me over the years.
It’s fairly accurate. It incorrectly names as a “co-creator” of FireStar. I didn’t come up with the character, but I did get to write her origin story in collaboration with Stan Lee. And she called me THE Principal Game Designer at Zynga, when it should have been A Principal Game Designer (there were many more than me). Otherwise, a nice mention in the pantheon of pop culture names.
[#]MarxToot #JemAndTheHolograms #PopCulture
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When I went out to do errands, I wore two necklaces: a sword, and a silver skull. It was my internal way of memorializing the events of Jan. 6th – the insurrectionists and the damage they caused. I wondered whether it would come up in any way during my various interactions. It didn’t. Just as well, because I likely would have been rude about it.
As I expected, the store was almost entirely out of eggs. A whole cold section of shelves with only a few dozen cartons of expensive eggs. A woman came up, looked, and said to me, “I wonder why there’s such a run on eggs.”
I informed her it was because of the bird flu wiping out huge numbers of birds.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I heard something about that.”
A man nearby added, “This would have to happen just when my chickens stop laying. They’re three years old now. When they were laying, we were up to our ears in eggs. We’d have dozens of eggs a week. Now I have nine pet chickens.” He smiled. “nd I need to get home and feed them.” So saying, he grabbed a carton of eggs.
I moved on to a freezer section to grab some organic ground turkey. The price had suddenly gone up by two bucks a chub. I guess a lot of turkeys must be dying, too. As I was contemplating that, a woman appeared at my elbow.
She said, “Oh, that’s where they put it. I’ve been looking for it.”
“Yes, I had to fight to have them keep it in stock. They’ve kinda hidden it here.”
She said again that she was glad I’d helped her find it, even though I’d actually done nothing, but stand there. Henh.
I got over to the produce section and ran into a man I knew. Or thought I knew. I started a conversation thinking he was one person and after he started talking, I suddenly realized I wasn’t talking to who I thought I was, I was talking to the plumber who did a bunch of work at our house. Very nice guy, so I enjoyed chatting with him. Thank the gods I didn’t say anything that sounded too far out of bounds before I realized who he was. I’m terrible at recognizing people out of the context in which I know them.
Then I asked the produce manager if we were now stuck with the new type of plastic bags.
“They’re terrible,” I said. “They’re even harder to open than the other kind, and they’re opaque, so you can’t see what you have. It must drive the checkers crazy.”
She agreed, but “It’s a new California mandate. We have to use these bags now because they’re biodegradable. But they’re also really flimsy.” And she demonstrated how easily the bags tear. “That’s California for you.”
“Good intentions,” I said, “but not great execution.”
We ended up chatting some more. We’ve interacted quite a lot over the past few years because I’m never shy about asking for organic produce or bringing problems to her attention, and I always say hi to her regardless. She commented how much she enjoys that I talk with her. “Some people,” she said, “simply ignore me.”
Then she gave me an entire roll of the old, clear plastic bags to take home with me. LOL!
And that was my entertaining visit to the grocery store.
[#]MarxToot
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After yesterday’s moment of détente, we nearly had Kelly and Ozzy initiate a fight today.
Kelly was arched up and his tail pouffed to enormous size. He was holding his ground as Ozzy did the slo-mo-low-stalk that signaled an attack. I jumped up from my lunch to intervene and get them safely separated. They both settled down and were fine after that.
We certainly don’t want to see them fight, but it was a nice change to see Kelly willing to stand up to Ozzy. He’s come a long way to reach that level of courage.
[#]MoggyHorde #KellyCat #Ozzy
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Kelly and Ozzy have a moment of détente over bowls of tuna juice.
Randy, the giver of tuna juice, caught the moment.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #caturday #KellyCat #Ozzy
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Ozzy and Tuxita had a romp from the back end of the house into the living room. Ozzy is clearly feeling better. He’s been very good about taking his pills, too.
The downside to Ozzy feeling better is that he’s been a real PITA toward Kelly and is chasing him every time we turn around. Here is Kelly in a relaxed moment hanging out on our new inside door mat.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #KellyCat
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Yesterday, Randy noticed that Ozzy was licking or pulling hair from his belly creating a bare patch. The last time we had a cat that did that was our girl Jetta. She licked her belly entirely bare before we discovered that she suffered from struvite crystals in her bladder. Because of that previous experience, we decided to have him checked.
In a bit of amazing luck, the vet was able to get him in today. Ozzy was most unhappy about being put into the carrier and he complained loudly all the way to the vet’s and while we waited in the lobby.
After ultrasound and a urinalysis, the vet confirmed he does have a bladder infection. I have the great joy of getting antibiotics into him twice a day. That will be fun.
Ozzy weighed in at 22.8 lbs. We have done everything short of starving him and he keeps gaining weight. I had a long discussion about it with the vet. She doesn’t think we’re overfeeding him.
One possibility is that he has a pituitary gland problem that causes excessive growth. She said it can show up in Maine Coons and Ragdolls, and Ozzy has genes from both of those breeds. There’s a test we can do, but it’s expensive. If he does have the condition, there’s no treatment for it, but cats that have it develop diabetes early on. The main reason to do the test would be to have forewarning, so we could watch for diabetes. I discussed it with Randy after I got home, and we decided it would be a good idea.
If he doesn’t have the condition, the vet said with wry humor, then he may simply be a big cat with a round shape.
She wants to recheck Ozzy’s bladder after he’s had the course of antibiotics, so we’ll have her draw blood for the test at the same time. And hope it comes back negative.
[#]MoggyHorde #CatsOfMastodon #caturday #Ozzy
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