Poor little meow meow

Two words you never want in close proximity: bloody urine. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I ended up having to say over the phone to the vet a few days after I returned from Australia, since that's exactly what was leaking out of Learned Claw's business end. I freaked out, of course, and rushed the cat over to the animal hospital (since the vet was unable to come in person), where they gave us antibiotics and sent us home. Everything was fine...

...Until half a week later, when more urine starts seeping out of the cat all over the hallway floor. Like, he's lying in it, unable to do anything more than look at me with horror and patheticness. So I freak out, again, and rush him to the animal hospital, again. Where they tell me to take him off the antibiotics, put him on an anti-spasmodic, and send us home. But either he's in so much pain or he's so freaked out by them having to catheterize him to get a urine sample, that his little fluffy body just goes bonkers and he starts having pooping issues. As in: he's missing the litter box. There is nothing sadder than a cat who is in so much pain he can't piss, and has been so freaked out by the vet that he has diarrhea all over the kitchen floor and also himself. That, my friends, is a very sad cat. So I call my vet, hysteria imminent, who calms me down and prescribes a significant amount of medication [for the cat]: an antidiarrheal and new antibiotics. Things are pretty dire for a few days and I keep him in the bathroom with his very own litter box for almost a week.

Over 14 days and $400 in medication and vet bills later, let me tell you how nice it's been to have healthy pets. Putting him on some kind of special expensive prescription diet will solve all the problems, and I won't have to worry about him croaking on me (for a few more years, at any rate).

...Or so I thought until this afternoon, when Ol' Fluffy Pants (aka Learned Claw), starts going to the littler box twice an hour, hanging out for 8 minutes at a time but doing nothing. As I type, he's back in the bathroom, straining to produce any urine. I'm not freaking out so much any more as feeling somewhat resigned. I just had to pay over $1200 in taxes, and I don't know if I can afford a sonogram (or whatever it is they need to do to figure out if something is seriously wrong with him). I think I can maybe afford another vet visit, maybe.

In the meantime, I'm squirting water down his throat using a teeny tiny 1 ml syringe. He hates me. But I love him, so what else can I do?

Kitten FAIL

I just keep watching this over and over and snorting out loud. Did I mention I'm in the library? And that I'm getting some pretty confused looks? I have a feeling my fellow scholars know I'm not actually reading about Victorian art...

The saga of Turbo, the amazing one-eyed pirate cat

By the way, the family has a cat named Turbo, which my father found on the side of the road in August of 2003. This was Turbo then:

This was Turbo in the summer of 2004:


Over last Christmas, I took this rather amusing (to my mind) video: Admittedly, for such a cute kitten, he didn't turn out to be the handsomest of cats. But he makes up for it with character. He's a tiny little thing--he must weigh about 8 lbs. or so--but he's got the personality of four larger such animals (or 6 dogs). In a showdown, he would probably best both of my cats (who clock in at around 12 lbs.), he's just that feisty. Also, he chases the dogs. (They deserve it.) But if you pick him up and pet him in a particular way, he'll fall asleep in your arms. Adorable.

A few months ago, my mumsey came home to find Turbo screaming--his eye had been punctured in what we assume was an epic, no-holds barred cat (or perhaps dog) fight. The vet had to remove his eye (poor little guy); at least he's still alive (which is more than can be said for my cat, Buffy, or my brother's cat, Cassidy, both of whom left the house (not together) and never came back within a few months of each other). This Christmas was the first time I'd seen him since his cyclopsisation.

(I have no idea who that weirdo holding the cat is.)

Oh, poor little Erik. You're so cute all curled up in a tight ball on my bed. Little do you know that you're about to be shoved in a crate, awkwardly hoisted down 5 flights of stairs, taken outside into the 20º weather and loud streets, tossed in a smelly cab, and carted across Manhattan to the ASPCA so that a stranger who smells of scared animals can stick metal things into your little mouth. Poor little guy.