Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Mah BIRFDAY Presents!



Since I had so many anipals wishing me a happy FIRST BIRFDAY, I wanted to show you my cool new prezzies: TWO Wand Toys! All MINE! W00t!!

(that's Maxie crashing my PAWTY!)

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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

"All About Me" Meme

Wow....we're sooo excited and honored to be tagged by Sebastian to tell you about our furry selves! We've never participated in a Meme before! So without further ado:


1. Where do you like to hang out?
ooh, I got this one! In the bathroom, upside-down, looking up Momma's nose.

But in the winter, I loves hanging out by the fireplace during the day and tucking my head under Momma's chin in bed at night. She sez I'm better than any 'lectric blanket!
The first night I spent in my new home, I curled up right alongside Momma and slept with my head on her pillow, just like Ryker always used to do. And I've never done it since - just that first night. Faraday came to live with us the next day.

 *I* like hanging wif daddy and the remote control. 
And sleeping under the covers wif my feet in Mommy's back all night long. Mommy always knows to worry if I start purring reeeeal loud when I'm under the covers...cuz that means she's about to get nipped!

 I'll hang ANYwhere those bratty boys aren't!

My favorite indoor spot (when the boys are far, far away) is in Dad's lap at the computer. I'm kinda of a Daddy's Girl. *giggle*

2. Who is your favorite kitty crush?

Maxwell: uh, can I choose Momma?
FaRADaY: I'm too young to have a crush, but any girlcat who wants to bring me food....
Allie: *sniff* silly boys! Me? Well, because of my past, I'm understandably a bit cautious.
You see, I was a young unwed mother. Just a girl myself, really. And I was abandoned - left all alone - *wails* DUMPED at Wayside Waifs' front door on a chilly October morning!
So I'm kind of cautious about my crushes. (Though D'Artagnan Rumbepurr's awfully handsome *bats eyes*)

3. What is your favorite scent?

FaRADaY: mmmmmm, FOOD!
Allie: I go for the more sophisticated scents...NIP for me.
Maxwell: oh I  dunno, my current fave is raw eggs. I think their texture's kinda fun to play with too. All goopy and stuff. I can play with it for hours on the counter, if Momma doesn't catch me....
FaRADaY: Maxie! *eyeroll* that's not a scent! Duhhh....

4. What is your favorite TV show?

FaRADaY: An' I just loves watching the Food Network wif Mommy & Daddy on the sofa.All that nommy FOOD....*sigh*
Maxwell: I used to like watching Exercise TV while Mommy worked out with it, but they just took it off the air, so I can't paw at the lady jumping around on the screen any more. Bummer....

5. What is your favorite movie?

Meowzers, Mommy & Daddy have been so busy they haven't watched a single movie since they got us in December! (Mommy's pretty shocked about that actually.) But we loves hanging in their laps while they read. Daddy loves military thrillers and Mommy loves scifi. (shh...or SF-romance. But it's cuz she has a friend who writes them and she sometimes edits them for her.)

6. What is the best piece of feline wisdom?
Give lots and lots of love. And snuggles and cuddles and purrs. We may be pretty young but in our short lives, we've noticed humans can often be pretty fragile and they tend to need a lot of Kitteh TLC.

Wow, now we get to pick three bloggers to answer these questions!

We pick:

JinJin & Pixel Rubinoff
Unca Ryker's Fave girl JazzydaCat
and our fave Grrly, Grrlsquirrel!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

What can YOU do with $14, an X-acto, and some tape?

While Momma wasn't looking, I took over her keyboard and found us some reeeeeally cool hangouts!

Yeah, no offense Mommy, but this TOTALLY beats your wimpy ManCat Cave on laundry day!
We want! We want! Daddy, can you do the MacGyver thingy please? PLEEEEEEASE??


Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Mommy's Big Scare



Mommy had this reeeeally REALLY bad scare a few days ago, an' so we told her she could borrow our blog.
Yeah! I did it cuz I's so nice. Faraday did it cuz Allie was gonna whup his behind if he didn't let her (she's GINORMOUS, you know! *wide eyed look*).
BRATS! Don't make me come over there and pink-slap you! You won't LIKE it if I chip a nail ... *warning look* Besides, I've been delicate lately, so BE NICE!!!

Uh, thanks guys. I think. Living with three cats that have such strong personalities (two, actually-Maxie's so mellow, he'd get along with anyone!) is a never ending source of entertainment for Marty and me. They're our babies, which is why last Friday's news was such a shock to us.

Here's what happened:

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I've been traveling a lot lately - in fact I've been in 9 states in just over 6 weeks. My most recent trip overlapped with Marty's travels so we hired a cat sitter to come in and care for our fur-kids. I know any disruption in routine has the potential to affect these guys, so when we returned and noticed Allie coughing we decided to give it a day or two and observe. Was it just a bad hairball? Maybe an upper respiratory infection (URI)? 

A few days passed and she was still coughing, so Friday we decided I should take her in for an exam.
What happened sent me into the weekend reeling in shock, combing the internet for answers.
Allie didn't have a URI, our vet didn't think.


Her lungs sounded clear and she wasn't running a fever. No passageway obstruction, he said. But she had lost weight. Did we have her on a diet? No-o-o-ooo ....

Then he dropped the bombshell on me: "I want to test her for heartworms."

Heartworms?
 My little gray Waif? My husband's very own Daddy's Girl? Allie of the pink mani/pedi and cute girlie manners, has heartworms?

Dogs have heartworms, not cats! Parvo, distemper, heartworms - these are canine diseases. Feline leukemia, FIP, panleukopenia - now those are the things you worry about in cats, not heartworms. Right?

Wrong.

Though cats are not natural hosts, they can be infected, and the number has increased to the point that our family vet has seen more heartworm disease in cats in the past year than he has in dogs. Wow.

Okay, so we do the blood test, then we treat her. Sorry, no go, he said. There is no US-approved heartworm treatment for cats.

Studies indicate that the same form of treatment used in dogs would cause about a 70% fatality in cats. You do what you can to alleviate the symptoms and then you wait it out until the worm dies - in 2 or 3 years.

I left the clinic feeling like an absolutely horrible parent. This was preventable but no one had ever told me about it, so Allie had never been given an easily applied, monthly heartworm preventive.

We drove home, me frantically dialing my husband to tell him the (potentially) bad news, and the minute I hit the door, I started googling.
My first thoughts were, 'but...she's an indoor cat!" Well, okay, mostly indoor. She's only outside for limited periods under our strict supervision. Turns out it didn't matter.

As many indoor cats have been diagnosed as outdoor cats. When I mentioned this to a vet tech at the shelter where I volunteer, she just shook her head and said, "It only takes one mosquito. And how often do you see one of those in your house over the summer?"

Oh, and it wouldn't have mattered if I'd learned about this a month or two ago and started her on the preventive. The average time it takes, from when the mosquito infects the cat to when the parasites settle into the blood vessels of the lungs and start causing distress is about eight months.

So if Allie has heartworms, she would have been infected by a mosquito bite last October.
All that time, those nasty little buggers are setting up shop in your precious baby's lungs. And they're growing. 

The American Heartworm Society states that there are two times when an infected cat is most at risk: when the worms begin to mature and at their death. At these times, they can cause acute inflammation and significant lung damage. 

Our vet told us that it can be very hard to diagnose heartworms in a cat (also called HARD, or
Heartworm Associated Respiratory Disease).

With a cat, there has to be a body of evidence and diagnosis can be tricky. The initial phase is often misdiagnosed as asthma or allergic bronchitis, as symptoms mainly include coughing, asthma-like wheezing, lethargy and weight loss.

Check, check, and check. No wonder he wanted to test Allie - she had all the symptoms.


Some infected cats have such severe pulmonary issues that they require oxygen therapy and asthma medications like inhalers (the only source of humor that weekend came from envisioning me holding an inhaler up to Allie's mouth and saying, "okay, now, BREATHE!" Um, not so much....).

Oh, and there's this other little thing.... When the worms die, they shed proteins that can shock your kitty's system into heart failure.

In all, a very scary disease - which Allie fortunately did not have.

We heaved huge sighs of relief when the antibody test came back negative on Monday and shortly after, Allie's coughs eased and she was her perky self again.

We got lucky. Allie only had a mild URI. 

But I slapped a tube of Revolution heartworm medicine on the backs of all three kitties' necks so fast they didn't know what hit them. I'd been scared enough.

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(There are currently four heartworm preventive products available in the US: two oral and two topical. All require a prescription from your vet but can be purchased from an online pet pharmacy at a discount. WARNING: don't ever give your cat any heartworm product meant for dogs, as this can kill a cat! )