My visit to Muskoka

Well my followers (all NINE of you!!), I know I have been a bad, bad blogger; not blogging in over a week!  I have no excuse.  I have not been any busier than usual, have had no emergency vet visits, no CATastrophees to deal with, not even a snotty kitten nose to unplug.  I appologize for leaving you all hanging, but based on the flood of e-mails I received (more like a trickle from a dried up well!) demanding more fodder, I will assume that you found other things to occupy your time and we'll just move on...

I actually spent last week anticipating a photography workshop at The Muskoka Wildlife Center which I attended this past Saturday.  "What does this have to do with your cats?" you may ask... Well, as an avid feline afficionado, my appreciation goes far beyond your average (or in my case, super-cute) house cat.  I have always been fascinated by the BIG cats, so when I saw the opportunity to get up close with some of our native wildlife, I jumped at the chance, packed my camera gear, booked a room at the fabulous Inn On Bay in Gravenhurst and embarked on my 7-hour drive to Muskoka.

While the "photography workshop" aspect of the day was less than stellar for the $230 fee, the three hours that I spent in very close proximity to the cougar, lynx, wolves and bobcat was well worth the price of admission!  As an added bonus, Dale, the co-director and owner of the facility was with us the entire time and generously shared his wealth of knowledge about each species, answered all our questions and even told us the stories of how each animal came to be at his rehab center.  How do I get a job like that?  Oh yeah, I would have had to finish those darned biology classes in school!  But I digress...

Our little group of 5 photographers (Plus the "workshop leader") spent the morning with Dale and Keith (A wildlife caregiver at the facility).  They started our adventure with a quick safety briefing and then led us INTO the enclosure with two wolves, Montana and Akayla.  Now, just to give you an idea of how close we really were to these impressive animals, I shot this photo of the guy next to me:

Surprisingly, the wolves were quite timid and although they would cautiously approach us to see what we were all about, as soon as someone would cough, move a little too abruptly or sometimes even just click the shutter release, the wolves would take off in the opposite direction.  Of course, they eventually got used to us and got pretty bored at being the object of our admiration.

To be honest, I was getting bored too.  After all, I was here for the cats, so I was thrilled when we moved on to our next model:  the cougar!  This time we were not allowed to enter the enclosure and when I got a closer look at Kokanee, an 8-year old adult male, I understood why:  He is ALL muscle and teeth!  Even sitting safely behind a fence to take photos of him, I admit that I was intimidated when he would run up, licking his lips in anticipation of some fresh venison.  Of course, this did not supress my inate urge to reach out and pet him, but I showed tremendous restraint and was satisfied just being so close to such a magnificent creature.

Kokanee was born in captivity and raised by humans.  As a result, he cannot be released back into the wild.  Dale explained to us that although it "sucks to live in captivity", the best thing he can do to improve the lives of these animals is to provide companionship.  Unfortunately, another cougar was not available (and Dale is already married), so Kokanee lives with a black bear!!  It being winter and all, the black bear, Kootenay was snuggled up in his winter den, but he did poke his nose out to say hello to us before going back to sleep.  I will definitely be back in the spring to check out this odd couple!

Next we moved on to the lynx, which was the highlight of my day.  Not only were we able to enter the enclosure to photograph Yeti, the adult lynx, up close, but we were treated to some very playful behavior when someone accidentally spilled Coke all over the snow (NO, it was NOT me!!).  Since felines are curious by nature and love to investigate new smells, Yeti was fascinated by the Coke and immediately began to roll in it!
 

Dale then brought out Rufus, the one-eyed Bobcat, whose story is so poignant that I will save it for an entry of its own later this week.  While we played paparazzi with Rufus, Keith went to fetch the juvenile lynx, who bounded into the enclosure, chased snowballs, rubbed against us, jumped over us, bounced off trees and generally just had a grand old time.  She was so much like a kitten, that I felt right at home.  In fact, I was so captivated by her antics that I hardly took any photos!! After about 20 minutes, she collapsed on a snowbank with a leaf she had "caught" and decided she needed to take a break.

I could have stayed in that enclosure all day, just watching her play, but the rest of the group was anxious to move on to our next, and final, subject of the day - a tiny saw-whet owl named Luna.

We photographed this delightful and cooperative little creature for a while and then slowly headed back to the main building and parking lot.  I wish I could have stayed longer, listened to more of Dale's stories and just immersed myself in the atmosphere of this wonderful place... As I was driving away, I was already planning for another visit in the spring! 

And this is why we don't allow cats in the bedroom...

While I am a sound sleeper (I have to be with those freight train noises beside me every night), Gaby claims that he can't sleep if I am so much as reading because every time I turn a page the sound wakes him up!  As a result, before we go to bed at night, our routine includes a sweep of the bedroom to ensure that there are no cats hiding under the bed, in the closet, in the drawers or anywhere else.  Although cats don't make noise during the night, they do tend to attack toe, run across our faces or do other nefarious things that are just as disruptive to our sleep, so they are banned from the bedroom at night (except when I sneak one in to sleep under the covers with me).

Every now and then, however, one of the cats will get wise and hide INSIDE the box spring, thereby not getting caught in our pre-sleep sweep.  Believe it or not, they have managed to rip apart the batting underneath the bed and have made themselves a nice little hidey hole for just such occasions.  Last nigh, Max decided to stow away in this hideout and this morning, at 5:30am, he decided that we had slept long enough and joined us on the bed, where he made himself at home on top of Gaby.  

For some reason, they never disturb ME in the morning - maybe because I am not the one who makes anything off-limits... Now, while some people wake up full of energy and smiles, looking forward to a new day, Gaby is not one of them.  In the best of circumstances (like when he's had 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep) he wakes up grumpy and cranky and can only grunt in monosylables until he's had his cereal.  When he wakes up because a cat is sitting on his chest, licking his nose and breathing cat breath into his face... well, let's just say this is why we don't allow cats in the bedroom!

So my morning started off with stomping, cursing and doors slamming... how was yours?

Baby Pictures

I don't have much time today, so I thought I would indulge those of you who have asked to see cute cat pictures.  These were taken 5 years ago, when we were raising our first litter of kittens.I had met a woman at Loblaws one day while I was waiting at the checkout line, we got to talking and yadda, yadda, yadda... a few months later our vet called me with the happy news that our cat, "Shady" had given birth to 7 healthy kittens.

Since we didn't HAVE a cat named Shady (We have a Shadow, but he's definitely a male so unless by some miracle of science he got pregnant and made his way to the vet to give birth) I thought the vet must be mistaken... then when he told me who had dropped off the cat, it all clicked into place. 

So we brought the new family home, installed them in the spare bedroom and decided to raise the kittens until they were old enough to adopt out.  Yeah, RIGHT!!  At least that was the plan as I explained it to Gaby when I arrived home with 7 kittens and very ferocious mamma cat in tow.  Gaby had never had kittens before, however, so I was counting on him falling in love with a couple that we could keep...

How could anyone not love these faces??

Who knew that we would BOTH fall in love with all seven?

Well we did, and they are all still here, hogging the blankets on the bed and living happily ever after.   

My adventures with snot.

Last night I snuck Baby into the bedroom because she is not feeling well and she wanted to snuggle up under the covers with me.  I had to sneak her in because Gaby refuses to let the cats sleep with us anymore just because they tend to get a little restless and play with the blinds or climb the curtains or (God forbid) PURR and wake him up... But this was BABY.  How could I say no to that face?

The thing about Baby is that when she was a baby, only one week old, in fact, she had a severe case of Rhinovirus which forced us to hospitalize her at the dreaded DMV emergency clinic for several days, where they drained the mucus from her nose and inserted a breathing tube. 

When she finally came home she had to be bottle fed (by me) every two hours (all through the night) for another several days (and nights) to be sure she regained her strength.  She almost died.  It was very scary and during that time when I was taking care of her we developed a special bond, so I'm sure you can understand how a) when she's sick she wants to be with me and b) I have this weird maternal instinct to take care of her.

So anyway, I snuck her into the bedroom and under the covers and Gaby was none the wiser.  We were sound asleep when I was awakend by a horrific sneezing fit from the little furry bundle beside me (Gaby was snoring so loudly that he never heard a thing).  I'm sure you have all seen your cats do those delicate little sneezes, then shake their heads, lick their paws and wipe their faces?  Yeah, well Baby is a whole other story.

Baby has developed a technique for sitting up, stretching her neck out and leaning it back at an angle like something from The Excorcist and sneezing from the depths of her soul to expunge all the mucus in her lungs.  Now you can see from the photo above that she has teensy tiny nostrils, so I'm sure you can understand my surprise when my face was hit with a wet, sticky mass of projectile cat snot that could have filled the inside of a jelly donut (not that anyone would WANT to fill a donut with cat snot, but you get the idea).

So there I was in bed, in the dark, with cat snot starting to congeal on my face.  I had to get us both out of there before the beast beside me (AKA Gaby) awoke.  I hustled Baby into the bathroom where I then performed a snotectomy with my trusty tweezers (actually, I used Gaby's tweezers - he'll never know, because he never reads my blog!) and methodically pulled the rest of the dried up, crusty snot from her nose.  I can assure you, there are things I would prefer to be doing at 2:30 am, but alas, I am a dedicated cat mommy and Gaby had to work in the morning, so I was on snot-removal duty.

Once I was done with the messy stuff, I brought Baby to her room (yes, our second bedroom is a nursery of a whole other kind!!) where I wanted to settle her into her own bed for the night.  Unfortunately, Rudy was comfortably nestled in and not in the mood for sharing:

 

I tried the couch downstairs, but it, too was buried under a heap of sleeping cats, so I brought Baby into my little shoebox of an office (one of the only cat-free zones in the house - besides my clothes closet and the pantry in the kitchen, though I have even found cats in there sometimes), settled her onto my lap in a blanket and tried to get her to go to sleep. 

I was so worried about Baby's nose getting clogged up again that I had visions of her suffocating during the night, so I wound up staying up with her all night, periodically cleaning her nostrils, cuddling her and generally trying to keep her sneezing fits to a minimum. 

Ok, I admit, I also spent some time on Facebook talking to Tamara my fellow insomniac, farming and doing Mafia stuff, after all, my computer was RIGHT THERE... But I must stress that I DID NOT get sucked into a turf war with some guy named Don Bender and spend $100 on my credit card buying pretend weapons to take out his Mafia because I am addicted to Facebook games or anything.  I was simply looking for a way to pass the time between snotectomies.  Really.

The good news is that Baby is doing much better today and I was able to get all the caked snot off my face.  The bad news is that I think I need a new pillow...

Distractions, distractions!!

My day started with such great intentions... I was going to finish classifying my photos, work on my new website and maybe watch a movie and catch an afternoon nap with the kittens later.  Unfortunately, living with (almost) 1000 cats means that my day begins and ends with distractions:

I wake up to a plethora of whining cats who need to be fed three different kinds of food, have their water changes and their litter boxes cleaned (you'd be amazed how much poop thirty-two cats can produce in a day!).

Note that these are in our basement, which is unfinished...

This is not what our HOUSE looks like (at least not on most days!)

Gaby conveniently wakes up once most of the work is done and immediately starts questioning me about where his pants are (crumpled on the floor in the bathroom where he left them last night).  I roll out of bed and catch a glimpse of a slimy puked-up hairball peeking out from under the bed, but as I rustle through the cleaning supplies in the hall closet, I realize that a cat got in overnight and now it smells suspiciously urinous (is that a word??)...

OK, just a quick little clean-up before I get down to work, should take no time at all. I kiss my man goodbye (on the cheek, because he won’t come near me when I haven’t brushed my teeth) and crawl back into bed to read one more chapter of my trashy vampire novel before I deal with the latest cat mess. 

After I finish with the hairball & pee clean-up, that's when I discover the pile of stinky clothes stuffed behind the couch as though it’s some new storage spot.  Can you guess who put it there? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't me and it wasn't one of the cats (although they have been known to steal the bathmat and bring it downstairs to the living room).  I head downstairs with my bundle of stench to do a quick load of laundry... but when I get downstairs I find Sneaky Pete sleeping in the laundry basket.

Sneaky Pete was so named for his aptitude for sneaking around

unseen and unheard and turning up in the most interesting places...

He gives me a look that clearly says, "Back off biotch", so I have to work around him, which means that the sheets won't be getting washed today.  Of course, this is when the 8-month old kittens realize that I am in the basement - a wild and exotic place they dare not venture on their own for fear of being pounced on by one of the more dominant cats.  With me as their guardian and chaperone, it soon becomes a free-for-all and Potato decides to investigate the washing machine.

I now KNOW that my Potato is related to the Chapman-Bombardier Potato

due to their shared fascination for washers/dryers.

As I scoop Potato off the washer, I hear a plaintive wailing from the other room where the strays hang out during the winter.  I run over and open the door just in time to prevent Hobo from moving in for the kill on Bob who is cornered under a chair and too far from the open window to escape. As soon as I enter, Hobo backs off and nonchalantly settles onto the couch where he tries to look innocent.   

Unfortunately, Hobo is not allowed into the house

to mix with the "General Population" since he is such a fighter,

but he has a cozy spot on my old couch in the basement

where thanks to a cat door in the window, he can come and go as he pleases.

It seems to be my day for pee, because I notice that in his fear, Bob has liberally wet the floor, the chair that he clambered over to escape and the shelf near the exit.  OK, it’ll only take me a couple of minutes to clean this up and fold the clothes I just took out of the dryer before I can get to work on my website.

As I head back to the laundry area, I find that my little rascals have figured out how to get the dryer door open... OK, I admit, in my haste to break up World War 3, I may not have shut it properly.  Of course, as soon as I shout, "OUT", they realize that this must be a fun new game and that maybe I have hidden catnip in the dryer (who knows why cats think the way they do?!).

Granted, Mr. Winky only has one eye,

but surely he can find his way OUT of the dryer... ??

By the time I shoo everyone out of the dryer, the clothes hampers and the sink (?!?), it’s feeding time at the zoo again and there are twenty sets of expectant eyes looking up at me as I walk into the kitchen. I rinse out all the food bowls (cats are clean animals and like to eat from clean plates) and start doling out tonight’s menu of; 

• Prescription Diet chicken dinner for the downstairs cats.
• Prescription Diet geriatric dinner for Daisy (she's like 18 or 19 and that stuff keeps her going like some sort of preservative!).
• Prescription Diet weight control for the kittens (the ones who are now actually 4 years old, but we still call them kittens).
• Prescription Diet kitten food for the NEW kittens, who we refer to as the "boos".
• Friskies for Squirt and Mumsie, who absolutely refuse to eat anything else.

Then I make the rounds of the water bowls and dry food bowls and replenish everything.

For some reason, I feel completely wiped out, so I pour myself a glass of wine and plop down on the couch for 15 minutes of TV before I log on to Facebook to harvest my crops and do a few jobs in Mafia Wars. That’s when Gaby walks in the door and asks me what’s for dinner.

My day begins and ends with distractions. But I can always work on the website tomorrow…

Our largest cat

Rob wanted to know about our biggest cat.  You would think that with so many cats in such a variety of shapes and sizes, that it would be difficult for me to determine which is the largest, however, Doofus wins paws down!  In fact, back in his "obese" days, he weighed in at a hefty 28 lbs.:

Believe it or not, feline obesity is a growing problem and obese cats are more prone to diabetes, arthritis and the more serious Hepatic Lipidosis (often referred to as fatty liver).  In Doofus's case, he developed severe constipation that eventually led to Megacolon. 

The first time Doofus got constipated, we rushed him to the DMV in Lachine (The over-priced vet clinic that is open 24 hrs.).  The vet who treated him told us that he would have to manually extricate Doofus's stool.  As he described the treatment, I was thanking my lucky stars that I did NOT go to vet school as planned.  Three days and $1200 later, Doofus was home and on a new, highly digestible diet (i.e. the food is highly expensive and the cat is highly unlikely to eat it).  He was also started on Lactulose (a syrupy laxative that is supposed to taste good to cats) and Cisapride (to help stimulate his bowels).

Despite our efforts to prevent Doofus from stealing the other cats' food when we were not looking and our persistence in force-feeding him the medication, he was soon constipated again.  This time we took him to the Pierrefonds Animal Hospital where they did X-rays, an ultrasound, blood tests; the works.  The vet told us that Doofus has chronic constipation and that based on how often he had been constipated and his lack of reaction to the medication, that we would probably have to put him to sleep. 

I INSISTED that he give us an alternative.  Doofus has been with us for almost 10 years and neither Gaby nor I were willing to give up on him so quickly.  I had done some research had read that enemas were often an effective treatment... So, the vet manually removed the stool again and sent us home with a refill on our prescriptions and a list of suitable enemas that I could buy at the local pharmacy and administer every 3 days.

You know you love your cat when you are pinning him to the kitchen floor between your knees while your boyfriend squirts warm water up his butt.  I don't know who was more humiliated, me, Gaby or Doofus!  As soon as we would finish the "treatment", poor Doofus would run down the stairs to the litter box in the basement and Gaby would chase after him to examine what came out. 

These were not our finer moments, and I still wonder what the woman at the drugstore thought when I would check out each week with 3-4 enemas... but we persevered and eventually Doofus stopped being constipated.  He has lost some weight since then and we have changed his diet to Hills Prescription Diet (c/d), which seems to have had a positive impact on his health.  Doofus is happy and healthy today and there are no more enemas in our house!!  We do refer to him as the cat with the $3000 ass though :-)

The moral of the story is that if you love your pet, don't accept the dire prognosis of your vet until you have explored all your options.  It is very unfortunate, but in my experience, many vets will suggest euthanasia as a fast & cheap option to complicated (or even no-so-complicated) medical conditions.  Don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion or to do some research on the internet.  We are the voices of our companion animals, so we owe it to them not to let them down.

If you're looking for a great vet in the Montreal area, I highly recommend Anima+ Veteriany Clinics who provide excellent care for all types of animals.

One Potato, Two Potato

I was reading the comments on one of my posts and Rob mentioned how much people really love their pets.  He also wanted to know if I would give my followers the opportunity to post pictures of their pets here... Well, let me think about that... NO, this is MY blog about MY cats, you want to post pictures of YOUR cats, get your own blog!

However, since Rob and his lovely wife Melissa are COPYCATS, in that they named their beige tabby the same thing as MY beige tabby (which I got first, by the way), I thought I would give everyone a chance to see the two Potatoes:

FIRST, here is MY Potato as a baby...

I know, I know, definitely a future Supermodel!

But the reason we named him Potato was because when he would lay on his back and show us his belly, he just looked like a little potato. 

Do you see the resemblance?

Now, here is MY Potato all grown up,

during his first studio shoot:

And finally, the OTHER Potato:

Originally, I was going to have people vote on which Potato was cuter, but since they both look so similar, and since they are both such handsome fellows, I would not want to make one of them (Mel & Rob's Potato) feel bad for not being as cute as the other (MY Potato)... especially when one of them (THEIR Potato) is prone to attacking innocent bystanders by clawing them in the face!

Anyhoooo, if anyone else out there has a cat named Potato, who looks like OUR Potatoes, then please feel free to send me a photo and I will post it on my blog, since you, too, will be deemed a COPYCAT.

What do cats do on snow days?

Today being a chilly, blowy, snowy day, I thought you might be wondering what the cats were up to.  Well, it turns out that they are very similar to people:

Some refuse to get out of bed.

Others spend the day on the couch.

Some are die-hard sports fans who you can't tear away from the TV.

Others prefer to hide out from the world.

There is always one who likes to shop for special treasures.

And there are those who just seem to be made for the outdoors,

Like Poopsie, the Abominable Snow Cat!

Hope you all enjoyed YOUR snow day today!

Welcome to my blog!

Never having written a blog before, I'm not entirely sure how to begin...

For those of you who know me, you are familiar with my fascination for felines in all shapes and sizes - though regrettably, that little zoo in Virginia did not allow me to bring baby India home with me...

For $10, I was able to pose with India, a 3-month old tiger cub.

Natural Bridge Zoo, Virginia.

As such, our menagerie is made up almost entirely of stray, abandonned and often injured cats that have found their way to our little ramshackle house in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.  Occasionally, we find ourselves taking care of a cat who actually HAS a home, but we always give those ones back... well, almost always, sometimes they just don't want to leave!!  We also have three cats that we adopted when the people they lived with moved overseas. 

Oh, and I can't forget to mention the two litters of kittens we raised, fell in love with and subsequently could not give up; one pregnant stray was dropped off at our vet by a woman I met at Loblaws (that's a whole other story for another day) and the second gave birth in our basement this past April (the kittens were ALL very sick and the ensuing medical drama will surely be the topic of a later blog post).  But I digress...

As this is my first post, I thought it might be appropriate to introduce you to each of my feline friends, but then I wondered how many people would actually have the patience (or the time) to read through a list of what at last count was 32 cats.  Yes, contrary to the blog title, we're not quite at 1000... yet!

Instead I will leave you with one of my favorites; and before you say it, I know I am not supposed to have favorites, but let's face it, we all do and I am not ashamed to admit it - as long as the others don't find out.

CeeCee

(AKA: Mr. Cee, Cee Bear, Cee McGee)

That's it for today, just wanted to get my feet wet with a little introduction (which is MUCH nicer than stepping in a puddle of cat pee - which happens a lot more often around here than you may think). 

Don't forget to vote in the poll to give me some direction for my next post.  Yes, YOU can choose whether I will write about the infamous "Shit Sheets", the litterbox marathon, the saga of the sick kittens or some other topic of your choice.

Until next time:  DON'T FORGET TO SPAY OR NEUTER YOUR PETS!!