random threads

I ran across this article from Purina about working cats. That then led me to ShopCat.com, where you can read bio’s of kitties who work in stores. I wish there were some store cats near me to visit, but the ones listed in North Carolina are not very close.

Miss Emma has had a tough week. I took her to the vet on Wednesday morning since she had been developing a ‘chipmunk cheek’–swollen upper jaw on her left side. And she had a oozing sore on her left back. Both areas right behind her shoulder blades have been losing fur, and showing red skin (not the normal pinky beige). While I had not seen her doing so, we suspect she was licking the areas excessively. The skin on the left side was oozing, and the surrounding hair had become matted in it. The thin skin, hard-to-heal is a side effect of her Cushings disease.

She got cleaned up, fur trimmed both on the cheek and on the left side (a summer cut?!) and was put on Clavamox antibiotic and more of the Animax topical antibiotic. I had put her on Baytril antibiotic the weekend before when I saw the sore developing. Unfortunately the Clavamox gives her bad diarrhea.

While the sore is healing (it is scabbing up on the left and the right side is much reduced in redness), Emma has been required to assume the role of a ‘Caped Crusader’! At least it isn’t one of those stiff plastic ones. This is a soft Elizabethan collar that she can still eat, drink and sleep while wearing it.

As usual, Emma’s dispostiion remains good, and she puts up with the additional turmoil without a fuss. I can tell she’d prefer not having the capelet, as this photo shows, but she doesn’t tug at it too much. The ‘chippie cheek’ is still swollen, but not as much as before. The vet says it is an infected tooth, but she is wary of any anethesia for Emma, so is just treating it with the Clavamox.

The folks at Workman Publishing (who also publish 365 Cats Page-A-Day Calendar ) are celebrating the outstanding sales of All I Need to Know I learned From My Cat by Suzy Becker, with a special double-platinum collector’s edition. This edition adds 48 new pages, including the ‘Are you a Cat Person Quiz?’ which is, ta-da, also available online. Click on the image to go to the Workman Publishing site, then look for the link with the purple exclamation point to take the quiz. I was a cat fanatic. No surprise there, eh?

I thought I’d kickoff Caturday posts with some photos of my calico, Cleo. She is the shy one, timid when strangers appear, but can be demanding in her own way. When she wants to play, she will drag her gold cord to me so I can fling it about for her to chase. When she is hungry, she’ll sit on the arm of the chair, and dig a sharp claw into me, just to ensure I have the proper attention to her needs.

She seems to be doing OK on the special diet food (Hill’s Prescription Diet d/d Duck flavor), but did have a bout of vomiting this past week, the first in several months. I have a appointment next week for her to get a checkup and bloodwork since she has been on Enalapril for her heart condition for over 6 months now.
This is her ‘red bed’ that sits on the back of the sofa. She sleeps in it a lot of the day, but usually joins me in bed at night, on the foot of the bed. There is quite a bit of cat fur accumulating in the bed that testifies to how much time she spends in it. Occasionally, the ‘red bed’ has slipped off the back of the sofa and dumped her out, poor girl. She just shakes it off and climbs back in after I set it up there again. The back of the sofa affords a view out the window (behind her in the photo) that she seems to enjoy.