Herd your cats here

[geoteo]

Another cat has happened at our house.  Son-in-law was at the landfill on Monday when haulers arrived to drag away a huge metal dumpster.  He made them wait until he could extract a skin-and-bones kitten, which ripped his face apart while he tried to get her into his truck.  He and daughter went to the urgent care clinic, while I sat in the truck trying to calm her and accustom her to the sound of my voice.

She was brought into the house, where she ate everything in sight and terrorized her reluctant sisters and brothers.  At this point she has been to the vet twice, because we discovered that she had a huge, smelly abscess on her leg and was running a fever.  Now she has an antibiotic to take twice a day, and will finish her shots in two weeks.  The vet says she is about twelve weeks old, so we chose Halloween as her birthday.  She is all black, with bright gold eyes.  I suggested calling her Jawa, but Grandson won with Diogi.  In case you can't tell, he wanted to name her D O G.

[mamselle]

What a good thing Diogi found you all.

I hope everyone recovers well from their injuries!

M.

[onehappyunicorn]

I hope Diogi makes a full recovery, it sounds like she's in good hands.

The last two cats we have taken in were both rescue and both needed some medical attention though not to that extent. The last one we got, Hazel, wolfed down an entire can of wet cat food while growling the whole time. She must have eaten almost half her weight in food that first day. She was pretty underweight and absolutely infested with fleas.

Poe, the older of the two, was approximately a year old when we got him. He had been hanging around a sewage processing plant that our neighbor was working at, he used to come visit the workers on lunch and beg for scraps. He weighed maybe four or five pounds tops when we got him, he now weighs 17 pounds. The vet thinks he's not very overweight, he just grew into an enormous kitty. If I had to guess he has some Maine Coon in him. He is now, by far, the biggest of the five cats we have. I think our oldest cat now regrets being a bully to him when he was smaller...

[the_geneticist]

Izzy has transformed from a terrified ball of fluff and whiskers to a whirlwind of destruction!  She is entirely too fearless about getting food - hers, Effie cat's, my breakfast, the odd tortilla chip.  She completely ignores any and all growling or fussing from the other cats when there is food to be had.  She's been sneaking peanuts in the shell out of the dish on the coffee table and hiding them all over our house.  It's pretty funny!
The not so funny is that she has discovered she can use her claws to climb up our furniture.  She has a scratch pad and uses it, but the velcro kitten furniture climbing is apparently way too fun to stop.  How can I stop her from destroying all of our upholstery?  Any ideas?

[mamselle]

Do you trim her claws?

M.

[the_geneticist]

Do you trim her claws?

M.

Yes, but I can't get all 4 paws done at once.  She's still really skittish about being held.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Do you trim her claws?

M.

Yes, but I can't get all 4 paws done at once.  She's still really skittish about being held.

You could try 'burrito-ing' her in a towel.

[mamselle]

Leading to the hilarious "All Creatures Great and Small" scene of Tristram trying to "wrap a cat," in my mind...

M.

[ktmkwk]

There is double sided tape that you can put on furniture--cats hate the feel of it on their paws.

Often with young cats, you need to work at getting them used to having their paws touched/claws trimmed so we tend to massage their paws/toes regularly (usually daily) to get them used to it.  We tend to do trimming having the cat in a flat surface beside one of us, to that you are only working with one paw at a time (and no more than fronts or back at once for most of our cats).  Burrito works well for really spazzy, fraidy cats--take one paw out at a time and again, at least with ours either fronts or backs at one time.  We've got four cats so have a schedule for trimming. ;-)

[mamselle]

Leading to the hilarious "All Creatures Great and Small" scene of Tristram trying to "wrap a cat," in my mind...

M.

It starts here...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByFrA9cCDBo

It took a couple of episodes before the injection was finally administered, I think...

M.

[the_geneticist]

Leading to the hilarious "All Creatures Great and Small" scene of Tristram trying to "wrap a cat," in my mind...

M.

It starts here...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByFrA9cCDBo

It took a couple of episodes before the injection was finally administered, I think...

M.

Ha ha!  That is one of my favorite bits from the book.
I'll have to try the double-stick tape for now.  And I'll work more at touching her feet.  She loves ear skritches, tail tugs, and being rubbed under the collar, but HATES to have her feet touched. 

[mamselle]

If her feet are dry or have gotten something like salt in them from walking around where a sidewalk has been treated for ice, they might have gotten tender or sore, too.

I think there are some creams or oils you can use to treat dry, cracked pads that won't hurt the cat when they lick their feet later...you'd want to ask your vet first, obviously.

M.

[onehappyunicorn]

We always give our cats a treat after trimming nails, it hasn't made the experience great but it has calmed them down to where we can actually do it.

[the_geneticist]

If her feet are dry or have gotten something like salt in them from walking around where a sidewalk has been treated for ice, they might have gotten tender or sore, too.

I think there are some creams or oils you can use to treat dry, cracked pads that won't hurt the cat when they lick their feet later...you'd want to ask your vet first, obviously.

M.

Izzy is a strictly indoors only kitten so she has very soft feet.  It never gets cold enough here to snow, but it can get hot enough to make the ground too hot to go barefoot.

[mamselle]

If her feet are dry or have gotten something like salt in them from walking around where a sidewalk has been treated for ice, they might have gotten tender or sore, too.

I think there are some creams or oils you can use to treat dry, cracked pads that won't hurt the cat when they lick their feet later...you'd want to ask your vet first, obviously.

M.

Izzy is a strictly indoors only kitten so she has very soft feet.  It never gets cold enough here to snow, but it can get hot enough to make the ground too hot to go barefoot.

Ok, good, then at least THAT'S not the problem...next differential diagnosis...!

M.