I Haz a Sad

Last night at 3:00 AM found me in the Kitten Room, desperately darting, feinting, reaching, clutching, missing, pleading, and nearly crying.

What brought me to so strange a pass at so strange a time?

A wee tube of flea and tick protection-- and a pink and white floofy catkin who simply wouldn't allow me to put it on her.

I'd taken care of the rest of her four-legged siblings hours before. And I was determined that I was going to dose Gwenith, too, before I went to my well-earned sleep.

But she wouldn't let me! It wasn't just that she sensed it was monthly flea dosing day, she'll never come to me, not unless I'm immobilized at my computer or snug in my bed!

Llewellyn the dog is my shadow. Rhadwen is always keen for a petting or skritches. Huw butts up against my legs until I nearly trip over him. None of them gave me any trouble with their flea and tick medicine. Why won't Gwenith do the same?

O Gwenith, Gwenith, doan u luvs ur momma? Ur moma lurvs u! Shje duzzen wun u eated up bye teh fleez an teh tix!

But no, she has to lead me a frantic chase. Under the rocking chair. Under the bed. Nearly into the box spring. Into this corner of the room. Into the other. Under the rocking chair again. And me on my knees pleading with her to come out, wondering, What Did I Do Wrong to end up with such a shy kitteh?

I finally catch her, and get the medicine applied between her squirmy shoulder blades. Which operation probably convinced her she was right to avoid me.

But what could I do?

O Gwenith, u givezes mee teh unhappee!! Ai haz a sad!!1!

Scenes from a Convalescence

FBI Update

Llewellyn and I are home from the regular vet's, and yes, the Foreign Body he Ingested on Friday was a trimming from the wool fabric I'm making a suit out of. Pieces of it were in the stool sample he produced this morning, that I brought in for analysis.

He's been eating his bland diet mini-meals hungrily and keeping them down, and was free from pain when the vet palpated his abdomen.

He's definitely acting like his old self-- including barking lustily at the other dogs in the vet's waiting room! Llewellyn, hush!

So is there a moral here?

Maybe that I should have been more diligent and finished this sewing a couple weeks ago. Or that I should be a better housekeeper and vacuum my rugs more often. Or that I should be more preemptive, and have fed him peroxide in water (the vet recommends milk, to get him to drink it voluntarily) to make him throw up the mystery object right after he gulped it down.

But I guess the true moral is, be ready for anything. Dogs is dogs, and if they take a mind to make a meal out of something, they will.

Scary, Not Cute

After midnight last night I had to take my dog Llewellyn to the emergency vet's.

Yesterday evening, as I was about to drive into town to go to the symphony, I took him out to the alley to do his business. His business, if you'll pardon the specificity, was yellow, runny, and strained.

Less than five minutes later, he threw up his breakfast (which he'd eaten nearly eleven hours before) in the front room. All of it. Recognizable. Undigested.

I debated with myself. Should I stay, or go? But I was dressed up, I had my ticket, and dogs throw up all the time. He'd probably eaten something that'd disagreed with him. Now it was out of his system and he'd be fine.

I filled his supper bowl, threw a bath towel over the mess, and left.

It was a good concert. Great music, well-played. Though I was distracted at times, wondering how my doggie was doing.

I didn't hang around after, but drove straight home, hoping I'd find Llewellyn to be his old cheerful self and his food bowl empty.

Neither were the case. He was mopey and lethargic. He lay down in the front room and wouldn't even look at the nice homemade chicken broth I now put down for him. He wasn't interested in the bit of nice, fragrant gooshy kitten food I tried to tempt him with. He just lay there with his dry nose, breathing heavily.

Oh, BabyDog, what's wrong?

When I called him and he acted like he couldn't get up and come to me even if he wanted to, that was it. It was time to call the 24-hour vet.

Frustrating, but there still are no 24-hour veterinarians in my county. Nearest one was nearly an hour away--I'd been there before with my late dog Maddie. The receptionist there said it sounded as if I'd better bring him, and I agreed.

Llewellyn seemed much better by the time we got to the clinic. Smiling, sociable, with tail wagging and no longer between his legs. Vet said the adrenalin rush of a car ride and a visit to a new place can do that.

She took my history of the case, along with something else I'd remembered. Friday, up in my study, Llewellyn snatched something off the floor and began to gobble it up. By the time I'd rotated my chair around, he had his mouth closed around it and wouldn't drop it and wouldn't let me pry his teeth open so I could make him let it go.

The strange thing is that he didn't just swallow whatever it was down and stare at me grinning at what he'd just gotten away with. No, he'd had to gulp, gulp, gulp to get it down his gullet.

I told the vet last night at it might have been a live stinkbug. Or a stray jellybean egg or foil-wrapped chocolate egg from when one of the kittens knocked the Easter basket over a few days ago. I couldn't think of anything else.

But after the x-rays came back, I saw that there well may have been something else. The lateral film shows something that just possibly could be a piece of fabric, about five inches long, in his small intestine.

Yes, I have been sewing up in my study. Yes, I have been trimming seam allowances. But why on earth would my dog gobble up a scrap? He's never been one to devour nonedibles-- unless they have something edible on them. But there it was on the x-ray.

Or maybe not. Vet said, "The line is very faint. It might also just be the way his intestines are lying. We'll need to take another x-ray tomorrow or the next day to make sure."

They gave him some antibiotics and anti-gas medication to reduce the slight bloat in his poor empty tummy. They injected a quantity of water, like a camel's hump, under his skin to alleviate his dehydration. Then they sent him home with me with a long list of instructions and warnings and caveats for the next few days. And it's a good thing they were listed, since by then (3:00 AM) my brain was refusing to take anything in.

So today I'm observing his condition. Fasting first, the remainder of last night and through this morning. Then a little bit of water and bland food-- actually just some tinned water-pack chicken breast around the pills he has to take. He's held that down so far, thank God, so now I have permission to feed him a teeny, tiny serving of chicken and white rice. And if he doesn't throw that up, another teeny, tiny serving of the same four hours later. And so on, for the next three or four days.

And watch his stool to see if anything comes through, and schedule the followup x-ray with my vet if he continues to eat and do well into tomorrow. Or bundle him into the car and get him down to the emergency vet's again if things go wrong.

If it is a piece of cloth, it could bind his intestines. They could even rupture and spill sepsis into his gut. Before that could happen, he'd have to have surgery.

Thus far, he seems more interested and lively . . . wants to eat, even though I mustn't let him till the scheduled time. Bossing the cats around and barking and jumping when someone came to the door. So I'll go cook him his bit of supper, and hope-- hope--all goes well.

Apparating Kitties

This morning my friend Hannah* dropped off her four-going-on-five-year-old daughter Leticia* to stay with me while she went to a Bible study.

Hannah and her family originally found Gwenith and Huw in their barn as four or five week old feral kittens, and you'd expect the little furballs to be eager to see them, one and all.

Not so. Whenever the doorbell rings, the kittens don't discrimate. They run and hide.

But I knew Letty would want to see how big Gwen and Huw have grown. Oh, thought I, I'll shut them in the Kitten Room when I'm giving them their breakfast! Then they can't run down and hide in the basement.

I carried out my plan. The kittens were fed and watered, retrieved when they tried to escape, and the door was shut.

A few minutes later, Letitia and her mother arrived, bearing a gift of fastfood breakfast. Mom departed; the young lady and I sat down and ate.

"Can I see how big the kittens are?" inquired Letty over her food.

"Yes, after we finish eating. I've shut them in the guest bedroom. They can't go anywhere."

But when we went upstairs and slipped into the room, the kittens were nowhere to be found!

Not under the chair, not in the closet, certainly not out in the open waiting for us, not even under the bed!

But under there I keep a storage box with wrapping paper and ribbons in it. Maybe Gwenith and Huw were behind it. Pulled it out. I looked again--even now, no kittens!

I knew I'd got them both inside and closed the door! Where could they be?

"Can you see them?" asked Letty.

"No, I can't," I replied. "Maybe they're Magic Kitties and they can make themselves disappear!" And there's something about cats and about these cats in particular that made that statement at least ten per cent serious. "Maybe they can get out of the room without even opening the door!"

"Oh! Oh!"

But let's not be silly. They had to be here. I kept peering into the gloom under the bed . . . wait a minute. Isn't there a strange sagging lump in the scrim fabric on the bottom of the box spring? I stuck my arm in and pushed it upwards.

"Letty! I think I've found the kittens!"

"Where are they? Where are they?"

"They're in the box spring! . . . But wait a minute, how can they be in there? . . . O my gosh!" And looking down towards the foot of the bed, I saw that the scrim was loose and open almost all the way across. Those resourceful little rascals had clawed it free and made themselves a snug little hidey-hole amongst the box springs!

I nearly coaxed Huw out. Later, when Hannah returned, he'd come out on his own and suffered himself to be carried downstairs to show what a Big Boy he's grown. Then was off like a shot, probably down the basement this time.

Gwenith we never saw at all. Was she really in the box spring with her brother? I only saw one lump in the scrim! Or was she elsewhere, and did she--apparate?