Reader Jennifer has a cat-related question. I don’t have any advice for her, but I thought y’all might have some suggestions.
I’m a long time reader of your blog and I am hoping that you could post this so that I could get some advice from yourself and some of your cat loving readers. I have a 14 year old male fixed cat named Tigger. He’s been healthy all of his life until about the last year or so when he started having bowel movements outside the litter box. At first it was only once in awhile and I thought it was because he was constipated, they were very hard and dry. I started giving him canned and dry food and that seemed to solve the problem. I also had taken him to the vet who gave him a physical, there was nothing wrong with him. Also I tried the Feliway infuser, I don’t think it made any difference. Then it started up again last fall, again it was only once in awhile so I wasn’t too upset about it. Then shortly after Xmas it started to be everyday and then I saw him urinating outside of the litter box. I took him to a different vet who did bloodwork and a physical and again nothing wrong with him. She gave me some suggestions about litter box retraining, I will make a long story short and say that I have done everything she suggested and it has not seemed to work. I don’t want to go back to her because she is pushing me to buy their brand of expensive vet food which I cannot afford. At this point we have him confined to a small area with a baby gate across the doorway, it is our main floor bathroom and laundry area. His food is in the bathroom and litter box in the hallway. He will use the litter boxes when he is confined but not when he is free to roam the house. I don’t want him to live like this, it is hardly fair to him to be confined to such a small area but I can’t let him out to eliminate outside of his litter box. We have a 9 month old baby girl who just started crawling and I can’t take the chance that she is going to get into cat waste. I suppose having the baby is what is causing his stress and that is why he is eliminating outside of the box. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to put him down because of this. I’m hoping someone will have some suggestions for me. We are short on $$, I’m on maternity leave and my husband was off work for a few months. I can’t afford a lot of expensive vet bills. Any suggestions would be really appreciated. I’m afraid if we can’t solve his problem we are just going to have to leave him confined to the area he is in or put him down and no one wants that.
When I read Elayne‘s comment from yesterday, I snickered and then I giggled and then I snorted.
I had a dream last night about you. You were doing a sort of video-entry (what’s the name for those?) where you had mounted a camera to your shoulder so it was as if we were peering over your shoulder as you went about your daily tasks. You were cleaning in the kitchen and then you said how much you love having a septic system because it makes laundry so easy – you just drop the towels right down the sink (and here you.. just dropped the towels right down the sink) and the septic tank gets them nice and clean. Then you went into the bathroom to clean in there, and you said that for sinks with small drains, such as in the bathrooms, it was easier to flush whatever dirty clothes you had down the toilet, and you demonstrated this with a pair of socks and a pair of jeans.
You said that the septic tank had a sort of grid over the top of it, and the clothes got caught up on the grid, and the water and chemicals would wash over them from subsequent flushes/sink-drainings/etc. Then all you had to do was go out once a day, hoist the grid up, and let the clothes dry in the sunshine, and it was just the best thing ever. You said the only problem was when it was rainy and you had to haul the wet clothes into the house to dry, and I was yelling at my computer screen, “That’s the ONLY problem? The piss and shit and stuff that rushes over your clothes every time you flush a toilet, THAT doesn’t bother you in any way?!? Have you LOST YOUR MIND?” But it was the internet, you couldn’t hear me.
The worst part is, in the comments, people were saying what a fabulous idea that was and how they couldn’t believe they’d never thought of it, and several people said they were going to re-do their standard “city water” hookup and switch over to a septic tank system so they could do the same thing. Others said they’d also been doing it for years, and I resolved never to leave the house again lest I accidentally brush up against someone who washed their clothes this way.
You owe me several hours of sleep! (c:
Rereading my last sentence in the second paragraph, I’m LOLing:
On the internet, no one can hear you scream.
*snerk*
I don’t know why it made me laugh so much, except that it almost seems plausible that I could come up with something boneheaded like that, and then rave about how much easier it made my life while completely ignoring the down sides of my brilliant new idea.
Scenes from around Crooked Acres:
Cucumber plants are blooming! Now that we’ve had some dry weather, the garden’s starting to take off. We had our first oven-fried summer squash last night.
Nest-building in the garden shed. Ugh.
Evidence of mice in the garden shed. Nice of them to leave the pecan shells behind, isn’t it? (I wish I could shell a pecan half as well!)
Brandywine. These tomatoes can’t grow fast enough to suit me!
Cherry tomatoes. Can’t wait to have these on a salad!
This Robin was hanging out on the tomato cages; I caught her in mid-flight.
Corn!
I tell Fred that this little chicken (one of the batch we got from the hatchery – we don’t know what kind it is) reminds me of a road runner, it’s so tall and lean.
Check out the stinkeye I’m getting from the chick, second from the left. “We are trying to ROOST here, please leave us ALONE.”
Yes, wee baby chicken, please roost with your butt hanging over the food. I think your brothers and sisters don’t get enough chicken poop in their daily diet.
I don’t remember intentionally hatching a part-Polish egg, but it appears we must have. Check out the mohawk!
Someone’s ALWAYS crowing.
“Heya, Georgie, howyadoin? Mind if I hang out up here for a bit?”
“There appears to be a distinct lack of food up here.”
“Seeya!”
Dry weather and sunshine = dust bath!
Watching Fred on the tractor.
The many faces of George.
Phyllis: Always smiling.
Creed: Always looking for a cuddle.
Dwight: Always playing like a little wild thing.
Disapproving of you.
Previously
2008: I suggest that you expect entries to be incredibly light on content for the foreseeable future.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar.
2003: I’m about to enter the PMS Zone
2002: What I’ve done since Thursday
2001: No entry.
2000: God help me, I’m going to go upstairs and strangle Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling.