Happy happy birthday, Brian!!!!
(Around the age of 3. And for the record, his gut wasn’t REALLY that big. I believe we were telling him to push it out so he’d have a pot belly, and then we laughed and laaaaaughed.)
North Alabamans, you guys seen any hummingbirds yet? I haven’t seen a single one, and this time of year we’re usually flooded with them. This has been such an odd summer. Our eggplants are just now starting to produce, and I know that we’re usually flooded with those by now, too. The jalapenos aren’t getting very big. What the hell is going on?
Simon (god bless his little pointy head) is an 18-pound ginger siamese with a “delicate stomach”. He gets panicky if he catches a glimmer of the bottom of his food bowl so I always keep it topped off but it seems to me that most of his barfing is caused by gobbling his food (I think that because his vomit comes up undigested). I’m currently feeding him Purina One Sensitive Systems dry food and the occassional dry treat. I’m at my wits’ end; Simon pukes wherever he happens to be and all over whatever he happens to be sitting on. He also – lucky me – projectile vomits splattering everything. This happens four or five times a week. At 18 pounds, he’s not in danger of starving to death and this has been going on for years so I really don’t think he’s ill. Any suggestions?
From Dee:
I have a barfer too. He scarfs and then barfs. So pleasant.
One suggestion I have is to slow down the gobbling. My vet gave me 2 suggestions to create obstacles to the dry food: (1) spread out the dry food in a rectangular shallow baking dish to make it so the cat has to move around to get at the food (I tried this, but it wasn’t as effective as the second suggestion); and (2) put golf (or similar-sized) balls in the dry food dish. Depending on the size of dish, I have 3-5 golf balls in there. This latter works fairly well in my situation.
Also, I used to leave out food, but I’ve moved to giving him more frequent and smaller amounts of food throughout the day which seems to help. I invested in an autopetfeeder (like this one: http://www.robotshop.ca/8-day-autopetfeeder-5.html) that allows him to eat throughout the day in small amounts. Wet food also seems easier on his system than dry food, so if I’m home he gets that instead of dry (the wet food also is higher in protein so helps keep him slim).
Additionally, this guy’s a groomer, which means hairballs. I give him malt hairball gel regularly, and brush him a lot (I got a furminator and it’s marvellous at keeping the hair down).
All these things help me, although does not eliminate it…I still have barf a couple times a week, but it’s *so* much better – YMMV. Good luck!
The only additional suggestion I have is to put his water dish as far away from his food dish as possible, even in another room completely. I’ve read that often, a cat will eat and then drink water, which causes the food to swell and then makes them sick.
Can you believe its been a year since Jake and Elwood appeared??
It’s amazing, isn’t it? I can still remember the way my stomach sank when we walked toward the side stoop and saw them there. I sure am glad we kept them, though – they provide us with entertainment every single day.
When you read The Dome, did you picture any certain actors as the characters in the book? I pictured “Barbie” as Gary Sinise…I must have been influenced by The Stand. 😉 There were so many characters, I had a hard time keeping them all straight! I wonder if there’s a plan to make it into a mini-series.
Oh, I can absolutely see Gary Sinise as Barbie! I didn’t cast anyone as any characters while I was reading the book, but now I’ll probably have a hard time seeing Barbie as anyone other than Gary Sinise!
It appears that Stephen King and Steven Spielberg are teaming up to produce an Under the Dome mini-series for HBO. Whether it actually comes out remains to be seen, but I sure hope so! We watch The Stand about once a year, and it holds up pretty well.
Ok. Here is the trick to not leaving your water on too long. You MUST put a kitchen timer (or any timer) in your pocket to remind you. Until I finally wised up to that, there is no telling how much water I wasted.
LOVE this idea! I usually set the reminder on the microwave, but on Saturday I didn’t because who on EARTH would forget that they had water running, right? Ugh. But with a timer in my pocket, I’ll have it with me so even if I’m not near the microwave, I’ll hear it go off!
Robyn, now that you have your net book, you can actually add it to your Kindle list I think. And then you can also dowload any or all of your Kindle purchases to it, so if you DO want to read in bed you can! Without carrying along the extra device.
I did not know that – thanks for the tip!
My mother used to say that the only thing worse than a husband who didn’t care how dirty the house got was one who DID care. Imagine having a fussy husband. 🙁
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you are absolutely right. That would drive me NUTS.
Robyn, you need to go to www.wimp.com and search for the recent video called, Do big cats like catnip? Tigers and jaguars and the like, all enjoying their drugs. There’s also a very funny video of two cats trying to figure out a treadmill. It’ll make you want to put yours near the exercise equipment just to see what happens.
Do Tigers Like Catnip? (Anyone who’s ever watched the big cats at the zoo know the answer to this one – they’re just big overgrown housecats… who can kill you, that is!)
Cats try to understand treadmill. I love the way the cats smack at the treadmill like it’ll make it STOP THAT SHIT.
Remember back in July when someone asked for help grabbing feral kittens? Here’s an update:
Here’s a quick update on the feral Mom and babies I was lamenting about last week and got so many good ideas from you and your readers. There is just no way any of the shelters etc can take even one more kitten so here is what the Humane Society and I decided. I took Momma Marley there this morning and they are going to spay, needle, chip, worm and de-flea her for $100. The free Trap, Neuter, Return programs have such long waiting lists there was no point in doing that. So Marley is having that done probably as I type this and I will pick her up in the morning and bring her back here to the farm and her kitties.
I will have to deal with the kittens. probably in the same way, a couple at a time as they reach breeding age in a month or so and just suck up the cost I guess.
It killed me to see all those homeless animals at the shelter. sigh.
btw Robyn.. I named all Marley’s babies “M”‘s too..except for one. We have Maxi, Mittens, Muggins, Mel, Muttley, and Boots (boots is the bossy bratty one who boots his (her?) siblings out of the way if they dare try to get near the food s/he is eating. 🙂
Thank you for all the responses and helpful suggestions from yourself and your readers.
I hope you noticed at the end the other videos to watch, specifically the one called Cats & Dogs love Peanut Butter, there is a cat wearing a DRESS!
I totally did notice that! I cannot for one moment ever imagine any of my cats putting up with that for a single second. Oh, the histrionics there would be. (Which of course makes me want to give it a try….)
More movies y’all linked that are DEFINITELY worth checking out:
Love that cat tree! Where did you find that amazing multi-hideout wonder? I bought one last year on Overstock.com that has one house, two platforms, and two little standalone sleep pads, and they all loved it so much I’m thinking of getting another one.
It’s the only scratching post our Moxie (a 2 1/2 year old tortie) can’t knock over when she leaps off it like a flying monkey.
I get all my cat trees on eBay – just search on “cat furniture” and be prepared for hours o’ browsing!
I am getting a gray bar instead of the subhead under BITCHYPOO in the banner….
It should be fixed now!
Re your hunters, I saw in the paper an article about a “cat bib” that’s made to prevent a large number of wildlife deaths. This blue bib is on the cats neck and if it creeps forward to pounce it seems to trip itself before the deadly strike. I haven’t tried it as Billie Jean is an inside cat.
I’m actually not bothered by the fact that the cats kill mice (though I am not fond of the fact that they bring mouse heads IN MY HOUSE), but I hate that they kill birds. That said, I don’t see myself bibbing up the cats. Maybe I’ll start with putting bells on their collars and seeing if that helps. But, you know, these freakin’ birds. They come into the back yard, which is a very small part of our property, and they start looking for bugs and such, and they’ll STOP and turn around and LOOK at the cat who’s creeping up on them… and then they just keep on lookin’ for bugs! Stupid birds.
Your feed isn’t showing up in my Bloglines — is that an issue on your end or mine? Fred?
I haven’t a clue (and don’t ask Fred – he knows less about feeds than I do). I went to Bloglines and searched for Bitchypoo, and about 7 different feeds showed up, most of them last updated in June. People have had an issue with viewing my site on Bloglines several times in the past, and I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe it’ll resolve itself?
Ok, when you get back, I want a profile pic of Miz Poo. She has no chin, I am convinced! 🙂 Have a great trip!
Prepare to be schooled, my friend! I present to you, Miz Poo in profile:
Now granted, she’s no Jay Leno, but there’s definitely a chin there!
It will amaze you, I’m sure, to hear that in the foster room, anytime there’s a fight, there’s always one little brown and white constant in the equation.
At least Melodie got a few chomps in this time!
Dodger was minding his own business, and Martin came RACING over to bite him. Such a brat!
Morning sunshine = Bookworms fightin’ time!
Corbett, looking particularly smug.
Corbett and Elwood, checking out the BIRD WING one of the cats brought inside. I don’t even want to know where the rest of the bird was.
I can’t quite wrap my mind around it, but the way Spanky and Corbett are positioned it seems pretty clear that Corbett was sound asleep here, and then Spanky came up and snuggled up behind him. What WORLD am I living in???
Previously
2009: There might be something wrong with me.
2008: So Fred said “Well, they can’t ALL be your favorite, and besides we agreed we wouldn’t be keeping any of them.”
2007: HAPPY BARFDAY, BRIAN!!!!
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: While your average man might have grown frightened, apparently it wasn’t the first time that morning Mike’d heard Satan’s voice howling his name.
2003: It’s kind of like a samba.
2002: I saved someone’s life this morning!
2001: Thus the reason we never get telemarketing calls.
2000: No entry.