Well, Domino passed away early this spring. He had a good life and is missed
Now I have to deal with my daughters cat Sailor. When I see eyes like this, I head fo da HILLS!!!

Our calico is the last of the 3 cats we got in 1999-2000. So she just turned 20 this month. The others lasted about 14 and 18 years each, both males. Cali still looks great, full hair all over, moves good and has a decent appetite, but she's getting lighter and lighter. And the past month she's taken to wanting to get in the shower all the time! Not sure what's going on with that. She went thru the same phase about 10 years ago, where she wanted to get in the shower and drink the water off the floor, didn't mind getting pretty wet, but once getting soaked would leave. But right now she's craving the shower like a crack addict. Weird.

Interesting. Found out my cat has a thyroid problem and was losing weight. Has a good appetite, shinny pelt. Ah, thrust, losing weight... brb...

... "Can thyroid problems cause dry mouth?
Among the many effects of thyroid disease is a diminished production and release of saliva from the salivary glands, which results in a dry mouth. ... Untreated or partially treated hyperthyroidism can cause dry mouth as well, though the reason is not clear.Nov 13, 2018"

I'm reading thishit on the pills the cat was taking. Causes dizziness, this that. Watched her get up and was not sturdy on her feet. I cut the pills out, had another conference with the vet. Now I'm using a cream you use in her ear. Crushing up half a pill and mixing it in her food twice a day, she started to walk away from the food.

Get a call from the ear cream distributor. I wanted to look up what they were using, so I asked the guy. What's funny was the [unwritten] hipaa laws for animals. Seems the cat is licensed in the old lady's name and well, I had to wait for the meds to come and read it then.

I'm not a doctor, I only play one on TV.

Thyroid problems absolutely cause a real thirst for water. The kidneys get overactive. Monitor how much your cat is urinating. If it seems excessive, go see the Vet.
Our old cat, "Fat Cat" had this problem when his health started to decline. He started standing in the shower and drinking from the faucet for vast amounts of time.

Mad

Cali has been on thyroid med for many years. Maybe the dosage is off. Prob vet time.

BTW we keep fresh water bowls all over the house ... my lady is religious about changing them every day. It's crazy how military she is about it, and everything with our cats for that matter. Something about the shower water is apparently more appealing, tho.

* Last updated by: extrapolator on 4/29/2020 @ 2:16 PM *

This scares me every time!

Speak of the

Showed up for a 4 o'clock feeding.

Hate ta say it...butt...

He started standing in the shower and drinking from the faucet for vast amounts of time.

Sounds like a hangover to me.

LOL

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ImpureDaringBillygoat-mobile.mp4

WOW that is timely! I just asked Pam, "How did she eat overnight?" Her: "She ate half a bowl of blah blah blah ... She'll eat a little if I bring it to her, but when she walks by she sniffs each bowl but won't eat."

So what we have is a 20 year calico brat who has something going on, not too good. Vet visit last week, vet says she has a UTI ... Pam says she has shown no signs of that, but put her on the antibiotics anyway, cuz the vet knows best, right ... well now we have an unhappy 20 year old lethargic cat who will barely eat

Translation: If it ain't broke enough, don't fix it

20 years...that's pretty unique.She must have an awesome home!Good job Extrap;)

It's all Pam well, I'm a pretty good petter HAHA, but that's about it.

The tricks seem to be: Don't let 'em go out! ... it's a rough world out there, for cats who like to get into things and fight ... and vet visits anytime something seems wrong ... and stick to the meds prescribed.

(well, until this last vet visit )

I think I mentioned before, I built an outdoor run for our cats, so they actually could always go "out" whenever they wanted 24-7, just not out-out ... so they could still climb trees and chase any unfortunate wildlife that walked, crawled, slithered or flew into their run Never gonna get hit by a car, fight another cat or get killed by a dog, coyote etc in there

Got pictures of that run? I cant imagine something a cat can not get out of ??

It's an awesome enclosed playyard for em.Totally open,yet safe.

Chrly - Here are a couple pics of the run:

* Last updated by: extrapolator on 5/15/2020 @ 11:15 PM *

My, that's a big scratch pole. You sacrificed a backdoor for a 24/7 kitty door?

Light up the bbq. Cat knows she's going to get something, but starts in as soon as I close the lid to warm it up. Routine begging. So I stay outside just in case. Sure enough, my cat sees bigboy, and bigboy is not charging at the cat... which is what I wanted to happen. Before that I bring out one rejected paw slap, and a new one outside. Could be bigboy saw the bowls and was more interested in those than a battle. I wrap up the paw slaps and save them for bigboy, so he knows the bowls.

Sheez, what a neck on that cat. He'll let me scratch his back end, under his chin, down his sides. He's beginning to stop for the chin rubs for a second and keeps moving. But once he's eating, he continues to eat and likes the touching. So this time I really felt his neck while he stood still. The jock of the neighborhood.

lol.Cats are awesome.So much going on with em.Bebe jumps up on the bed everytime I lay back to watch youtube and then plops down right by my side,Then she turns around after a few minutes and curls up in my elbow pocket.Same in the morning when I wake up.Jumps right up there to see if I'm alive(?).And this cat was scared to death to even come out from under the bed for weeks.Amazing really.My other one stops and waits for me to pick her up.Then she gets restless being held and jumps down,nicely not scratching me.Then she looks back over her shoulder at me and rubs up against my legs.This one never wanted to be touched.Let alone picked up.Guess it's something new to em...not being treated harshly.IDK.They seem to get closer all the time in small ways.So glad I got to bring em home from their prison.

"My, that's a big scratch pole."...lol.It's a tree Hub!Self rejuvenating.Beats sistal rope!

I cut a hole in the house! ... installed a pet door ... so no effect on the human door

Cat goes out thru flap 1, then flap 2, then (s)he's in the tunnel, take 2 steps forward, choose right or straight ... straight is to the run in my pics ... right is to a large plywood box enclosure I made that housed 3 litter boxes, about 18" off the ground, with the floor made of hardware cloth so the litter falls thru to the ground and they leave with clean feet.

Tunnel has hardware cloth floor also, so they come back inside with relatively clean feet, then once inside they land on a mat for more foot cleaning.

The cage is one thing, but when you punch a hole in the house, that's a sign of animal lovers. Whereas, I can't build a wall higher to keep the critters out, or this one leaving the yard. But...

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/b6/51/ca/b651caa87c4b8326dde2f7d2755e1b7c.jpg

Well, the whispering told me to let these two keep meeting like this. The moment I dragged that door open, I'm saying to myself; if bigboy shows up and the timing of letting the cat out, sure enough. My cat is not sitting up at the door, but scrunched down, and I figured bigboy is afoot. I let the cat in, bigboy comes out from under the couch. Who knows how long he was sitting there.

I'm no longer worried. Bigboy drags his body along the couch, looks in the window and sees my cat sitting there inside looking back. He now likes the massage I give under his chin and stops.

Seems like we have a small group of ZX14 badass animal lovers in here - I'm guilty

Here's how life evolved to cutting a hole in my house: Our cats were indoors from day 1 thru a couple years, and they always always always wanted out, and I always always always felt bad ... but no way, way too close to 40 mph traffic ... so instead we'd take them out 1 at a time and keep them well within reach / safety in the back yard. They'd really have to BOLT to get away and be in danger, and while they loved to roam, it was relatively slow roaming, never any desire to Usain Bolt, so we could walk with them as they roamed, again 1 cat at a time, and when they'd get too close to the road for safety, pick 'em up and head back to the back yard, or back inside. Then take the next one out for his/her turn. The other 2 always watched longingly thru the window, which at the time made me chuckle but also feel bad for them getting left out, even if they just had their turn. As I type this, looking back we're prob crazy. At least I imagine many observers would think so. Neither of us care, tho. It's about our pets, not some observers. So while walking with them roaming we quickly found they all loved chomping on grass! Weird! Are they part goat?! I dunno, but it didn't seem to hurt them, and they seemed to absolutely crave it. So even when we didn't have time to do the full roam/walk with all 3 cats 1 at a time, we'd at least grab hunks of grass and bring it inside, throw it on the kitchen floor and let them chomp it til they're hearts' desired. Once done we'd chunk the scraps back out back. Then I realized no-climb horse fence is relatively cheap ... 4"x2" holes, no cats get thru ... so I made a small box out of it and set it in the backyard, I seem to remember something like 8 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet high ... and they were spring-loaded 2-3 year old young cats then so could pretty easily hop-climb out when they took a notion, so I added some fence on top too. Anyway, I cut a door into it so we could grab a cat, 2 or 3, plop em in the outdoor cube and close the door ... and leave em, for a good long while, almost indefinitely! They could chomp all the grass they wanted ... as long as we had time to plop them out there anyway ... it was new so we didn't actually just want to leave 'em. We worried we'd forget we put them out there, so we set water bowls out. Now we're safe. Might get hungry, but wouldn't dehydrate. And they seemed to absolutely love it! Fantastic for all! Well, it took me prob less than a week to realize I could cut a hole in the house, install a pet flap-door, and make a tunnel connecting the house to the cube. So I ordered a high quality double flap online, ~$350 ~17 years ago, IIRC, ouch! But who cares. So I installed that, and the tunnel, and wah-lah they were free to go chomp all the grass they could possibly want any day any time their hearts desired 24-7! And then ... I realized, as always, "if some is good, more is better", and I could fairly easily replace the cube with the long run you saw in the pics, ALSO encompassing TWO nice trees within it(!), for climbing if so desired. So I did! And they did! They would all 3 go out in that run at least a couple times a day, standard routine ... eat, sleep, roam, climb, sleep, eat, you know, all that cat stuff. The 2 males we think were brothers and always got along 2 peas in a pod, but they and the girl only got along with SPACE. Too close and hissing, growling and even swatting commenced. Never any bloodshed, but I always thought it was too bad they didn't all get along. Oh well, sometimes cats just think other cats stink! Anyway, the big ol cat run was big enough they could all easily be anywhere in it and plenty of social distancing, very very minimal hissing incidents. Then I also pretty quickly realized I could add a little detour to the right on the tunnel, and short segment that led into a 3'x6'x2H plywood box with lid/roof and weld-wire floor that we put their little boxes in. No more indoor litter boxes! And when they hopped out of the litter box onto the weld wire, it auto-cleaned their feet ... so the house was cleaner too!

Long story ... book it seems ... all to say, my only regret is that I didn't think way sooner, right off the bar, how easy and fairly inexpensive the cat run would be, and they could've chomped grass and enjoyed the outdoors from day 1.

What about the leaves, the grass growing? You have a door [I assume] for the lawnmower or use a weed whacker? What about rain and the exposed litter boxes? And you are there with the poop scooper monitoring that? You'd have to shoot the tunnel. I can picture a door low enough, but the tunnel?

See B&W Boo Boo on level 2? To his left is a door I could walk thru. However, you can notice that there's minimal grass vegetation ... but enough for them to munch on: The whole backyard is mostly shade so a formal lawn wouldn't grow, PLUS, we had 3 goats! So the entire area outside the cat run was maintained by the goats. I don't think I ever once mowed or weed-ate inside the cat run, and only a few times outside it. It was pretty much an equilibrium backyard. Oh, and re leaves, they'd fall, for sure, but I never raked either ... and in hindshight I'm not sure how that was never needed, HMMM. As for the litter boxes, the 3x6 plywood box I made I put a metal roof on it, so it looked like a mini shed, only about 4' tall, and the roof was on hinges so every day at litter box cleaning time, just lift the lid and scoop. And remember its floor is weldwire, and the tunnel and its detour to the litter box box, all weldwire flooring, which lets the litter drop from their feet onto the ground below. Oh, and the tunnel and detour were about a foot off the ground; dunno if I mentioned that. I'll see if I have a pic of the tunnel, detour and litter box box.

So percentage wise, where are the cats vs staying in the house? They all come in or one stays out more?