The State Of The Mews

TBT:   Latest update on The Mews...

1.  Feeding is getting more tricky.  The only one who doesn't like Marley's kidney care diet food is Marley!  I have to add half regular food or push kibbles into it in order to get him to eat it.  I almost don't blame him.  The stuff is mostly pig liver, and I wouldn't eat that either.  

But the other 3 love the stuff!  I have to stand over them for all of every meal to keep them away from it.  And sometimes I have to follow Marley around, encouraging him to eat it.  When he starts, he'll finish it (the tummy takes over).  But getting him to start eating is a challenge these days.

I had to buy a few different-color bowls for Marley.  It's the only way I can keep track of which bowl has his special food in it.  They all push their bowls around a bit

Meanwhile, Taz doesn't seem to like Fancy Feast much anymore.  I'll have to try some other brands to see if there are some he likes better.  When I brought Taz to the vet recently because of his peeing issues, they noted he had lost a few ounces.

Lori wants more eating privacy lately.  OK, sometimes she will eat with the others, but more often has preferred to eat in a corner out of sight from them.  And more often lately, she wants to eat in the bedroom with the light on and the door closed.  I'm not sure why.  They don't go after her bowl (much) and I am standing right there to direct them back to their own bowls.  

Binq eats anything happily.  She arrived here a pound less than Taz, but weighs a pound more than him now.  Binq's eating habit matches almost all of my previous cats.  So all this strange fussiness seems odd to me.

Yay, I actually found a picture.  Not the one I wanted, showing Lori eating alone, but you see how she prefers some distance.  Best I can get at today.

2.  Taz and Lori have been less "fussy" with each other.  Not perfect, but much less.  That is good.  So I'm holding off on the "chill pills" the vet gave me for right now.  

3.  Speaking of Taz, he had been good about not peeing on the bed for almost 2 weeks.  "Had been".  Yesterday, there was a large wet spot.  Thank goodness for the waterproof flat sheet.  I have a couple of old towels dedicated for blotting up the pee.  Then I spray a "urine destroyer", wait 15 minutes, then blot that up (per instructions).  

They go into the spare toilet (just like old cloth diapers) to soak.  At least urine is very water-soluable.  After a while, they go into a bucket for separate laundering and drying.  Thank goodness for washers and dryers.  At least I don't have to rinse them in a creek and then beat them on rocks, LOL!

I may be blaming Taz alone unfairly.  One day a month or 2 ago, I found 2 wet spots.  One looked like Taz's marking habit, but the other was small and looked "squatty".  So Binq might be doing it sometimes.  Marley has never done that, and Lori was outside at the time.

4.  Lori and Taz are getting too difficult to sleep with at night.  Taz demands to sleep on top of me, which gets uncomfortable.  Lori has always been careless of her claws against me, but is getting worse.  And even worse, if I try to move her away slightly, she wants to bite my hand.  Or she wants to sleep with her nose in my face and I am basically breathing in "used air" which wakes me up.

Marley is fine.  He likes to sleep in a corner of the bed.  And Binq likes to sleep in the old platform tree in The Mews Room.  But if the door is closed to Taz and Lori (so I can get a safe night's sleep) it is closed to Marley and Binq too.  *Sigh*

One day at a time...

Answers To Comments

TBT:  Some very interesting comments recently...

The black whisker was a surprise to me.  Well, I should have expected it on black/dark cats.  But I haven't had a black cat for 50 years and I wasn't noticing loose whiskers back then.  They just got vacuumed up.  When I started collecting whiskers, all The Mews had white ones.  You really only "see" what you look for.  I wonder how many of Binq's black whiskers I just never noticed.

I mentioned Ayla was trained by her breeder to pee in the toilet, but lost the habit due to the presence of regular litter boxes for Skeeter and LC.  I don't recall Lori's breeder mentioning that and she has been here 3 years anyway, so would have lost the habit.  I wonder if she has been doing that sometimes all along and I just never noticed before.  Well, it's not like I stand around in the bathroom all that much.

About Marley and Taz size...  Marley once weighed 16+ pounds.  A couple of years ago (when he first showed signs of kidney problems), the Vet said he wanted Marley to lose 2 pounds.  He weighed about 14 late last Spring, and may weigh 13 now.  Yeah, the kidney problems are slowly getting to him even with a special diet and sub-Q injections.  But he is over 14 years now, so such things are (sadly) to be expected.

And Taz has actually lost weight.  9.2 to start and 8.5 now.  I think that is due to his increased activity outside since he arrived.  He runs around outside a lot.  More about food below...

I love seeing The Mews eating together.  Well, Marley, Taz, and Binq always do.  But sometimes Lori goes weeks wanting to eat alone.  It doesn't have to be far away.  Just out of sight of the others.  And she likes corners to eat in (harder for any other Mews to get their nose in her bowl.  Sometimes, she won't eat unless in the bedroom with the door closed.

But the meals are what I wanted to mention.  The Mews get 6 meals a day.  I read once that a feral cat needs 6 mice a day.  So I feed them a little more than  a "mouse" of canned food each meal.  Basically, they each get about 1.5 ozs  (half a Fancy Food can each, each time).  Marley gets more just because he is larger.

As I mentioned, Marley is very slowly losing weight.  Taz seems to be holding at 8.5, Binq is gaining weight (about 1 lb since she arrived).  Lori seems to have settled at 7+.

I understand about Marley losing weight gradually.  He's getter older and there are the kidney issues.  I give him all the food he will eat.  And I do the same with Taz.  He is always meowing at me in the kitchen while standing next to the food mat, so I interpret it as wanting more food.  I always give him some extra whenever the other Mews are outside.  I like plump kitties!

One weird thing about Marley's kidney care diet (Royal Canin and Hill's prescription food.  Marley doesn't really like any of the flavors.  But the other Mews love them!  Which amazes me.  I had to search about that.  The Royal Canin kidney care diet has 3 flavors, all based on pork liver.  Years ago, I read a dystopian sci-fi book where the main character said "when we were poor, we ate pig liver".  I've never eaten it, but I presume that means it isn't that great.  LOL!

But Lori, Taz, and Binq will eat it with gusto.  Maybe it is just "different".  But they get 10 flavors of regular canned food, so how different does food have to get?  

But what is a post without some pictures?

Binq's favorite toy...

Visitor - There is a smokey-color cat I see on the deck sometimes.  I note it has a collar (badly-trimmed).  I don't know if it has a home recently.  A housecat out in the dark suggests otherwise so it may be abandonded or lost..  I've tried to carefully slip a food bowl out, but it runs away.

I will try to live-trap it and bring it to some place that can check for a microchip.  If not, get a good picture of it and post it around the neighborhood and a local website.  I won't adopt it; 4 mews are almost one too many for me.  But if I could return to an owner missing it, that would be a good thing.

I had an unwanted visitor cat who stayed around for a week once before Ayla was successfully spayed.  I got a good picture.  Printed several copies and put them in ziplock bags and went to post them on street signs.  I only got to the 2nd street sign before a teen girl bicycled up and said that was hers.  He was an intact male but kept inside.  And escaped.  

She was so happy to see him again.

And then he escaped again and I got him again (he was friendly).  But that time I walked to her to her home and told the parents they needed to have him neutered or he was going to the Shelter the next time.  I volunteered to pay for it.  I don't know what they decided to do, but I never saw in my yard again.  I hope it was merely neutered.  But you do what you can...

So I hope to find the newest intruder cat has a home and that I can find it.