Caturday Kitten Update

Because many of you are following Miles' tummy troubles and purring up 'good vibrations' for him, thought I would update everyone today. Besides the fact that I am also 'under the weather', with a cold that turned into bronchitis, and am under doctors care with antibiotics and an inhaler for my lungs...it's been kinda a doctory weekend,so far!I am on the upside of my sickness now, I think.

Miles is feeling much brighter today, after having IV fluids for 24 hours. In fact, now he is a restless cage patient, digging up his bedding and tipping over every dish in his cage, and yelling 'Let Me-Out' to anyone in earshot, but he does settle down if you 'ignore' him, hahameow.

Over the past 24 hours, he has had Cerenia for nausea and has had no more vomiting. He now gets to start to eat small amounts of food, starting with Clinicare, a liquid food and a prescription canned food called Recovery. He liked the liquid food but only got about 5cc as he already has the 'squirts'. But he still doesn't want to eat on his own, but readily swallowed down 5cc of Recovery at 1pm, 3pm and 4pm.

This afternoon, I came into work and fed him 3 small feedings of Recovery with a syringe as it didn't look like he'd eaten much of his Smorgasbord that the vet had left him this morning. I think when the vet comes back at 6pm, he will be able to come off the IV fluids maybe? I may leave him at work another day, just so he can really rest.



But for his brudders...well, one by one, they have all come down with the same symptoms in varying degrees of severity. Carlos still wants to eat some, and I haven't seen him vomit, but Bosco and Zeus don't want to eat and vomited the 5cc of a/d canned food I got into them last night with a syringe. So far, Hiro is fine--eating and active, so I left him at home and brought Zeus and Bosco and Carlos in to work with me today.

I was able to give them their Cerenia and get 50cc of sub q fluids into them, and Carlos ate about 5cc of Recovery on his own, and Bosco ate a little bit on his own, too. They are now all bedded down on a fleecy bed with a Snuggle Safe heating pad underneath and when the vet comes in at 6pm, they will be examined and tested as needed, too.

So, we still don't know what made them sick, maybe a virus as they all have symptoms now. All the adult cats are fine, but that often happens even with a viral infection as their immune systems are more mature. And all the boys so recently had their neutering surgeries and that may have also stressed their immune systems to let something take hold. All the tests show no signs of parvo, parasites or bacterial infection. A sigh of relief for that!

We aren't out of the woods yet, but by tomorrow I am hoping that Miles is back to eating on his own, and that his brothers will respond like he did to treatment and bounce back quickly, too.

I am just glad that they didn't all head off to their new homes, and then get sick...that would have been terrible! And I am so fortunate to work for such a caring, giving vet that treats my cats as if they were her own and goes far beyond the extra mile for them...I mean, it's her weekend off, too and here she is playing 'emergency vet' for these kittens. Thank you, Dr E!

...Not So Frisky Kitten Friday...

Lots of CurlieSwirlie followers know Pierro, of Pierro's Happy Place,
and were eagerly waiting for tomorrow to arrive, cuz that was the day his new CurlieSwirlie brudder, Miles, was supposed to move out of his birth home here at Furrydance, and begin his new adventure at Pierro's Happy Place!


Well, Miles got a tummy ache and can't leave home yet! Thursday night, our mewmie came home from her day hunting place (you know, that's the vet!) to find someone had been throwing up. She suspected it might be Miles, as he didn't want to each his stinky goodness for dinner and just went upstairs and curled up on mewmie's bed, while all his brothers romped and played.

Then she saw him vomit, 3 times. She took his temperature and it was normal. She palpated his tummy and he didn't wince or complain, but she knew something was wrong. She looked all over the house for anything he could have gotten into (lately they have been nawing holes in socks and chewing up any felt-like cat toys, so she's been trying to keep those things out of reach).


Our carpet is so good at hiding up-chuck that she had to turn off all the lights and look around with the black light, which she uses to look for oops--spray and she didn't find any wet spots anywhere, but she was worried. We don't have any real plants in the house (they are all fake, cuz of us nomming on real ones) and Teri only uses safe cleaners in the house, too.

Miles didn't feel any better Thursday morning, so she bundled him off to the vets with her and they ran some tests on him. The tests all came back fine, so they gave him something for nausea and some fluids under the skin (he hated that and cried and wiggled away!) and Teri was to give him more anti-nausea meds at bedtime and to see if he would eat some tasty food made for sick kitties.


He wasn't interested in eating still, so she fed him with a baby spoon and got about 2 tablespoons into him (and on him, so his real mewmie, Coco, licked him clean--yum, yum she said). But about 4am, Miles woke her up, vomiting all the food he had eaten earlier. She took his temp and it was still normal. No one else in the house was sick, but still she was afraid it might be something contagious...

So this morning, mewmie's day off, she took CurlieSwirlie Miles back to work for more tests and xrays of his tummy, too. He was a pretty patient patient, getting poked for blood samples, getting probed for fecal samples, getting stretched out and "body scanned" like at the airport, hahameow! The nurses at work said Miles was their best patient all day!


All the tests so far are normal-no blockage, no parasites, no bacterial overgrowth, no signs of any contagious viruses...but, this might be TMI, but there was quite a bit of cat grass in his poo, and we think that just could have started his GI distress.

So, Miles stayed at the vets, and since he didn't like fluids under his skin the day before, he had an IV catheter put in and a padded splint to keep his leg straight so the fluids could flow in easily. He has to be on the fluids for 12-24 hours with no food by mouth for 24 hours.

If the vets wasn't where our mewmie worked, she would have been sad to leave him there overnight, but she knows he's in good hands and we live about an hour away, so if she'd brought him home and he had problems with the catheter or anything, it would be a long drive in the middle of the night to get him back there.


Mewmie is relaxing a little, even though we don't know why he got sick, we know a lot of things that he doesn't have wrong now, and that's progress. And he hasn't vomited since 4am this morning and that's good, too. Hopefully, he will be feeling much better tomorrow and can come back home.

Though he will smell like the vet, so we might hiss at him at first--mewmie says it helps to rub something that smells like home all over a kitty coming back from the vets, like a stinky t-shirt or one of our favorite blankies. Then as soon as he's back to feeling 100% again, he can begin his new life with Pierro, and that looks like it's going to be lots of CurlieSwirlie fun!

And now, so you can see what a good patient our brave Miles is being, here's a photo the vet nurse took today!

Saturday Caturday-Kitten Edition!

It's been two weeks since I wrote a kitten update! I was busy in the garden last weekend but this weekend--working on the basement so the kitties can get their bird watching station back! They missed some ducks in the backyard yesterday, boohoomeow!


The boys are growing up, but are still "juvenile delinquents" and have a lot of life experiences ahead of them (their new owners will have their hands full--as will Bette Blu and Pierro!). On Wednesday, three of them had their HooHa-Ectomies and they bounced back (a little lighter in the shorts) quickly, with no slowing them down after a good nights sleep!


Miles, Carlos and Zeus had their surgeries first, as they are leaving their birth home on May 15. Those 3 will actually be living within minutes of each other and maybe I can talk Carlos and Zeus's owner into starting a blog for them? Of course, everyone will get updates on Miles via Pierro's Happy Place!


Then on May 12, Hiro and Bosco get "tutored" and I am sure they will bounce back just like their brothers! I have been busy getting their 'Kitten Care Kits' together--toys, shampoo, ear cleanser, pedigree and registration papers and a photo CD of all their pictures and movies, for their new owners to treasure!


Coco is ready for them to leave home too, and while they do still nurse (for comfort mostly), when they are all latched on to her, all you can see is her head! They all weigh around 4# now and Coco only weighs 6#, so you can imagine the silly sight that makes!

So without further ado, here's more pix and a little movie!

Frootbat Friday!

Caught admiring herself in the mirror, as any girl does from time to time, is Furrydance Bette Blu. She lives in NYC and she doesn't know it yet, but she is getting a new brother...Bosco (Coco's black and white kitten). She will have her paws full, training him to be a good mancat!

Simply Sunday Morning...Afternoon...Evening

Teri's outside in the "garden" today; the A/C went on for the first time; and we are just lounging around. This is one of our many "garden cats" since we can't go outside, there are lots of cat statues in our garden to make it "furrendly"...

She likes shopping at this place called Marshall's cuz she finds garden cats to adopt, real cheap. Of course, if she added up what she's spent on all these outdoor cats, she could buy us lots of toys instead. But she says she likes looking out on all her cats in the yard, so we guess it's kinda like a catnip treat to her!

These 2 cats are on our porch (put on list--need to paint post)



These kitties are in our front yard--that's where she worked today






And our backyard is home to quite a few cats also, and some catnip, mint, rosemary and roses. Guess she'll be out there next weekend, sprucing it up next...







And these last two cats are her newest garden cats and might just be her favorites!


Ps: see the newly planted Catnip next to the one licking it's paw--That's for Us!!

There's also birdfeeders (which double as squirrel feeders, hahameow) and two little birdhouses (though she isn't sure a bird will make it's home there since they are right by the feeders...but she mostly got them cuz they were cute, she said.




And next weekend, she might have time to put together this little table she got, so she can sit outside and sip Mojitos when she's all done working in the garden...think we'll ask for some Nip and then Nap!

Caturday Saturday

Remember Al, from Frootbat Friday...well, here he is with "his" little blurby, Ravi. This is what his servantlady has to say about him:


Awww AL!!! He is going well - all things considered. He LOVES the Ravi and licks his head.

We've also found that he's pretty protective of Ravi. He likes to sleep on the rocking chair in the nursery while Ravi sleeps. AL also sits on my lap while I feed him.

Of course, he gets a little less lap time; but he has radiators now and let's be honest: Radiators are the BOMB for Cornish Rex!!