I was a little worried about Spitfire and Rascal because they aren’t always around first thing in the morning. Smudge was in the house so I didn’t have to worry about getting him. The only other one I was really worried about was Callie — yes, I know I spell it different every time. I’m not sure how to spell it.
If Callie wasn’t in the cat room, I wouldn’t be able to take her to be spayed. Luckily, everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Callie didn’t object when I picked her up and put her in a carrier. She didn’t have much of a chance to though. I had everything ready and didn’t fool around putting her in and shutting the door. She did, however, start butting her head against the door and sides of the carrier.
“If you cover it they won’t bang their heads,” I was told at the last spay/neuter clinic.
I grabbed an old rag shirt, threw it over the carrier and Callie quieted right down.
The half-hour ride to Tunkhannock was weirdly quiet. I’ve never before had cats that didn’t meow the whole time they were in a car, but these cats didn’t. They hardly made any noise at all.
The last time we’d gone, last month, we had just gotten back to Wyalusing when we got the call that the cats were done. So after we paid the fee we asked Lisa if she could get us in first; we’d do some shopping and hang around town until the cats were done. Lisa said she would.
Mike and I’d gone to Wal*Mart and picked up the few things we needed, then we were just driving around, checking out the town, trying to decide what to do next, when my phone rings. I looked at the caller I.D. “It’s the spay/neuter clinic,” I said to Mike. “Maybe the cats are done.” I swiped the answer button on my smart phone and put it up to my ear. “Hello.”
“Peg this is Lisa,” Lisa said. “They can’t spay your female calico.”
“Why not?” Talk about a letdown!
“She has an upper respiratory infection. They want you to give her some medicine and it’s ten dollars. Of course we’ll refund the spay fee.”
I knew Callie had a dirty face, in fact I asked if they could wash it an her ears while she was asleep, but I’ve never seen her snotty like Baby Blue used to get, so how sick she was, I don’t know. There was no help for it now though, they wouldn’t spay her. “All right,” I answered. What else could I do? After I hung up with Lisa, I told Mike what she said.
“Okay. What do you want to do next?” Mike asked.
I looked at the time. It was ten-thirtyish. “Isn’t there a Perkins right up the road?” I asked. “We could hang out there and drink coffee or have an early lunch,” I suggested.
Mike started to head that way, we were just across the highway from where the clinic is held, when my phone rings again. I didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway. “Hello.”
“Peg, this is Pat, I’m with the spay/neuter clinic. Is there a chance the little black and white cat is already neutered?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
“He doesn’t have any testicles.”
“I thought he was a male,” I replied thinking I’d sexed him wrong.
“Oh, yeah, he’s a male. If he hasn’t been neutered then his testicles haven’t descended.”
She started talking about opening him up and an additional fee and I was only catching every other word or so.
“We’re just across the road,” I told her. “We’ll come over and talk to you.”
Three minutes later Mike pulled into the parking lot, parked and we got out. Walking up to the door a lady wearing scrubs, was pushing through, coming back out to the Spaymobile.
“Are you the owners of the black and white male?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“To neuter him, they’re going to have to open him up and look around to find his testicles. It’s an extra twenty-five dollar fee.”
“What happens if we don’t have it done?”
“He can still get a female pregnant and he’ll still spray like males do, but it’ll turn cancerous in five years or so. It’s generally a genetic thing and his litter mates may have the same thing too.”
“His litter mate was a female and you’ve already done her. The other two males that I brought are cousins.” I looked over at Mike but I knew what the answer would be. Mike nodded. “Go ahead and do it then,” I told her.
Mike and I went on inside and talked with Lisa for a little while, then we went five minutes up the road to Perkins Restaurant where we ordered a late breakfast. Mike had some kind of a scramble and I had a mushroom and Swiss omelet. It was okay — nothing to write home about. We were paying the bill when the call came; the cats were done and ready to be picked up. The timing couldn’t have been any better.
We picked up the cats and the medicine for Callie. With the medicine being ten dollars and Smudge’s extra surgery being twenty-five, it was a wash. We didn’t get any of the thirty-five back that we’d paid for Callie’s spay but the good news is we didn’t have to pay any more either.
Lisa advised me that the best way to get the medicine into her is to put it into a little bit of food. Once she eats that, I can give her more food. That means I’ll have to confine her because I can’t trust that she’d be around twice a day for the next seven to ten days. I thanked Lisa and we left.
The next part of this project took a little work. We had to keep the cats separate, quiet and warm for the night because Lisa told us that after being sedated, the cat’s body temperature drops. I thought about it the whole way home. Smudge was no problem, he could stay in his kennel in the house and rather than have the others in the house with us, Mike turned a heater on in the cat room. I already had a kennel set up in there for Callie, but since she didn’t get spayed, I’d use it for Rascal. Once Rascal was out of the kennel I’d put Callie in until she finishes her course of medication. That just left Spitfire and I’d put him in the biggest of the two carriers I had.
Once back home, I opened the door of the carrier Callie was in and let her lose. She took off. She didn’t like the morning jaunt to Tunkhannock and back. I fixed up litter boxes for the boys and got them settled. After a couple of hours I gave them a little food and water and they all ate and drank just fine. They were unhappy about being penned up but it couldn’t be helped. I was just glad they weren’t in the house and I didn’t have to listen their unhappiness.
The next morning I set them free.
The boys look funny with shaved butts.
“Peg!” you exclaim. “I didn’t need to see that!”
I know, right! You’re welcome.
Callie…
She took off and I didn’t see her anymore that day, nor did she sleep in the cat room that night, so I didn’t see her the next morning either.
And then I got to thinking about it. Callie is to have the medicine twice a day for seven to ten days. I’m guessing that means until the medicine is gone. And the next spay/neuter clinic isn’t until March twentieth, a month away…
If I give Callie the medicine now and she gets sick again before the next clinic, they won’t spay her then either. What if I wait and give her the medicine ten days before the next clinic?
I asked Mike, but he didn’t know.
I called Lisa and asked her.
“Oh no. Don’t do that. I think she needs the medicine right away.”
“But if she gets sick again, they won’t spay her.”
“If you don’t give her the medicine it could …”
Oh my gosh! I can’t remember now what she said! Whatever she said, whether it was ‘get worse’ or ‘turn into pneumonia’ I don’t remember now. But I do remember how she ended it.
“…and she could die.”
“I appreciate what you’re saying, but just let me say that we’ve had this virus in our cats for ten or eleven years now. They seem to cycle through it. They get sick for a while, then they get better, then they get sick again. And I’ve had them to the vet for it many times.”
“Did they ever give them clavamox before?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I think you should give it to her and take your chances that she’s not sick at the next clinic.”
I watched for Callie all day and she finally showed up Tuesday evening. I put her in the kennel and as soon as the door was shut she started butting against the wire sides. I was ready for her though, I threw a sheet over the kennel and she quieted down. I started her on the antibiotic that night.
Callie never tried to escape, in fact, she seemed to enjoy my visits and our lovey sessions. However, when I was gone, she would try to find a way out of the kennel. At least I think that’s what was going on. Her food and water bowls were upset, and she was reaching through the bars and pulling the sheet through. And she was sleeping in her litter box.
“Git out of there,” I’d tell her and pick her up. I’d set her on the cushion I’d put in there for her.
“Purr-purr,” she’d say and curl around my hand as I stroked her fur.
After a couple of days she didn’t seem to be upset but was still pulling on the sheet. Maybe she just wants to see out, I thought and started leaving one side of the kennel open.
By Saturday I needed to clean the kennel. I gathered some cleaning supplies, a little broom and dustpan, pooper scooper and a bag, blocked off the exits from the cat room, and opened the door of the kennel. Callie had no interest in leaving so I cleaned around her. I took out the litter pan and started to sweep at the litter on the cage floor.
Hmmm…
What do you get when you mix water and cat litter? Something resembling cement, that’s what! It was stuck so hard and fast to the plastic bottom of the kennel that it was going to have to stay there, for now anyway. I couldn’t sweep it off with the broom and I couldn’t prize it free with the dustpan. I shook her cushion off and swept up as much of the spilled litter and food as I could; cleaned her box and put it back in.
Callie finished her medicine Monday night and she doesn’t seem any different to me. I let her out of the kennel but I left the kennel in place thinking she may use it again. Tuesday morning, when I went in to take care of the cats, Callie was sleeping in the kennel.
Tuesday!
Yes, today is Tuesday, my letter blog is two days late and I’m still trying to get it done!
“Some stories I have to pull kicking and screaming from me,” I told my beautiful short and sweet sister. “They don’t write easy,” and this one has been a challenge. I like it much better when the words start coming and the stories write themselves.
Cleopatra purrs! Some cats never purr (for unknown reasons) and at seven months old, almost eight, I thought she was one of those. I’ve been petting her and loving on her her whole life and never heard her purr before this past week.
“I got her to purr,” Mike says taking the credit.
“I didn’t believe it until I heard her purr for myself, but she never purred before she was spayed. Do you think that made a difference?” I asked.
Mike didn’t have an answer.
Spitfire has adopted us. For a long time now he’s been persistent about wanting to be in the house. More so than any of the other cats. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer and he never gave up. First he started coming in for a bite of breakfast, then he would come in for visits and then at the end of last week I let him stay in the house for an afternoon. He was so good. He didn’t pick fights with the other cats, he didn’t jump up on the counters or table, and he didn’t mess on the floor. He just curled up in a chair and slept. I put him out that night. The next morning he came in for breakfast and I let him stay.
“Is he using the litter box?” Mike asked me.
“I think so,” I told him. “I didn’t see him but he disappeared down the hallway and I heard him in it.”
The next day, when Spitfire went down the hallway, I got up and checked. Now I had confirmation that he was, indeed, using the litter box.
This morning…
This Tuesday morning…
The morning of my two-day-late letter blog…
Spitfire hacked up a parasite. A worm parasite.
“Eww, Peg!” you say. "I'm surprised you didn't take a picture of that!"
I know, right! I didn't think about it or I probably would have.
Even though I’m not crazy about any parasite, I actually get a certain about of satisfaction crushing fleas between my thumbnails, setting ticks on fire, and swatting flies and misquotes, but having to clean up a puddle with a writhing roundworm in it is just plain disgusting. However, roundworms and other parasites are just a fact of life, country life that is.
I’ve been seeing evidence of roundworms in puddles on the cat room floor, I just didn’t know who they were coming from, and come spring I was going to worm every one of them, at least the ones I can handle.
And now that I’ve sufficiently grossed you out, let’s call this one done.
Done!
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