Zonked

I am worn out. Getting 14 cats down to the Neuterscooter wasn't that big of a deal. Caring for all of them for two days here, because I messed up the clinic date, was a bigger deal. I also have two failing cats--Hopi and Moby. Moby became ill was I gone to eastern Oregon also. I came back to a holocaust looking cat, with URI, weight loss and malaise. Moby got sick a year ago almost to the day, also. That time, it was hairballs. I am thinking this time his problem is also hairballs, compounded by a kitty cold. Shedding this time of year increases hairball troubles for cats. Older cats have a far worse problem with hairballs.

Just like with older humans, older cats have constipation issues. If an older cat gets a bit dehydrated, hairballs become a real concern. Hairballs can kill cats, too.

I have been dosing him with a lukewarm mixture of canned pumpkin, minced carrots and catlax. So far, he has not coughed up a hairball, but he has tried. Last year, the vet thought he had IBS syndrome, since his diarrhea was extreme. He spent three days with the vet, who also did a barium X-ray of his gut and thought he had IBS. I refused cortisone for him, believing, despite him being near death, that his problems were hairball caused. I gave him sub cu fluids and the high fiber mush I described above. Finally, he coughed up a hairball that looked like a cats' tail. It was that big. He was instantly fine.

This year, he's a year older and it's harder for him to get those hairballs up. I don't know how old Moby is. No one does. He's old as the hills, is all I know. So, I'm back at giving him fluids and the mush and hoping he'll survive.

This takes time also.

I became exhausted. Still not caught up on sleep from the Neuterscooter Pendleton trip, I don't think.

I returned the five males to the Millersburg barn, and had another black cat in a live trap I'd left set last night. And one possum in another trap. I let the possum go and brought the black cat home. I still have the four females who were spayed yesterday here and the three kittens. The barn owners had pledged to take the kittens, tame them down and find them homes. Instead, I could not even get ahold of them today. I did also return the male I trapped behind their house and the pregnant female from behind their house. In all, I returned seven of the cats.

I still have one of the three orange tabby males from the barn. He's tame and the price for a tame cat at the Neuterscooter is higher, so I opted to rabbit hutch him to wait to go to Countryside.

Tomorrow I will return the four feral females to the barn. The lactating mom even broke out of the rabbit hutch in the bedroom to get away from her own kittens. She wants nothing of them.

Tomorrow the latest catch, the black, and the orange tabby tame, will be fixed, along with five other owned Albany cats.