Scooter and Petie

Poor Scooter is not feeling well. To put it delicately, the poor little guy is “not regular”. After a couple days of watching him try unsuccessfully to do his ‘business’ and his inability to hold food down we made the decision to take him to the vet. They found him to be somewhat dehydrated and plugged up, so he stayed at the vet’s office for the day to get a little help….when we went to pick him up, he was so happy to come home! He’s still a bit listless, but we have him on antibiotics and fluids to help him feel better. The vet was concerned that he had lost a bit of weight, since he had gone from 19 pounds to 16 within the last year, but we had been monitoring the amount of food intake he had for the last several months so as to be at a more healthy weight so I wasn’t alarmed that he had slimmed down some.

Our newest little fuzzy friend, Petie, is a wonderful cat but still insists on being outside. He almost goes stir crazy if we don’t let him out! He has been out a couple times but of course we worry about him while he’s gone. Lola thinks he has a new girlfriend! I think he likes to play Jungle Cat in the woods. We are working on what to do to help him adjust. He’s had an update on shots and been treated for tapeworms last week, so at least he's current on the medicals...

Here are a couple photos of our new little guy that I took last Friday!! He’s such a cutie!! I do hope he can learn to adjust!

Petie 007 (He thinks he's James Bond)

Petie is just fine and we are hoping he will settle in. He and Scooter have actually slept in the same room and no worries - - but Petie is constantly trying to find ways to go outside!! We didn’t see this happen, but we speculate yesterday the little stinker climbed a ladder in our courtyard (we are de-leafing our gutters and put the ladder up against the chimney), jumped about seven feet across to the roof (not very steep or very high), walked the roof to the garage roof, jumped 7 feet down into our alleyway and ran into the woods to play with the squirrels (!!!???).

As usual, we were able to entice him to come home that evening with food.

I have a vet appointment for him today to get his shots updated. I hesitate to take him because I honestly don’t know if he’ll be able to adapt to the indoor way of life, and the thought has run through my head to take him back to his original family. Lola is begging me to give him another chance (he has escaped three times now in the last week) and we love him so much, but of course when he’s outside I worry about him in the woods. There are other cats out there and some of them like to pick fights with my neighbor’s cats, so I fear that Petie may be a chosen target at some point in the future.

We really do love him and he’s a sweetie and so fun to be with, but his longing for the ‘call of the wild’ is becoming an issue.

Upon asking Petie’s former owner about his outdoor obsession, she told me Petie can climb a ladder, and he would climb their neighbor’s ladder all the time. She thought that perhaps he is out looking to see if his brothers are somewhere about.

Petie Joins Our Family

We made the trip to go get Petie the Cat. Lola fell in love with him at first sight! Petie was very good in the cat carrier all the way home. Lola sat in the back seat with him and talked to him through the carrier door.

Scooter was so happy to see a new baby brother he wanted to snuggle right away, but Petie hissed and growled and would have NOTHING to do with that!! He hid in the powder room behind the toilet and then behind the sofa for most of the night. He did come out this morning to eat and use a temporary litter box we set up, so I think in a couple days we’ll be having fun with both of them. So far Scooter is being VERY patient. He lays nearby, and Petie hisses, but Scooter looks at him like “It’s ok, I can wait for you not to be scared any more.”

Even though his name is Petie Lola and I thought he moves, hides and meows more like a shadow, so we are temporarily trying out the name SHADOW.

Still Feeling the Void

We are still saddened by the loss of Boo Boo, but Scooter is acting like he is wanting a new buddy. It has been a few weeks and some friends of ours who adopted Lola's friend Boris told us about a lady they work with who has four kittens that are now 1 1/2 years old that are available. Lola and I looked at the photos she e-mailed to us and have decided we will go in a couple days to see them. Lola has decided on a fluffy gray cat named Petie, so he will be the cat of main interest when we pay this family a visit.

In Memoriam - Boo Boo Kitty - Jan 1990 - Sep 2008

I am sad to say that our dear little sweet Boo Boo is now in kitty heaven. He took a header off the sofa last night and was in extreme pain. The only thing we could do was take him to the vet to help his journey to kitty heaven easier. I am so very much dealing with the moral dilemma of whether or not it is right in God's eyes for us to take the role of Life Manager for animals. In this case it was distressing for both Lola and me to see Boo in the condition he was in. Perhaps when I have some quiet time to think I'll come to terms with this decision. I know Boo would have been happy to go and not be in pain, but how does God view this decision??

Boo was a wonderful cat. He was sweet, quiet, gentle, polite and always very proper, quite the little gentleman. He would tap his paw on us when he was hungry and was always so tidy in the litterbox but such a slob at the dinner bowl. He was never a lap cat, but instead would snuggle up parallel to the person of his choice and sleep as close as possible. He and Scooter were the best of friends and would groom and sleep with each other for hours. Even for the past few months Scooter kept watch over Boo at night from a close distance to the sofa. We will all miss him greatly.

Boo Boo came into our home in 2000 at the age of 10 years. He was one of four cats that were loved supremely by my friend Christie, a woman with whom I worked at the office. Christie was a great lover of all animals and was not afraid to stand up for their rights. She had some health issues, and in the summer of 2000 she encountered what was thought to be a gall bladder problem. She checked into the hospital and during the time we all thought she was recovering from gall bladder surgery she was actually battling a disease called hemochromatosis. None of us knew anything about it until she was found dead in her home by my boss, another co-worker and the police in October 2000. It was quite a shock to all of us and after a few days I found out the police had sent 3 of her 4 cats to the local animal shelter. The fourth one, Boo, had not been taken because he was in hiding and wouldn't come out and the police didn't want to spend all day finding him. Instead, one of Christie's neighbor friends said he'd go and feed Boo at her townhome until her lease ran out, and in the meantime try to find him a new home. Christie once told me that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted to be sure her sister got her cats. In this instance, I was under the impression that the sister could not take all the cats, but was going to adopt Boo. Within a week we had new owners lined up for the three cats who were sent to the shelter. I called the shelter to tell them there were people who wished to adopt the cats when Christie's sister signed the paperwork to adopt them out. They agreed to call me when this happened. A few days later I called back only to find out that the shelter had euthanized all three cats after the paperwork was signed. Their story was that the cats had all contracted upper respiratory infection. I was outraged, as were the others who had volunteered to adopt the cats.

I had been contemplating on getting Scooter a buddy for a couple months prior to Christie's untimely death because he was bored and started to pull tufts of fur from his tail area, leaving them like little fuzzy gifts for me all around the house. When I found out that Christie's sister was not able to keep Boo (Christie's favorite) and that Boo was still at Christie's townhome being cared for by the neighbor until her lease ran out the end of October, I called the neighbor and told him I would like to take Boo. Christie had done some cat-sitting for me in the past for Scooter when I was out of town a few weekends, so Scooter was familiar with her smell and absolutely loved her. Apparently the two of them watched the Animal Planet on TV together, had lunch together and sat out on the deck. Scooter was totally spoiled by her and loved every second of it. When I brought Boo home in the cat carrier on October 31, Scooter was overjoyed. From that day forward the two of them were in LOVE!! They have been buddies ever since.

I have so many wonderful memories of Boo, whom I dubbed "Boo Boo Kitty" and I find it hard to think that he is no longer with us. Scooter has lost his best friend and is so sad, and yes, we can tell that he is very sad. I know that perhaps in my own mind that Christie and Boo Boo are now together again, and that makes me very happy.

...and the Cold of the Century Still Lingers...

I cannot believe I am STILL SICK!!! It seems that this began about the last week in July - - -actually, yes, it was the week I went back to work after having taken leave of absence during the summer. Now my ears are all plugged up and I'm still sounding very congested. The sad thing is most of my co-workers are battling the same thing. I do hope this finally goes away!

Boo is still having problems. Tonight he was trying to walk away from the sofa, and I have no idea where he was going. He looked like a cat on a mission, but couldn't really get himself where he wanted to be...

I'm sad to say this but I think Boo does not have much longer with us...

We try to make him as comfy as possible and he still loves to eat, but he's forgetting where the box is at the other end of the sofa, and although he doesn't seem to be hurting anywhere, his little eighteen and one-half year old body is just too exhausted to go very far. He's such a sweet little guy, and this week has been what I imagine to be like hospice care - - Chris has been here during the day and Lola and I have been here at night trying to make sure he's as relaxed and happy as he can be.

Lola is still liking school, but this year she is extremely forgetful when it comes to homework. It seems that without micro-managing her subjects and staying in touch with her teachers, she would forget homework every night. So far she's getting A's and B's, but with this going the way it is, I'm not omnipotent and she's going to have to bite off a big chunk of responsibility or else her grades are going to head south in a big way. Her teachers have been great in making sure to tell her when things are homework and when they are classwork, but like I said, we all can't be there every moment monitoring her taking the books home that she needs. She is liking her technology class and for the most part, she loves her teachers, especially her ESOL teacher.

Poor Little Boo Boo

Boo Boo is not doing well. He’s had a few seizures, his back legs are quite stiff with arthritis and, for the past few months, has been a permanent resident on the sofa. We have set up the sofa with plastic mattress covers for protection and incontinence pads so he has easy access to his litter box on one end, food in the middle and his bed on the other end. It’s worked out fairly well. He does have bladder accidents but it’s easily cleaned up by removing the soiled incontinence pad and replacing it with a new one. His appetite is quite good, and he’s still interacting with us when we get home from work and school, but his general health is declining. Scooter has been close by, sleeping in a nearby chair in case Boo needs anything.