ericwn
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But would you really want an F1 in the house?
Cats
- Thread starter yaxomoxay
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But would you really want an F1 in the house?
Herdfan
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The wife has said she doesn't want to change the litter box.
There are a couple of TikTok owners of Servals and Savannah's that make a lot of videos of their cats. The two that come to mid are ChloetheServal and Strykerthecat. Chloe is a true Serval and Stryker looks to be an F1. Both are very calm cats, at least in the videos.
And we already have 40lbs of dumb chasing each other all over the place, so combining that into one cat might not be that bad.
So I had to take Pete to the ER vet for an emergency cat unblocking. This is the 2nd time I've had to have this done for the poor little guy, and it's cost me $600 bucks each time. He's starting to feel less like a beloved pet, and more like a long term investment.
On top of that, I decided to get some Subway across the street while the vets were sticking a catheter up him to clean out his insides, and while I'm walking from my truck to the car, I'm looking at the Jack's next door, and I end TRIPPING OVER THE DAMN CURB NEXT TO THE DRIVE-THRU, AND FACEPLANTING RIGHT ON THE ASPHALT!
...it's been a really bad day today.
On top of that, I decided to get some Subway across the street while the vets were sticking a catheter up him to clean out his insides, and while I'm walking from my truck to the car, I'm looking at the Jack's next door, and I end TRIPPING OVER THE DAMN CURB NEXT TO THE DRIVE-THRU, AND FACEPLANTING RIGHT ON THE ASPHALT!
...it's been a really bad day today.
The most I payed for a cat was $500 back around 2000 because he had swallowed a string that was looped around his tongue. The vet knocked him out and then pulled on the string but it was stuck too far in his intestines, needed an operation to remove it.
Altogether, I've probably spent about $1500 on ole Pete now. And I'll probably end up having to spend even more on that special diet catfood to keep him from going again.
I have a special needs cat.
lizkat
Watching March roll out real winter
Well Pete sure has good luck having landed at your place. I hope he will do well going forward.
I shelled out $1200 once for a great vet to restore full mobility to an indoor-outdoor barn kitty of mine (acquired "free" from my kin's dairy farm) after she trashed her leg taking on a motorcycle when she was nine months old.
She was the last of my indoor-outdoor cats, and was the one who eventually brought me that live grass snake, to my and the snake's dismay and her great pride in showing off her hunting skills. Honestly there is nothing like waking up to the sound a cat makes when they've fresh prey in their mouth and the cat is on your bed and it's three o'clock in the morning. And then when you turn on the light and the thing is not a dead mouse but a live snake, well. Gee. I started grounding her by closing the cat door with her inside the house at nightfall, believe me.
Anyway in that surgery the guy put in a plate and some titanium screws to fix her rear leg, and she ended up entirely capable of scaling the willow tree in search of oriole babies, the little brat. The vet used to stop by once in awhile with one of his interns in tow, just to point her out up in some tree or other and to brag on his skill.
The upside of the motorcycle incident was that the kitty never did cross that road again, no matter if some enchanting cabbage moth had led her to the edge. More than once I spotted her putting on the brakes as she neared the last ten feet of lawn.
Also, I never again figured that I was getting a free cat, no matter how I acquired it. I guess with your kitties, you have long since made a similar realization.
No saying this judgmentally, but I’d never own an indoor-outdoor cat, indoors only for longevity.
Herdfan
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And lack of worry.
We have 2 that a former neighbor turned out and they have been showing up to sleep in the garage for about 8 years. One shows up regularly, but the other one likes to hunt and may disappear for 2-3 nights. Wife keeps going out late at night and calling to see if she will come home. Then doesn't sleep well if she doesn't.
lizkat
Watching March roll out real winter
The cat whose photo became my avatar was Porch Kitty. She was not an indoor kitty, since when she showed up, I had two of those, my max. And she was a serious rover anyway, with several other hangouts she apparently used to cruise every day for whatever other comfy spots or good eats she had discovered were hers for the taking. But my back deck was her chosen sleepover spot after a brutal February snowstorm drove her to seek shelter one night, and her place of expected breakfast service. She showed up then early in 2004 and passed away in 2007.
I had to get used to worrying about her, since I had no control over her roamings, and I was right to worry too. She's the kitty who somehow managed to crawl back here one afternoon, after being shot by some a-hole using an airgun for his amusement, or else to let her know he didn't like cats, or anyway didn't respect her life.
Of course when I realized she was injured, I did take her to the vet and they tried to fix her up... and she briefly became an indoor kitty, ensconced in two generously sized cages wired together and lined with towles and set up in my upstairs hallway, with my own cats banished to the first floor meanwhile.
But she was old and had internal organ injuries from the shooting, plus --as the vet pointed out on xrays-- it was not even the first time she had been shot with an airgun either. She ended up needing a bit of help across the rainbow bridge. Her ashes are in a bookcase in my library, so she finally did become an indoor kitty after all.
She was truly a sweet cat. Even my other kitties were subdued for a few weeks after they realized she wasn't coming around any more and they needn't sit on this side of the kitchen door while she was eating breakfast out there "just in case" she might have tried to come in for a second helping or whatever. Cats are so comical, really, how they decide how to manipulate the lives of their so-called owners!
Nycturne
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Ours is “kinda” an indoor-outdoor cat, but in the sense that we’ll put a harness and leash on and go outside together. She’s come to seeing this as part of the routine, and is smart enough to ask us to go outside. In the warmer months, she even helps by getting up in a specific cat tree to get the harness put on so we don’t have to bend over. We will find her in the tree waiting for us, chirping to get our attention around lunch time these days, since we’ve been taking her outside on our lunch breaks while working from home during the pandemic.
Because she can get bored of toys easily, this is honestly one of the easiest ways to keep her stimulated and happy. She‘s not much of a wanderer, but she does like to enjoy the property and we sometimes go for short walks of maybe 100 yards down the road and back.
I do agree with the sentiment, but when I see how well this cat handles the harness, and how positively she reacts to getting to go outside with us, it’s a good compromise in this case.
We learned the same thing after we adopted our current. Turns out she has GI issues that need to be managed by diet. Although looking back, she was smart enough to try to signal to us what her triggers were, we just didn’t know what she was trying to tell us at the time. She also has a collapsed lung node from some lower airway respitory condition that will need to be managed by medication.
Thankfully neither of these should post a huge problem going forward so long as we can keep the IBD managed.
Herdfan
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Today is the birthday of my daughter's cat. She is 15.
My daughter wants to take her to her new apartment with her new job, but wife and I aren't sure. Caring for an aging cat is a handful and while she is in great health right now, that could change almost overnight. So we are discouraging it for now.
My daughter wants to take her to her new apartment with her new job, but wife and I aren't sure. Caring for an aging cat is a handful and while she is in great health right now, that could change almost overnight. So we are discouraging it for now.
If your daughter doesn’t take her cat with her, I assume you’ll keep the kitty. I wouldn’t underestimate the value of having a beloved pet for support after a move, though. Depending on the distance, perhaps your daughter can bring her cat to the new place, and if caring for her becomes too difficult, you can take her back.
You know what the worst thing about cat ownership is? When you're sitting around, minding your own business, and suddenly you hear...
HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA!
...and you have to get up, and hurry to where they're at to make sure they're not hairballing on any carpet.
HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA-HURKA!
...and you have to get up, and hurry to where they're at to make sure they're not hairballing on any carpet.
lizkat
Watching March roll out real winter
I will cop to having administered (gentle but prompt) flying lessons when I occaionally heard that sound starting up at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night.
Of course I usually then also turned on a lamp at bedside to remove the evidence from the floor, lest I forget about it and perhaps encounter a cold, wet hairball while barefoot in the dark if needing to go downstairs to use the bathroom before first light.
I've done that before. It's actually worse when it's still warm.
I had to wake Gismo, who was sleeping at the foot of the bed, because he was snoring. Loudly.
I've seen a cat do that exactly once. It is the weirdest thing.
Herdfan
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He's never done it before, so yeah, weird.
