Friday, October 12, 2012

My Cat Weighs (Less Than) Twenty Pounds

Good news on the cat front: I took all three cats in to the vets (McMonigle's on the East Valley Hwy; highly recommended) over Wednesda-Thursday,* where they got their boosters, got weighed, and got a plan for the latest intervention over Hastur's issues.

Rigby now weighs  8 & 3/4 pounds. This is great news, since her last two check-ups she'd been down at scven-something pounds, which was too low. Now she's back to a nice healthy weight for her size.

Hastur is still overweigh at 15 3/4 pounds. So the portion control for her nom will continue. The fur loss is much improved -- she's in the paradoxical position of being unable to reach and clean some areas because of her tubbiness, so she overgrooms spots she can reach, licking all the fur off. Now the bare spots are growing back, stubbily, but I had to resort to bathing her in the tub to help keep her clean. Which she didn't like at all, poor cat.

Feanor also had really good news: he's now below twenty pounds for the first time in several years, at 19 1/2.  He's always beeen a solid black cat; now the fur inside his ears is turning white -- the male-cat equivalent of that grey streak at a middle-aged man's temples, perhaps? He's also just developed a few scattered white hairs on his tail. Equivalent of old-man eyebrows, perhaps?

So, the good news is that all the cats are well, and two out of three have their weight either in or moving in the right way. More games and play with Hastur to boost her activity a little, making sure she keeps clean, and continuing to restrict her access to the others' food shd pay off over time for the third cat as well.

--John R.

*in addition to taking care of the ten cats in the Purrfect Pals adoption room in the PetsMart nr Southcenter for four hours Wednesday morning -- these have been two days largely devoted to cats.

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