OMFG. Someone just sent this to me after I had sent them the youtube of the cat riding the Roomba. (How do I ever get any work done, I am not sure, laughing all the time!)

Gah! I had to take my orange boy-kitty, Koshi, to the vet last night - I thought he had a UTI or other urinary problem, and I know that can be potentially fatal in boy-cats. Luckily my vet has extended hours (and they're open 24 hours for emergencies) so I was able to take him after work. So, he has no UTI and no dangerous blockage, but he may have non-infection cystitis which would explain the symptoms. (Poor baby trying to pee and almost nothing coming out, running from litter box to litter box, peeing on a rug when he had never done such a thing before.) So they gave him subcutaneous fluids and some pain meds, which should also relax all the muscles around his bladder (or something) and help with the symptoms. All is well, right? Well not according to him - he spent the next 8 hours sitting in the hallway by the door that leads into the garage, crying and crying. He finally shut up this morning and settled down on Mr. K's lap, only because of the potential of licking the excess milk from Mr. K's cereal bowl. He's OK now, and he gets pain meds twice a day for the next week, which make him kind of loopy - not that you can really tell, after all he's a cat.

Oh P.K., I'm so glad he'll be OK. I lost one of my buddies to Feline Urinary Syndrome, and it was a painful experience for everyone (and expensive). I still mourn my little buddy I called Later ("the cat of uncertain shape to be named Later").

It's the fate of too many male cats, I think. We had Whiskey Sam, an old orange fur-ball, on the special (and expensive, of course) dry food from Royal Canin and he thrived for several years. We managed to keep the UTIs to a minimum. I think it was the food. I also used Royal Canin's food for diabetic cats for 8 years for Meeko, another adoptee. I was only able to do this by robbing a bank, getting a second job and standing on the corner with a tin cup, of course. I should own Royal Canin stock!

The vet I saw last night said that wet food may be better, and it's important to make sure they drink enough. I give all my cats Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Duck flavor, as it seems to be the best one for my elderly kitty's sensitive tummy. They also get wet food every now and then, also NB Limited Ingredient, Duck or Venison flavor. When I told her Koshi is a dairy whore, and gets lots of milk and yogurt, she said that it seems he should be getting enough liquid, but just make sure he always has access to fresh water. She suggested a fountain waterbowl - anyone have any experience with these?

Oh, and I want a Roomba, and not because I want to see if my kitties will ride on it! I just want it to deal with the tracked litter, yeah, that's it!

My kitteh had a fountain water bowl and liked it a lot. It was a pain to clean however. Wonder if they make a dishwasher safe one yet? Since the move, there is no place to put the fountain here and I am now home all of the time to make sure she has plenty of clean water, so the petmate fountain is still packed in the garage.

As for the Roomba, Costco has one with extra brushes and two "invisible walls". It also requires cleaning, but since I can't stand to vacuum for very long, the Roomba is a great help at keeping the dirt, dust and cat hair levels down.

It doesn't get clogged up like a vacuum hose or the "throat" of my cordless portable and is easy to empty, but for some reason, the Roomba folks didn't design the area over the ends of the brushes well, so they need frequent cleaning. Cat hair gets wrapped around the axles and needs to be removed at least once per use. They include brush-cleaning tools, but I find a pair of hemostats works best.

Hope your kitteh recovers completely.

The fountains are great except they don't seem to wear well in my house and changing the filters is tricky if you are not coordinated. Even though I have a fairly new one that seems to work well, one of my cats -- the little stubborn dude in my avatar, Snookums -- still likes to jump up onto the counter when I do the dishes so that he can drink from the faucet. And play with the bubbles in the sink, of course.

I have two fountain water bowls (front and back of house), Drinkwell's Platinum series. The filter is easy to change: open the top, pull out the filter, throw it away, wash new filter until charcoal no longer appears, insert in top of filter as directed. The fountains have a large reservoir tank, meaning that you do not have to fill them everyday. Cleaning is important and takes less than 10 minutes. This model is not suited for the dishwasher.

The upper range of the Roomba vacuums does an extraordinary job of picking up litter, dust, cat hairs, and what-have-you. I ran mine experimentally last Friday after the cleaning lady had just left. The bin was completely full of cat hairs after the Roomba decided that it was finished.

FIFY

I has two water bowls for teh kittehs; a big one up front by the food bowls, and a smaller one in my bedroom, where both cats have been known to hang out. I put fresh water in both at least twice a day, but usually more since both furballs like to drop kibbles in the water, which makes it skanky pretty fast. (Trouble likes to drop lots of other things in the water bowls when she can.)

Me and my kittehs all hope that Koshi teh Orange kitteh is better.

I was a frick frackin' Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse. Hemostats are as indispensable as a calculator and a booklet of formulas, drug interactions, etc...

The huskyLab/Wolf hybrid has been miserable lately. The hot weather has her shedding like crazy. she has been licking herself and today she puked up a hairball that was the size of a squirrel.

although she seemed to be feeling a lot better after that.

Damn that was the biggest hairball I've ever seen.

What do you think is in my tackle box???? Kelly, Curved Kelly, (I have several branded "Montana Fly") etc. and a pair of those scissors that can cut a penny in half and keep on cutting.

Very, very special people. Having 2 children spend quite a bit of time in NICUs, I have a very special place in my heart for NIC nurses. I will never forget any of them.

((Sequoia))

I, too, love NICU nurses.

Sprout spent 24 hours after his birth being treated for polycythemia. The nurses had never had aDoptive parents around before. We were treated like royalty! They we all interested in my LactAide nursing supplementer which I used with frozen breast milk donated by two angel friends, helping me set it up properly - id never actually used it until I met Sprout - and marveling at the generosity of some people.

One of my bestest friend's child spent months in the NICU after being born with a bad mitral valve.

We love NICU Nurses!

Unfortunately, cats aren't allowed in the NICU (that's how it's not off-topic )

Did you check it for bones? Maybe in was an actual squirrel.

Yeah but how many of them did you marry?

Dogs and kittehs shedding recipe . This was in the LA times over 25 years ago and it still works . For a medium
Size dog take 1/2 envelope Knox unflavoured gelatin 1 tbsp wheat germ 1 tsp mazola corn oil add to food and
Decrease if upsets stomach for kittehs split up for the whole day in wet food. It works !
Add or subtract for size and as tolerated

Well, orange kitty Koshi is much better now. However, things are not looking so good for elderly calico Kaiju, the cat in my avatar. Her ability to walk is getting less and less, she can only walk about 5 steps before she has to rest. I don't know if its her hips or her enlarged heart that are the problem, or maybe both.

She only gets up off "her" chair to eat and attempt to use the litter box. I say attempt, because she can't walk far or fast enough to make it, and she, for whatever insane kitty reason, wants to use the box that is farthest away from her, way down the hall. So unless Mr. K or I notice her and carry her to the box, she ends up doing her business in the hall. Then her tired old legs give out, and she ends up lying down in it! Keep in mind, this used to be the most fastidious cat, never missing the box unless she had no other choice.

I bought a disposalbe litter box and placed it near her chair, but she refuses to use it - she wants to use the boxes down the hall. Stubborn little thing. I'm going to take her to the vet this week, I was hoping to hold off until payday but that is looking less and less like a good idea. Hopefully they can give her something, maybe pain meds, or something. Maybe they make non-slip socks for cats? We have hardwood floors throughout the house (thank goodness - cleanup is so much easier), and sometimes her feet just slide out from under her. This is the cat who will be 18 if she makes it another month.

She doesn't even want to go outside anymore, which she used to love to do. Poor baby, I want to cry sometimes when I look at her.

It is so hard, with our pets. Below is a link from something short and sweet but wonderful by Cokie Roberts and it helped me when I was suffering from watching my old cat, Midnight, suffer at 20. Her diagnosis by the vet on her chart was "old female cat." Nothing more than that. She was little to start with but was down to 4 lbs. and we were hydrating her nightly by injection. For naught. We couldn't stop time. None of us can. I hope this article gives you some comfort, as it did for me.

http://159.54.226.237/99_issues/990411/990411cokie.html