No Pictures

No pictures for today’s post. Trust me, you don’t want them.

If you’ve ever been on FaceBook, or Instagram, I know you’ve already seen the pictures, maybe even videos. The robot vacuum that seems like such a fantastic idea, well, one day it goes bad.

What will it get into? Cat vomit? Litter box remnants? Bird seed? Nope.

I woke up this morning, brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes, found my glasses. said Good Morning to the dog and headed downstairs to put her out. It seemed like a normal day, maybe even a good day. I slept well last night, I felt rested, and my allergies weren’t terrible, yet.

As I headed downstairs, I noticed the carpet was askew. I went to fix it, and yikes! Dried up poop smear everywhere. I don’t think the dog really needed to go out anymore. She did what she needed to do in the living room, then my very helpful RoboVac tried to help clean it up for me.

New rules for the RoboVac – She will no longer be allowed to run unsupervised. It may seem like a good idea to set your RoboVac up to clean while you are happily slumbering and don’t have to listen to her, or trip over her. That’s not going to happen here anymore. Supervised work hours only!

As hard as it is to say this right now, I was lucky. My vac seemed to have found this mess on it’s way back to its station, so the mess was contained to a single room and a hallway. Only one carpet was involved, and it is one that can be thrown into the washing machine. The rest of the trail was on our hardwood floors. Scraping poop off wood isn’t the most fun way to wake up ever, but it could have been so much worse.

Floor cleaned, wood polished, rug in the wash, great! Time to get back to my morning routine. Unfortunately, the living room still smells, what did I miss? OMG, I missed the vac itself. It’s tires have little treads. Again, I need to be thankful, since the vac was on it’s way home, it was full. Very little ended up inside the vac, I just had to clean the outside. There are brushes, wheels with treads, a brush roller. This was clearly an outside job. Toothpicks, spray cleaner, old towels, and a lot of patience. I think the RoboVac will survive to clean again one day. That day will NOT be today.

The Sh*t Show

Good News and Bad news, first the good! It only took two mornings for Bean to learn that waking us up at 4 or 5AM was not good for anyone. We did a few different things, so I’m not exactly sure which one worked, or maybe it was the combination.

Master Bean and his sidekick Hector D. Byrd

The first thing I did was to stop feeding the cats canned food in the morning. They have dry food available at all times. They didn’t need breakfast. They asked for it for the first couple of mornings, but then they seemed to forget. Now I’m giving them a big serving of wet food once a day instead of the two wet food meals. Easier for me, no morning expectations, and easier clean up.

The next thing I did was to mess with Bean more at night. I played with him, patted him, groomed him, basically made sure he got lots of attention, whether he wanted it or not!

Finally, I brought a squirt bottle to bed with me. I didn’t want to use it, but he had to learn that screaming at 4AM was not the right way to get our attention. The first morning he came in and howled, I told him “no” and he did it again, so I squirted him. I aimed for his butt, and I’m not even sure the water hit him, but it did startle him. He left and didn’t come back.

At bedtime, I made sure that a quiet Bean knew he was welcome in our bed. I cuddled him and gave him lots of pats. I didn’t want him to think we didn’t want him in there. The next morning, he howled, I squirted way behind him, and he darted out of the room. He hasn’t been back to howl early morning since!

The bad news? I spent most of yesterday cleaning up Diarrhea. I currently still have two area rugs outside drying, and I just brought a third back to its normal spot after being washed, fun day, NOT!

It was one thing when the three cats were having diarrhea, but when the dog also started, I was so confused. The cats don’t go outside, they all eat different food. The dog doesn’t get into plants or anything like that the cats might have gotten into. Finally, I posted the issue on Facebook, and someone suggested it might be the water bowl, brilliant! It’s the only thing all four of them share. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with our water, because everyone else in the house is fine, but maybe there was something funky with the pet fountain.

Hector found it amusing to watch me scrubbing floors.

While I figured out the fountain, a call to the vet was in order, but with all the restrictions during this pandemic, my vet couldn’t see them for a week! I couldn’t live like this for a week, and I knew my pets would all be dehydrated. I got a little annoyed with the receptionist that she couldn’t get me in sooner. I  told her I would find another vet and hung up. Before I got a chance to call my back up vet, she called back and asked if I would bring in a fecal sample. I explained that I did that last week and it was negative. She told me to bring in different poop. With all of the pets having the same problem, I didn’t think that bringing in another sample would yield a different result. I told her no thanks. She tried to schedule me for next week again. I hung up.

Then she called me back a third time. She had talked to the doctor, a friend of mine for the last 15+ years. He knows me and knows my animals. He agreed to try a medication for them while I waited to come in. I picked up the medication that night. After just one dose each, no more problems! Thank goodness! I was running out of cleaner and we all know how hard it can be to acquire cleaning supplies during this pandemic.

I changed to my spare water fountain and put in all clean filters. I don’t know what could have happened to the fountain, but it seems to be the only logical cause. The fountain went through the dishwasher, now I’m leaving it for a bit. I did buy some cheap, generic filters for the fountain, and I’m wondering if there is a chance there was a chemical or something bad in those filters. I bought a ton of them, but it isn’t worth the risk. I’ll be throwing them all away.

The cats got canned food again last night, they were so happy. After two days of medication, everyone still seems to be doing fine.

The Dragon doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about!