#cat – Pet Momma

Settling In

Our son and his cat were home for the weekend. I love the way he sits on the stairs!

Bean absolutely can’t resist a box!

Foster bird is settling in. He is so different than Hector! Interesting to get used to! K is a toothpick making machine! He had a short wood perch on his door that he literally destroyed down to nothing in about 10 minutes. Hector loves to destroy cardboard, this guy is a wood destroyer.

Hector has had a rope perch in her cage for years. I take it out and wash it every so often, but she doesn’t bite or chew it. Today K decided to “work” on his rope perch, and managed to completely chew through it so that it doesn’t attach to the side of the cage anymore. I got two new perches for his door today. He’s already working his way through the first one. Thankfully they are pretty thick, so it is taking him a little time.

If you look at K’s foot, you’ll see he is holding one of his wood chips. He likes to shred wood and then use the bits to scratch himself, so cute!

Thankfully we only got woken up at 5AM to a screaming parrot the first morning that we had him. Since then I’ve been covering him at night, and he doesn’t scream or even talk until I uncover him the next day.

I’d been told he doesn’t prefer men, and that is so true. He seems petrified. He doesn’t want my husband or son anywhere near him and often darts back into his cage if they come over to say Hello. I’ve got my husband feeding him his favorite Nutriberi treats, and that seems to be helping. He’s trying new foods, and enjoying all his toys!

He and Hector still don’t seem all that interested in each other. I did watch Hector climb to the end of her cage today and check out K, but there still wasn’t much interest. I picked Hector up so she could get a better view, but she was more curious about what treats I might have for her, than she was about the other bird.

K likes to dance! I turned on some music the other day and he started flapping his wings and bobbing his head. Dance Party! So far Levitating by Dua Lipa seems to be his favorite, major head bobs!

“Hi Baby” is his favorite phrase. He has also started Meowing, and I’m pretty sure I heard him say “Pucky” over the weekend. He says “Hi” and “Hey.” He’s a super busy guy. Can’t wait to see what games he comes up with next!

Today’s Treat!

Cali is doing OK. She is slowly learning to get around a bit better, but I still have to carry her around a lot. I’m not letting her do stairs at all, so lots of carrying her in and out when she needs to go outside. The pen above is her night time set up for now. That’s in our bedroom, so she gets to stay close, but I don’t have to worry about her attempting stairs in the middle of the night. So far it is working out really well.

The Treat Planet goodies have been a life saver with Cali being hurt. The other night we were all in the living room and she was a bit restless so I pulled out a giant treat for her.

This was the Etta Says Mega Chew, Elk recipe. It’s huge! It’s about an inch around, and about 14″ long. It must smell really good to all meat eaters, because not only does Cali love it, but I’ve seen the cats chewing on it! This has been another great, long lasting chew. Cali worked on it for a couple of hours the other night and didn’t even chew up a quarter of it. Keep in mind, Cali is a 10 lb dog, so I’m guessing a bigger dog would go through it faster, but they do last. I love that Treat Planet is very careful about getting quality ingredients. Everything comes from the United States. I read that the elk is sourced from Texas.

I also read that Treat Planet has partnered with Goodwill Industries since 2010:

“Everyday, a dedicated team of adults with intellectual and /or physical disabilities, work to label our extensive chew line with the support of a supervisory team.

At Treat Planet, we’re proud to partner with our community and continually seek new ways to make a helpful impact.”

Cali was so excited when I gave her this chew. She sniffed it and then looked at me like, she just couldn’t believe her good luck! Once I told her it was OK for her to have it, she wasted no time at all getting to work on it.

Bean was also very interested in this chew and worked on it for a few minutes when Cali put it down! As with the other Etta Says chews I’ve tried, there haven’t been any stains on the carpet which I love!

I had to go out for a couple of hours this morning, so Cali got an Etta Says Chicken Yumm stick. This one smelled so good! These treats have no additives, they are all natural chicken, no hormones, no nitrates or nitrites, no MSG, and they are soy and gluten free. They really smell like something human-grade.

Cali has been hanging out in the little house above quite a bit since she got hurt. I had put the treat down just in front of the house, and she grabbed it before I could even pick up my phone for a picture.

As the cats smelled the treat and came to check it out, Cali managed to stand herself up to growl at them and explain it was her treat. When I got home, this treat was gone!

This morning I spent a couple of hours volunteering at a local shelter. Such nice people! I loved spending a couple of hours there with all the other animal lovers. I probably won’t foster again for a while , so it’s another way to help out and get some more animal time.

Does anyone else do any volunteer work with animals? What do you like to do? Share in the comments.

Foster and Logan Update

I’m worried about my kitty. Logan had bloodwork done earlier this week because of her starting on Bexacat. Her blood sugar was remarkably better after just three days on this med, but there were some other numbers the vet was a little concerned about. For now we are continuing the med and doing more blood work on Monday. Logan isn’t eating very well since she started the medication, so I’m a bit concerned about that. We will find out more on Monday or Tuesday.

Foster dog Skye is really a dream foster. This puppy is so good! She loves to go on walks, but can also calmly chill. She is content as long as she is by my side. She’s currently sleeping in her little pen right next to me.

Unfortunately, there is something about this dog that is totally freaking out my cats. The cats have not ventured far from the underneath of my bed since she got here. She hasn’t chased them or barked at them, but there is something about her that has them really shaken up. I was hoping that they would come around, but it has been several days with no change. I’m looking for a new foster for Skye, or I’ll have to take her back to the shelter tonight. Sunday, I’ll take her to an adoption event, hopefully her new forever family will be looking for her there.

The good news is that other than the cats, fostering has been a great experience. She’s been super easy to take care of, and even my husband is willing to try fostering again. My cats aren’t usually wary of dogs. My Dad’s dogs come over pretty regularly and they don’t care, so I’m hoping fostering might be more successful in the future.

Happy New Year!

Lots of updates coming in later this week!

Cali got a new treat. It’s from Treat Planet. I hadn’t heard of this brand before, and the treat was literally an impulse purchase at my local pet store yesterday. I had no idea it would be such a huge hit! I got the Etta Says Crunchy Chicken and Chia chew bar. I’ll write up more about it later this week.

Today is a big day for Logan the cat. I start navigating her diabetes journey. She was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been waiting for test results to confirm and then making a treatment plan. We’ve decided to try a new Medicine called Bexacat. It’s an insulin-free treatment option. I picked up the medicine yesterday and will start the first dose today. Logan will need to have blood work done on Tuesday to make sure things are going OK. I’m finding it’s an interesting an involved path dealing with a diabetic cat. I’ll be sharing it all here and would love comments, questions and feedback from anyone else dealing with a diabetic cat. More on that later this week as well.

Bean and Puck

Bean and Puck enjoyed the holidays, and now they have been taste-testing a new creamy cat treat for me from Catit. This is another treat that seems to be a big hit in our house right now. More on that soon!

Wena the bearded dragon LOVES our new kitchen sink. Not sure if it is the color, size, material, whatever, but she is so happy bathing in it. She’s been pretty picky about her food lately, but I found a trick online that suggested baby food veggies for picky dragons, and it is working well. She had some purple carrot baby food with her breakfast today.

Cali isn’t a big fan of the cold. She’s spending as much time as she can snuggled up in blankets.

She also really likes the new candy cane pajamas she got for Christmas! Because I seem to have more than my share of pet issues these days, have I shared about Cali’s bump? She has a growth on her neck that the vet says is benign and nothing more than an annoyance, but it’s growing. It’s about the size of a dime and raised off her skin. She tends to scratch at it at times, and there is concern that eventually she will end up with an infection. We have tried to freeze it off twice, but it didn’t help. Surgery is the only removal option now, and I’m not sure I want to put my 14 year old dog with a heart murmur and kidney issues through surgery even if it is minor. For now, I’m keeping an eye on the lump and hoping it doesn’t get worse.

Thankfully Hector D. Byrd is thriving. She’s really my buddy. Someone would think I’m crazy listening to my house all day. Working at home, I find myself constantly chatting with her. She’s such great company!

Check back for all kinds of updates soon, and have a great weekend!

Way too long!

With one very cuddled up Puck to welcome you back to the blog, here’s a quick update with a promise of more to follow. I have been terrible about posting and hope to get back to it on a more regular basis next year.

Cali is getting older. She’s 14 now and starting to have some kidney issues. We found out because she had a couple of back to back infections. The vet has prescribed some medication and a prescription diet. She HATES the prescription diet. The food is all low protein, so it is basically a bowl of rice. I’ve tried mixing in pumpkin, different baby food veggies, veggie broth, etc. She’s not having it. She’s losing weight and I’m not sure what to do about it. She seemed to like the Just Food for Dogs prescription kidney food at first, but she isn’t eating it very well anymore. I just ordered a bunch of Royal Canin renal health food, and she is eating that a little better. I’m nervous about her losing weight. A pound or two is a lot when your total body weight is only 11 pounds!

Logan the cat is also having kidney issues. She’s also on a prescription diet, but thankfully she is eating her food without issue. She is still having issues controlling her bladder, so she is still confined, but she is doing well and seems very content.

Bean is still just Bean. He’s happily keeping an eye on the Christmas tree for us.

I’ve had puppy fever really bad. I signed up to foster for a shelter thinking that it might help to ease my puppy wanting, but so far there haven’t really been any fosters available. There was one, but she was a very active adult dog, and without a fenced in yard I was worried about what it would be to take her in. I was told she wasn’t the easiest and maybe not the best choice for a first foster, and not wanting me first experience to be a super challenging one. I passed.

There was an adorable little dog on Facebook the other day that I came very close to applying for, but after ordering more prescription food for Cali, I decided maybe I should let the medical issues settle in a bit here before I actually do take on another dog.

Hector D. Byrd is doing great. She was pissed at me for a bit because we were doing some remodeling and we had to move her cage upstairs and out of the way for a few weeks. She’s back in her usual spot now and much happier. I’m happier too, I like having her near my work area.

Wishing everyone and their feathered, furred, scaled babies the very happiest of holidays! Hoping to be back more regularly next year!

Puck and Martin doing a little bird watching

Eufy Fountain and Catlink Update

Happy Hiking Dog! Cali may be little, but she loves hiking through the woods. I was so thankful the weather warmed up a bit last weekend and we got out for a nice hike. Now I just need to find time to give her a Spring haircut!

Before I talk about my new eufy pet fountain, an update on the Catlink boxes now that they are a regular part of my life. I LOVE THEM! They aren’t cheap, but they are worth every single penny we spent on them. Scooping litter boxes has become (mostly) a thing of the past. If I didn’t have a sick cat*, I wouldn’t be scooping boxes at all!

We have two Catlink boxes now, one upstairs in our laundry room, and one all the way downstairs under the staircase. I check the boxes once a day, honestly, sometimes every other day. I check to make sure there aren’t any clumps stuck to the top of the box, if there are, I just scrape it off with a litter scoop, and push the button to run the clean cycle, so easy! Once every 5 days or so, I check the bottom compartment to make sure it isn’t too full. When it gets full, I remove the bag, close it up tight, throw it away, and add a new bag. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes. One of the Catlink boxes will tell me when the bottom is full, but I’ve found if I wait for it to tell me, it’s actually a bit over full. Easier to check it every few days and change as needed. All of the cats have adapted to the Catlink boxes. I will say that the “optional” step really isn’t optional. It makes a huge difference. Not only does it make the box much more accessible for the cats, but it also helps keep any litter mess in check. Speaking of litter, cheap, scoopable, clay litter is all I’m using, most often TidyCat. The Catlink needs a litter with a little weight. TidyCat is cheap and readily available.

The only negative about the automatic boxes, and I think this is true of Catlink or any of the other brands, is that they are large. I’m very lucky I was able to find space for them where they aren’t in the way.

One more word of advice on the Catlink box, for reliability, attach it to a UPS/battery back up unit. They don’t deal well with power flickers. We lose power a few times a year usually, and often before the power goes out, we get flickers. Unfortunately, the Catlink box doesn’t deal well with the flickers and it sometimes stops working. We were having to reset the box with every power flicker, but that problem has been solved by plugging the boxes into a battery backup.

Another product I’m super excited about is the eufy pet water fountain P940. I’ve been using this fountain for a couple of months now, enjoying the simplicity of it. It’s easy to clean, and easy to use.

The eufy fountain is super simple to put together. It’s got a water basin, a tube for the water fountain, a filter and filter base, a stainless steel drinking surface, and the fountain spout.

It’s super simple to set up, just stack the pieces together and it’s good to go. The filter should definitely be rinsed before use so that there isn’t extra charcoal in the drinking water.

The tiny dot in the center of the white base is actually an LED light. If it’s red, the water level is too low and it’s time to refill. The water tank and everything on top of it easily lift off the base to refill. I pick it up, remove the spout, drinking tray, and filter tray, rinse everything and refill. Once a week, I do a more through wash of the whole thing before I refill it. With three cats and a small dog in the house, I am refilling every day, so I do wish the water storage was a bit bigger, but it works.

The unit plugs into an AC outlet, so there aren’t any batteries to worry about. For me this works out great, but if you don’t have an outlet near where you want to keep the fountain, it might be an issue.

Following are some visual from the box so you can see the setup diagrams:

And features:

Overall I’ve been really happy with this eufy fountain. I like that there is a stainless surface for the pets to drink from, so they aren’t drinking directly from plastic. I have had issues in the past with one of the cats breaking out on his face and chin, and the vet said it could be from a bacteria that gets into plastic surfaces, so now I only use metal food and water dishes. Refilling and cleaning are easy and quick. The filters are available to purchase on Amazon, or directly from the eufy website.

If there is one thing I would fix, I’d like a larger water capacity. Filling the fountain every day is fine, but it would be nice to have a large enough capacity to fill every other day. For most people, the capacity would probably be fine, but when we have four cats and the dog in the house, it takes more refilling than normal.

Martin is here visiting again, and he approves of the Catlink litter box and the eufy fountain! Anyone else use a pet fountain? What type do you use? What features are your favorites? Leave a comment and let me know or just say Hello!

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*The reason I still have one litter box to scoop is that Logan, my old lady cat, is still living in her cat condo. She is lose for a few hours every day and uses the Catlink box, but she also has a regular box in her condo.

Super Quick Update

Bean and Cali went to the vet today. Bean for his annual check up. He’s all good, weighed in at his almost 16 lbs, and got his rabies shot.

Cali got her Cytopoint injection to help with her itchiness.

Mostly we talked about Logan. We’ve decided to try her on medication to try and help her anxiety. I don’t love the idea of medicating, but I hate the idea of having our couch peed on all the time even more.

We’ll start her on meds next week after my weekend trip when I’m home to monitor her for a while. Fingers crossed it helps!

Anyone else have cats with litter box issues? How did you solve it? Leave a comment.

Logan and Hector

Poor Logan is back in quarantine. If you read the post from a couple of weeks ago, you already know we thought she had some kind of urinary/bladder infection and treated it, but apparently there is something else going on.

After the “Sh*t Show” I’ve been cleaning up the aftermath, and making sure the Catlink boxes are working properly, but two days ago I found fresh urine by the fireplace. With three cats in the house (Marty moved with my son), I had to do a little detective work to make sure I had the right cat. Since Logan had recently been ill, I guessed it was her, and moved her to a nice big bathroom on her own. No more accidents in the house, so it was time to call the vet again.

Last time they told me bladder stones were very unlikely for whatever reason, but since the antibiotics didn’t completely clear up whatever Logan has going on, they think that might be the problem. Monday morning she’ll go back to the vet for an abdominal X-ray to see if we can figure this out. I’m hoping it isn’t anything too serious. Logan isn’t super old, but she is almost 1`5. For now, she is enjoying a break from the boy cats, eating and drinking well, and she seems to be acting fine. I’ll update after the vet on Monday.

Puck loves his heating pad in the colder weather, actually all year round!

I wish I could share the info on this pad because I love it, but I can’t find it on Amazon anymore. This particular pad stays safely plugged in all the time. It turns itself on with pressure, so when a pet climbs on, it heats up, and when it isn’t being used, it shuts down. It’s auto controlled not to overheat, it gets warm, but not hot. I’ll keep looking for something like it and post if/when I find one.

In Hector news, she took a bath this morning! I’ve posted about Hector hating baths before, so just wanted to update. I think I mentioned the green litter box that Hector has decided is OK for bathing in. She has a great bath routine now. About once a week, I fill her box with warm water and put it on top of her cage.

She doesn’t always touch it right away, and she didn’t use it at all yesterday, but this morning she decided it was bath time. She climbs in her box and splashes around, then chirps happily and I know it is time to go spray her. I have a fine mist spray bottle that I fill with warm water, then I stand there and spray her while she plays in the water, until my hands get sore, then I spray her some more!

She flaps her wings, dips her belly, and dunks her head in the water. It makes me so happy to see her enjoy a bath! It has been a very long road with lots of trial and error to find a bath system she likes!

Have a great weekend!

Life’s a Sh*t Show

It’s Puck!

Where to start… I’ve been traveling. We headed to Italy to visit my daughter. Absolutely amazing trip, but of course had to deal with the hassle of pet care while I was away. Cali to a friend, and a pet sitter to the house.

I still love my Catlink automatic litter boxes, but learning to live with them is definitely a learning experience, traveling definitely added to the learning curve.

Cali got to walk our local dog-friendly mall!

A friend took Cali for me, so that was easy. I prep her food in individual containers to make it super easy, no measuring! Just add a little water and Cali is fed.

The rest of the crew, Hector, cats, and dragon, stayed home to be checked on daily by a pet sitter. As usual, very detailed instructions were left, but I hadn’t traveled since we got the new automatic litter boxes. I figured it would be super easy! I taught the pet sitter how to change the bags in the bottom every few days and I figured all was good. I even left extra litter in case the boxes ran low. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about power outages because we have a generator, but there are still short power outages as the electricity goes out and the generator comes on.

The problem is that the new litter boxes are pretty picky about the power supply, and with the power flickers we had from a storm, the litter box goes went into some kind of LaLa land and didn’t auto clean.

Well, we came back from being away and found both of the automatic litter boxes had not been cleaning themselves. The poor cats clearly tried to use the dirty boxes, but picked our living room as their new “Box” when they couldn’t stand the mess anymore. They made a lovely poop circle all around the living room rug. Thankfully, they mostly peed in the boxes, but there were a couple of spots that I’m still trying to remove the smell.

I had to figure out why the boxes weren’t automatically cleaning anymore, and customer service at CatLink was excellent. I used their chat feature in the CatLink App and someone helped me right away. They emailed me directions on recalibrating the boxes which took a couple of tries, but now they are working perfectly again.

Lesson learned. We bought battery back-ups for both litter boxes to help eliminate the power flickers. I’ll also leave better notes for the pet sitter about checking and cleaning the “automatic” boxes if necessary.

Hector Turns 30! And Quick Updates

Hector D. Byrd hatched 30 years ago today! I feel so lucky to have her in my life. Her cage is in the center of our living space, halfway between the kitchen and my desk space, so I spend a lot of time with her every day. She’s sort of become my therapist. She’s always there for me to talk to, and she’s a great listener. She’s not a cuddly bird, but she loves to whistle, destroy anything made out of cardboard, and eat nuts! Her happy chirps and whistles have become part of our home. Love my red tailed Jungle Chicken!

My Logan girl has had a rough couple of weeks. About two weeks ago, she jumped on the back of the couch and peed a couple of drops, yikes! The boy cats had been chasing her, so I thought maybe they had just made her really nervous and I didn’t worry too much about it. Then I found a cat bed covered in pee. Hmmmm something wasn’t right. That night, Logan went over to scratching toy, climbed up on it, and peed a couple of drops again. The next morning I took her to the vet. Poor baby has some kind of urinary infection. The good news is that we caught it. A simple antibiotic shot seems to be clearing it right up, and she is back to her old grumpy self.

Since I got the CatLink boxes, I haven’t been using Pretty Litter, but I do have a couple of bags of it. When I had to confine Logan for a couple of days, I used the Pretty Litter in the extra litter box for her. I have to say, the crystals were turning red, a sign of infection. This morning, a couple of days after her antibiotic shot, the crystals are back to normal yellow. I guess they do work!

Speaking of the CatLink boxes. I still love them. It is truly life changing to not worry about cleaning cat boxes all the time! About once every five days, I open up the bottom, take out the waste litter in its easy little bag, throw it out, and put in a new bag, so easy! When I change out the bottom, I usually add some more clumping litter, and that’s it. Worth every single penny we spent on those boxes! With the optional step in front of the box, there is even very little litter tracking. Truly cat owner heaven!

Time to bring Hector more nuts and some new cardboard boxes, a perfect birthday for my feathered friend!