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Post your best pussycat photos here! (FELINES ONLY!)

berth said:
Sigh, I remember $200 vet bills. I can only dream of $200 vet bills.
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We called Cedric, our dearly departed orange tabby the $2000 free cat.

Ripped his chest open climbing the fence between us and our neighbor.

Twiice.

Then I found the protruding nail on her side of the fence, pounded it down, and kept his ass inside for the remaining years of his lige.

He was the best boy.
 

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Our "free" orange boy Apollo has cost us a high 5 figures so far, and he's not even 5 years old! He broke his hip right before our 30th wedding anniversary trip, so in addition to hospital fees he also cost us a fortune in non-refundable AirBnB fees and ruined our vacation. Fast forward to November. He got a foxtail stuck up in his urethra, landing him in the emergency hospital in Berkeley for 2 nights. Eric left 2 hours after we picked him up for what should've been our first real vacation since we got him. I stayed home to take care of the little jerk, while Eric sent me photos of every damned hot springs between here and the family wedding in Spokane for the next week. It's a good thing I love him more than life itself. I mean Apollo, of course. In between there have been several vet visits, all of them way more than $200, to clean up his wounds from fighting every friggin' cat in the neighborhood.

Mae and Apollo had a grand Christmas, doing what they love best...

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When God gave us Dini, who could have known what we were in store for.

There's a single framed picture of a cat at our vet, and it's a picture of Dini, we gave it to him after she passed. I've joked in the past that the vet named his boat after her. She was a frequent flyer and a puzzle to him. He said that cats are pretty simple creatures and tend to have just "one thing" wrong with them, not a litany of things. Dini has a laundry list. We never found out, we wouldn't let him dig into her, but he suspected a slow growing tumor on a part of the brain was manifesting itself all all of the ailment that befell her.

But she was a strong, happy cat. We miss her dearly.

Bella, who is 15-16 years old, had a rough year this year. But she's through it, as strong as ever, telling all about her day, bonking her sister, ensuring that the phrase "if you want the most comfortable spot in the house, move the cat" is a truth -- especially at night, particularly on our bed. I think she's a gravitational anomaly when she's sleeping. Very difficult to move. I cannot imagine what it is like to sleep in an unburdened bed.

She had to be in a cone for two weeks that she got out of just before Christmas. Getting her out of that brought our kitty back full force, full throttle. Best Christmas gift. Oh man, was that cone a disaster lol.

Hopefully she won't need to see the vet until October for her annual.
 
Kato was exhausted by having 16 people in the house and 2 of them small children that found him interesting.

He crawled under the covers last night and we spooned for over an hour.

How do they breathe under there is a mystery.

I thought he was dead!
 

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berth said:
When God gave us Dini, who could have known what we were in store for.

There's a single framed picture of a cat at our vet, and it's a picture of Dini, we gave it to him after she passed. I've joked in the past that the vet named his boat after her. She was a frequent flyer and a puzzle to him. He said that cats are pretty simple creatures and tend to have just "one thing" wrong with them, not a litany of things. Dini has a laundry list. We never found out, we wouldn't let him dig into her, but he suspected a slow growing tumor on a part of the brain was manifesting itself all all of the ailment that befell her.

But she was a strong, happy cat. We miss her dearly.

Bella, who is 15-16 years old, had a rough year this year. But she's through it, as strong as ever, telling all about her day, bonking her sister, ensuring that the phrase "if you want the most comfortable spot in the house, move the cat" is a truth -- especially at night, particularly on our bed. I think she's a gravitational anomaly when she's sleeping. Very difficult to move. I cannot imagine what it is like to sleep in an unburdened bed.

She had to be in a cone for two weeks that she got out of just before Christmas. Getting her out of that brought our kitty back full force, full throttle. Best Christmas gift. Oh man, was that cone a disaster lol.

Hopefully she won't need to see the vet until October for her annual.
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Poor Dini...that sounds awful! 🙁

Yes...gravitational anomaly! Apollo sleeps in my left arm in the middle of the bed each and every night. He grows in size and weight as the evening progresses, and is impossible to move. I wish I could sleep as hard as he does. Maybe I would if I ran around catching gophers and climbing trees all day long.

As far as cones go, Apollo had to be in one when he broke his hip. He removed it twice before getting home from the vet. Once we got home he tried again, succeeding only in flipping it around (or upside down? inside out?) so that the "bell" of the cone was around his body instead of his head. He wore it like that the rest of his convalescence and it was much more comfortable while being just as effective.



Also, your post is worthless without pictures of Dini, berth... :x
 
Just to follow up on Dini.

Here was a cat that was allergic to poultry. No chicken, no turkey, no duck. And, I guess, no birds. (We had a bird enter the house once, she managed to put the entire thing in her mouth "Bird? What bird?" She looked like Sylvester. We freed the bird.) A cat that can't eat birds.

So we had her on special diet (venison and pea I think).

She had a cyst on a nipple, we had to have that removed. I gave her the nickname of "7up" when she rolled over for a belly rub.

But she still had a skin condition, and that required steroids. Steroids make cats very hungry. Very hungry cats get fat. Fat cats get diabetic. So, we had a diabetic cat, eventually getting daily insulin injections.

Then she lost her eye. It just...failed. It literally just started oozing out of the eyeball. We had two cats then, they weren't on great terms, but cordial. They had the house divided with an imaginary line. When Penny was taking great interest in Dini, that was not normal. That's when we found out about her eye, and it had to be removed.

She coped very well, just a few abrupt encounters with a door jam now and again.

A primary killer of cats is kidneys. Cats do not have strong kidneys. It's one reason there are no real pain killers for cats, they're hard on kidneys. But Dinis kidneys were failing. Her pees were enormous, we had a huge litter box just for her. It was just a matter of time before the kidneys let her down.

But then, as we learned, want to know a secret about Diabetic cats?

They can STOP being diabetic.

Do you know what happens when you give insulin to a cat that's not diabetic?

Dini was slowing down, we had some base, but not critical concerns with her. She was a routine guest a the vet. Only one vet could work with her (she had the "USE CAUTION" sticker on her file). But Dr. M managed with her.

One day, I just decided to go home at lunch from the office. I never did that. Ever. But felt I should, just to see how she was doing.

When I got home, she was collapsed in the hall. I called my wife, told her to meet me at the vet. I grabbed her, shoved her into a carrier, and raced to the vet 5 minutes away. I called to let them know I was coming. They were waiting for me, put me in a room as soon as I got there, and Dr. M grabbed her out of the carrier like rag doll. Later he said "I don't worry about hurting them, because we can always heal that later."

But by the end of the day, we had to let her go.

The diabetes had switched off, it was basically an insulin shock she was in because we dosed her that morning. Never really knew this could happen, I don't honestly know if there was a way to detect it anyway. If it wasn't this, her kidneys were so bad she probably only had a month or two left. I'm just glad I found her that day instead of coming back home to a dead cat in the hall. As horrible as this day was, that would have been worse.

She showed up on our stoop one day. Over the next week or so we got a trap to trap her, and it took 3 times. That's where she got the name "Houdini", which turned into just Dini. Despite the "CAUTION" sticker, she was an absolute sweetheart. The type of cat that would jump in your lap and march up your chest until lay down so she could go to sleep.

We're so grateful she came to us. Despite it all, we helped more than we hurt. She was loved, indulged, and spoiled.

As the doctor said, cats are simple, and it's rare to have one with such a litany of maladies.

We have a metal sign in the back, "Dini's Meadow" for a large planter. She used to have a nice spot in the backyard she would rest it on her backyard sojourns.
 
Well, what Dini lacked in good health, she more than made up for in her stunning good looks and the love she brought with her. I’d say everyone was better off for the bit of serendipity that brought her to you!

Thank you for sharing her story 😻
 
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