The thrills of pet ownership are ongoing. Troi, the cat on the cover of our Happy Tabby book, has been digestively challenged lately. We took her and our other cat Alia to the vet for a checkup. (If you’re going to listen to one cat yowl all the way into town, you may as well listen to two.)
Alia got a clean bill of health, which is impressive, since she’s almost 15 now. Little Troi doesn’t seem to have anything obvious wrong, but is now on a lovely concoction of liquid antibiotics. Getting the pink goo into the unwilling cat is not easy and we have a house full of pink splatters now. It’s going to be a very long 7-10 days of medication.
Of course, after we got back from the vet, Alia wasn’t feeling good. After hearing a tell-tale “barf yowl” James grabbed her and tried to get her to the laundry room (and linoleum), but didn’t make it. A trail of kitty barf went from the living room through the kitchen, with a particularly gruesome projectile splatter all over the refrigerator. (Eww!)
Then the other night we had yet another pet-related thrill. This time it was a dog. I was doing Christmas cards at the dining room table, looked down at our golden retriever Tika, and noticed that her nose had swollen up. It was bizarre; she looked like she had gained 50 pounds.
I zoomed off to the bathroom, got some liquid Benadryl, measured out a children’s dose into a syringe, and shot it into her mouth. After that, the swelling started to go down. I gave her another dose of stuff at about 1 am, when I woke up.
The next morning, Tika looked normal. While I was at the vet with Troi, I asked about Tika’s nose. The theory is that she might have gotten bitten by a spider. Tika has a habit of poking her nose into places where it doesn’t belong. Apparently, this time something poked back.