Homeless Cat -- Now Spotacus' Legacy

[Wanderlost]

On 18 Dec, a very large cat showed up at our house. It was late and cold, and he looked in the door and made it clear he wanted inside. Well, since we have two cats already and he was a stranger, we could not let him in the house. WLToo walked out and the cat ran to him, so he walked the cat into the garage and into the climate controlled room out there.

He was extremely hungry and thirsty, but in otherwise good condition and very clean. We fixed up a bed for him, set up the feeding and elimination stations, and went to bed.

Next day, we worked in the garage all day, while the big guy slept or supervised. We found him to be an intact male, no sign he's ever worn a collar, and he has a strong need to be in the general vicinity of humans. For an intact male, he's remarkably mellow - I don't think he was the alpha cat in his previous home.

Have had zero responses to the "found cat" notices around the area and online, so we'll be working with the local rescues to get him neutered and all his shots, then find him a home. We can't keep him because he's just too big for our two cats to share our small house. Alex would have another emotional meltdown, and I don't want to go through that mess again (long, ugly story).

For now, we're calling him Spot, not that he answers to it (does answer to "Kitty, Kitty"). No idea how he travels; we'll find out when we take him to the vet on Tuesday.

If anyone knows of someone who would like a large (about 15-18 pounds) cat who needs to be with people, please let me know. No cat novices, please; this cat needs someone who knows exactly how to handle an adult cat of this size, especially when he's feeling frisky.





We're at Canyon Lake, TX, so if there are any Winter Texans nearby who would like to meet him and maybe give him a home, that would be great.

[kokosfriend]

Oh Spot - that sounds terrible! Hope you get better soon

Barb and the 4 chocolates

[Wanderlost]

My poor Spotacus. He's got the urge to pee every few minutes again, so he goes back to the vet tomorrow. He's stay with her until she can get enough pee for a culture, then we'll see what treatment he needs.

Meanwhile, it's rather cold today. In fact, we just may break the record low. So the boys are not at all interested in going outside, which is how we noticed Spot's problem -- he peed in the kitchen sink, then immediately went to his Litter Robot, then to WLToo's bathroom sink. Good thing he can sleep, which he's doing right now.

Mama Doe Lassie and Notch came up to the door, but she didn't stay long. I think she may know now that we won't feed her when he's along.

A black chinned hummingbird has been doing a ballet in the wind, trying to catch the feeder on the back stroke as it swings wildly. I'd put out the feeder with perches, except the orioles are still coming round.

The male barn swallow seems to be talking to us now. Yesterday, each time we went outside, he showed up and sang up a storm. Maybe he likes the appreciative audience...

Time to feed Alex his lunch, then get ready for my follow-up surgery appointment. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Improvements all around. I haven't had a smidge of a-fib since Sunday. Spot seems to be calming down considerably, although we're still watchful and are keeping up the happy gas.

Unfortunately, Alex had a problem early this morning. He and I were both asleep, when he suddenly jumped up and off the bed, just as I felt wet on the blanket. Sure enough, he leaked in his sleep. So at 0545, I'm doing laundry. Just as I came back into the bedroom, I heard both cats in the bathroom. I saw Spot watching Alex, who was in the shower peeing. We'd cleaned his litter box last night, so why he decided to pee in the shower is beyond me -- maybe he decided he really had to go, but there was too much activity in the laundry room. At least the shower is easy to clean.

Mama Doe Lassie turned up about 20 minutes ago. She has been coming to the door several times a day, even though there's lots of green stuff for her to eat. We only feed her once a day, and only if there's no other deer nearby. I guess she's optimistic...

Still no sign of any ruby throated hummingbirds, just black chinned and rufous. But those black chinned are aggressive as heck toward each other. Highly entertaining to watch, as long as we don't wind up catching and releasing another one from inside the house. This time, though, it was a tiny rufous who got into the house. I caught it, and as I walked to the door, I felt it get a good grip on my finger. When I opened my hands to let it fly, it stayed put for about 30 seconds before finally flying away. I guess it needed to get its bearings after smacking into the window. Beautiful little thing.

Breakfast is over, the blanket is dry, and I'm going back to bed. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Bleah. Spot tried his best to keep me up last night. I had a window open near his favorite spot on the bed. He saw stuff outside that he thought should be investigated, and tried all night to wake me up enough to let him outside. Why he thought I'd do that, I don't know. So I'm a bit groggy today.

Meanwhile, he's on patrol. I saw him walking the north fence line a bit ago. Meanwhile, Alex decided to be afraid of the Roomba and tried to climb my shoulder. Ouch.

Time to sneak up on Alex and trim claws. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Quiet day today. Spot hasn't done anything to get into trouble, and is asleep on a side table. Alex is asleep on a piddle pad on my lap.

Mama Doe Lassie got very suspicious when I moved her dish from the porch to the pool deck, where it could dry in the sun. She came back several times before she finished her corn and muesli. I'll put it back in its usual location tomorrow...

The scar tissue hasn't formed yet around my pulmonary veins, so I've been having a-fib almost every day since the procedure, even though I'm still on my medication to stop it. The last three days, it's been almost constant. Good thing I'm seeing the surgeon next week, so I can find out how long it takes before things finally calm down. My form of a-fib is highly annoying, as it feels like my heart is trying to pound out of my chest. Sheesh.

Back to the news reports on Boston and West, Texas, which is about 180 miles up the road. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Spot finally recovered from the bladder infection, but his potty discipline is still all over the place. He seems now to be peeing or spraying when he doesn't get something he wants, like to go outside right then or to get a treat. Spraying him with lemon water doesn't work; he likes the flavor. So we put cloves into the water -- maybe he won't like that flavor. I've almost used up an entire gallon of Wee Cleaner, cleaning up after him, and we've actually had to close off a third of the house so he can't get in there unseen. It also cut Alex off from one of his favorite napping spots, but he's simply moved back to our bed and is fine.

For now, if Spot wants to stay outside, I'm fine with that. At least he's not inside spraying or peeing on something. We have a Feliway diffuser right beside his tree in our bedroom, and I've not seen him acting out in our bedroom since, so it might be having some effect. We have lots of Feliway spray, so I'll be going around the house spraying every day. Also, when I yell, he stops doing whatever it was immediately and goes straight to his Litter Robot, so I know this is just him being a hard-headed former tomcat.

Right now, he and Alex are asleep. It was raining buckets when we all woke up, and the wind is high now, so they did not enjoy being outside.

Something very odd happened last night, while I was still working at the library. WLToo said Spot had been asleep in a porch chair. WLToo heard something and went to the door. He saw Mama Doe Lassie backing off the porch, while Spot was on the porch in front of her, in full prep for launch mode, crouched, ears flat back. Mama Doe Lassie looked at WLToo like, "What? Did I do something? What's going on?"

WLToo thinks she may have come up on the porch, saw Spot asleep in the chair, and snuffled him, which would have startled him awake and caused that reaction. Anyway, as soon as WLToo opened the door, they both relaxed. Spot stood up, chirped, and came inside. MDL looked at WLToo again, then strolled away. And I missed the whole thing...

The orioles are still trying to get into the hummingbird feeder, although not near as often as when they first arrived. A wasp is being more successful; it's not been aggressive, so I'm not going to leap out there and squash it -- it doesn't eat much.

It's lunchtime. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Sheesh. The male dominance contest has flared anew. Spot and WLToo are in open war. They don't realize that I am the alpha cat, armed with a water bottle, Wee Cleaner, and a fierce desire to throw them both outside to fend for themselves. I will give WLToo cat behavior modification pointers, but he's not big on listening to me right now.

Actually, I pretty much backed out of this one. WLToo and Spot have to re-establish their relationship. I'm just making sure it does not escalate any further: WLToo wondered this morning if he should just piddle directly onto Spot to make his point. I said fine, but do it outside, or I'll spray WLToo, too.

Guys...

I ordered Feliway diffusers and lots of refills. The spray is helping, but this flareup involved WLToo waking up to find Spot had peed on his shirt and jeans on the chest at the foot of the bed. For whatever reason (made no sense to me), he refused to let Spot outside after breakfast, as is the norm. So Spot peed on WLToo's side of the bed. I want my bedroom to be a haven of peace, not to wake up hearing a cat digging at the bed. So the sheets are in the laundry, the mattress is soaked in Wee Cleaner, and the guys are outside. Spot has food, got his lunchtime treats outside, and will get fed dinner outside. WLToo intends to allow him back inside at sunset, which is about when WLToo will be allowed back inside... It's a beautiful day; they can handle it.

Spot's pee was still pink, so I guess we're heading for the next step. Dr. Suzie will have to keep him to get a good sample for analysis, and do a sonogram to make sure something internal isn't all fouled up. Then if it just involved more antibiotics, we'll most likely take him to see her for a daily shot. Poor guy. Staying at the vet will surely help the peeing and dominance issues... :R

Mama Doe Lassie's 2010 twins, Han and Spooky, are back. They really look like fine bucks, and can jump the fence with such grace. She's still letting the two bucks she adopted from last year hang with her, so she's rarely getting any corn. We'll only feed her when no one's around. Besides, we're out of corn.

Yesterday, we got .21 inches of rain. This makes 7.24" total accumulation for this year, which I believe is just about normal. The wildflowers should be magnificent this weekend, for our motorcycle ride to the Willow City loop near Fredericksburg.

WLToo hollered, needs me to hold his motorcycle battery up so he can attach more stuff.

Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Yesterday sucked. I woke up before sunrise with a lot of pain in my right leg. Then tingles joined in. Called my doctor and he sent me to the ER to be evaluated for a possible blood clot. Luckily, that was negative. Seems my femeral nerves got all upset at all the poking and prodding of last Wednesday.

So we went to my favorite Korean restaurant, then did the shopping. By the time we got home, no more pain and the tingles were fading. Hanging about at the ER, although they saw me immediately and were very nice folks, was not my idea of a good day.

Today's just fine. It's my last day of not being able to lift Spot, who has noticed that I don't pick him up. Last night, he stole Alex' spot in my lap and purred and slept there all evening.

This morning, when I came back from donating my long hair to Locks of Love (short hair is better for daily swimming), one of the garage bays was open. I opened my bay and saw Spot lounging in the upper storage area. That's usually Alex' favorite garage place, but Spot looked quite content up there. However, when I said, "It's lunchtime, Spot. Are you ready for your treats?" he was down the stairs and in the house in a flash.

WLToo finished painting the gate a nice forest green. One more coat, then wait a week for it to set, and tape off everything except the Texas star in the middle, and spray paint it gold. Then it will be one more "to do" item finished.

He pulled a few radishes for me yesterday. They were extremely spicy. The greens weren't all that nice, though, so they went into the keyhole garden's compost chute. Meanwhile, the green onions failed to sprout at all. Oh, well, it's our first real garden, so we expected to have some successes and some failures.

The washing machine just announced it's done. Then I'm taking my Kindle outside to enjoy the day. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Spot peed in my bathroom sink this morning, and it was light pink, much better than the dark, nearly red color of a few days ago. We're hoping the second shot does the trick. Meanwhile, he's showing such a fascination with sinks and toilets that I wonder if he could be trained to use the toilet. Will have to research training methods.

WLToo named another doe. She has a distinctive walk and posture, like she's galumphing along. He said he was leaning toward calling her Galumph, because she moved kinda "dorky." I said, "Then call her Dork -- short for Dorcus." So Dork she is. I don't really mind him naming them -- if necessary, I'd still have no hesitation in eating any of them except Mama Doe Lassie. We hand raised and named our beeves back on the farm. Even the ones we very nearly made pets of still landed in the freezer.

Alex went all yesterday without one piddling on either of us. Might be he's not fully clearing his bladder in the litter box, because on the days he spends mostly outside, he doesn't leak. I guess cleaning his box several times a day when he's stuck inside might help, but dang! what a lot of extra work. Sigh.

A hummingbird flew inside the house yesterday afternoon. Again. WLToo got to it before the cats, and we got it safely outside. A storm door is definitely in order, so the aerial battles don't come inside anymore.

Speaking of cats - they want back inside. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

Unfortunately, the only place we can put a litter box is exactly where it is. Spot's not avoiding it at all; just picking additional locations. He's not done anything untoward today, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Alex walked up on WLToo's lap and peed on his pants leg yesterday. He obviously did not intend to, and that's a bit worrisome. He's not leaking today, though, so it might have just been a one time thing. I'm so not looking forward to having to make the decision -- he's my heart kitty. But so long as he merely leaks, we'll make do with increased laundry and piddle pads. I don't think he'd appreciate a diaper...

WLToo has a rotisserie chicken all cut up, so I'll go eat now. Later, y'all.

[Code2High]

Wanderlost wrote:
I had the ablation on Wednesday, came home yesterday, slept a lot, then followed Spot around the house, as he tried to squat everywhere. When I yelled at him, he'd go to his Litter Robot. Sigh.

Today he got the second shot. Hope it works, and that he's not going to have a tendency toward bladder infections. Right now, he's running in and out the door, trying to get me to come outside with him. He doesn't understand that I have to move slowly and take things easy for a while, to include not picking him up. At 15.6 pounds, he's well beyond the ten pound limit for the next week.

Meanwhile, I look like a bruised fruit. I have nasty blood bruises all over my arms from failed and successful IVs and blood draws, and I'm still picking off glue from all the electrode patches, bandages and doodads. They could not induce a-fib after fixing my heart, so that's really encouraging that in a few weeks I could be off the a-fib medication completely. Yee Haw! I do hate taking pills...

The burn ban was lifted, so WLToo burned the scrap wood, twigs and assorted dead fall. The meadow is now clean and bursting with wildflowers. That half inch of rain we got Wednesday helped a lot.

The leeks failed. I kind of expected that, since we had zero experience with them. Oh, well, lesson learned. I'll be harvesting the rest of the radishes this weekend, to make room for the next crop of something. The cabbages and broccoli are starting to look like cabbage and broccoli -- WLToo is looking forward to those. The pinto beans are growing like mad, as are the tomatoes, potatoes, yellow onions, cilantro, basil, and cubanelle peppers. I'm so looking forward to the cubanelles.

Well, I do need to move around some more. Later, y'all.

There are special diets and additives to diets to modify the urine and reduce discomfort/recurring infections. Something to check with the vet about. If you've got that pheremone spray, try it around the litter box.... it will discourage marking, but will encourage litter box use because in both cases it reduces anxiety. Also consider changing some things out (litter...even just fresh litter and a clean box... location, orientation), after you've verified what's going on with the vet. If his infection is resolved then he may have a residual aversion to the box because he associates it with the pain of urinating with an infection. But don't change things until you are sure he's cleared up, because that will just carry the association to the new set-up.

[Wanderlost]

I had the ablation on Wednesday, came home yesterday, slept a lot, then followed Spot around the house, as he tried to squat everywhere. When I yelled at him, he'd go to his Litter Robot. Sigh.

Today he got the second shot. Hope it works, and that he's not going to have a tendency toward bladder infections. Right now, he's running in and out the door, trying to get me to come outside with him. He doesn't understand that I have to move slowly and take things easy for a while, to include not picking him up. At 15.6 pounds, he's well beyond the ten pound limit for the next week.

Meanwhile, I look like a bruised fruit. I have nasty blood bruises all over my arms from failed and successful IVs and blood draws, and I'm still picking off glue from all the electrode patches, bandages and doodads. They could not induce a-fib after fixing my heart, so that's really encouraging that in a few weeks I could be off the a-fib medication completely. Yee Haw! I do hate taking pills...

The burn ban was lifted, so WLToo burned the scrap wood, twigs and assorted dead fall. The meadow is now clean and bursting with wildflowers. That half inch of rain we got Wednesday helped a lot.

The leeks failed. I kind of expected that, since we had zero experience with them. Oh, well, lesson learned. I'll be harvesting the rest of the radishes this weekend, to make room for the next crop of something. The cabbages and broccoli are starting to look like cabbage and broccoli -- WLToo is looking forward to those. The pinto beans are growing like mad, as are the tomatoes, potatoes, yellow onions, cilantro, basil, and cubanelle peppers. I'm so looking forward to the cubanelles.

Well, I do need to move around some more. Later, y'all.

[Wanderlost]

It rained early this morning. Since Sunday, we've accumulated almost a quarter inch. Doesn't sound like much, but when one lives in a semi-arid location that's in a drought, it means a whole lot.

Quiet cloudy day. We're taking advantage of it to do absolutely nothing. Even the boys are sleeping the day away.

Earlier, I just missed a photo op. Mama Doe Lassie was muzzle to glass on one side of the door, while Spot was nose to glass on the other side, both staring at each other. The light washed MDL completely out of the photo. Shame - it was so cute.

Doctor's nurse called with the last minute instructions. Everything's a go for tomorrow. For me, the worst part is always the IV - I have very tiny veins and every IV is painful, no matter how good the tech is. At least this will be less than 24 hours - I'll go home Thursday morning.

Phooey. I'm going to chase an oriole away from the feeder. Later, y'all.

[Code2High]

I like the collars because they follow the cat everywhere for a month. Makes them a little loopy the first day, basically high on pheremones as near as I can tell... that can be a help under some circumstances.

[Wanderlost]

We changed out hummingbird feeders and have foiled the big birds. We think they are Bullock's orioles, which breed in this area, so we don't want to encourage them to hang around the feeder at all.

Still just three barn swallows, two female and one male, but it is early.

Picked radishes and sauteed the greens in olive oil, with chopped hickory smoked ham, minced garlic, and a bit of salt and pepper. They have a buttery taste I did not expect. I'll definitely be planting more icicle radishes, just for the greens.

The Feliway may be helping, but Spot is still peeing in other inappropriate places, so I ordered more spray, in anticipation of a long term project. As long as the weather's so nice, though, he's spending most of his time on one porch or another, and not peeing inside. The next real test will be Wednesday, when I have my ablation and he's stuck inside all day, plus a good part of Thursday. Hopefully, WLToo will keep the spray going.

Notch and another small buck marched right up to the door today. I don't want bucks mooching at my door, so I clapped my hands sharply and ran 'em back down the hill. Mama Doe Lassie was standing right next to me, and didn't even blink when I looked at them and clapped. I think she understands that we'll feed her and no one else.

We sprayed as much area as the hoses could reach, still working on getting rid of the grass burrs. After three years here, we've put a serious dent in them around the house, but will probably never kill 'em all out in the meadow.

The meadow has yellow wildflowers already, which I haven't identified yet, and the purple lantana (Lantana achyranthifolia) has bloomed. The spider milkweed (Asclepias asperula) is up and nearly ready to bloom. The Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera), wild angelica (Angelica sylvestris), and gray damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana) are growing, but won't bloom for at least another month. We got eight one hundredths of rain yesterday, and everything just exploded today. Possibility of more rain this week, which could break out even more wildflowers. I hope so; makes for great photos.

Dancing With the Stars is on, so I'll bail now. Later, y'all.