Tuesday 24 March 2009

Cat Dental Extraction #1

There is a problem with being proud of how well your cats get along - when they stop doing so, even for a few hours or days, your ego takes a hit. I don't know why I feel personally responsible for how well our kitties get along - all Cory and I have done is make sure that we got them at a young impressionable age, and at the same time, from the same place. For the past 4 years (almost) they have gotten along splendidly - with only occasional fights that amounted to nothing really, only a bit of hissing and running away.

But yesterday Zoie had her dental (it went well and cost a lot less than I was expecting, and she only had one tooth extracted). She came home with "vet smell" and Ellie didn't like it - never mind that she was clingy while Zoie was away (they've never been apart - they even got spayed on the same day...) Ellie didn't like Zoie, she smelled funny. We were expecting this, afterall, Zoie was still feeling the effects of the procedure and medications - but we didn't expect Ellie to stay pissy. Now Ellie doesn't like the way Zoie's breath smells - she goes up to Zoie, smells her breath and hisses then runs away growling. Hopefully this means that they will go back to normal as soon as a) Zoie's breath smells normal (whatever that is) or b) Ellie gets her own bad breath (Friday).

I was woken up several times with Ellie hissing and it wasn't fun this morning either. No fighting, but a lot of bad vocalizations. The sad thing is that Zoie is meowing at me more and looking at Ellie - she doesn't seem to understand why her friend won't snuggle. We are snuggling her even more than usual but it still breaks my heart to see the poor interactions. Hopefully they will be back on better terms soon. I think it is ridiculous how affected I am about the poor interactions but I can't change it.

This fighting between the cats just reinforces the fact that we have to take both cats in when we go to the vet whenever possible. We'd been doing that before because we figured it was less stress that way - their personalities mesh well - Zoie hides at the back of the cage and trembles and Ellie sits at the front and tells the vet to go to hell or worse (she's all meow and no bite though - she spits and stuff but never even scratches the vet). All in all the vet figures that Ellie has a better stress reaction because her heart rate doesn't increase during annual examinations, but Zoie's at least doubles.

K, enough about the cats... Knitting news, I finished a second sock - the one on 00 needles - only to find out that because I switched needle brands the second one didn't fit and I had to rip back to the heel. The new brand doesn't hurt my wrists so I'll go up a size and see how that goes. But even the first one doesn't fit well - the problem is my arches - they make my instep really high and I've now had several pairs of socks that fit poorly in the ankles. These ones would fit if I lost some ankle weight - I should loose weight anyways, so hopefully some will come off of the ankles...

2 comments:

Maggie Tipping said...

aw I have never had that problem with my cats but I have heard it can happen. My last vet said to seperate them for a day or so and that usually takes care of it. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

My sock problem is wide feet. I always have to increase a couple stiches before I reduce for the toe. And I swear I always forget and have to rip back.
le sigh.