For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also--Matthew 6:21

Have you voted?  Mom and Dad voted today!

The cats are going outside every day now.  We go out and count heads every hour or so, just to make sure they have not found a way to escape.  So far the lattice extension on the fence is working.   Usually around 6:00 p.m. we go out to catch them and bring them into the house.  Even after being outside for several hours, Jonesie is hard to catch.  He doesn’t want to come back inside.  But, we have learned not to leave any of them out after dark.  We might never catch them.

I put this out for me to lie down on, but looks like Kaci, Jason and Lexi had other ideas

Dash, in the window, would like to be outside with Kaci, but we can't catch her in the house, much less outside!

We will go off of Daylight Savings Time next weekend, the 4th of November.  That means that the cats’ outside time will be cut down an hour to 5:00 p.m.  I can’t believe this year is almost over.

Jonesie and Mr. Creme

It’s time for Mr. Creme’s fructosamine test again.  Charlie is taking him to the vet tomorrow.  It’s been about three weeks since his last one.  We did a blood glucose test on him the other day and it was 504.  Still high, but coming down.  The vet wants us to only do a test once a week.  She’s afraid we will start adjusting MC’s insulin dosage I think.  We would never do that though.  She told us that some people check the BG and if it’s high they increase the insulin, etc.  That’s a dangerous thing to do.  He still gets 2 units in the morning and 2 units at night.  He’s eating well and he looks good.  I also increased his B12 pills from 1 a day to 1-1/2 a day.  There’s no danger of over dosing on B12.  I noticed that his back legs seemed to be more wobbly, but with the extra ½ pill, they are better.

The vaporizer for Lexi works well.  The pre-moistened wicks are kind of expensive and there are only about 6 in a box.  We bought a bottle of the liquid which is used in water vaporizers.  I soak the wicks in it because it is the camphor based solution used in the pre-moistened ones I was buying.  It works just as well.  At least Lexi breathes better.

Her diarrhea seems to be cleared up (knock on wood) over the past week or so.  I hope it doesn’t come back.  With all the tests she went through, we still don’t know for sure what caused it for such a long period of time.  The vet is convinced it’s food allergies, but we tried changing her food for a couple of months and nothing changed.  I have her back on her original food and I think that may be helping.  We’ll see.

Willie, our boarder cat, will be going home next week I think.  I received an email tonight from her parents.  They are on their way home from West Virginia, leaving before the storm hit back there.  They started driving and didn’t stop until they were out of range of the storm.  After driving for 24 hours, they made it to a hotel in Arkansas for the night.  They are pulling a packed trailer so I’m sure they are not going really fast. 

Willie has been here since May and I know she will be happy to see them.  We manage to give her attention, but it’s nowhere near what she gets as being the only child at home.  She’s a really sweet cat, but she really doesn’t get along with our cats, so we keep her in her own room most of the time.  Sometimes when our cats are all outside, I will open her door and she comes downstairs for awhile.  It works out fine, but of course, when our cats come back inside, she has to go back to her room. 

A couple of years ago we decided to replace the carpet in our family room with laminate wood flooring.  We liked the way it turned out.  That left only two rooms downstairs with carpet, the front living room and the master bedroom.  Last week we had those two rooms done in wood flooring too.  It looks really nice. 

The floor guys were here for a couple of days, so we had to shift our cats around.  We didn’t want any of them hiding somewhere and not being able to get to the litter boxes, so we put Dash, Kodi and Rhody in Charlie’s computer room.  They were fine because they just slept all day as usual.  We just knew where they were.  None were allowed to go outside during those two days except for Lexi.  We never have problems with her being outside.

It was funny, at the end of the second day, after the guys left, we opened the door to let the cats out.  They scrambled downstairs and when they saw the floors, it startled them.  They all scattered in different directions, sliding, as they ran.  Cats are so paranoid.  But, no one was hurt and they quickly settled down.  They just notice every little change.  Of course, this was a big change I guess.

Rhody and Jonesie, the cautious one.

If there is so much as a sock on the floor that wasn’t there the last time the cats were there, they will stop and watch it and paw at it.  If it moved suddenly, they would jump out of their skin.  Jonesie is the funniest one to see when he reacts to something new.  It takes him a little longer to decide that whatever it is, it needs to be slapped at a few times to make sure it’s safe.

More later....
TazzyD.... _^..^_

If a flea had money, it would buy its own dog....... Jamaican Proverb

or cat!

Last week we had Terminex come and treat the inside of our house for fleas.  We had to get the cats out.  Since the yard was not being treated, we kenneled Kiki, Dash and Kodi and put them on the back patio.  The others were allowed to be loose in the yard.  We couldn’t get Debby in a kennel, so we had to leave her in the garage and not have the garage treated.  We had to stay out of the house for four hours.

When we were allowed back inside, Charlie vacuumed the floors.  We were told to vacuum two or three times a day for a few days and empty the cannister into a trash bag, seal it up and put it in the dumpster.  I hope it takes care of our problem.

The night before we had the house done, I gave the cats Capstar, which would kill all of the adult fleas on them.  It was supposed to be effective for 24 hours.  While we had them all outside, we applied Advantage II, the topical, for continued protection. 

I feel like we are doing everything we can do to get this problem under control.  It does seem to be better now.  We checked the cats and haven’t found any fleas on them so far.  The weather is turning cooler and that is helping too.

Kiki had bumps on her body.  The vet said it was from an allergic reaction to flea saliva.  We decided one night to give her a bath.  She didn’t like it much, but she tolerated it better than we thought she would.  The bumps were still there, but she seemed to feel much better.  After the Capstar and Advantage treatments last week, the bumps have all but disappeared from her body. 

Ellie’s flea problem was really bad too.  Charlie combed her and we were amazed at the number of fleas she had.  Poor little thing.  She was being eaten alive.  We also gave her a bath.  She didn’t like it any more than Kiki did, but it helped to soothe her. 

When she dried, we combed her again and found a few fleas, but an improvement.  Later, she settled in the cat tree in the family room and went sound asleep.  When it was time for bed, Charlie took her up to her room for the night.  This was before Terminex came, so I had treated the floor for fleas and Charlie said it seemed to be clear.

When I went up to feed her the next morning, instead of being at the door waiting, she was still asleep.  She looked up and yawned as if to say, “Morning already?”  It was good to see her getting her rest.

Sheila was groomed the other day and she received her monthly dose of Comfortis.  I ordered Capstar for her too, just in case.  Charlie has checked her several times and she has no fleas.

We had some trees trimmed in our yard a couple of weeks ago.  It may have been better to wait until the weather cooled a little more.  I miss the shade in the back of the house that the two trees provided.  It made a difference when we were having the 90 degree temps.

Charlie has finished putting up the lattice on the fence and it is working very well.  None of the cats have escaped the yard. 

Jonesie, however, is our little hunter.  He thinks it’s his job to catch birds.  I have been taking the bird feeders down and covering the bird bath when he’s in the yard.  The birds will hopefully stay away.

Mr. Creme went to the vet for his fructosamine test yesterday.  The vet called today and said that his blood glucose was still too high.  We were told to increase the insulin from three units a day to four units a day.  He gets two units in the morning and two at night.  I hope he stabilizes on this.

The B12 pills still seem to be working and keeping his legs strong.  He eats well, but does drink quite a bit of water. 

Lexi is still congested, but eats well and enjoys spending her days in the yard.  We bought a plug in vaporizer for her sleeping area.  When I feed her in the mornings, her congestion sounds better, but when I bring her in for the night, she is congested.  I don’t think that keeping her inside would make a difference and she would not permit it anyway.  She likes being outside and that’s it. 

She still has diarrhea and no matter what food I’ve changed her to, it doesn’t help.  We’ve had blood work done, Xrays done, given her antibiotics, probiotics, and nothing has helped.  I’ve taken her off of wet food and fed only dry food and still nothing changes.  But, she doesn’t act sick at all.

Yesterday was shot day for Jonesie.  We thought he only needed two vaccinations, but he actually needed three.  He just turned two years old and the rabies shot he had last year was only good for a year.  I thought that having three shots would slow him down, but it didn’t faze him a bit.

I took a friend to the airport the other day.  On the way back, I saw two cars go through a left turn light, which had turned yellow and then red.  There is a traffic camera there and at least one of those two people driving those cars are definitely going to receive a citation in the mail.  I know, because a couple of years ago, I was cited there. 

I had picked up Charlie at the airport one night and we were approaching that turn.  I followed a car right through the light.  Charlie said, “You just ran that light.”  There was a bright flash, which almost blinded me.  I said, “I just got my picture taken.”  We didn’t really know if it was really enforced or not. 

Not long afterwards, I received a citation which included a picture of me behind the wheel.  I had joked with Charlie that I would say it was him driving the car.  Well, I couldn’t do that because it was obviously me.  A bad picture of me, but me.  That turned out to be a very expensive drive from the airport. 

More later....
TazzyD.... _^..^_