News From The Allen's Pets June 14 2015

Oh my it has been a while since I last posted on this blog.  There has been so much happening here. I wish that I could get a picture of all my animals in the same picture.  Ha!  I doubth that will ever happen.

Sidney is doing great.  He is gaining lots of weight too.  I must cut down on the food that I give them. He must be up to 17 pounds now!  He only weighed in at 14.7 when we got his checked out and his last round of shots a month ago.  He truly is a youngster around this house.  He loves to play with the Red laser dot, but he loves me to swish and swash and pounce the hand held toy up and down and round and round so he can jump up and try to get the feathers on it.  He already broke on and I had to replace that with another feathered toy.  I do love that he has gotten Charlie playing with those toys now too.  He needed to get more active and so he has.  The thing is, Charlie will walk away after about 5 minutes, but Sidney...he wants to play all the time.  As soon as I put my feet on the floor Sidney is up and wants pet.  I go to the bathroom and he wraps all around my feet and ankles.  I have step on him a few times.  He just meows and then leaves me alone for a few.  He wasn't to play first thing in the morning...before I have the chance to feed all the outdoor cats, the indoor cats and before my first cup of coffee.  He truly is a teen with all his energy.  He is about 3 years old the Vets told me.  I do believe it.  I Love the Boys!!

My gurly Girls, Shadow and Sunshine are almost totally outside now.  Both have choices....one to come inside with a teen aged cat who is Sidney and Charlie who bugs them.  They don't have many places to hide inside.  Or they can stay outside with Mikey who loves to bat them on their behinds and get them going.  He did that to Shadow last night while is was sitting on the porch.  She was going across the driveway and he just slowly walked up behind her and touched you behind.  She went off on a trade and the neighbors must have though there was a fight.  No fight, just Shadow giving it to Mikey.  When he got his fill of terrorizing her he came back on the deck and terrorized Sunshine and she rolled off the deck.  He has done that twice now while I was in viewing distance.  She is OK, but they both have more places the hide than from the other boys in the house.  It is warm too and they seem to like the warmer temperatures.  They also have their cat houses to hide in when it rains.  I cleaned them out yesterday and washed the padding and blankets that I had in them.



While taking Sunshine's bed apart and cleaning it out I found a few wasps nests in there.  They were on the Styrofoam lid that is under the bin lid.  I took it out and left it is the air for a few until the bedding was dry to put back in.  When my husband came home and a neighbor came to call I went back outside and got stung on my left wrist by one of those wasps.  All I did was walk out the door.  I did not bother it at all.  Boy did that hurt!  I have never been stung my a wasp before and wow, it just hurt so much.  I ran into the house screaming Ouch and put some baking soda paste on it for a bit.  Man that did not alleviate the pain.  So I then took a couple of Benedryl's just in case.  That did not get rid of the pain or the swelling.  It did make me drowsy though and I thought that I was going to go to sleep so I went to bed.  This all happened about 5 in the afternoon.  8 o'clock come around and I did not go to sleep and every time that I moved my arm it hurt really bad.  I took Advil PM and by morning the swelling was all gone and so was the pain.  My husband got rid of the nests shortly after I got stung. A few came back around to start or find their nest and today I will have to take the cat house apart and make sure that they did not start a new nest.

Frederick also had his time with me too.  Last week while I was dealing with tendinitis in my right wrist, I did something stupid.  I did not have my wrist brace on that day.  I went and gave him some catnip to make him happy and he loves that stuff.  He is a good boy, really.  He is the only one that can still smell and enjoy the catnip for days after the freshness has gone.  So he was rolling around in it and I put my hand under his chest.  He was already "stoned" by then and turned his head around my hand and bit me.  He bit me so hard that he punctured the back of my hand and on my thumb that already was in pain from the tendinitis.  That added insult to my injury and could not type or use my hand for a week.  It is doing good now.  What an adventure that was.  I did not hit Frederick.  He knew that he did something wrong and ran to the other end of the deck.  I only asked him why and told him that I would be back.  Poor Frederick.  He stayed on the deck until I could get my wounds washed out.  For three days after that and still today he will be right on the deck waiting for his food.  He has gotten much more trusting of me and the bonds that we have are stronger.  We still do not have the money to get him fixed but that doesn't seem to be a problem around her much since all my other cats are fixed.  There is another stray but he only comes once in a while.  Frederick doesn't seem to bother anyone anymore.  I know that he knows that this is now his home and he even gets along with the girls and Mikey too.  He does want to come inside though and I cannot let that happen.  He is not fixed and will spray.  I already have a female that does this and for days I can't find where the smell is coming from.

Duke is having a hard time now that he is up in his age.  This is where most of our money has gone and why we just cannot afford to get Frederick fixed right now.  In order to get Duke more of his painkillers we need to get him a 6 month checkup.  There is this new rule now that the government has put on these PET meds.  It makes me mad and lots of others who also have pets do not understand it at all.  Now all Duke's meds are considered CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES. Now my husband and a co-worker and myself have asked ourselves and commented to each other about how a dog is going to overdose on those meds.  We even asked if they were going to test his blood or the owners blood to see if we had taken any or too much.  The GOVERNMENT controls too much of our lives.

So it so happened that Duke somehow lost a toenail.  I mean he lost if to the end of his toe.  It did not bleed much when I ripped it off because it was just hanging there by a strand of fur.  I put lots of triple antibiotic ointment on it and wrapped it up the best that I could, but that lasted about 10 minutes.  He was licking it lots too and we had to stop that.

We made an appointment that afternoon for Duke.  We had a friend help us get him in the car.  THAT is the main reason that we have not got him groomed or to the Vets since last September.  He just will not get into the car anymore.  It is no problem getting him out.  So our friend got him in the car and we went to the vets and our friend followed us there to help us get Duke out of the car.  We were early, but that was better than being late.

Duke's visit was very stressful for Duke and Denis and I.  Duke was in much pain as expected.  When they took us to am exam room, they put us in a room all the way in the back of the office.  We took a few turns down the corridor.  The room was a much bigger room that we had been in before and it was usually in the front of the office behind the secretarial center.  The things that I notice right away was the Cat and Dog statues with angel wings.  Then while sitting there waiting for the Vet I saw on the two shelves about the counter three plaques that said something about how our pets are loved after they had died.  I mentioned this to my husband who was sitting beside me.  Duke was laying on the cool floor.  When the Vet came in she commented that she hasn't seen a toenail break off past the quick like that before.  Duke has been falling down a lot for no reason and what I think was happening was that the toenail was getting under his foot and he loosing his balance that way.  The vet mentioned that she didn't see any neurological signs that would make him fall like that.  She also commented that same thing when we told her that he had gotten wobbly as of the last few weeks.  She kept mentioning that we were just trying to get him more comfortable.  My husband and I both picked up on that.  When she said that she wanted to take blood from him to see where we would go after that and left the room with Duke, I lost my composure a bit.  She came back a few and told us that his levels were all good and better than she had expected.  That was a bit of a relief.  She also said that he had an ear infection.  That could be the wobbliness because I know when people get an ear infection sometimes their balance is off.  I was also wondering if his Vertigo had come back.  I will post that story in about a month to tell you the difference between Vertigo and a Stroke.

So we were sent home with wipes, ear wash, antibiotics and his pain killers.  My husband and I take turns doing his ears and every time he comes in from outside the one who lets him in wipes his toe.  Oh the Vet also said that if the antibiotics didn't work on his toe that she would have to remove it.  Duke is 16 years old and I don't think that I want him to go through with that.  I also know from experience that when they have that kind of surgery at that late age, they don't usually get better.  So Dennis and I had to make a very painful and sad decision then.  We decided that when he stops taking walks that was when we are going to end his life.  His quality of life will be very low at that time and there will be no recovery for him.  That is what is really making it hard for me right now.  His next appointment is in 6 months.  I do not think he will be around that long, due to his toe and age.

So this is the update to the present today, Sunday June 14, 2015.

Until Next Time............