You can buy them all the cat toys their little hearts desire, but when it comes down to it, nothing compares to a straw!
When the foster kittens (or our cats, for that matter) are having litterbox issues that aren’t really optimal (that is, not diarrhea, but not quite what it should be), I like to try giving them some FortiFlora. I don’t know if it’s really the magic formula that it seems like, or if it just so happens that things clear up on their own after I start giving the FortiFlora, but I like to try it anyway. If it doesn’t really help, it also doesn’t hurt, and they tend to like the taste of the stuff.
Sometimes I mix it in a little plain yogurt, but not all cats have the best reaction to yogurt, so over the weekend I mixed a packet of FortiFlora with chicken baby food and brought it up into the foster room.
Not long after I entered the room, put the plate on the floor, and sat down, Lem decided he smelled something pretty fabulous. He came down, spotted the plate, rubbed against me, gave me the questioning “Is that for…. ME?” eyes, and then started eating. Marion heard him eating and immediately jumped down to investigate. Delmar was the third one down and eating, and then finally Claudette decided she could wait no longer to check out this treat, so down she came.
“What am I hearing?”
“Is that… are they EATING something?”
“I’d better check this out!”
“NOM NOM NOM.”
“This stuff is good. You may bring me more of this.”
Fred was hanging out with the kittens Saturday night (he requests that I give him a little alone time with the kittens every evening before I go upstairs because sometimes the kittens get overwhelmed with both of us in there) and apparently Mister Boogers started sniffing around at the bottom of the door. Lem heard him sniffing, went over to investigate, and lost his MIND. He was hissing and growling and finally Fred turned around and pulled him away from the door. Lem ran across the room and to the top of the cat tree and arched his back and hissed, glaring at the door. His brother and sisters approached him to find out what his problem was, and he started growling and hissing at them, so they growled and hissed back at him.
I wasn’t privy to any of this, because I was still downstairs, and when I headed upstairs Mister Boogers was coming down the stairs looking completely relaxed and unimpressed. Lem refused to come back down off the tree, and his siblings were all pretty freaked out still, so after a little while we left them alone to calm down.
Next morning, they were back to their usual selves. I guess if we’re going to introduce them to our cats, we need to take it verrrrrry slow!
What I love about this picture is the way Delmar’s ear is carefully folded back so he doesn’t have to TOUCH Lem.
Delmar and Marion partake of the chicken baby food.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: I hope you people who wanted to know what happens when Maddy’s sleeping on the printer and I need to print something out are happy, because you’re all going to hell.
2005: There is nothing on god’s green earth that makes Sugarbutt happier than eating.
chickn baby food is great for kitties when they are having dietary issues. It can hide medicine and jumpstart their appetite if they are not hungry due to being sick. I keep some around all the time. I have not been tempted to taste the stuff myself though. Does that make me a bad mommy?
Oh, good god NO it doesn’t make you a bad mommy. It makes you sane. That stuff smells so awful!