So I took Mia, Flossie, and Peanut to be spayed and neutered yesterday. It was quite an experience, because I walked into the vet clinic, Mia saw a passing puppy, and lost her mind, hissing and growling and yowling. Apparently Mia is no big fan of dogs.
I had to take her out of the carrier to be weighed, and I won’t lie – I was pretty scared to do so, because Mia hissing and growling is something that scares the bejeebers out of me. A hissing, spitting, growling kitten? Cute. An 8-pound ball of angry Momma? SCARY. But she came out of the carrier and growled a little, but let me pick her up and put her on the scale. She’s gained almost a pound since she was at the vet’s three weeks ago, but she’s still a skinny cat.
The biggest surprise to me was when I picked Peanut up to weigh him, and he hissed and growled at ME. Brat. So I weighed him – he’s 2 pounds, 9 ounces, which makes him the biggest porker of the bunch at the moment – and the front-desk lady weighed Flossie, who was hissing at HER, and then we put Mia in a cage in the “cat ward”, since she’d reacted so violently to the dog, and we put Flossie and Peanut in another cage, and then I had to leave pretty quickly, or their sad little meows would cause me to take them back out of the cage and run away with them.
I came home, I puttered around the house, and after I uploaded my entry for the day, I went upstairs to herd Larry, Curly, and Moe Oy, Edgar, and Snoopy into the study so I could clean the cat room. Spot, Spanky, and Mister Boogers were already hanging out in the study, and they didn’t take the influx of little kittens with ANY kind of good humor at all. Mister Boogers sniffed the kittens and then hissed, then yowled, then hissed, and then raised his paw to hand out some Smacks o’ Doom, so I shooed him out of the room.
It took me about half an hour to completely vacuum and air out the room – still smells like a stable in there, but at least it’s a CLEAN stable – and then I went into the study to get the kittens. Who were having a grand old time sniffing around, and I turned around to shut the door, and Mister Boogers appeared out of nowhere and ran into the study. So I shut the door and sat down to watch the show.
For the most part Mister Boogers left the kittens alone, though Oy kept going over and sniffing at him, and he could hardly stand it, and he would growl and raise his paw to smack that kitten across the room, but then I would say “Mis. Ter. Boog. Ers.” in my Mean Lady voice, and he’d put his paw back down and walk away.
I never let him have any fun.
I eventually herded the Stooges kittens back to their room and gave them a little love, then checked on them later to see how they were doing – sleeping, is how they were doing – and left the house after 4:00 to pick up Mia, Flossie, and Peanut.
When I got to the vet’s, the front-desk woman told me that Susan was leaving the shelter at 5 and was coming to the vet’s, so I could hang out and wait, and we could do the vaccinations here. It was about 4:45 when she told me that, and I looked at the clock and considered, and figured I probably couldn’t get to the shelter before five – maybe I could, but not definitely – so I sat in the waiting room and waited. But first I went back to the cat ward to see Mia, Flossie, and Peanut, and Mia looked at me with her big, dark eyes, and she hissed at me in a desultory manner. Flossie and Peanut, on the other hand, wanted to come out of their cage and sniff all over the place, and I let them for a minute, and then put them back in and went back out to the waiting room, because I couldn’t stand to look at their sad, confused little faces.
Forty-five minutes later, Susan showed up with a cat to be spayed and another to be tested, and we went in the back of the clinic, and I took Peanut out of the cage and brought him out, and he got his shot, and he hissed and growled and swiped at me with his little paw, and would not be comforted. I put him in one of the carriers and grabbed Flossie. She clung to me and howled, then howled some more while she was getting her shot, then howled some more when I opened the carrier to put her in with Peanut, and he hissed and growled at me, then swiped at me with his little paw.
“Cut that out,” I said sternly to him. He wasn’t impressed, and growled and hissed some more while I put Flossie in with him and shut the carrier.
We were going to vaccinated Mia as well, but she was so angry and growly that we opted to save that for another day. Also, they told me that I needed to keep Mia and the kittens separate for a few days while she healed.
So I left, and called Fred on the way home to ask him to set up the study for Mia with food and water and a litter box, and when I got home he took Mia into the study and I took Flossie and Peanut into the cat room, and he said that as soon as he opened Mia’s carrier, she came out, meowed at him, and rubbed up against him.
Flossie and Peanut were okay. Flossie was pretty sleepy for the rest of the day, but Peanut popped around like he had a firecracker in his butt, picking fights with the other boys, and chewing on my hair like it was a can of tuna.
I feel so, so, SO bad for Mia, though. Because she’s alone in that room, she’s no doubt hurting, and she has no idea what’s going on. She howls on and off, and when we go in there to keep her company, she runs over and howls and rubs on us and purrs. This morning, she could hear a kitten meowing in the room – which is next door to the room she’s in – and she got all excited and ran over to the wall and meowed.
I realized when I got home that I hadn’t asked whether she needed to be separated from the kittens for just a few days, or for good, so I emailed the Susan, who emailed me back to tell me that for good would be best, and she’d adjust in a few days.
Poor Mia. We’ve actually discussed letting her out into the house with our other cats during the day, but I’m afraid that if she went outside she’d run away, and I definitely don’t want that to happen. Maybe we’ll start letting her out for a little while in the evening – unless we introduce her to our cats and it doesn’t go well, I guess.
Can you tell that looking out the window is a favorite kitty pastime around here? Mia likes to look out the window and growl at people as they walk by on the street.
Flossie snuggles with my foot.
“Like, oh my GAWD! No she DI-IN’T! No way!”
“Are you there, god? It’s me, Mia. Please make these rotten kittens stop trying to nurse, PLEASE.”
Oy is just the smilingest kitten.
We used this bowl to put on the kitchen scale to weigh them, and they liked hanging out in it so much that we just left it in the room, and every now and then someone will sit in it and fall asleep.
“Oh, about this tall. Very whiny. Kind of cute, likes belly rubs. Have you seen him?”
Snoopy and Egg shnuggle.
“Wazzuuuuuuup!”
Peanut, chewing on my hair. Apparently hair is a delicacy in Catsville.
Edgar and Oy, sleeping.
“Have you tried the hair this evening? It’s quite good. Fresh directly from the head, with just a soupcon of hair gel. Tasty!”
No toy is more fascinating than the Momma’s tail.
Sleepy Egg.
Flossie on my shoulder, sniffing my nose.
Oy and Mister Boogers check each other out. Neither seems all that impressed.