I have a question. I brought my 8yr old cat in for a check up and of course she is developing tartar on her teeth. The vet sells a product called Oxyfresh Pet Oral Hygiene. It is a odorless solution that you put in their drinking water. It is suppose to health with the tartar and fresher breath. Anyone ever try? It is $20.00 a bottle.
I haven’t tried (or even heard of) it, but GD said: I looked it up on Amazon and it got good reviews. The only warning was to not buy it from OxyFresh directly as they will send you a smaller bottle than what you paid for. It was recommended to buy it from a pet store or such. Everyone loved the product…just not the distributor.
Has anyone out there tried it? Chime in and let us know!
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What’s the kitty poster in the kitten room?? Looks cool, the bits I can see!
Oddly, I had JUST taken pictures of all the stuff hanging on the walls in the foster room (except for the cross-stitched kitten picture, I just realized), in order to post them. So here you go!
Keep Cats and Kitty On. I got this from Cathy Peng on Etsy, back in 2011. I read about her on ModernCat (now Hauspanther) and thought it would be perfect for the kitten room. Unfortunately, just after I took this picture, I taunted Toto a little too much with the laser, and he managed to sink his claw into the middle of the poster and put a big rip in it. Which was actually okay, because then I replaced it with…
I slapped this picture together quickly (which shows, I think!) because I had a Groupon that was about to expire. It’s printed on metal. It makes me smile every time I look at it. That’s Maddy, who was my very first bottle baby, and still one of my favorite pictures. I was actually going to arrange the picture differently so that I could use two pictures (the other one being this picture of Hook), but I couldn’t make it work out, so I just used the one. That picture is also on…
The clock, which I made via CafePress.
I saw this poster on the wall of a vet’s exam room, and thought it was so neat that when I got home I tracked it down on Amazon and ordered one. Not only is the chart itself neat, but it’s laminated so I don’t have to worry about the edges curling up, or the cats getting hold of it and ripping it (though I’m sure they’d be happy to leave lots of teeth marks.) You can find it on Amazon here, or at ShopMedVet.com.
As soon as I saw the cartoon on The Oatmeal, I hoped it would be available in poster form and voila! It was! (I framed it myself with a frame I bought at Michael’s.)
Fat Cat Capsizing, by Richard Watherwax. I actually bought it at the mall in Portland, Maine, and had them frame it and ship it to me. I really like the job they did framing it. I think I’ve had that picture for about 10 years, if not more.
Guide to Cat Colors, bought off of DeviantArt. I love this poster, but I’m thinking of taking it down and storing it for a while and maybe moving everything around, just ’cause I can!
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I know you call Kara “Sheriff Mama”. I think you call Maxi “Outside Mama”, or maybe did at one point. Didn’t you make one of those little videos for her like you did Alice Mo?
I certainly did!
Porkin’ along/ singin’ her song/ it’s Out! Side! Mama!
(Just a note that Maxi is not in the least bit overweight, but she’s so short and muscular that she totally waddles!)
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I just found some info about flushing litter I thought would be good to share with your readers since I saw a previous post of yours on it (comments closed) and no one mentioned T Gondii (the parasite that actually creates the “crazy cat lady/guy” – literally (Google it)). This quote only mentions pregnant women being at risk for other obvious reasons, but T Gondii can literally make anyone insane. Excerpted from an article that also has interesting info on other litters as well.
“Don’t flush! Although most of these green litters are septic- and sewer-safe, it’s best not to flush them into our waterways. Cat feces contains the Toxoplasmosis gondii (TG) parasite, dangerous to pregnant women and marine life, particularly sea otters. Unfortunately TG is not filtered out in most water treatment plants, so don’t flush your used litter. You can throw it into the compost bin but only it you intend to use the compost on trees, shrubs, flower beds or in outdoor potted plants & no vegetables or fruits.”
I hope that helps someone, for what it’s worth!
Edited to add: Connie left this in the comments, and I wanted to be sure everyone sees it (I’m sharing it in next week’s post, too, to be super sure!)
Toxo..
First off, not every cat has it. Second, infections are more likely to come from ground soil undercooked meat.. Third, where do you think your cat gets toxo? it comes from the environment, so if you flush ‘waste’ you are simply returning it to the environment that it came from AND.. just to make this topic all that much more of a pet peeve of mine, once a cat is infected with it they only shed for two weeks..
so not every cat has it, if they have it they only shed for a short time, and the myths surrounding how deadly and dangerous it is are blown so out of proportion that it lands in the ‘the cat will suck the life out of a baby category’..
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/cat-care/toxoplasmosis
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Came across this post today. Do you think Fred might be up to the job of duplicating it?
I think he has the ABILITY to do something similar, but not the DRIVE. He did say that it was neat, but that the bridges look too “swingy”, and that he’d have a heart attack watching one of our cats run across them!
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Regarding the heating pad, I bought this one for my elderly cat.
It has a heating element/pad inside it, but it barely gets warm. My 21-year old cat LIVES on it. It is less hot than a human heating pad on warm/low, and the cat has to be on it for warmth to happen (there’s a thick foam layer). She never liked the self-heating crinkly pad, but adores this one. I leave it on 24/7, even when we’re gone!
That’s actually the warming pad we had in Maxi’s house. Fred was convinced that it wasn’t getting warm, though (it’s been out there for a couple of years now – we unplug it in the spring, then plug it back in around late November), so he brought it inside, and we plugged it in to make sure it was getting warm. It’s been sitting on the couch, occupied, ever since! (We put a different warming pad in Maxi’s house, of course.)
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Maxie asked: Can anyone answer this one? Why do cats always barf where it hits the most surfaces and/or it’s next to impossible to get it cleaned up? Or why always on the carpet when the tile is 2 inches away?
Rebecca said: There’s a theory out there that they prefer to be able to steady themselves – so a rug is something they can dig their claws into rather than the hardwood. Or they are just little jerks!
One of my started doing a windmill-vomit recently! She shifted with every retch, making a circle of vomit, which she would then walk in and drag everywhere. We now have to run over and “steady” her!
Alma added: I always thought that they might be looking for a place where to hide their traces, like in tall grass.
I had never considered that it was because they were steadying themselves, but it certainly makes sense!
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Looking for some real-life advice about cat water fountains…Who has them or tried them and do your cats really use them?
I had forgotten this, but I actually made a page about pet water fountains so that I could keep the information retained in one place, and then completely forgot about it until I was doing a search to look for the last time I’d mentioned the Cat-It. SO, that page is here, I’ve updated it, and the comments are open, so y’all feel free to chime in on the subject! Maybe some day I’ll get my act together and put that link in the sidebar, ya think?
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Look at poor Toto, taking a bath, minding his own business, not a CLUE what lurks behind him.
Until it bites his neck, that is.
By the time he gathered himself for a retaliation, Tricki was over it.
Bunnie turns on the smug.
Sweet girl.
Toto and Tricki, admiring my FABulous slippers.
Bunnie doesn’t sniff slippers. She’s got more CLASS than that, yo.
Kittens, flopped everywhere.
Bunnie slid through the scratcher so she could grab Tricki.
Tricki pulled free and skipped away.
Bunnie takes a rest.
Then turned on her Ears of Annoyance.
“What doin’, lady?”
Bunnie, thoroughly annoyed by me and that stupid camera.
Bunnie and Toto were distinctly UNHAPPY about going back to Petsmart. Toto sang the entire way there, and Bunnie chimed in a few times. I know they’ll relax after a bit, but hopefully they won’t have to adjust for too long, surely they’ll be adopted soon (I HOPE!)
John Smith and Tricki seem to know that something is different in the foster room, but they aren’t sure exactly what. They were both very happy to see me when I went in to visit with them, and for the first time, Tricki climbed into my lap! She didn’t stay there, but she did rub back and forth against me, purring like crazy.
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Corbie, doin’ his thing, hangin’ out in the Corbs cave, trying to stay warm.
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Previously
2013: Baleful (Baby) Beans, purring up a storm.
2012: The vacuum’s put away, so it’s safe.
2011: “There appears to be a Cindy FAR too close to me!”
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Even though I never did look ratty, and I hate her.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.