Anyone ever have a kitten do a head tilt and keep it tilted? Four weeks old. Vet says no ear infection. Poor little runt has enough trouble keeping up with her giant brothers and sisters and now can’t see straight. Looking for ideas. On antibiotics and supplemental feedings but is still nursing. Also, uses the litter box and everything looks good.
I’ve never dealt with this myself, but surely someone out there has? If you have advice or suggestions for Gail, feel free to speak up!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Gonna miss the Hodor & Brandon..any newbies coming in?
and
Are you going to take a “fostering rest” once the rest of the gang are settled into their new homes or Petsmart ? Or are you already “cookin” something up ? wink wink !!!
No fostering rest is planned – once all the Stark boys and Norbie are gone, then the room will be open for occupation. We might have something in the works, but at this point aren’t sure if it’s going to work out, so no details for you! When there are new fosters in residence, you’ll know it, I promise.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I’m amused that Fred is the one who made you take a year off from fostering after adopting Sugarbutt (I think?) and now he’s the one who’s all, “Let’s keep *that* one, too!”
Oh, I KNOW! In fact, Fred’s first plan was for us to stop fostering altogether, but I negotiated us down to waiting ’til they were “older.” It was moving to this house that seems to have flipped a switch in Fred’s brain – now he wants to keep ’em all and I have to be the one to put my foot down and say no. I figure, as the one who scoops the litter boxes, I get the final word on adding new cats to the house, and I am determined not to let it happen (pay no attention to that Stefan behind the curtain.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Natasha said: My tuxie doesn’t play fetch, but he does have this habit of dragging our clothing (clean, dirty, doesn’t matter) and even small blankets through the house, keening or meowing loudly. Do any of your cats do this (anybody)?
Alyslinn said: Mine do it with toys, but a friend of mine’s cat will drag his dirty socks from the laundry. Then she keens and fusses, and he’ll find them all over the place.
Ibby said: My college roommate had four meezers. The female would steal rolled up pairs of socks, carry them up to the living room and then line them up by her belly like they were nursing kittens. Woe to anyone that tried to touch her “babies.”
Kim O said: My sister’s cat does this with a ball of yarn. My sister is a knitter, and to keep Karmella out of her yarn, she gave her a ball of yarn for her own. Karmella carries it around like a baby and “sings” to it, but only if she thinks no one is watching her.
I absolutely LOVE kitty stories like these, so I want to hear yours, too. Please share!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
You’ll like all the nose prints on that black refrigerator, too 😉
You say that like you think I won’t be able to completely ignore them. Have you SEEN my windows? 🙂
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Am I the only one who saw the kitten in the oven? How long do you bake before she’s done? I want to try making my own.
They just never bake all the way through. I think it’s all that marshmallow Fluff in their heads. Maybe I need a longer time at a lower temperature!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WHAT?!?! No new kittens?!? I have been gone almost a whole WEEK! I waited special because I wanted an extra big litter, or either bottle babies this time. Robyn! You’re slackin’, lady… (c;
It’s probably because Fred has stolen my second foster room to use as his office now that he’s working from home. I did have a chance at two bottle babies, but someone else snapped ‘em up before I could claim them (which is probably for the best, because I don’t know where I would have put them!)
I keep meaning to mention (though I think I did complain over on Facebook at some point.) – Fred started a new job three weeks ago where he’s doing the same sort of work (he’s a Software Engineer), but he’s now working from home. We turned the second foster room into an office for him, and though we had a few conversations about possibly putting kittens in the office, it took exactly one screaming kitten fight while he was on a conference call to put the kibosh on that idea. Tommy and Miz Poo usually keep him company during the day (they have their own beds in there, even), and the kittens visit him from time to time, but when it’s important conference call time, out they go!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here’s an interesting (or not) fact: the same company makes Fresh Step, Scoopaway, and Everclean. Fresh Step is the dustiest; next is Scoopaway; and then there’s Everclean which is least dustiest of the three but costs twice as much.
I’ve been using Scoopaway forever, especially because it’s so cheap at Costco, but I think the litter has gotten dustier over the years. I don’t ever remember so much dust in the room as we see now. I did buy some Everclean and it’s better, but with my picky picky picky furball, any time I try something different she won’t go until she’s ready to explode! Arm & Hammer stinks at odor control, as did Precious Cat, and she hated any variant of Tidy Cat. ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!
What I’m finding out is that there’s just no one litter that works for everyone. But having said that, when you switch litter, are you doing the slow switch-over where you add some of the new litter to the old, and then increase it every few days? Or are you just completely changing the litter all at once? Because some cats can handle a complete switch-over and some need a slow introduction to new things. When I switched from Fresh Step to Cat Attract, I did one litter box at a time (we have three litter boxes together in the front room and three in the laundry room, so if they needed time to get used to the new litter, they could take their time with it), and we’ve been completely Cat Attract for a few months now. In the next week or so, I’ll be switching over to Precious Cat, and will do it the same way (even though it’s pretty much the same litter).
Now that I’ve babbled about that for a few minutes, my main question/suggestion: would you consider/ have you tried crystal litter? I know that Elayne (among others) uses it, and has high praise for it. If I didn’t always have kittens running around here, I would give it a try myself. (I’m mostly concerned that the kittens would try eating the crystals on account of kittens are dumb.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
None of my cats have ever gotten stuck in a bag handle, but I always cut the handles anyway. I am always horribly afraid of less funny incidents involving a bag handle getting stuck around their little necks.
But…like most cats, my girls are fascinated by both bags and boxes, and Mrs.Parker, who is a burrower, has gotten her head stuck in empty tissue boxes. I know I should ‘rescue’ her and I certainly do if she looks like she’s starting to get really scared. But it’s too damn funny! And she actually knows how to kick the box off her head, but once she does, she’ll often just stick her head right back in it. I think it’s kind of fun for her. Here’s proof: (Please ignore me giggling like a lunatic in the background.)
I love it! And what I think you have there is a cat who would happily wear hats and little helmets!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sara says: I’m in the market for cat furniture (she’s a hider). My girl is 10.5 lbs, small framed. For the life of me, I can’t google if this is her size or not. Thoughts of cat whisperer? Have any of your readers purchased such an outrageous item?
That is so cute! It does say in the description that it’s meant for smaller cats (which your girl is), so I think it should be okay. But I’ll post your question in Friday’s post and we’ll see what other people say. So, y’all? What do you say? I personally think Sara should go for it because it’s so cute. 🙂
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I’m always going to think of Hodor with his little Heat Miser hair do when he arrived.
(Here’s the Heat Miser, for those who don’t know who that is!)
He was so TINY and so so so CUTE (I mean, he’s still cute. Um. A manly hunk of cat, that is. You know what I mean!)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I just have one question for Sunny’s & Stripey’s mom: Did you stage those photos by the table or can you actually keep placemats (and other nice things) there? Every day we wake up to all the placemats on the floor, as well as anything else we plopped on the table.
Yeah, we’ve tried the no-running-in-the-house thing, but it doesn’t work!
I bet she keeps those placemats on the table, and I bet the cats don’t bother ’em at all! I, on the other hand, have cat beds on my table. If I tried to leave placemats on the table, they’d end up as cat beds. I envy people with beautifully decorated homes – and I know full well that mine could never be that way. (I do, however, fantasize about Jeff Lewis and Jenni Pulos coming over and fancying up the joint!)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
All I wanna know is who got the Rock Crawler Extreme? You, or Fred? That looks almost big enough to drive some kittens around, Roomba style.
Here’s how THAT happened: I bought a Hexbug Spider recently, with the express purpose of terrorizing the kittens, as documented in this video.
(My favorite part of that video: Arya stomping in and slapping the snot out of that Hexbug Spider. NO FEAR, is Arya’s motto.)
So then Fred decided that he needed to get a radio-controlled car to terrorize the cats AND the dogs with, something that moves faster than the Hexbug Spider. He went up to Walmart and bought a cheap little car, and the cats were properly fascinated by/scared of the car. But it kept sliding on the floors, so THEN he decided that what he REALLY needed was a radio-controlled car that (1) wouldn’t slide on the floors and (2) would move around in the rough terrain of the back forty. He looked around on Amazon and found this one, and I ordered it. And the cats were properly fascinated by/scared of the new, bigger car, and the dogs freaked out a little, and the chickens clucked and ran. But since then, the car’s been sitting on the bookcase waiting to be used, and the box the car came in is used CONSTANTLY. Who knew the box was going to be such a hit? I sure didn’t – and it was totally worth the price, just for that stupid box.
PS: I would totally let the kittens ride the Rock Crawler Extreme around, but they aren’t interested in getting that close to it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Pardon me, Norbs. You appear to have a kitten in your armpit.
Sleepy Hodor.
“How did I end up here?” Jon Snow wonders. (That’s Stefan in the bed with him. Jon Snow was laying there, asleep, and Stefan jumped up and flopped down in the bed. Stefan loves (to torture) those kittens.)
I love Hodor’s spots.
Jon Snow is such a pretty boy, isn’t he?
Hodor really really wanted to jump from the cat tree to the bed.
He thought and thought about it, but ultimately decided the jump was too far.
He went off and chewed thoughtfully on his red toy instead.
Hodor and Brandon are off to Petsmart this morning. It’s always hard to take kittens to Petsmart, but when you’ve had them since they were 10 days old and bottle fed them and wiped their behinds many times (and that was just yesterday! Ba DUM chhh!), it’s especially tough. Fingers crossed for super-fast adoptions!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Corbie loves to lay on the random blocks of wood in the back yard. Why do we have random blocks of wood in the back yard? Ya got me! I have no clue where those came from or what they’re meant to do. But if Corbie’s happy, I’m happy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Previously
2012: Meredith Grey (in the front), disapproves of such shenanigans, as do her judgey cohorts.
2011: They were all just like ::shrug:: “yeah, it’s Buster. So?”
2010: God, Corby. I wish you’d learn to relax a little. You’re stressing me out!
2009: I told Fred the other night that if we were going to keep Sam (which we’re not), I’d have to rename him Tigger, because he bounces! all! over! the! place!
2008: No entry.
2007: Later, when I relayed the experience to Fred, he said “You realize that during your entire story, the Benny Hill music was playing in the back of my head, right?”
2006: Meeting Maddy.
2005: What is it with kitties loving to chew on wet hair?
Gail, I would be willing to bet there’s a 99.999999999% chance your kitten has torticolis. With physical therapy, it will get over it in no time and be good as normal! 😉
Why isn’t Jon Snow going to PetSmart??!!
There are no large cages available, only medium, so I didn’t want to put all three boys in one medium cage. Once Brandon or Hodor is adopted, Jon Snow will go to take the adopted one’s place.
Do your cats ever knock things off shelves and tables? Mine seems to love either knocking things off (accidentally or vindictively) or chewing them (the latter has gotten better since I bought her a cardboard chewie thing) . I went so far as to buy a cheapish glass cabinet for my breakables.
Yeah, they certainly do – I try to avoid putting things (other than cat beds!!!) on surfaces where the cats can knock them onto the floor. I have a distinct lack of knicknacks in my house, for sure!
Don’t you have a room over the garage? Why can’t Fred get that set up to be his home office so you can have a second batch of kitties?
There’s a second floor, yes, but the garage has a large Brown Recluse population (and Fred is a scaredy-cat when it comes to those spiders). The biggest reason he doesn’t have his office out, though, there is because the stairs are steep and scary, and he drinks a lot of coffee in the course of a day, so he’d be up and down the stairs (to come inside and use the bathroom) a lot. We had talked about him building an office out there, but decided it wouldn’t really work for him.
he needs to get over it so we call all watch you raise kittens 😉
but seriously, i don’t blame him one bit on that
I’m thinking he could fumigate that room and pee out the window. Done and done! *tee hee*
HA – someone suggested that he could turn the blue coop (which we use as storage now) for his office, and just put a PVC pipe leading to the outside to pee in. I can’t imagine the smell in the middle of summer! 🙂
Okay… was I the only one humming Ebony & Ivory when seeing those pictures of Norbie and Jon Snow??? (Probably) They both look so content. Ahhhh Stefan, you make me giggle! He is truly ‘at home’… like he was sent to you as his life mission! I second Brittany’s comment (good catch, Brittany!) – why isn’t Jon Snow going to PetsMart w/ Brandon and Hodor??? Does he have a furever family in the works like Norbie? Or, is he Fred’s pick of the month? (which, there’s NOTHING wrong with that!!!!) Tell Fred welcome to the work from home world… although, the company I work for is ‘global’ so they think NOTHING of scheduling conference calls at 4am CT – because, you know, that’s 10am in London and 2:30pm in India… PERFECT! (NOT!) And… if I even leave my office/laptop unattended for a minute, I have one of those ‘heat seeking’ cats that will be curled up on the keyboard when I return! Gaaaaah! Happy Friday the 13th ya’ll!
Jon Snow will go to Petsmart when Hodor or Brandon is adopted. It’s just a matter of not having a cage big enough for all three. 🙂
Hi Gail- I don’t have any experience with head-tilt cats, but I DO have the experience of being a head-tilt human. There is absolutely nothing neurologically wrong with me- its just unbalanced eye muscle development. As a child I wore glasses with a special prism thing to compensate. As an adult I think I just accept it. The only place where its ever pointed out to me now is at the hair dresser. So, your kitten might be fine, just a relatively minor physical quirk.
Well, Zoe is doing better today, so hoping it is the antibiotics. Of all my fosters over the ueats, this summer I have gotten the medical mysteries
Husband had a kitty with the head tilt, very likely if it is a sickly little one it may be the same cause – a stroke, possibly at or around birth.
If kitty can be kept warm, fed and loved; he/she may live to a great old age – head always bent sideways and seeing the world a bit differently from other cats but enjoying it anyway.
Kitten should have a forever home that can afford special cat food if needed and the occasional vet bill. Also one that knows that kitty may live a long and happy life or a short and happy life, but happy and loved is the important thing.
We had a line of kitties we stopped breeding because we lost so many to strokes (it seemed to be genetic, they were purebreds) but they were usually older (around 7) when it happened. My husband’s cat on the other hand lived for years with the sideways head, he could get it “right” sometimes but it seemed to be painful and usually he had it sideways.
But other wise he was fine…
You do know that bottle babies don’t have screaming wrestling matches, you could easily have stuck two of those in Fred’s office and there is a good chance he wouldn’t even notice (especially if they were ‘those kitties behind the curtain’)
😉
True – but then they grow up and DO have screaming wrestling matches and we’d have to have somewhere to put them! 🙂
purrs for quick adoptions.
wish I had some idea about the head tilt thing. I have only seen it once in a kitten but he had repeated ear infections.
And honestly I have no idea why Fred can’t have a conference call with kitten wresslin’ going on in his office. Actually, I have no idea how Fred gets anything done working from home with kittens to play with. 🙂
When I was gone this morning, Norbie needed love, and started rolling around on Fred’s desk, purring and begging to be petted, and Fred had to shut him out of the office so he could get work done. Fred is an amateur, am I right? I can’t imagine how many posts I’ve written with a kitten rolling around between me and the keyboard! 🙂
We’ve always tossed the dirty kitchen towels on the floor to carry upstairs when we go to bed at night. In the last year or so, our Little Tiny Lexi had started dragging them upstairs for us and leaving them next to the dirty clothes bin! Finally, a cat earning her own keep!
So a cat can do this, but not a husband or children?
Lol, exactly Caroline!
LOL!
Hodor being Heat Miser, kitty in the oven. Too. Much. Cute!
My tuxie has a fabric ball (hacky-sack thing) that she has nearly destroyed by playing with and carrying it around in her mouth. She only makes the high pitched mewling (keening?) with this one toy even though there are other toys she plays with. I think the change in seasons has gotten to her though, she is clawing at the wall again like she did once. I will have to spray it again.
Jeff Lewis? NOOOOOO!!!!! There was an episode where he had to redo a house belonging to a “crazy cat lady,” and he was just flat-out evil to and about her. I couldn’t even finish the episode. Get somebody from HGTV over! 😉
Re crystal litter: My guys hated it and wouldn’t use it. They’re pretty laid-back about litter; I can switch them on a dime without problems. But the crystal litter and the pine-scented litter were both total flops, leading to peeing and pooping elsewhere. Ick. Currently, I’m switching between Petco’s litter and the house brand from Sam’s Club. I like Sam’s OK, but the nearest Sam’s is now an hour away, so Petco does in a pinch. My guys are fine with either, thankfully.
When I watch that show, I always imagine just WHAT he’d have to say about the cats and litter boxes in this house. He’d have such a fit!
Your house is already decorated THE BEST! I’m always looking to see where you put all the shelves, mirrors, beds and trees for the kitties. And such a variety of colors and patterns too, very tasteful. But I don’t see that extra touch of thoughtfully scattered cat hair!?!?
Oh, believe me – it’s there! You’re just not looking close enough. 😀
Years ago, I had a cat who had a thing for pantyhose. He liked to catch them (he was happily unburdened with any excess intelligence, so they were challenging prey to him) and drag them through the house. He particularly loved to bring them to me, meowing and trilling and so, so proud of himself. If I wasn’t home, he’d search for me for a while, and wait by the front door for a bit, then drop his prey when he got bored (I caught him at it once when he’d forgotten I was home).
As a result, there was often a line of pantyhose leading from the front door to the laundry bin, as he repeatedly killed and dragged my clothing around, trying to find me, and giving up on each ‘kill’ when he found the previous one he’d already abandoned.
I miss him. He was a sweet boy and totally worth the wear and tear on my garments.
“happily unburdened with any excess intelligence”
Best. Phrase. Ever.
Jack “nurses” on my neck at night. He bellies up, picks a spot, and licks it, while kneading with claws in. I find it sort of soothing, and it obviously puts him in his happy place, judging by the ardent purring. At 6 months, he still hasn’t grown out of it. My husband thinks we’re both slightly pathetic. 🙂
my Jack nursed on my earlobe till he was almost a year old.. then he self weaned, and I can not tell you how much I miss that time with him.
If that makes us pathetic, then I’m pathetic
Sugarbutt would lick my neck and knead on my shoulder in the middle of the night until he was about two. It hurt sometimes (especially if he needed his claws trimmed), but I really miss it!
Natasha – My cat Gus does play fetch but he also drags clothes, towels and other assorted items to me while keening. I call him the Mad Hunter. It’s ok until he hunts in his favorite spot – bathroom garbage can. I believe he’s bringing his finds or kills to me all proud like!
Don’t the bottle babies stay in the bathroom in the tub? You’ve got room for them. 🙂
Yeah, I’d rather not do that again – it made life a little difficult for the humans, to say the least! 🙂
In response to the cat-beds on the table vs. placemats comment:
I have tried and tried to keep my cats off the table, to no avail… so now I just clean it often and don’t keep anything on there at all. Yesterday when I got home, one of them was sleeping on an oven mitt that I left there as a trivet the night before…
So, with Robyn in mind, I put a cat bed there.
Then I got the Death-Ray glare from the cat, so I put the oven mitt back. he won’t get near the cat bed, but don’t take away his oven mitt!
Put the oven mitt in a cat bed!
Ha – I was going to say “make a bed out of oven mitts!”
Pumpkin (remember – twice spayed orange tabby, weirdo) has taken to dragging larger and larger pieces of fabric/fleece around. She’s now dragging the fluffy throw blanket off the couch. And she weighs less than 8 pounds herself. She also flings small stuffed toys around and carries them, but has not started keening yet. Interestingly, she was terribly allergic to the Cat Attract litter I tried (switching slowly) when she was peeing all over when we had a foster dog in the house. Little nutcase!
My Abby boy habitually “hunts” small items that I line dry in the basement and drags them upstairs to hide under the couch to eat later. Unfortunately, Boyfriend has a serious case of ADHD and will drop whatever he’s in the middle of hunting if he happens to find something more awesome to play with (which is pretty much anything that isn’t currently in his mouth at the time). Thus, before I started cloths pinning my delicates, they were apt to be anywhere on the floor from the washer to the couch. Now he hunts my freezer gloves, which is super annoying when I need to go freezer diving and I can’t find one. Last week I got fed up with the traveling glove show and I up and chucked them in the freezer for safe keeping. I’m not sure that’s the best solution but at least I know that both gloves will be where I last put them next time I have to go rooting around for soup or bacon.
I had to read the first part of your comment twice to realize that “Boyfriend” referred to the cat. I was like, “That man must be seriously good in bed because that is a LOT of strangeness…”
My kitty, CJ, has never really played with toys that much, even when he was younger. I used to buy him catnip mice. He would bat them for a few moments and they would just disappear. One day I found them…in a corner of the basement – all lined up like toy soldiers. Yep – he is looney.
Many congratulations to Fred on his new position, commute, and delightful office mates. Everybody wins! I’m surprised, though, that Tommy’s presence hasn’t led to Stinkerbelle’s.
Fred says that Stinkerbelle joined Tommy in his office yesterday, as a matter of fact!
Score!
Our sweet little Olivia (who went to kitter heaven 6 mos ago) used to be a mischievous girl…she’d raid any cupboard that wasn’t locked up. Well one day, my husband Rick had to change the flapper thing in the toilet that has the chain hooked to it. He put the old one in the Hoosier cabinet in the bathroom (why he kept it, I had no idea) (the top of the cabinet holds clean rags I use for cleaning so the cats have full access to it and often use it as a bed). Well the next day I heard some commotion and then I could hear Olivia yapping away upstairs but for the life of me, I could not make out what was going on and I was worried that she had gotten herself stuck somewhere so I ran up the steps just in time to see her walking across the floor with that flapper in her mouth and the chain dragging along between her legs, letting everyone know she had found something 🙂 I laughed so hard and she just looked at me, like “I’m keeping this…are you jealous?” She played with it and carried it around for about a week and realized no one really wanted it, then it sat under a table until it started collecting dust and I threw it away. I guess she was the reason Rick kept the flapper, so I’d have an awesome memory of that sweet girl 🙂
Trixie loves anything made from real fur, as I first discovered when she was a wee kitten and found an old rabbit skin I had (and heaven only knows why I wanted that as my souvenir from my visit to Cherokee, NC as a child….). 🙂 Even though it was twice her size, she started dragging it around and hissing at anyone who tried to take it! Now I buy her the rabbit fur mice, which she quickly “skins” from the plastic body so she can just carry the fur around while “singing”. There is many a morning I wake up with said skinned mouse in the bed with me!
We have a mouse skin around here somewhere! (Um, a toy mouse skin, that is.) Every now and then a kitten will discover it and carry it around while growling a warning at the other cats. 🙂
Hey – got a question for the community here – Anyone have the “litter genie”? and if so – what do you think of it?
Sherry, I don’t have one but have a friend who does. She & her husband, and the cat, love it. It’s apparently almost completely automatic. The cat doesn’t have any problems with it. They recommend it to everyone they talk to; we just don’t have one because of space issues.
Two of my favorite kitty stories:
1) My family had a lovely blue point Siamese when I was little and her name was Rikki Tikki Tavi. Rikki loved to hunt the wild dish towel that my mom would hang off of the refrigerator door when done cleaning the kitchen. After the “kill” was made, Rikki would drag the towel to wherever Mom was to present it and she’d try to “give” it to Mom if she could. (Which usually translated into dropping it on her somehow.) Once Mom was taking a nap when Rikki did this… and she had actually caught a mouse.
2) One of the cats with whom I share my home now is a silver grey tabby named Muffin. One night when she was about nine months old, I was sitting in the den working at my computer when I heard a plastic bag being rustled. Earlier in the day, a family friend had dropped off a bag of fresh squash and zucchini which was hanging from the doorknob. I saw Muffin in that area, but nothing looked amiss and I didn’t think much of it. Less than a minute later, I heard the sound of the bag really being agitated and looked up just in time to see Muffin streak out of the den with a baby squash in her mouth. She looked so funny with the ends of it sticking out on either side of her head and she raced away! I got up and followed her to the back hallway, where she was crouched over the squash like it was her prize. She wasn’t eating it, but there was apparently something about the smell that she found irresistible.
She’s also the reason we subsequently discovered we couldn’t keep the grape tomatoes we had grown in a basket on the counter. If we tried, we’d find grape tomatoes with little teeth and claw punctures on the kitchen floor where they had rolled or been batted into various places.
I had a grey smoke years ago named Chiaro(chiaroscuro) who loved to hunt tissues as a kitten.
Then she’d tromp around, parading her ‘kill’ around in her mouth, dragging under her belly. Just like a wild cat on the Serengeti. She was so proud….
My Melvin (from Pitter Pats of Baby Cats) had a head tilt, repeated ear infections and nystagmus (“wobbly” eyes) … diagnosis? A middle-ear polyp that had perforated his left eardrum, extended down the eustachian tube and was pressing on the right eardrum. They can progress to the point that they block the kitten’s airway. These types of polyps are not cancers, just growths kind of like skin tags or the nasal polyps that some humans get.
The fix is a surgery, bulla osteotomy, which can leave the cat with a cosmetic defect called Horner’s Syndrome. Because the polyp takes up space in the cat’s head, one eye may rest little farther back in the cat’s head once the tumor is gone. As you can imagine, there’s not much space available in a cat’s head to begin with!
Melvin came through surgery just fine. He’s deaf in one ear, and always looks the wrong direction for sounds. He only has the Horner’s when he’s tired (or Eleanor’s been picking on him). He’s not the brightest brick in the box, but that may be unrelated to the polyp. He still has the nystagmus, and so he tilts his head instead of doing that up-down-up-down distance-check before the pounce.
As for the kitten in the question, it’s worth checking back with the vet periodically to see if s/he can see anything at the top of the throat. Head-tilt plus nystagmus are the obvious external symptoms. Chronic ear infection may be associated with polyp development, or vice-versa, but there’s no clear cause. Polyps are the most common middle-ear problem in cats.
I hope the “Little Runt” has something a little less expensive! 🙂
You do know a lot of us had to run over to the Pitter Pat blog to check out Melvin and Eleanor’s kitten pix and video. Such cuties!!!
Awwww, Melvin!!! I remember him! 🙂
Eleanor! She’s one of my favorite Pitter Pats of all time – lovelovelove the videos of her skwooshing herself under the door!
Oh mine too!!! I’d love to see a grown up picture of her.
Thanks! The vet mentioned te polyp. Of course, being a shelter kitten, if it is expensive, I see a foster fail in the future.
I have nothing important to say, just wanted to comment and let you know how much I appreciate your posts… they make me smile after stressful days!
Awww, thank you, Barbie!!! 🙂
Your cat stories are cracking me up, thank you so much for sharing them, everyone!!!
Ok, so Fred took one of the kitten rooms for an office. That means he has to turn his bedroom into a kitten room now, right? I know he’s a light sleeper and kittens can be noisy, but hey, that’s the price you pay for tossing wee little kittens out of their rightful room!
I have seen other kittens with head tilt and some do very well and recover very nicely so keep positive!