What’s the difference between a calico and a calitabby?
I think (though I’ll be honest, I’m not positive) that tabby markings in the black fur make a Calico a Calitabby. Or actually, maybe it’s when they have a lot of tabby markings? You’ll notice that if it weren’t for the dashes of orange on Alice’s right side, she’d look like a brown tabby and white on her right side.
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Actually the ‘technical’ term for a odd white patch on the chest is a ‘locket’. On the belly it is called a ‘button’.
I actually didn’t know that a smattering of white furs would still be considered a locket, though I guess it certainly makes sense – and I had NO idea that white on the belly is a button, how adorable is that!
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Connie had a better suggestion for a caption to this picture that make me LOL: no no, not brains.. invisible shopping cart.. There is a credit card in her pocket somewhere and nip to be purchased…
And then Andrea said: I think she could be one of those obsessive extreme couponers! “Where’s the nip? Clear the shelf! I’ve got 52 coupons and I get a free Da Bird refill!”
She does have that tense “I have coupons and it’s doubling day, OUTTA MY WAY!” look on her face, doesn’t she?
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Warning: Poop talk ahead. Skip to the next section if you’re eating or have a weak stomach!
Earlier this week we got to talking about – well, originally we were talking about Brigitte’s kitty who occasionally needs his behind washed, and then SC Amy added this interesting comment:
Some folks may worry about milk issues, but my vet has always recommended cottage cheese to firm things up. My cats don’t care for pumpkin, but will dive right into the cottage cheese! Jinx had a bit of the runs the other week, and a big tablespoon of cottage cheese had him pooping proper the next day!
So this is my question to y’all: what’s your favorite kitty-diarrhea remedy? Disclaimer here, of course, if your cat has developed diarrhea, your first step is to take him or her to the vet. But sometimes cats have diarrhea because they got into something or because they like to make your life difficult (you know it’s true!), or they have diarrhea that isn’t clearing up with treatment – or I should say, the diarrhea isn’t clearing up quickly enough. So I’m going to list my favorite remedies (I’ll say up front that if I never had to treat another cat for diarrhea, I’d be happy!) and if y’all have any to share, feel free to jump in, I know I’m not the only one who’d be interested in hearing what everyone else tries. I am not a vet, try these at your own risk, etc.
I’ve linked to Amazon on all of these (except the pumpkin) just so you can see what I’m talking about, but if you Google around, you’ll likely find it cheaper elsewhere.
1. Pumpkin – everyone knows this one, probably, and cats often like the taste of pumpkin. Make sure it’s pure pumpkin with nothing else added.
2. Slippery Elm Bark Powder. I get mine online, I’ve also gotten it at a health food store in the past. You can sprinkle it on their food, but what I prefer to try is the Slippery Elm Bark Powder Syrup at the bottom of this page.
3. Forti-Flora, which is a packet of probiotics. I mix the packets with wet food, but have also sprinkled the powder directly on a plate, and the cats like the taste enough that they’ll eat it straight. Along the same vein (and certainly less expensive!), a couple of teaspoons of plain yogurt might work as well.
4. Pectin. Yes, the stuff that’s used in making jams, find it in your grocery store canning aisle. Add 1/8 tsp to some wet food or baby food, then I always let it sit for five minutes before before giving it to my cat. It absorbs moisture, and if it’s fed dry to your cat, it’ll get into his stomach, absorb moisture there, turn into a rock, and then be thrown up. You’re already dealing with diarrhea, you want to have to clean up vomit too?
5. I have seen – though don’t use – Kaolin-Pectin antidiarrheal remedies. I don’t use it because it usually requires that you give your cat a teaspoon of it every 4 hours (I think), and while to us humans a teaspoon isn’t a lot, when you’re trying to shoot that much medicine into a kitten’s mouth, you’re both going to end up with pink stuff all over you, guaranteed.
6. Diatomaceous Earth – FOOD GRADE. Do NOT use anything other than FOOD GRADE DE, the stuff you buy to use in your pool cannot be consumed, it’s poisonous. FOOD GRADE, did I mention? FOOD GRADE ONLY. This actually should be up toward the top of the list, it’s one of my preferred methods. In a perfect world, I’d start giving Diatomaceous Earth to kittens once a day as soon as they come into the house, but… I do not. I have no excuses other than laziness and simply forgetting. I almost forgot to put it on this list! (I swear, getting old is NO FUN.) Diatomaceous Earth is safe to give to cats every day, and though the recommended dosage is 1/2 tsp – 1 tsp once a day, it’s not the sort of thing they can overdose on. I mix 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of the powder into wet food, mix it well, and feed it to the cats. (You can read more about Diatomaceous Earth here – or do a web search, there are lots of sites out there with information about it.) I use Diatomaceous Earth in the summer to help with the flies out by the chicken coop. It doesn’t eradicate them completely, but it certainly helps! I buy my Diatomaceous Earth online (that’s my theme, apparently, “I buy it online!”), but you can find it at your local Co-Op, and I’m sure there are other places to find it.
7. Lastly, Kocci-Free is my treatment of last resort. It’s a pain in the butt because you have to give it to them four times a day, every six hours. On the up side, the doses are very small, and you can usually squirt the medicine in their mouth before they realize it’s happening. I’ve had kittens with diarrhea who had fecal test after fecal test done that came back negative for any parasites at all, who didn’t respond to anything I’ve listed above, and in those cases, the Kocci Free worked. It’s expensive, yes, but the bottle lasts a good long time. One note: use a 1 cc oral syringe to figure out how the dosages measure out (I think 3 drops translates to .05 cc? I’m not positive on that, though, I have to figure it out anew every time I use it), and dose them that way. Trying to use droppers with the kitten flailing around is ridiculous when you can use a syringe, sneak up on them, and shoot it in their mouths.
Okay, those are my solutions – what are yours?
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Fred should put out Everett, Lucy, and Sally collector editions of the No Limit cover (eyes on the top). Then their adoption bios can include “model.”
I told Fred about this comment, and he said “But their eyes don’t look evil enough!” To which I responded with this picture:
I think Lucy’s eyes look plenty evil there!
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Is it true that Everett never lands, he hovers round the house instead?
It might be true. He’s an experimental kitty. His feet have not touched the floor in 36 hours; that beats his previous record by three hours. He’s planning on trying out for Americat’s Got Talent.
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I don’t know why, must be the eyes or something because they’re not the same kind of cat, but every time I see that picture of Pepsi, all I can think of is that kitty that sings your cat’s theme songs, Out Side Momma and Alice Mo the Calico! Is it just me?? (probably..) Oh, and if those have had a million hits, half of them are me! I love them and think you should make a theme song for each of the permanents! Anyone second that??
Talking Tom! Yeah, I see the resemblance there.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who watches those over and over again. They crack me UP (which is probably in poor taste, to get such a kick out of myself, but I’m so amused by me I just don’t even CARE).
I cannot come up with permanent resident theme songs on demand, they have to happen organically. I am an ARTISTE, you know! (hee) I’m working on something for Corbie – originally it was going to be to the tune of Cherry Pie (only of course it would be Corbie Pie), but I couldn’t quite make it work, so I’m going in another direction. We’ll see, maybe in the next few weeks I’ll have something. 🙂
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OK, seriously? You have a tub for hats for cats and WE NEVER SEE HATS ON CATS!! why are you holding out on us??? are we not your friends? don’t you like us any more..
I’m going through a jumping-kitties phase at the moment. If you want to see really awesome hats-on-cats pictures, you should go visit The Miao Chronicles. I can’t link to just one post, because every one of them is so fantastic!
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My little kitty also somehow manages to put all her weight on one tiny foot, my husband and I like to call this “pin feet”.
That is the PERFECT descriptive term for it! And they never place the pin feet in a spot where it wouldn’t cause much pain like, say… Hm. Actually, I can’t think of any body part where pin feet wouldn’t hurt because somehow their body weight seems to triple when balanced upon pin feet, doesn’t it?
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I can’t tell if that is Lucy or Sally on the blue chair behind jumping Everett, but she makes me giggle!
That’s Sally on the couch, and Lucy behind the couch. When Everett really gets to jumping, the girls tend to stay out of the way so they don’t get caught in the crossfire hurricane that is Everett Peppers.
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And why, pray tell, is it called the Poltergeist tree?
Because it’s haunted! I kid, it’s not really (that I know of, anyway). Fred came up with the name for it, because it looks – especially in the Winter – like the tree in the movie Poltergeist, all outstretched limbs like it wants to pull you down into the ground. I’ll have to see if I can’t get a decent picture of the whole tree to show what it looks like. It’s a pecan tree, by the way – since we’ve lived here, we’ve only gotten a decent crop of pecans one year, and they all came off the Poltergeist tree.
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I think “Pretty Rooster with no name” could be called “Drum”. He’s got some massive drumsticks, but drumsticks sounds so…not nice…like you might eat him any second. Also – I heart Steel Magnolias. 🙂
Well, to be fair – we are getting rather a lot of roosters out in the back forty, and some of them will be going off to freezer camp in the next month or so. I don’t know that he’ll be one of them (I leave those decisions up to Fred), so he may be around for a while. I also love Steel Magnolias, so Drum it is!
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Then she gives her the Alice Mo Glare of Death, like “I am NOT kidding you!” and Sally isn’t. even. looking!
No kidding, Sally’s like “What’s an Alice Mo?” Alice Mo totally thinks she runs this household, and the kittens are completely unbothered by her bossy ways. It cracks me UP!
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Do the chickens drink out of the pond?
I’ve never actually seen them doing it, but I’m sure they do. I’m sure that, like the dogs, the chickens probably see the pond as a big water bowl.
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Has any of your cats ever had allergic reactions? Our Snickers gets lumps on his chin that fester and then he rubs the area raw with his paws. Every few months our vet gives him a couple of shots, it heals up, but always comes back. This time it was also in his mouth. The vet changed his food, (of course he won’t eat it) If you or other readers have had this problem can you give us any advice.
Miz Poo is allergic to something, we’re not exactly sure what, but her lip swells up with a rodent ulcer and then she has to have a steroid shot. The vet thought it was a flea allergy (we had an allergy test done, and the results were that she was slightly allergic to fleas), and we’re careful to use flea preventative on all the cats, but Advantage and Frontline don’t immediately kill fleas, so she may still get bitten before the flea on her dies – this is all supposition on our part, really, we don’t know that it’s a flea allergy, but the test indicated no allergies to anything else.
Anyway, my point here is that we have never found anything that works for her. In the last few years her allergy issue seems to have slowed down, and I think she only needed a steroid shot once in the last year, thankfully.
Readers? Any experience or suggestions to share? Please leave a comment and share with the class. 🙂
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So, today marks four weeks since the black Peppers came home with me for a break from the cage at Petsmart. I checked with the shelter manager and early next week (probably Monday evening), Sally and Lucy will be going back to Petsmart. Lucy is going to go into the cage with the one black cat who’s left there (remember I told you about the two black cats, Bear Cub 1 and Bear Cub 2? Well, the male was adopted, and the female is there by herself now), and Sally will go into a cage by herself. Sally’s a bit more prone to acting wild (not in a good way) if she has her siblings to rely on, and I think that if she’s in a cage by herself, she’ll be more willing to interact with people than she was when the three Peppers were in one cage. Once one or the other of the girls is adopted, then Everett will go down to take their place. If they sit there for two weeks without being adopted, I’ll take Everett to Petsmart and bring the girls home for a break. Then if he sits there for two weeks without being adopted, I’ll do the reverse. Hopefully no one will need to come back here – fingers crossed!
It’s amazing how high that boy can fly, isn’t it?
Poor Alice. Everyone just ignores her when she gets all glare-y at them.
Eyes on the prize.
He’s FLYYYYYINGGGG!
“How does he stay up there?!”
Alice is all “Nice form, doofus.”
“Better you land on your sister than on me.”
Alice lifts the Paw o’ Doom. Everett’s not impressed.
Everyone else is watching the birdie – Corbie’s looking at me like “Where do all these kittens COME from?!”
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Hello, Gorgeous.
Beautiful boy.
Maniacal laughter, because that boy KNOWS he’s gorgeous.
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Previously
2011: No entry.
2010: So, yeah, no great cleaning tips from me.
2009: And they’re such sweet girls, they deserve to find their forever homes fast!
2008: Poor girlies.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.