I’ve got to tell you about my Mama’s cat. This is the cat that almost ruined Christmas last year and the cat that just showed up in her yard a few years ago out of nowhere. He was a very, very healthy cat when he arrived as an antisocial yard cat. His head was very small while his abdomen was rather rotund. He’s a brown tabby cat with big green eyes and a dislike for most humans. His name is Boy and he has a very short tail in comparison to the length and girth of his body. Boy does not like people. Well, except for maybe liking Mama and that’s only when he’s really hungry. I think he still holds a grudge from his episode(s) last year.
Mama lives out in the country on a good bit of land and this cat just showed up one day. She likes cats and felt sorry for him so she started feeding him. Boy can’t resist eating so they were fast friends. Except replace friends with “acquaintances from a distance” since all he wanted to do was eat when she was about five feet away from him. She would feed him on her front porch and he would come up almost daily for his easy meal. Sometimes Boy would disappear for a few days but Mama thought perhaps he was out “a courting” but I think he was probably gorging on squirrels, or rabbits. Maybe even a raccoon because he looked like he could fit it into his belly. He didn’t strike me as the ladies man kind of cat. It would take way too much energy, of which he didn’t have. About this time last year, Mama noticed that Boy wasn’t quite himself. She noticed he was not eating like normal, didn’t leave the porch much, and became pretty lethargic. Mama knew when she could get near him without him bolting in the opposite direction that he must be in pretty bad shape. She found a cat carrier and hauled him to the vet. Let that sink in. She hauled this cat who’s never had much human contact into a cat carrier, put him in a car, and drove him to the vet.
Let’s just say that Boy was really sick because even though he howled a little bit on the way there, he didn’t put up much of a fight on this trip. The vet did his exam and said that Boy was constipated. He needed an enema. Now I can’t imagine giving a normal cat an enema but this cat who’d only had minimal human contact was going to be quite the patient. They had to give him anesthesia to do the enema but they weren’t able to get it all out. The vet suggested that he go home because after the procedure he wasn’t eating. He speculated that Boy might do better at home but secretly I think the vet knew Boy was capable of full blown murder. Mama took this angry, butt hurt cat home where he actually didn’t get much better. She watched him for a few days but then had to pay the vet a return visit. And that’s when it got interesting.
Just a few weeks out from Christmas, Mama wanted him to get better so that she could come visit me for the holidays like normal. But, Boy had other plans. When attempting the second cat enema and literally trying to pull some of this dried up cat dung from his tiny butthole, he’d had enough. Boy bit the vet tech and when Mama went to pick him up, she was informed of his transgressions. I’m certain that I probably would have bitten someone too if they were digging junk out of my butthole so I couldn’t really blame Boy. The vet explained that Boy, who was solely an outside cat who’d never graced the inside of a home, would need to be quarantined for ten days. Inside the house. Where he’d never, ever lived before. This was just before Christmas and I knew Mama would not be able to leave Boy unattended for the normal holiday visit. She brought him home from the vet that day after learning that the reason he was so stopped up was because he’d been eating dirt and sticks. Dirt and sticks and Friskies dry cat food. He was living the life of luxury roaming her yard, having her feed him daily, and somehow this damn cat went out and ate dirt.
When Boy first entered the house, he was confused. He didn’t know how to use a litter box and he didn’t like the hardwood floor. She patiently watched after him and after several unsuccessful attempts at showing him the litter box, she shut him up in the bathroom with it. Boy quickly learned what the litter box was and adapted to even jumping into her recliner. Part of his recovery meant that she had to give him some medicine on her finger. That went ok until one day he got a little bite-y with her and she slung him off her arm. Boy didn’t bite her any more after that but to be fair, Mama also didn’t give him his medicine that way again. She learned how to slip it into his specialty cat food that cost as much as human food. Boy learned how to avoid eating the medicine so Mama Googled every thing possible to keep a cat unconstipated. She learned that pumpkin helped so she slipped a little pumpkin in his food and even tried slippery elm bark supplements. Boy stayed in quarantine through Christmas and then decided that he was an indoor cat. He wouldn’t even try to peep out the door when Mama would hold it open for him. In fact, he went the other way quick, fast, and in a hurry. He gave up his rogue, dirt eating life to live inside where it was warm and he got at least two meals per day. They were small meals but since it was elite cat food, he didn’t seem to mind.
Mama has spent the last year dutifully monitoring this cat’s bowel movements and giving him doses of Miralax regularly. Despite all of the medical intervention and his previous outdoor life, he adapted to the inside life and I think he even purred once this year. Mainly, he would whine when he was starving and on the brink of withering away. The vet said that he was supposed to weigh about 7 pounds and when he went in last year for his first episode, he weighed a whopping 15 pounds. He would need a strict diet to help bring his weight down. I still don’t understand how he got fat off of eating dirt in the first place but I can look at an Oreo and gain five pounds so perhaps its the same concept. Fast forward to last week, Boy started to act like he didn’t feel good. He wasn’t eating much and when he’d try to go to the litter box, he would strain in agony. He started throwing up and Mama knew she had to do something. It was happening again but this time dirt couldn’t be the culprit. Mama knew he’d gained some weight this past year but when she pulled out the cat carrier, it was evident that he had gained more than a few pounds.
Let me relay this story to you the way Mama told it. When I asked her about Boy’s trip to the vet today, she said, “He barely fit in his carrier. I had to take it apart to get him in there.” As she’s telling me this, I’m trying to imagine how you stuff a pissed off, constipated cat into a cat carrier in the first place, much less while you’re putting the carrier back together around him. She said it took her about thirty minutes to get him in the carrier then worried they’d be late to the vet appointment after having to literally wrestle the cat. I asked her if he meowed much on the way to the vet and she said with his little angry kitty face smooshed in the carrier, it was next to impossible for him to move much. Not even to meow. Give that some time to sink in. The cat couldn’t move his mouth to meow because he took up so much room in the carrier. Either that or he was simply worn out from the experience. After wrestling with Boy for thirty minutes getting him in the carrier and toting him to her van, Mama was worn out so it stood to reason that he might be in the same condition. When she got to the vet’s office, she had to get someone out to help her bring him inside. Mama kept saying he felt a lot heavier and there was good reason why. I’d been telling her that I bet he was about thirty pounds. His round body dwarfed his little head and he looked more like a big floof-ball of fur with a head than a cat. When they put him on the scale, he was a whopping twenty seven and a half pounds.
The vet did bloodwork to be sure there weren’t signs of something more serious going on. Luckily, Boy’s bloodwork was mostly good. His sugar was a little elevated but the vet said it could be stress induced. I’m sure if you stuffed me into a crate that you had to shove together around me, I’d have a few stress induced issues as well. He’s got to stay overnight so that they can do another cat enema to try and get him unplugged. I sure hope they put a cat muzzle on him. Mama’s got to make a trip to the pet store tomorrow for a bigger carrier and she is hoping they make one on wheels. I don’t know if they make one on wheels but I truly hope they do. I would love to see Mama pulling this obese, angry cat around in a rolling carrier. Like a toddler but less cuddly.
I do hope Boy is ok even if he is the cat that almost ruined Christmas. He and Mama have bonded like a couple. He may not like other people but he seems to really like Mama. It’s like having a roommate that won’t talk back but who provides company when she needs it. I’m not sure how he’s going to react tomorrow when she goes to pick him up. I’m sure he will be full of surprises, I just hope his teeth aren’t part of the surprise.
Messpot Diaries 