Cat chat - The Ollie and Paws show, with extra Little K drama

[TheLongRider]

Onwards and upwards for the denizens of the Litter Tray. Best of luck to all job-hunting, cat-mourning, Paws-swiping posters. I can't do a proper link to the old thread.

New boy cat arrives on Friday, a one-year old tabby boy currently under the moniker of "Bobby". I don't have a proper picture yet.

It's only fair to have a manager who likes the premises, so he'll deffo want to be Him Indoors.

The next step is being approached by a prospective employer who will come to interview me. In a cat basket.

I am making a list of pet skillz. I expect they are shamefully out of date and I will be required to upskill on tik-tock.

In my heart I crave a massive ginger tom with a higher IQ than me and a finely developed palate.

Who doesn't snore.

Lana - if you want to give a massive Ginger Tom a home and a place in your heart then go for it. I'm sure that there are many out there who would want to live with you and who need a home.

I can't help you with the snoring factor. Sorry.

Ollie says but what about him? He wants yellow sticker food and he doesn't snore just drools
You can't really have him unless I clone him
Paws is too much of an outdoors man about town

Thanks Spart. I would happily catnap both Ollie and Paws. Catnap's the wrong word, isn't it.

But they wouldn't want to leave. Also, I'd be knocked down in the rush to your front door.

Sort of good/bad news in the Allergic household today. Just got back from seeing the consultant and apparently I don't have a partial tear in my rotator cuff tendon - it seems one of the tendons is completely gone & may be irreparable.

He is going to have a try, and if nothing else he will be able to prevent the bones rubbing together in the shoulder & so not hurting constantly, but it means a minimum of FOUR WEEKS with my dominant arm strapped to prevent all movement at the shoulder, and another 2-4 weeks of no driving, lifting etc.

The Overlords are NOT going to be impressed by that at all. No picking up, restricted cuddling, no falling asleep on the sofa with Girlcat wedged between me & the cushions. It also means no work until a) I've had the op (at least a couple of months waiting list for urgent cases!) and b) a couple of months recovery from it.

Sorry to hear that, Allergic.
Looking on the bright side at least it’s fixable and should leave you pain free.
But I understand how hard it must be to contemplate months of recuperation. You’ll just have to do what you can and get used to being waited on.
If I were you I’d make sure the freezer is full of lovely meals, stock up on books, and get yourself a Netflix subscription if you don’t have one already, and just enjoy taking it easy for a while.
So long as you can still open their food and scratch their furry heads, the Overlords will be ok. At least you will be a captive audience for a while!

Unfortunately there's nobody here to wait on me - my cats run a single slave household. My lovely DSis will take me to & from the op, and can do the odd emergency things, but for day to day living it will be me full stop - thank goodness for supermarket deliveries!

I've already worked out how to do various bits & pieces with my "off" arm, and I think the hardest thing will be the fortnightly full litter change. I'll be able to use my hand on the bad arm thank goodness, will just be immobilised from the elbow up.

It's just how the furry monsters will cope without their fuss, especially Boycat with his neediness. No cuddles on the bed, no picking him up off the sofa. He has such a tiny brain bless him, he just won't understand .

Ah well, a couple of months yet at least before they will be able to get me done.

They will adapt. They might even sense that you can’t pick them up as usual. The main thing is that you’ll be there with them and can still cuddle.
Would it be worth buying a couple of extra litter trays and putting fresh litter in before the op? Then keep them in the garage or a room where the door can be closed so you only have to swop them over after a fortnight instead of doing a full litter change? Ok, so the used litter trays will reek but it would buy you an extra couple of weeks of not having to faff too much with them.
I don’t know if I’m just lazy but I use kitchen roll to lift off the poo and pop it in a bag every day. Then when the tray needs changing I tip the litter into a plastic bag, swill the tray out and refill.
The big bags of litter are heavy but you can get the half sized ones. And a woman in the supermarket told me she lines her trays with kitchen roll but not tried that yet.
Just think of ways to make it as easy on yourself as you can.

That is brilliant advice Paper esp re the kitchen roll. Amazon deliver Catsan which doesn't pong and lasts longer.

The kitties will see you've only got one arm Allergic, they'll get the idea. A couple of months in the manner of Nelson will be so worth it to get shot of the pain which I can imagine has not been a laff so far. As for waiting times, meh, you'll need a bit of time anyway to sort yourself out and lay plenty of the very best snacks in for recovery.

One thought: one of my mates went out on the razz for the first time in a year, fell 3 inches off the kerb and broke her leg. She was stone cold sober even tho obviously no one believed her :) Anyway, she aged 36 got carers in from the council post-op. Any chance you could ask for same for a couple of days when you get home? They won't do petcare (shame) but they can do you a cup of tea and a toastie, take the load off.

Thanks for the suggestions etc guys.

I've worked out most of the logistics for the litter change - the biggest hassle would be carrying either the tray to where I keep the litter, or the litter to where I keep the tray; emptying can be done with 1.5 arms in situ then the dustbin bag hoiked with the good arm. Depends I think on how long before I get a date, current plan is to make sure I only run the current 30 litre bag down to a certain level which is easily liftable with one hand.

I think the most frustrating thing is I need THREE different procedures, all on different parts of the wreck of my bod, and it looks like they are all going to roughly coincide. This one will be the biggie though, and one of the others has a recuperation time of approx 12 hours only thank goodness. Rotator cuff, removal of a v large cyst on my ribs, and lateral nerve block in my back - 2 under GA, one with no anesthetic at all.

No anaesthetic? I’m guessing that’s the nerve block?

Is it a ganglion? Doesn't hurt. Promise :)

The nerve block is the no anaesthetic one - had that before & hurts like f*ck but within a couple of hours it's good, and by the next day I was frolicking around like a kid goat last time.

The cyst they spent years thinking was a lipoma, until it got so big it was hurting when I laid on my right at night. Scan it & guess what? Could be a cyst, 5cm x 4cm which is mahoosive. They DID have a go at removing George (we've lived attached for 15 years, of COURSE I've named him) under local, but he's embedded himself so deep by my ribs they need to do him under GA. At least they were able to confirm he IS a cyst not a lipoma. That's in around 4 weeks from now, so will be all sorted & healed by the time they do the shoulder.

Spent nearly 4 years getting the kitties cuddly, now I'm going to have to spurn their advances for a while

Ouch! That is some butcher's bill. Best of luck Allergic. Re the litter tray, use clumping and just scoop the clumps. The cats will be fine. Even my most anti-social cat has been very understanding when I've been ill.

Super - you really do need an former feral who has sown his wild oats and is now prepared to settle down to a routine of regular meals and an available knee at all times.

I was at the vets last week and saw the most enormous ginger Tom. He filled the cat carrier and was grumbling to his lady owner about the inconvenience of being at the vets. Ginger boys have great personalities.

The worst snoring cat we had was a tiny female. You could hear her from upstairs when she was asleep in the kitchen with two doors closed between us.

@Allergictoironing if you are near me (North Devon) I would happily come round to do your fortnightly litter change. Doubt you are tho...

Good luck!

Thanks for the offer Tiggaa, but North Kent in my case. If I were North Devon, I could get my Somerset based cousin to help .

I'm with Longrider regarding Lana getting a former feral/stray, the bigger the better and definitely male.

Aforementioned cousin has just been adopted by a stray - he turned up at the smallholding one day and started clearing out the rodents & sleeping in the barn. They got him checked for a microchip but he had none, her partner said he could stay but had to sleep in the barn. He now has his paws firmly under the table & is sleeping on her bed after a couple of months.

Allergic that is a very beautiful story. I expect the partner has been sharply reminded where he lies in the pecking order as the duvet neatly slithers away in the early hours.

No sharp reminding needed, the cat just sort of oozed his way in. The most impressive part is that cousin has caged parrots, and the new cat hasn't made any attempts to get to them, or chase the yard fowl (hens, ducks, turkeys). I forgot to ask her if the cat had been in at all when she lets the African Greys out for a fly around though!

My Dad's family all hated cats. They grew up on a farm with feral cats and working dogs. The cats would scratch them when they were kids if they tried to get close to them.

However, with the passage of time every single sibling, three women and two men, has ended up with at least one cat.

My mum persuaded my dad to get a kitten not long after they were married nearly 50 years ago and that was that. The cat was Dads and many cats have been in their house since the first one.

Two aunts were nuns in separate convents, each ended up with at least one cat who was their pet to fuss over.

The married sister has a visiting cat who has definitely got his paws under the table now that she's retired.

The eldest brother, a priest, ended up with a cat who would follow him to the church at mass time and wait for him.

All the cats have been small, determined black and white cats! Different parts of the country, different times, but the cats have won out.
PS. Irish Catholic family if you're wondering about the religious aspect.

I bet they all lived the most superb lives, too. I didn't realise you could be a nun and have a cat. Brilliant. And the priest's cat, waiting lovingly for him and a go on the Sunday roast...

Ollie has begrudgingly tried his new bed. Such suffering

Is that a Teddy Bear pet bed?

Matt doesn’t need a teddy bear bed. He has a teddy bear tummy!
(Albeit a ginger one which is weird as he’s a tabby )