just a cat

pheller said:

Lymphoma - Chemo treatment. What are her chances of lasting more than a few months after? 

I'm sorry to hear that. I had to look it up and after reading this, I don't have an answer for you. 

Cornell Feline Health Center: Lymphoma

An odd thing happened today with the ferals. As I sat in the kitchen, my dogs started barking at something outside. The black and white feral cat that I see most often was sitting at the gate to my driveway. The dogs barked. It sat and looked through the sliding door at me. I filled a pitcher with cat food and went out the back door. The cat had moved on ahead and stayed about 30 feet ahead of me as I walked to the food bowl. It continued past the food bowl about 30 feet, then stopped and waited for me to deposit the food. It waited until I left, then advanced and had a few bites before pausing and looking up the hill.

A Calico cat came down the hill directly and joined Black-White at the bowl. I had only seen this one twice before and never two feeding together. Great camouflage for it's environment, I bet it has been around often without being seen.

In the end it seems that Black-White had fetched me to get food for the Calico rather than for herself.

The ferals are training me.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

One of my cats does something similar, one will summon me, demand tribute in the form of treats. She will then leave to retrieve one of the other cats, who will eat the majority of the treats. I think it is the feline version of protection money. 

Edit.. not sure why the font size changed? 

Our cats know which one is Janel's favorite, so when they really REALLY want food they send him in. 

Keith Tanner said:

Our cats know which one is Janel's favorite, so when they really REALLY want food they send him in. 

We have a similar situation. One of our cats (and I'm not sure why) we trained to use his words to ask for treats. What we did not anticipate is the other cats learning that if they hear cheese meow, anyone that's there gets treats. So cheese meows, I see three cats. 

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

An odd thing happened today with the ferals. As I sat in the kitchen, my dogs started barking at something outside. The black and white feral cat that I see most often was sitting at the gate to my driveway. The dogs barked. It sat and looked through the sliding door at me. I filled a pitcher with cat food and went out the back door. The cat had moved on ahead and stayed about 30 feet ahead of me as I walked to the food bowl. It continued past the food bowl about 30 feet, then stopped and waited for me to deposit the food. It waited until I left, then advanced and had a few bites before pausing and looking up the hill.

A Calico cat came down the hill directly and joined Black-White at the bowl. I had only seen this one twice before and never two feeding together. Great camouflage for it's environment, I bet it has been around often without being seen.

In the end it seems that Black-White had fetched me to get food for the Calico rather than for herself.

The ferals are training me.

And in about 2 months, you're going to have a bunch of tiny black, white, and orange/tan furballs. Better start coming up with names soon.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Our cat was raised by dogs and turned out with a interesting personality

I've had so many cats that I've already gone through the cool car names, Mercedes, Porsche, Pantera, and Chevy. 

VolvoHeretic said:

And in about 2 months, you're going to have a bunch of tiny black, white, and orange/tan furballs. Better start coming up with names soon.

I hope to avoid that, but I may have delayed too long. The vet says that if I bring one to him in the morning in a trap, he can have it 'fixed' and ready for me to pick up in the afternoon. I bought a trap last week and hope to start neutering and spaying cats soon. I'm still not quite clear on what to do after I pick a wild animal up from the vet after surgery. It's not mixing with my animals. Will it be okay to release it right back to the 'wild'? I'm sure my vet will fill me in on that when the time comes.

If I trap one and abduct it for a day will all the others be too spooked to trap? How many are there really? Black-White, White-Black, Gray-Mask, Calico, Tree-Miso (that I have only seen for certain twice), maybe an orange tabby that runs away on sight, and the big boss Tom cat that has been strutting our street on a schedule for years - I have always assumed that he is someone's cat, but not so sure now.

IIRC calico means girl cat exclusively.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

You need to buy a dog crate and keep him in your garage for awhile to check for infections. Wear heavy coveralls and gloves when you open the door to change his litter box. Have a sweep broom handy. Do you have any hockey gear? Cat's don't really communicate like that. They really can't warn the others about what you plan to do to them. 

I suppose the trouble you are going to have is you won't ever have another chance to catch the same cat twice. You will have to take in whatever cat shows up in the trap.

Keith Tanner said:

IIRC calico means girl cat exclusively.

99.9999% of the time. One in every couple thousand a male calico will appear, and he's almost invariably sterile. 

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

I have a good sized dog crate out at my daughter's house that I can use. Hobart welding gloves and an old leather jacket will have to do. I've been thinking I should do it when I have a few sequential days off and that's been the delay. That and some warm-ish weather.

Wash your hands every time you finish being around the feral cats. you don't want to transmit anything to your house cats.

I finished a week of night shift this morning. There's going to be an ice storm tonight, then the weather should be warm for a few days. I figured it was good timing to trap a feral. I set the trap by the feeding area with some cat food and roast beef then covered it with a towel. The plan was to leave it for an hour, then retrieve it with or without a cat.

On the way out, I noticed a deer in the corner of a fence at the pond. A neighbor's dog focused on it and barking. The steep slope around the pond was hard frozen ice, not snow. The deer could not get momentum or traction to get out. At first I let it be, figuring that it could manage better without my help.

An hour later i went to check the trap. Deer still in the same spot. Dog still barking. I had seen the black-white cat walk across to the trap and figured that it would be there, but the trap was empty. I grabbed a long runner type of rug from the house with a plan to unroll it down the ice to the deer. Before I was close, the deer spooked and chose to swim. It crossed the pond and managed to climb up a shallower bank on the other side; wet, but problem solved. I decided to leave the trap for another 15 minutes after the dog settled down.

Expecting an empty trap, I was surprised this time to find it contained a cat that I hadn't seen for a while. He clearly was unhappy about the situation, but remained calm. No sound at all from him as I loaded him in the Prius and took him to the vet. He's going to get a full check-up, neutered, wormed, and a shot or two. The vet will keep him over night and I'll pick him up tomorrow after the roads are cleared from the oncomming ice storm. I'll release him back to the 'wild'. I don't see any way that my four dogs, or old male cat Ceasar would tolerate having it in the house. The local Humane society is already over-burdened. This is one cat. I know that I have at least four others that feed from the bowl.

Update on Lymphoma. 

It's no good. But our furball has it better than most. 

It hasn't spread much yet, and the chemo pills she's taking won't bankrupt us (at least not immediately). $350 a pill. Yikes. 

This will give us some time to plan, and hopefully she won't surprise us. Which I guess is worse in some ways, and better in others. 

Sorry to hear that. We have always waited way too long before taking every one of our pets in to end their suffering. They always have worse days and then better days and just before we where ready to call the vet, they would rebound and we would wait, but eventually they always started a downwards spiral and we finally had to do the right thing. They really are totally dependent on us for their life and it is the hardest decision we have ever had to make.

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

With two of our cats we were able to have Lap of Love come and do the euthanasia at home. Both were getting fluids for advanced kidney disease and other senior cat issues. Because LoL has to schedule out a few days it allows you to really spend time with the pet. In two other cases, one dog and one cat, we were in the "close" time and were dealt with a severe turn that required going to an emergency vet where a "now" decision was involved. Having done both, the LoL option is so much less stressful (for both us and the pet). 

Our old guy, Mr. Bones is getting into the realm of "Close." Fluids every other day, thyroid meds X2/day, appetite stimulant roughly twice a week, anti-nausea meds when needed. His quality of life is pretty good on most days either sleeping between our pillows on the bed or in his favorite bed by a glass door. He still comes out for treats around 7 every night and hangs out with us, but I see the little things that make me question his pain level, quality of life, etc. As you said, it is the toughest decision we have to make with them. 

Okay, another male feral cat is done. I think there are two females that live in the area (Calico and Black Ear) and one more that rarely comes through to eat (all black like Miso).

I kept forgetting to post in here! I adopted this little lady about 3 months ago after finding a stray kitten and finally deciding I needed a buddy. Imogen is likely 10, and still has a lot of stray behaviors- but has now felt comfortable enough to get in my lap!

Now we just have to work on her feeling good enough to be in the house during the day. She doesn't like light, at all.

My nearly 20 year old girl, Rosie, is struggling right now. Decreased appetite, unsteady on her feet and a lack of energy. The vet can't find anything wrong, she's just getting old and frail. 

I've been keeping a close eye on her and if I'm being honest with myself I can tell that it'll soon be time to say good bye to her. Here's a pic of her from a while back, partly sleeping on a heated pad. 

danvan said:

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Our cat was raised by dogs and turned out with a interesting personality

I'm on my 6th and 7th cats and 3rd and 4th dogs. Always pick out the toughest cat from the litter so as not to be traumatized by the dogs. It's been a good strategy. The toughest cats are usually good mousers, which is important as our house is surrounded by vines. 

Update on Lymphoma Treatment: 

Our options for treatment were

1) Very Expensive, Weekly IV Chemo ($4000+) (highest rate of success - full remission)

2) Not As Expensive Pill Form Chemo ($500 total with blood tests), dosed every 4-6 weeks (highest rate of sustained remission)

3) Stick with prednisolone (cheap) ($45 a month)

The Vetrinary Oncologist we met with we surprisingly honest. She said that with the full IV chemo, we had a chance of completey curing our 13 year old kitty, but the stress of treatment could be so much that we end up shortening her life from that alone. She also said that its not uncommon for people to spend thousands on IV Chemo for their cats only to be back in for additional treatments later in life. It's not a cure, just a delay, and in some cases, older kitties will get treated, only to die from some other illness just a few months later. Since the cat will likely die of Lymphoma no matter what we do, it didn't make sense to spend $5k + 4 hours a week travel to get the IV chemotherapy. 

The pill form of chemo we can give at home (carefully) and will be less stress on everyone. We also found out that it's ONLY (ha!) $55 a pill, and she'll get 6 doses over the court of 6-8 months. The Doc said that it will give us time to "plan" our kitty's end of life.

Our strategy will be to do the full round of pill-form chemo (Until end of July) , and in September or so (two months after last dose), we'll get an x-ray done of the cat to see if cancer has spread anywhere else. 

All in all, with x-rays and blood tests and chemo and steroids we'll probably be under $1000. Which isn't bad considering we spend $3600 on her a few years back when she got pneumonia, and $1000 when we first got her after she broke her leg. 

In reply to jimbob_racing :

Sorry to hear that. 20 years is a good run, but it's never long enough.