Who are these guys?  I wonder if they can give me a ride home?  Hmmm… Well at any rate, at least I am not by water.

Find Full Find Chey Rules here.

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Friday Ark

Weekend Cat Blogging

Carnival of the Cats

I loved this Ask Amy article because my long-ago white cat, Arthur drooled like crazy while shedding white hair all over me when I held her in my lap. It was a family joke that loving on Arthur was akin to being tarred and feathered. Sally has the same problem with her kitty, Tuxedo. She wrote:

"Whenever I pet him and he starts purring, he drools all over the place. He can't seem to swallow and purr at the same time. Neither of the other cats do this, but I have known other cats who do this. Why does this happen? Did his mum forgot to teach him how to purr and swallow or are his facial muscles so relaxed that they are unable to work? Why is this unique to some cats and not to others? I just try and put a towel under him when we are petting on him."

Amy's reply was logical, warmly delivered, with just a touch of humor. If you have a cat with a "leaky faucet," be sure to read this Ask Amy Q&A.

I am very thankful that that bear looks happy!  No the Woman didn’t see that bear in the wild. They were at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  The Woman was terribly disappointed that their lynx exhibit was being rebuilt and she did not get to see any lynx.

I am also thankful that while we are having company I shall not have to put up with them for too long. Besides, the Male’s son has promised to be here and he is one of my favorite people EVER.

Wobbles is available at For Animals in Queens, N.Y. She was found on the street last fall, dragging her broken leg behind her. For Animals was given the option of amputating the leg, but chose to let it heal to see if she could regain use of it. Although she now walks with a bit of a wobble, she is very active, runs up and down stairs, and loves to play.

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Tigger came from a new WW Show & Tell entry. "I chose this photo because I didn't want him posing (which he likes to do). I wanted to catch ...

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The Bengal is the first registered breed that came from the pairing of a domestic cat with a wild one; in this case, the Asian Leopard Cat. As a result, the Bengal combines the exotic look and feel of the small forest-dwelling wild cats with the dependability and loving temperament of the domestic cat. Most Bengals sold as pets are either fourth or fifth generation from their wild ancestor, and are friendly, curious, confident cats.

If you like the "wild look," but want a loving, loyal cat, the Bengal may be the cat for you. The photo shown above left is of a Bengal kitten I visited and played with at Foothill Felines several years ago.
_{Photo © Franny Syufy}

About the Breed | Submit Your Bengal Photo

No, it isn't Wednesday yet, but I'm offering the chance for readers (who don't have their own blogs) to possibly have their cats featured in one of my Wordless Wednesday features. Wordless Wednesday is sort of a social networking idea started by the Wordless Wednesday web site. Under the premise that "a picture is worth a thousand words," that's exactly what participants try to do, with eye-catching photos and a short punchy title. You are invited to submit a WW photo and caption for possible inclusion in my Wordless Wednesday features. Use photos with the cat as the central focus. The larger, the better, as, if chosen for use in my blog, I will do the necessary resizing and/or cropping. (Of course, ALL submitted photos will appear in this new Show & Tell list.)

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CINCINNATI, July 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) (NYSE: PG), is voluntarily recalling two specific lots of its prescription renal dry cat food as a precautionary ...

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"We just lost our beloved Ted (AKA Mr. Fuzzypants) to stomach cancer. I swore no more cats (like many people do), but 6 weeks later I learned of a stray cat living on a friend's porch. I spoke with the woman who had Rogue, she was headed out my way the next day and would drop her off. I didn't remember agreeing to that, but I'm glad she did. So far, Rogue has tolerated adding three additional kitties to the mix (although we just lost one due to his bad heart condition) and she and her adopted sister survived the flooding of Hurricane Ivan. She loves her humans and loves to stretch out full length and show her belly."
_{Photo Credit: © mssandora}

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Are you one of those cat caregivers who only take their cats to the veterinarian during emergencies? Delaying routine exams is actually a financial risk, as potentially serious illnesses can be nipped in the bud by early diagnosis. Your cat could fall victim to economic euthanasia, if you waited too long to seek veterinary care.

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From Amy Shojai, CABC:

"Introducing cats and babies uses some of the same techniques as cat-to-cat or cat-to-dog introductions. So if you are having a baby, congratulations! Or perhaps a grandchild ...

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Johnny is a gorgeous fluffy black cat with big golden eyes, who just has one problem: he is neurologically damaged, which makes for an interesting gait. As Best Friends tells it, "Not that it gets him down any. He just gets to take in more sights whenever he crosses a room."

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The tomatoes should not be much longer.
*drool*

We had enough flooring left from the big house to
do my office and I went with a soft green for the walls

This our tiny house guest Bella.
She goes to her forever home today....sniff

First of all, Liz and I want to thank everyone who has sent kind wishes, thoughts, and prayers to us, both through this blog and elsewhere. Your support has meant a lot to us and to our boys and it really helped us through this ordeal.
This one is a couple of weeks old, taken when Arthur still had his feeding tube but was getting better. He loves to lie down in the laundry basket.

As of today Dr. Plotnick has pronounced Arthur fully recovered. He still has a small scab on his neck from the feeding tube, but he sees no reason for further concern or treatment for Arthur's illness. He's happy, active and while not eating tons he seems to be back to eating his normal amount and maintaining his weight without the tube :)

Beowulf's test results came back showing him to be perfectly healthy in every way. Now we dont have to go back to the vet for 6 months for Beowulf and 2 months for Arthur so he can get his shots.

So no more weekly trips across town to the vet for Arthur, his days traveling around the city by cab are over.

So today Beowulf went in for his annual check up and his shots. This was his first time at the new vets office so we were a bit on edge with what Dr. Plotnick would have to say and how he would react to the long trip to the office.

As per usual he wasn't happy with leaving the house in his carrier, but he was well behaved and purred up a storm for the Dr and his tech. They were impressed with his sweet demeanor and his ability to purr while getting poked, prodded and having his blood and urine drawn and getting his shots.

So tomorrow we'll find out the results of his blood work, and get a healthy baseline for his records. According to Dr. Plotnick, Beowulf is as healthy as any cat can be. Hes 14.5 lbs and as we've always known handsome and lovable.

Once we got home he got some treats to reward him for being a good boy, but he didn't think it was enough and nagged me until I finally gave in and went into the bedroom with him to lay on the bed and rub and groom him :)

Charlie was somewhat underwhelmed with his birthday toys

As was Sawyer

Yesterday, we took Arthur to his vet Dr. Plotnick and we came into the appointment with concerns about Arthur's eating. As I mentioned in my most recent post, Arthur has been eating on his own, but not the 250 calories per day we had been aiming for so he was still getting a tube feeding or two every day.

As you may have read, Arthur's liver numbers came back normal last week. And indeed he looks much healthier and acts much healthier. He's been very active and assertive, even trying to wrestle his brother (which we break up, because of fear it will dislodge the feeding tube). He even nags us for food, but then when we go in the kitchen and give it to him, he eats maybe two licks or just rubs our feet.

It just make sense in this econmy and at this life stage to be living in a paid off home.

We are closing tomorrow!

I got one of the best phone calls of my life this morning. If he'd been there in person I would have embarrassed myself and him by hugging and kissing him. Who is this "him" you ask? Why our vet, and he called bright and early this morning to give me the results of Arthur's blood work and urine analysis.

::Drum Roll::

Our baby boy is almost good as new :) His liver values are back to normal and everything from his bloodwork to his physical examination say that he's just about ready to have the tube removed and put all this behind him IF he starts eating again on his own.

So our new mission is to get him to eat on his own. At the Dr's suggestion we will be skipping some of his tube feeding times in the hopes that he will be hungry enough to eat his food. This afternoon I skipped his feeding and removed all available food that he could snack on. I gave him a new cat nip toy I bought and waited. Around 5pm he started bugging me and when I put down a can of Solid Gold Tuna he devoured most of it. Now this could be a result of the appetite stimulant we gave him yesterday, or actual hunger but if he can keep this up we can be sure he's recovered and ready to have his tube removed :)

Took Arthur in today for another weekly checkup with the vet. Hes now 14 lbs up from 13.6 last week and the Dr is very pleased with his overall demeanor and the fact he has little to no yellow color anymore. Even the low grade fever he's been running the last few visits is gone and by all accounts Arthur is doing well.

The only fly in the ointment is the fact that he still isn't eating much on his own. The Dr is still puzzled over this and gave us an appetite stimulant to use as needed to try and help Arthur eat more by mouth and less by tube. He took some urine and blood samples to do tests and will call us tomorrow with the results.

While the last few weeks have been stressful and trying in the extreme we are beyond happy with the new vet and the level of care he has been getting. These weekly visits are a benchmark of how much Arthur is improving and gives us a chance to get answers to questions and suggestions for what we can do differently or improve on in regards to his care.

We cant thank all of you enough for you support, ideas and suggestions during this time. It means a lot to us and we cant begin express our appreciation :)

Arthur appears to be doing better in a lot of outward ways. He's much friskier, has gained weight, and he doesn't look jaundiced anymore. Last week when we saw him, the vet was encouraged. That said, getting him to eat is a huge challenge and he seems to be making zero progress in terms of his appetite.

What a weekend it has been! I won't bore you with my non-cat life, but I had to take a business trip to Philadelphia this weekend while Liz stayed home with the boys. I tried to get home Saturday night, but the weather was a disaster. I bought an Amtrak ticket for a train at Philadelphia's 30th street station at 7:30 pm on Saturday and was stuck on the train (and another they made us change to) for over 10 hours, getting home at 6 a.m. I am wiped and so is Liz from caring for the boys by herself while waiting for me to get home. Meanwhile, I have a ton of work to do for Monday morning.

My human picked up a back issue of Vanity Fair because she wanted to read a piece called "Addicted to Cute." Doesn't she know that I am the king of cuteness?I am the cutest thing since sliced mousie paws.I am the cutest kitty ever to loll on the dining room table.Cuter than a cupcake, thanks very much.But if you're making cupcakes, make mine with tuna, won't you?It's my birthday, and I'll be cute

So, for better or worse, we are working our way into a feeding tube routine. We are now feeding Arthur three times per day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening.

This is a micro level of info that you probably won't find interesting, but since my wife and I have created a google doc spreadsheet to track the combination of Arthur's tube feedings and self-feeings, I thought I'd share it:

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who has been commenting on these posts and replying to my questions on various forums. I'm sorry that I haven't had time to respond to everyone personally, but I want you to know that Liz and I are really inspired and encouraged by your comments, well wishes, and prayers and I think they are making a huge difference in our health and Arthur's! Please keep them coming!

The photo above was taken on Liz's camera phone a few minutes ago. That's a sleepy, unkempt me tube feeding Arthur while Beowulf sleeps next to him and leans his head on my feeding arm to support me and his brother. That's the kind of being Beowulf is; he is always there to heal and support me, Liz, and his brother, always there to lean on you, purr, and make you feel better. Don't believe the glowing eyes in the shot!

This afternoon we had our first appointment with our new vet, Dr. Plotnick of Manhattan Cat Specialists. I deliberately avoided naming him in the prior post before where I said I had made an appointment with a new vet, because I didn't want to name names until I had actually had my appointment and met him. Now, I definitely have a strong opinion. Dr. Plotnick and his entire staff are incredible and, after our visit, Liz and I felt like we had a new lease on life for ourselves, not just Arthur.

Dr. Plotnick spent a long time with us, answering every one of our questions and putting our minds very much at ease about the feeding tube and what could happen with it. Where the vet hospital had put the fear of God into us about the tube popping out at any moment and Arthur neednig to be rushed into the hospital for emergency treatment, Dr. Plotnick explained that, even if the tube came out, we would simply put a band aid over the open hole in Arthur's neck and then bring him in the next day.

On a side note, his staff also rewrapped the tube and repositioned it so it isn't bumping into everything now. Strangely, the hospital had used a really long tube which complicated things.

He and his team explained to us that we did not need to stay up 24/7 watching Arthur to make sure he does not pull the tube loose. That may sound like a very minor thing to say, but to us, it's a lifesaver.

I could spend a much longer post -- and perhaps I will at some point-- talking about everything that is right with Dr. Plotnick and Manhattan Cat Specialists, because they are just amazing. But right now I'm going to selfishly go to bed in a few minutes and enjoy some of the lost sleep Dr. Plotnick has given back to me.

But before I sign off this post, here's an update on the most important thing, Arthur's health. The doctor agrees with the diagnosis that Arthur has fatty liver disease. However, he did discover (something our old vet did not) that Arthur has a fever. He believes the fever is evidence of some kind of underlying infection, but none of the prior tests done by the hospital or our old vet were able to detect an infection.

The old vet / hospital did put him on the Enrofloxacin antibiotic because they suspected some kind of infection, but they never could tell what it was. Without doing further tests -- which he does not recommend at this time -- our new doctor cannot tell what the infection is. However, he prescribed an additional antibiotic that should fight other types of infection so, even though we don't know the exact infection, we're hopefully fighting it. We're also getting another liver med that is going to help with the bile flow (I forget the name, but I can share that later).

Dr. Plotnick told us not to retest the liver values too frequently; he said this whole process is going to take several weeks and that we shouldn't even test Arthur's blood again for three weeks. What a difference from the hospital and other vet who wanted to retest his liver values today and then possibly rush him into exploratory surgery if we didn't see improvement or if the number didn't at least hold steady. Dr. Plotnick told us that liver values may go up and down throughout treating this disease and you can't just keep looking at them every day or even every week.

Despite the fact that we don't need a new blood test for a while, we are going to bring Arthur over to MCS weekly until his next test, just because Liz and I want the staff to check his tube, take his temp, and look at his weight, just to see if there's any trouble with those things. Finally, we have a plan and next steps for Arthur that don't involve rushing him to the hospital or setting frightening deadlines like "if he doesn't get better soon, we might want to cut him open."

Oh, and on another note, Dr. Plotnick did tell us what he normally does / would have done if we had been his patients when this all started. He said he would have done a single procedure where
he did a sonogram-guided liver biopsy and inserted a feeding tube at the same time. Apparently, a sonogram-guided biopsy is a better way to get results than the myriad of aspirate biopsies and separate sonograms that were conducted by the hospital and our old vet. It also sounds like it would have been thousands of dollars cheaper.

Before I go to bed, which I must, I have one open question here. What do I say to our old vet? She actually, without prompting, called today and left me a voicemail message asking us to come in for the next liver test (the same one we're not doing for 3 weeks) and to pick up some medication (cream-based antibiotics) she had ordered last week that we no longer need. I suppose Liz or I need to call her back and tell her, but I'm not looking forward to it. I think I will just say that we've chosen a more "full service" vet and leave it at that. The thousands of dollars that she got us to spend on a haphazard patchwork of tests and emergency hospitalizations are gone and I can't see anyway to get them back, though I hope our pet insurance will reimburse us some of it. The potentially dangerous advice that she gave us by saying "as long as he eats, he'll be ok" is water under the bridge now.

There's probably no point in arguing and I guess I should thank her for detecting Arthur's illness in the first place, though I'm sure another vet would have also and would have handled it a lot better. What would you say?

We'll be seeing our new vet at 4:30 pm today and we have many questions for him. The most important of these is: how much can we relax?

The dining area is moving along and we are working
into the living area now

Here's the latest update. My friend and world-class cat sitter Leslie Kaufman recommended that I speak with her vet. She told her vet I would call him and I did and I was very impressed with his knowledge and straightforward answers to my questions. Based on our conversation, I've decided to take Arthur to see him tomorrow and, unless the visit goes poorly (in terms of our interactions with him and his staff), he will be our new vet from now on. I was very impressed with him over the phone, where talked to me free of charge for 35 minutes! That's more advice and info than we got out of the hospital doctors after spending thousands with them.

So, my wife just got a call from the hospital; Arthur came through the feeding tube surgery ok, though for good measure they are going to charge us for an additional blood test (we don't know how much yet) b/c they tested his blood clotting to see if he would bleed too much. That means the feeding tube procedure all by itself will have cost well over $1,100.

At this moment, Arthur is at the hospital, presumably about to or already undergoing his feeding tube surgery. We're waiting to hear from them and haven't yet. In the mean time, I have a question, which I posted elsewhere earlier, but thought I would share here as well.

ByeBye yucky carpet!

Trouble is Paw's assistant

I don't want to spend too much time rehashing everything that has happened to Arthur (and us) over the past week, but I'll point to a forum thread on About.com where I've been discussing the whole thing under the user name geekinchief23.

Here is where we stand right now. Arthur came home from the hospital last Thursday (2/25) with some prescriptions and an order to get back to eating. As you may know by now, he has fatty liver disease, a condition which is curable if the cat gets the right amount of food into them fast neough.

Over the weekend, we got Arthur to eat and he has eaten a bit every day, but we were concerned that he was not eating enough. By our count, he is a 13.5 pound cat and has been eating maybe 2-3 ounces of food per day, if that. However, his behavior has improved, though he is traumatized by being force fed the beyatryl antibiotic pill every day (he'll get a skin solution for it soon). My wife Liz and I have been whipping out a can of his favorite food, Solid Gold Blended Tuna, maybe 3 times a night and maybe one of those 3 times, he will actually want to eat and will eat maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of a 3 oz can. In between he will have maybe 5 to 10 pieces of kibble, though a lot of the kibble crumbs are falling out of his mouth.

So my wife Liz and Iwere concerned: Was he eating enough? Unfortunately, nobody would give us a straight answer about how much he was supposed to be eating. We called the internal medicine specialist who saw him at the hospital (which nearly wiped out our savings by conducting $3k worth of tests) and they said "we can't really tell you how much is enough. Don't worry about it."

We talked to our own regular Vet who said "if he's eating anything at all, he will be fine." Call us worry warts, but neither of those answers inspired confidence in us. Today, we took him into the vet and where normally Liz goes by herself b/c I'm at work, I left work for the afternoon so I could go with her. I talked to the doctor and demanded some answers about the amount of food he should be eating.

Again, she reiterated her extremely vague response. "If he's eating at all, I wouldn't worry," she said. I said "he's eating about 2 ounces of food a day. Isn't that too little?" She said "maybe that's normal for him."

She weighed Arthur and indeed he had gained weight since his last weighing. He was now 13.5 pounds where he had weighed in at 13.2 when we brought him in the day before. She said "I think he's doing great, but if you really want and it would make you feel better, I'll run a blood test on him now while you wait to check his liver values again." I said, "yes, please run the test."

Liz and I sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes and then the doctor came out with a sad look on her face. She said that his liver values had taken a significant turn for the worse. Where his liver number had been 4.2 when he left the hospital, it is now 7.0 (higher is worse).

She said to us: "Hmm, maybe he isn't eating enough. I called the hospital and they suggest putting in a feeding tube." A feeding tube is something we had been asking about and suggesting ourselves (against both the hospital's and her objections) since he was diagnosed.

So tomorrow, he is going back to the hospital and will get a feeding tube installed, probably at an exorbitant price that will really hurt us. We are praying that he will now be ok, but of course, the hospital and vet are not inspiring confidence with their vague and incorrect answers.

We thought about taking him to another vet and we were considering an appt with one at the ASPCA, but right now I feel like I don't want to start over with a new doctor while his condition is declining like this. If we get the feeding tube in and he starts to improve, maybe then we can take him to some place that doesn't know him or maybe this is just a lesson-learned that we need better people to care for him and Beowulf in the future.

I will tell you candidly that this illness has been very very hard on Liz and I. We are not eating or sleeping. We have constant stomach aches. We are distracted and we're not ashamed to admit that, even though we are not religious people, we are doing a lot of praying lately. Please send your best wishes, positive thoughts, and prayers, not to us but to Arthur. He's going to need them.

Just brought our fur baby home. He is a sick kitty, at the moment the diagnosis is Heptatic Lipidosis otherwise known as Fatty Liver. They are still waiting on some test results to check for Pancreatitis and will call us with those results.
The important thing right now is get him to eat and the doctors and we felt that he would do better at home and would eat better in his normal home enviornment rather than in the hospital where he was too scared to eat.
Its a positive sign to me that as soon as I let him out of the carrier, he wandered around for a bit, greeted his brother then went right into the kitchen to eat.

We'll update you further as his condition improves :)

It breaks my heart to have to say this. But our poor baby Arthur is at the vet's office sick.

It started last week when Avram noticed that Arthur wasn't eating much. At first we thought that he was just not in the mood, or for some reason had lost his taste for the kibble. We watched him like a hawk and he wasn't eating much but everything else seemed normal with him.
Still concerned we took him to the Vet yesterday since its time for his annual exam and shots anyway. The Dr was a little worried and took some blood and promised to call in the morning with results
Early this morning we got the news, the results show a possible liver problem and they wanted him to come in for an Ultrasound. I rushed him right over and while they did get a partial ultrasound, he had food in his stomach and they couldn't get a clear look at everything. From what she did see there appeared to be "sludge" in his gall bladder and bladder and his liver appeared "shiny" they were still wanting to look at his pancreas so they asked me to leave him with them till the afternoon when they could do another ultrasound after all the food had left his stomach.

This afternoon the Vet called and explained that they wanted to keep him over night. They were putting him on IV fluids and giving him antibiotics and had sent some more stuff to the lab for tests so we can isolate exactly what the problem was. Physical examination doesn't show any problems so the hope is we caught this early and they can treat it. So until the morning when we get the results and know more of what the issue is and what we can do we have to wait and miss our baby boy.

Please send your thoughts and prayers to our fur baby for a rapid recovery.

Something interesting is going on at the Food Network.
Instead of the usual fancy pants chefs we are treated to watching home cooks work with ingredients most of us would not see on our own shelves in a million years.

I can't wait to see who ends up winning the best of the worst!

I am driving a much taller vehicle now.
A car that is tall enough to take out mailboxes with the rearview mirror.
Yes, that would a good thing to remember.

There is a lot of squealing going on in the bachelor house this week as the first week of date cards start rolling in.

Truly this is the most annoying cast of beauties ever.
Screaming and running to take photos with The Bachelor.
Screaming and running to ride amusement park rides with The Bachelor.

The Bachelor himself mentioned the girls are acting like 12 year olds.
(Sadly, he seemed to like them that way)

Of course the big twist last night, was not really a twist at all because the spoilers have been all over the internet leading up to this weeks 2 hour episode.

One of the Rosette's had some kind of "inappropriate relationship" with one of the staffers.

The other future Mrs. Cute Pilots are shocked at the news which seems kind of wierd because we get a view of the sleeping quarters and it seems unlikely a full blown affair could be going on and no one noticed.
Whatever.

After Jake composes himself, he asked Chris to have his rose returned..

Two are sent home and viewers are left again shaking their heads at his choices.

See you next week!

It is very rare for us to be below freezing and will be
glad to see it warming back up this week

Shark Tank is back and the Sharks are as delightful as ever.

Would be inventors and small time entrepreneurs present their wares to a panel of investors (sharks) in the hopes of launching or growing their product or business.

It is very interesting to see people ask for thousands of dollars, especially when they are able to work out a deal with one or more of the Sharks.
VERY Cool!

What is even more interesting is to see people ask for thousands of dollars especially when they are unprepared to answer the Sharks financial questions.
NOT Cool!

This weeks favorite Shark Bytes:

"WRONG ANSWER"
"You haven't done your homework"
and most painful of all
"you can't GET that loan from a bank or you
would have already DONE it"

Swimming anyone??

A local family will be getting a new home thanks to ABC Extreme Home Makeover.

This will be great coverage for our area, as many people are still struggling to rehome themselves post hurricane Ike.