how to pet a kitty

A friend sent me this link from TheOatMeal.com and it's absolutely hilarious!

How to pet a kitty, as graphically depicted in 5 easy steps!

It's worth checking out.

hairball goop

Max always hated getting his hairball goop. Being a longhaired cat he needed to have it regularily but he refused to eat it. I bought every flavor and brand hoping to find the one he would eat, but that never happened.

I had heard that if you dab some on their paw they will lick it off. That seemed simple enough so I tried it. He grumped at me and bolted away. He rubbed his paw all over the furniture and carpet but never licked it off! After the huge mess that was made all over the house, it was clear that he won that battle.

Willow and Theo are happy to eat the goop, but they don't really need it, being shorthaired. Nahum, mister fuzzball, is another story, and of course like Max, he wouldn't touch the stuff. Then one day I had a stroke of genius, why not occasionally mix in some of the goopy stuff into the wet food that he loves? Soon after doing this he started taking the hairball goop straight up! Yahoo! Now I just need to remember to give it too him before the hairball comes up!

pilling

Giving a cat a pill is no fun.

I learned how to pill with Max. He used to get giant pills that were suppose to help with his kidney failure. The giant pills he needed were very difficult to give which led to a very unpleasant experience.

Theo and Willow get two pills a day. Thankfully, their pills are smaller than Max's were which makes things easier. I am very thankful that Laura has mastered the skill of pilling the cats, and she graciously takes care of this daily task.

Pill Pockets are treats with a little hole in them so that you can hide a small pill in them. They don't work for large pills or for really nasty tasting pills. Unlike dogs, the cats chew up their food, so whatever pill is in the pill pocket will get chewed up and thus they will taste it. I use them sparingly because I fear someday they will start refusing them. They are kind of gummy, and recently Willow started to resist eating them, I think she got it stuck in the roof of her mouth!

Willow gets two different pills. Rather than force two pills down her throat, we prepare her pills in advance and use empty size 3 gel-caps. Both pills fit in the small gel-cap. The benefits are many: one pill versus two, she doesn't have to taste the pills and gel-caps go down easier than a cut pill, especially if it takes several attempts and the pill gets wet.


These two options have made a necessary difficult task just a bit easier.