h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've noticed that making things more accessible, so he doesn't have to bend forward too much, helps him out a lot. A fountain would be neat because if he wanted to, he could lap it up closer to the source with less effort and loss of balance. The poor little guy gets so annoyed when he falls into his water bowl and gets his whole side or his tail all wet.

Bet he'd like chasing the bubbles, too.

Why do cats bring out the "Aw shucks" in so many of us? I've found that they absolutely *hate* being laughed at. Our Cassie is only six months old and has a bit of a dodgy hip. When she misjudges a leap and falls, if I laugh she gives me an absolutely filthy look then goes off & sulks

I know that look very well!

Our little guy has issues getting on and off the furniture. He'll hook into the upholstery with his front claws and muscle his way up, pushing with the hind paws for leverage. Getting down, he sets his front paws on the floor and sort of oozes down. But he falls off the couch or out of bed quite a bit. That's when you need to move quickly (especially if he's been sitting in your lap) or risk needing sutures. But any laughter is met with that absolutely filthy look and subsequent sulking.

Cats!

Sigh.

We purchased a water fountain for His Highness last week. It doesn't make any trickly or water-running sounds. Though this morning the motor was louder than usual, which would be a bad thing, as he is not fond of loud noises and hides from the vacuum/food processor/hair dryer/coffee grinder, and cries in the car.

But, alas, it might not be an issue anyway, as while we've seen him sniff at it a few times, he's yet to take a drink from it. I'm giving it another week and if no result, taking it back and blaming the newly-developed noise.

Damn, it was such a great idea. Meanwhile, we've still got to use the syringe to squirt about 3CCs into him every day. At least he's still drinking from the bowls.

Aww, that's too bad.

You know, Micio won't climb up on her cat furniture since we moved. No idea why. I've tried setting her up there in her little bed, but she just jumps down. And she used to love it.

They're so temperamental.

Of course he's also just interrupted *our* dinner to demand his own. And we don't normally eat this late. So you can imagine the meowing, whining, and pouting that's been going on. Not to mention paws and tails in the plate.

Sorry to hear the water fountain hasn't worked out. However, it takes cats a while to get used to things. Maybe he's having difficulty seeing it? Try putting a couple of drops of milk in to make the water cloudy. As for the noise, ours gets noisy when the water level is low. The noises you describe are sudden noises. If the fountain is making a noise for more than a few minutes, the cat will get used to it.

That said, I hope you find a solution soon

We don't use milk, but if the issue is that he can't see the water- which is possible- that might not help anyway since the fountain is white.

But we shall see if he gets used to it or actually uses it or not. He's not the most coordinated of kitties, but he's not as stupid as he pretends to be, either. His feeding regimen now consists of both wet and dry food. We'd previously kept both in the pantry, but to save on driving to the vet we bought a month's worth of the canned stuff. I slid the carton under the wheeled cart we keep the convection oven on, and every morning he sticks his head under there, grabs the plastic overwrap with his teeth, and drags the box out from under.

Thought I'd post a feline-related story P/C(or a link to it) -

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarpheonix/news/story.html?id=4ee2c6a1-e3bf-43fc-8b05-3eb230c4bbdd Oh & they reassembled the dasboard free-of-charge!

I often worry that my doesn't drink enough - but he's out a lot so I wonder if he's at the puddles.

In the meantime the little pest has apparently picked up worms.


How often should they be wormed?

We had something similar to the cats in the dashboard once. We were building an addition on the house and one of the cats decided to have her kittens behind the new bathtub, before they'd put the cladding on! Fortunately, we noticed just in time... Else she'd have been sealed in alive, kittens and all! I think we named one of the babies "Amontillado"

Cats are to be dewormed when they pick up worms. My vet recommeds that they're dewormed prior to vaccinations as well. My indoor cats are thus dewormed once every second year.

If your cat is an outdoor cat and prone to eat lots of mice, rats and birds it might be worth to deworm on a more regular base. Maybe every three to four months.

However, check the cat and see if there are worms and be sure to use a deworming agent that takes care of the kind of worms the cat has. Not too wide spectrum since there is always a risk to induce resistant parasites, cf the multi drug resistant germs that are getting more frequent.

I don't recall ever having had any of my cats dewormed so I can't offer any advice on that. I've never had a cat that went outdoors, though- too many cars, etc. I'd be too afraid of having a flat cat.

But poor kitty with worms! Hope she's better soon.

I've heard of cats in dashboards, etc, before. Especially when I worked in the automotive industry (during school).

He gets dewormed on an annual basis already when he gets his injections. I guess, since he's an outside beast, I'll have to do it more regularly.

Little pest.

Oh, it's a he.

Poor little bugger.

Herman's been sniffing around the water fountain. I'm wondering if I move the fountain to the spot where the favorite water bowl is now, that might encourage its use?

It's worth a try.

I keep meaning to say: Herman is such a great name for a cat. Not sure why though.

My is called Pippin. Following on a very old tradition of mine of naming my cats after characters in the novel I'm reading at the time of getting said

Funnily enough, my last cat was Frodo. But that says more about my frequent readings of LOTR than it does about the cats.

Aw, I'll let K know you like Herman's name. It's a twist on Hermes, Greek god of light-footedness. Since Herman is not at ALL light on his paws...

Pippin's a great name for a cat. So's Frodo, but Pippin especially so.

And no, you don't read LoTR too much.

Behind the new bathtub...I can believe that Mala. And "Amontillado" was definitely apropos!

Another happy update: I moved the water fountain to the spot where one of his bowls had been, and moved that bowl to another spot in the living room. During the last week he's used both- and used the fountain for several minutes the other day. In fact, he took a nice long drink from one side of the hump the water comes down, sniffed the trickle, then took a nice long drink from the other side, just in case.

Now the only problem is that he doesn't finish all of the wet food at once and leaves it for later. I suspect it may defeat the purpose of getting him high-moisture food if he lets it dry out before finishing it. It's not that he gets full, but rather that he doesn't eat the bits that wind up pushed against the edges of the dish, until one of us moves it all back into the center of the dish for him. So high-maintenance.

Phew! I'm glad it worked. I would have hated it if you'd wasted cash on my advice