Saying goodbye to Malachi, our beautiful tabby

I've always dreaded the day when Malachi would be leaving us. I will be taking her to the vet to euthanize her today. It breaks my heart.

This is how I remember Malachi best, she loves laying on my shoulder:

Malachi was born on March 20, 2003. She's been with Cathy and I since she was an itty-bitty kitten. We named her Malachi Obediah Plume-Jones, then we realized that she's a girl. The name stuck anyway.

We kept Malachi from the litter of bottle baby kittens because she was more fragile than the others. Cathy had a sense that Malachi would not get a full life with another family.

Malachi has always been "my pretty girl". A year later, when we got Fanny Mae, they became almost inseparable, and Malachi was "pretty girl" and Fanny was "pretty paw".

Malachi grooming Fanny

Fanny was returned to her Creator in 2008. Then, in 2010, Malachi was diagnosed with Feline Stomatitis, a gum disease that causes pain and inflammation. After trying a few things, the vet found that periodic Depo-Medrol injections worked to keep things in check. After that, we knew we were buying time.

That time has finally come. Malachi is still my beautiful girl, but the pain is nearly constant now, and I feel selfish asking her to keep fighting. It is time to say goodbye.

Boaz is 5 today!

Our Russian Blue, Boaz, is 5 today. :-)

Hug your cat

I just read about Liz Dean's cat, Diablo, passing away, and it brought tears to my eyes. Liz's description of her relationship with Diablo struck a cord with me, and reminded me much of my own cats.

If you know me you know I love our cats. We refer to them very affectionately as our 'furkids' and I've probably spent more money on them than I have on myself in the past 10 years, both for healthcare and for toys and stuff.

Liz asked the reader to give their cat a hug. I do that just about every day, but I think I'll hug them a little tighter when I get home tonight.

Boaz is a key thief

Boaz, our Russian Blue, is a key thief.

A couple of weeks ago I left my laptop on overnight to compress some video. In the morning, I found I was missing a function key and several other keys were loose. I figured the cats were roughhousing and ran on my laptop, dislodging keys. "Oh well," I thought to myself, "I'll just cover the keyboard from now on." I found it later on the carpet and reattached it, no problem.

The same thing happened to Cathy's keyboard a few days later. Then, it happened again to me, except this time someone actually moved the cover from the keys first.

Then I witnessed it; I actually saw Boaz walk up to Cathy's laptop, angle his head and pry up a key with his teeth, then run away. As weird as it sounds, my cat steals keys off of my laptop keyboard.

How to Modify Your Pet’s Behavior

1905 LOL Cat

This captioned cat picture postcard was found by Tracy Angulo in a Seattle antique store. Tracy tells us that the photograph is from 1905, which would make this officially the oldest cat picture with a caption, AKA lolcat, that we’ve seen.

The differences are clear. Proper grammar and a more formal tone was in vogue back then. But the similarities to modern-day kitten struggles and lolcats are amazing. ALL CAPS is still cool, but most importantly, she also no can has cheezburger. More than a hundred years later, all that’s changed is the spelling.

1905: "What's Delaying My Dinner?"
2008: "I Can Has Cheezburger?"

via ICHC via My Cat Wears Clothes

Fanny on the RV dashboard

 
Here's a photo of Fanny on the dashboard of the RV. She sure is comfy...

YouTube: Ninja Cat

This is cute; a cat keep approaching the camera during peek-a-boo. The last shot is precious. :-)

IM ON UR BIBLE SHEDDING ON UR SERMON

LOL Fanny

Pet Pocket: I want one

Zechariah and Boaz would both love this Pet Pocket.

Kitty Videos Around the Web

Here are some kitty videos I saw online... Gotta share!

How to Green Your Pet

Love me, love my pets. Love God, love His creation. Here's a good place to start thinking about being "green" where it concerns your furry family members, starting with "adopt from a shelter" to "feed them better food."My personal tip -- don't flush cat litter; according to the handlers at SeaWorld (see also http://cats.about.com/b/a/257490.htm), some cats carry a parasite which hurt ocean wildlife like otters.

read more | digg story

Cat Ride the Bus

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.

So, there's a cat in England that rides the bus. I wonder who's it is?

Almost lost Sophie yesterday

Wow. We almost lost Sophie to a fever yesterday.

We got ready to head to the shelter's weekly adoption at PetsMart early Saturday morning. I went into the "office" to feed Sophie and check on her kittens and found her laying under a table on the other side of the room. That wasn't completely unexpected, as Sophie has to start weaning the kittens this week.

But, she didn't come to me like she normally does. I left the food by her and brushed my teeth. When I came back a few minutes later, she still had not touched her food. She felt warm to the touch and her breathing seemed rough compared to a few minutes ago. I got worried.

Cathy & I decided to take her to the vet in PetsMart, Banfield. We have an arrangement with a couple of Banfield locations; they give us a 15% discount for shelter cats. Anyway, by the time we got there, Sophie was panting. They promised to call.

Half way to the adoption we got another call - Sophie has a 105° fever (a cat's normal temperature ranges from 100.5° to 102.5° Fahrenheit). A sustained temperature of 105° causes serious complications, such as delirium, seizures, immune failure or brain damage. They were working on bringing her temperature down -- we OKed the estimate, although it was a steep price.

About 1 P.M. the doctor had not seen any decreases yet. The tests all came out negative. Sophie had an infection driving the fever, but the cause was unknown. In fact, if they couldn't break the fever before 5 P.M., we'd have to pick her up and take her to the emergency room. The local Banfield suggested that, given the available information, we should have Sophie euthanized; we left the adoption to pick Sophie up, hoping and praying for a change. I was terribly distressed.

After we arrived at Banfield, we were told that her fever finally peaked and her temperature was down to 102.8° (still high, but better). We were told that Sophie's temperature dropped about 2:30 P.M., and with antibiotics and fluids she may yet recover with no permanent damage. We picked up Sophie, an I.V. bag of fluids, and some antibiotics. We took her temperature hourly last night, and it remained the same, but she took some food.

Today, she's looking better. Her last temperature was 101.5, and she's drinking and seeking attention again. Thank God.

Cat & Dog wet food recall

Menu Foods, which manufacturers quite a few brands of cat and dog foods, has issued a recall.

Some of the wet food is calling renal failure in pets! An unknown number of cats and dogs had suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, the company said.

Menu Foods is recalling dog food sold throughout North America under 48 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba. The food was distributed by major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. Two other companies — Nestle Purina PetCare Co. and Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc. — said Saturday that as a precaution they were voluntarily recalling some products made by Menu Foods.

For Recalled Cat Product Information, call 866-895-2708
Here's a list for your convenience (link to MSNBC list)...

Cat Food Americas Choice, Preferred Pets Authority Best Choice Companion Compliments Demoulas Market Basket Eukanuba Fine Feline Cat Food Lion Foodtown Giant Companion Hannaford Hill Country Fare Hy-Vee Iams Laura Lynn Li'l Red Loving Meals Meijer's Main Choice Nutriplan Nutro Max Gourmet Classics Nutro Natural Choice Paws Pet Pride Presidents Choice Price Chopper Priority Save-A-Lot Schnucks Science Diet Feline Savory Cuts Cans Sophistacat Special Kitty Canada Special Kitty US Springfield Prize Sprout Total Pet Wegmans Western Family White Rose Winn Dixie

Dog Food Americas Choice, Preferred Pets Authority Award Best Choice Big Bet Big Red Bloom Wegmans Bruiser Cadillac Companion Demoulas Market Basket Eukanuba Food Lion Giant Companion Great Choice Hannaford Hill Country Fare Hy-Vee Iams Laura Lynn Loving Meals Meijers Main Choice Mighty Dog Pouch Mixables Nutriplan Nutro Max Nutro Natural Choice Nutro Ultra Nutro Ol'Roy Canada Ol'Roy US Paws Pet Essentials Pet Pride - Good n Meaty Presidents Choice Price Chopper Priority Publix Roche Bros Save-A-Lot Schnucks Shep Dog Springsfield Prize Sprout Stater Bros Weis Total Pet Western Family White Rose Winn Dixie Your Pet

Update: The risk is 1 in 6 pets who eat get sick. The contamination appears to come from a new distributor of wheat gluten. See this link for more...

Update: Rat poison! The source was probably rat poison on wheat gluten bought from China.
Yes, another update: it was probably melamine, used in plastics and pesticides, not rat poison.
Update, 04/06/07: There's a new theory that the melamine was added by a manufacturer... see this link.