There are five cats in our household and we had just about got them all trained and behaving well, when last Saturday one of them started acting weird. “Spotty girl” was extra fussy, affectionate, rubbing her head on everything, crying, and holding her backside up in the air. All classic signs of being in heat. Her behavior was affecting the other cats and the kitties and humans were all on edge.
So it was off to the vet to try to figure out why a spayed cat is in heat. Theoretically, once you remove the reproductive parts, girl kitties don’t go looking for boy kitties in that way. Well, after a bit of web searching and conversation with our vet, turns out it’s possible that the original spay operation may have left some female parts inside.
We managed to get our Spotty kitty scheduled for surgery last Tuesday. Our vet found an entire ovary was left behind by the surgeon at the animal shelter where the spay was done last summer. Our vet removed it, but I think he was a little hurt when I declined to take home the little test tube where he’d placed the offending ovary. I explained, again, that we hadn’t paid for the first procedure so the evidence of error wasn’t going to be that useful to me as I had no intention of confronting the shelter people.
Since Tuesday we’ve had to keep our little patient separated from her siblings who don’t understand the concept of, “your sister has just had surgery and you can’t play chase and fight with her.” The separation hasn’t been met with joy and has been a source of human and kitty stress.
As if that wasn’t enough kitty fun, our senior cat, Spirit had her six month senior check up on Thursday, which resulted in a rather large number of lab tests as we suspect she has kidney disease. Have you ever had to get a urine sample, from a cat, for your vet? I won’t go in to details. Somethings are better not known unless you really, really need to know.
Either Myself or Heather, have been at the vet’s office every day this week except Wednesday.
Today life is somewhat better in the house. Spotty is recovering and we’re allowing some play-time between the siblings, I finished Spirit’s new kitty tower, and I’ve delayed my retirement plans for a couple of years so I can finish paying all the vet bills we racked up this month.
The cats are cute and expensive. Let’s just say the vet now has a down payment on that new car he’s thinking about.
Next week I’ll have pictures of the new room we’re having the contractor build for our kitties.
Till next week,
Andrew
Andrew's View of the Week 
I love the way you know each cat so well as an individual! Thanks for sharing their adventures.
May I please impose on your experience with a few cat questions? Pleae feel very free to decline.
I don’t have any info about my kitten, but I have raised six over the years, and he is just far too young to be sexually active – or even competent, Yet he regularly pursues and “mounts” my 7 year-old neutered male, (and usually falls off, since Buster is 500 times Julio;s size). Doesn’t the fact that Julio does everything wrong show that he’s still immature but instinctively preparing for development?
Buster (the seven-year-old male) has several symptoms, but they are clearing up and even appear (wishful thinking?) to be unrelated. I’m praying that if he doos need to see the vet, he’ll be OK for 3 – 4 weeks because the expense just won’t be an option until then.
What does this sound like to you guys?
1) Coughing – a whole month,but stopped 5 days ago, Not in chest, more like back of throat, My sister swore it sounded exact;y like her cats recent hairball. Anyway,not so much as a throat clear in 5 days.
2) Drinks more water (this is the one thing I’m most concerned about) and eats less food – but still scarfs down that tunafish! Has lost a little weight but he’s pretty fat. Well, at least chubby.
3)Two days: Eye discharge, pale yellow, I know this needs medicine, However, my neighbor kept Buster overnight for me and her cat;’s eyes looked exactly like Buster’s do now, That cat’s prescriptilon cleared up her eyes rapidly, I think it’s reasonable to apply the ointment to Buster as well.
Oh geesh, I wrote a post! Please forgive me, And please feel free to not approve it if it’s an imposition. I’ll completely understand!
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I am a not a vet or an expert by any means, but Julio might be older than you think (sometimes they can fool you). Partly I think it’s just his instinctive behavior and likely he’ll need to be neutered soon.
Buster sounds like something might be up. The coughing does sound like a hair ball. The water drinking sounds like my older cat, Spirit. The concern there is that is excessive water drinking is one of the symptoms of kidney problems. The vet can do blood tests for that. We’ve been feeding Spirit more wet food along with some chicken broth with a little chicken baby food mixed in. She eats it all up and her weight, while down, has stabilized. Not sure about the eye thing, but some kind of cold/infection is likely. It might just pass on its own. I know vets can be expensive, but likely it isn’t an urgent problem. Schedule a visit when the budget allows.
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‘“Spotty girl” was extra fussy, affectionate, rubbing her head on everything, crying, and holding her backside up in the air’. So that’s what the girl outside the Kings Arms was doing. And I thought she was just drunk!
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🙂
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It’s hard not to treat them like your kids especially when they give you their unconditional love.
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Very hard not to.
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I didn’t know that–about the incomplete spaying. Interesting. And a room for the cats? I’m with David–you won’t be retiring any time soon!
Me either, by the way. Life’s funny like that.
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It was a new one for me, but according to my vet it happens more often than you’d expect. And the cat room was going to be a room for Heather’s art studio. Operative word, ‘was.’
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It seems when we were kids very seldom did your pets get taken to the vet. Now it seems that our pets’ medical care runs in line with that of our children.
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We went to Petsmart yesterday they have a sign on the door, “Welcome to a furrier version of parenthood.” I am now officially a father to a furry family…
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😀
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Dogs?, Cats?, Kids?…better than money in the bank, right?
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ummm, well I won’t know what money in the bank is until there are not cats here.
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Cats? Happy retirement at 90 Andrew.
Hugs
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Not sure I’ll be able to retire that young…
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I do understand the vet bills! They can really stack up. And we were asked one time to get a urine sample form Zena, our dog, and it turned out to be impossible for us. We just had to approximate what information was needed. I hope Spotty makes a quick recovery from her surgery and that the whole household will get back to a more peaceful, and less expensive routine very soon!
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Spotty is getting back to her normal feisty self already. This morning she ambushed two of her siblings, and chased the laser long than the other kittens.
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