The Deballing Space Adventure

For the past several months, I have been after my husband to make arrangements to get Fuzz and Cocoa neutered. To be fair, he did go to several vets to ask about the procedure and costs, but dragged his feet about actually getting it done. Men!

Anyway, the constant pissing battles between the two of them (Fuzz and Cocoa) had me pulling my hair out. I was constantly wiping down the furniture legs and washing the blankets. Then, our little kitten Manchas went to heat! AAAAHHHH! We really had no idea how old she was since we found her living out in our woodpile one day. But obviously, she was old enough to go into her first estrus cycle. 

Fuzz was immediately confined to the front porch area. Cocoa was sent to spend more time outside with the Puppers. However, I’m not sure that we took quick enough precautions. This week little Manchas has been off her food and shows every sign of exhibiting kitty morning sickness. Yes, that’s really a thing. I expect we’ll have little Fuzzinators before too long.

Anyway, my husband was finally motivated enough to get appointments for the boys’ deballing. We loaded Fuzz Lightyear up in his space capsule for launch. Cocoa got to sit on my son’s lap for the ride to town. Each procedure cost $400 pesos. Cocoa came back home first, all woozy. He spent the rest of the day resting in his soft, cushy bed. A bit later, Fuzz arrived home from his first space mission. He was bound and determined to go outside, even if his legs wouldn’t hold him. He fell, rather than walked down the three steps to the front porch, but by golly, nothing was going to stop him! 

The boys had some pills to take the edge off and reduce the chance of infection. Cocoa didn’t even notice his pill hidden in his food. Fuzz however, started foaming at the mouth when he accidentally licked a piece of food that had touched the pill. So then we had to try force feeding. If you’ve ever tried to give a cat a pill, well, you’ll understand the issue. 

After two days, Cocoa started itching, so we had to put on the ‘cone of shame’ so he wouldn’t tear out his stitches. He HATED it. It took him a day or two to even figure out how to walk, but by the end of the week, he had learned to weaponize it. He found that if he swung his head hard enough, the cone provided an extra umph in our tug of war games. 

Fuzz developed an infection on the third day after his operation. So back to the vet he went. A few shots and some more pills later, he seems to be no worse for wear. 

FINALLY, Cocoa returned to the vet for the stitches to be removed. It seems cats and dogs are stitched up with different types of stitches. Fuzz didn’t need to have his stitches removed because they were the dissolving kind. Cocoa did. 

Once the stitches were out, we watched him for a few hours, and when we saw he wasn’t going to further injure himself, the cone came off. Fred and George Pupper were mighty pleased with the cone’s removal as well. When we would go for our walks, they both tried to completely ignore Cocoa. The cone must have freaked them out.

The pissing contests have ended, thankfully. Cocoa still is having problems with his aim. He pees near, but not exactly on, the pee pad. So I still have some cleaning to do, but not nearly as much. Whew!

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