Category Archives: Animal Husbandry

Posts related to animal caretaking

May 30, 2021 · 7:43 am

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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The Triumphant Return of Fuzz Lightyear

If you’ll remember, a few weeks ago, Fuzz was cat-napped. We know he was taken rather than just wandered off because my husband’s sister saw the people scoop him up. Well, I’m happy to report that Fuzz found his way home!

I heard the moment he entered La Yacata. The dogs at the corner started barking. There’s a new smallish dog that has adopted that corner. Yet another animal abandoned in La Yacata. The people that live there already have three dogs, so they feed it and let it live on the step, but haven’t adopted it completely. Anyway, that little guy takes his corner protecting job seriously, and set up a howl at about 8 pm one night.

Then our dogs took up the call, both the Puppers and Cocoa inside. The combined forces of the howling was answered by a pack of coyotes in the area. And then I heard it. Fuzz’s meows.

I hurried down and opened the front door. Fuzz streaked in. Well, it was more of an amble. Fuzz doesn’t go anywhere at speed. It took a few days for him to get settled back in. He also had to get used to Manchas, our newest arrival. But he’s back to his old snoozing routine and we are delighted!

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Read about our other animals adventures!

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Filed under Animal Husbandry

Tagged as lost cat, love your cat, Pets

February 5, 2021 · 7:03 am

Demon Kitten

The other day, we were walking the dogs and we heard a kitten meowing from inside my brother-in-law’s house. Since he has a large pit bull and isn’t known for his love of cats, we were surprised. So we stopped for just a second and peered under the door. An extremely irate and small, fluffy cat burst vocalizing its dissatisfaction with everything.

All three dogs are several times larger than this kitten. The dogs began jumping around in agitation but this little kitty wasn’t backing up. We decided we needed to get the dogs out of there before someone got hurt. But the little beast followed us. It was obviously terrified. Its tail was four times its normal size. And yet it kept coming. It chased us around the block. And when we tried to get everyone in the house, it marched its butt right in, still meowing horrendously.

I gave my son all three dog leashes and shut the door to the garage to round up the little kitty. However, as soon as I put it out, it dashed back in. It took three tries to get it out! It climbed the woodpile in front of the house and settled itself into my son’s window, still meowing. The pets lined up at the window to see the spectacle.

So thinking the cat was hungry, my son tried to give it food and water. Since we didn’t want it in the house, he snuck out the animal gate and left the supplies and dashed back in. It certainly was hungry and chowed down on the food like a ravenous monster, sound effects included.

The evening dog walk was suspended since we were now virtual prisoners in the house. The next morning, I tried again to make friends with the little thing. I let it in the garage and gave it food and water. Instead of eating, it dashed past our pets, up the stairs, and zeroed in on Cocoa’s food dish. How it knew where that was, I’ll never know. Cocoa was having none of that and repeatedly flattened the kitten with his paw to try and get it to stop.

I scooped it up and tried cuddles but it just would not be calmed. I tried more food, but it was still at a near-hysterical pitch. The way it was acting, I wouldn’t have been surprised if its head started spinning around. I finally had to put it back outside again.

We snuck out for the morning dog walk when the coast was clear. On our walk, we found a cardboard box on the road near my brother-in-law’s house. We think someone had brought it here to dump, it took shelter in the house, but didn’t count on the big dog. When it heard us, it thought it was rescued and followed us home. And that’s where we stood.

I sent messages to animal lovers and found someone that would take the kitten. I tried to bring it into the garage for safekeeping until they arrived, but it climbed the walls to where we have our solar panel batteries. Fearful that it would get injured, my son put it back outside again.

Finally, my artist friend Claudia came with a special cat backpack and we bundled the little guy up for his trip to his forever home. Whew! What a stressful couple of days. We are so relieved that the poor little mite found a home. We are well past animal capacity at the Flores ranchito, even if people keep leaving their beasties for us to find.