The Best Vets
This letter arrived in the mail last week. It was a wonderful surprise. …
Spice
Thankful Thursday – The Gift of Distraction
There’s something to be said for keeping one’s mind off the thing that’s being a bother when all you’re doing is repeating the same information on a loop. It’s alluring to keep going over it in your head, again and again. But I’ve found that distracting myself can be just as healing. Instead of running repeat laps on the same mental track, when I come back to the issue or the thing, it’s like driving a car with a fresh set of tires. …
He Made Our House a Home
It’s part of the deal. Pets don’t live long enough and we know that going in. Adopting a senior cat likely meant even less time and maybe that’s why most people don’t want to do it. You know it in your head but no one tells your heart. …
Throwback Thursday – Caturdays
It’s risky. A woman of a certain age writing about her cats. Readers might throw around phrases like “cat lady” and “crazy cat lady”. But it’s a chance I’m prepared to take. …
Salty Spice
A taste for spice will help you reduce your salt intake. This has implications for anyone who’s trying to keep a cap on how much salt they eat. …
Throwback Thursday – Sibling (Cat) Rivalry
It took a long time to figure out what Spice and Sugar were to each other. Were they reluctant spouses? Roommates? It was about a year into their relationship before they cuddled up but they still have little spats. Spice still dominates her in little ways. He’ll shoo her away from the food bowl if he feels like it. Sugar will back up and sit patiently until he’s feeling more like sharing. We’ve determined they’re brother and sister. …
Happy Birthday Wee Gal
Today is Miss Sugar’s 11th birthday. She is the junior-senior of our senior cat duo, adopted from the London Humane Society when she was nine. The first thing we did was change her name from Kitty. Talk about unimaginative! …
Our Little Amputees
Someone else declawed Spice and Sugar. Our senior furballs were 11 and 10 respectively when they became members of the household, and their lack of claws was a characteristic I wanted, actually. They had to fit into the family and one of the ways they could do that was by not tearing up our furniture. It’s one of the reasons we didn’t want kittens. The other reason is that everybody wants kittens so we chose to adopt the underdogs (sorry cats) and give them great lives while improving our own. …
Spice’s Sweet Sixteen
Our number one cat, our senior feline, the Head of Security for our household and top mouser Spice turns 16 today. …
Sickly Spicey
Our 15-year-old Head of Household Security isn’t well. In addition to hyperthyroidism, he has pancreatitis and a bit of kidney disease. It’s thought that once we get the pancreas sorted out, the kidney will improve. We certainly hope so. …
Scary Spice
Spice is sick. How sick, we weren’t sure, so we took him to the vet on Wednesday morning. Taking a senior cat to a vet is like logging onto webMD. The symptoms could be the common cold, or deadly cancer! …
Six Months of Sugar
It’s been six months since I first visited Miss Sugar, then named Kitty, at the London Humane Society. She had a cone around her head and was recovering from a stomach bug, and even though she looked rather forlorn, I knew I had found our next fur baby. …
Cat Scratch Fever
Finally, someone in authority has said it: house cats should stay indoors. …
Spice’s Big Adventure
Spice, our almost-toothless, clawless, senior, indoor cat got out on Saturday. By the time we found him, we could see our breath from the incoming cold. And in-between was the most frantic I’ve felt…maybe ever. …
Crazy Cat Lady Confirmed
This is how it happens. You get one cat. Then you get another. Then you stop thinking that talking about your cats is boring to other people. Then you buy Christmas stickers in the scrapbook section of Michaels and it’s suddenly out of control! …
Kitty News
We’ve been a two-cat household for more than a month now and things have settled into a routine. Our new adoptee Sugar, or Miss Sugar, is a delight. Spice is making sure she knows she’s #2 and he’s #1. There have been some incidents of hissing and chasing but no actual fights. They even get affectionate sometimes. …
Kitty the kitty
Spice, the 14-year-old wondercat, has been restless. When he was surrendered for adoption, he was part of a pair. Animal Aide in St. Thomas apparently tried to adopt them together but no one wanted two senior cats. They were both 11 at the time. So Chloe was adopted separately and we came to learn about Spice once he became a solo act. …
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Harness
Spice the wonder-cat, the head of security, the lead tiger of the house, is an indoor cat. He has no front claws, very few teeth, and when we adopted him at age 11 I signed a declaration promising to keep him inside. It’s for his own safety. I’m not a fan of roaming felines anyway, so it was a no-brainer. …