Raven has gone from 19 pounds of cat to 16 pounds of kitty.

She is missing even more fur now up to the back of her head. There are several burned holes/places in her skin that we have to clean and watch, but they didn't give her a lion cut, which I thought they might.

Since it never grew back originally, I suspect that our cat will forever be a shaved...cat. (Ahahahaha, you thought I was going to say the other, weren't you?)

Crappy cell phone pic of preparing for vet visit day before:



( Here are some crappy cell phone pics of today's Vet visit )

--you'd think that I was starving her TO DEATH.

Ah, the sounds of a fat cat an hour before feeding. She does this anywhere from 4-6 until we feed her at 6pm. Which has been her feeding time for nearly as long as Shawn has had her.

Some of you may remember my post a while back about Raven, our getting-elderly-pee machine.

The issue wasn't that Raven was going outside the litter box purposefully, the issue was it seemed to be such a struggle to get into the box, she'd hang half her ass off the side (because she'd only go as far as RIGHT at the front) and then pee. Without squatting. So of course, there she'd be IN the litter box, peeing...out of it.

We've mostly solved that issue with a random find at a local pet store. This experiement has been running since a few days after asking advice and I gotta say, it's been pretty kick ass.

This dog litter box.





Yes. Dog. I am so far behind the 'pet times,' I guess. I hadn't a clue that they were making dog litter boxes. The one we have as pictured above is roughly as deep on the back and sides as the largest cat litter box, but without the huge wall of plastic at the front for Raven to jump over.

In fact, I'm not sure if you can tell by the picture, but there's a little plastic piece that fits over the opening that can be removed too--forming a lip that's nearly flush with the floor. Maybe no higher than an inch or two. Essentially, any cat with joint problems or too old to jungle-gym all over the place just to go poop can waltz right in and go.

With the old litter box, I was cleaning up her pee on the mat (a little blue mat that picks up some of the litter from their paws) four or five times a day. Now, with the newer, lower doggy litter box I might catch her having an accident once a week. With the added bonus of the puppy training pads around the front, I have even less clean up than before.

This dog litter box was a large--apparently you can order much, much larger ones. This will set you back $30 dollars, but, for Shawn and I, that really wasn't much to ensure our ol' kitty comfort and ease. Flora took to it in seconds too. So that's one worry out of the way.

It's heavy duty plastic and really durable so far, even with all the scratching and clawing. It's surprisingly light and easy to pick up when empty and clean. I really, really, really recommend this instead of the usual cat litter boxes if you have room for it and don't mind the fact there's no cover for it.

In other pet news: Some of you may recall that I was trying to move Nugget from a mostly seed and some pellet diet, to an complete pellet diet. We figured out what was wrong with the first set of pellets: they came in three colors, two shapes. Red, green as little beads and yellow/beige as banana shaped as well as smelling like fruit. He would eat all the red and green and leave the banana. So when he ran out of the little round red and green pellets he'd behave as if he were starving to death, tweeting and chirping and chirping and tweeeeeeting--leaving the 'naner shaped ones. So we didn't get it at first, as his food bowl would still be pretty full.

Eventually, we caught on and changed him over to Zupreem pellets. These pellets are round only with pieces of real dried fruit mixed in. He eats all of them without issue and we haven't fed him any seeds at all for over a week and a half. I'm very relieved we figured things out, as we realized that seed diets were simply awful for birdies.

And that's it on the pet front!

For the tl;dr crowd: Cat's peeing less due to a doggy litter pan and the bird's now eating an all pellet & fruit diet. Mel's a crazy animal lady. Blahblahblah.

P.S RANDOMRANDOMRANDOM: MY CAMERA WASN'T DELIVERED FRIDAY SO IT MIGHT COME TODAY AND I'M STILL EXCITED OH LAWD.

So in case you missed it, Shawn for this Christmas past purchased a lightbox for me to practice and have fun with my macro photos. Or at least, have a little studio for taking pictures of leeeetle things.

Apparently a not-so-leeetle thing, called a Flora, also enjoys this purchase. Enough so to waltz right in, settle down and have a nap in it. I foresee some difficulties in trying to take cat-free pictures in the future.

















These are unedited for levels, colors, etcetc. I think one or two are really good, so I might edit them in lightbox further.

Now that the Holiday's are over I feel like life is returning quickly to it's norm. I've been loathe to sign onto AOL to have that change. :p

Snippets of our past Holiday include Grandma telling both my mother-in-law and my self on Christmas Eve that neither of us know anything because we tried to tell her how to work the microwave. The display is messed up and because of that, I guess she thinks it'll explode. So she keeps it unplugged until she needs it, then plugs it in, clears it, and hits "beverage." The display then says 4.0, which is the power setting. She seems to think it's 40 seconds. I tried pointing out the period between the 4 and 0. Mother-in-law tried to tell her that--I got my hands slapped and Shawn's mother got yelled at. :D I love Grandma.

Raven went in a little more than a week before Christmas to have calcifications burned from her. There were a lot, and she still has a few growing but most of the larger one's were gone. It was really odd--they looked like little wart-brains that eventually turned pussey because she'd pick at them. We also had a biopsy done on a large lump above her butt. The vet hasn't called us to tell us bad news still, so I guess she's okay.

Without further ado, here are some Raven pictures I took yesterday:

Hairy situations.
I am no longer bothered by the short black hair in my coffee cup at home, or pulling hair out of my mouth or randomly choking on a ball of it during sleep.

I used to think hair+mouth=ew. After several years with various lengths-of-coat’s cats, I can safely say I barely worry about hair.

Fear of poop lessened.
If you spoil your animals rotten and love them to bits, there’s one thing you’ll understand. Either when young, they’ll have accidents, or when they get older, the same—or sometimes--you have to help them.

Let’s just say that your fear of poop will lessen, whether you like it or not.

You don’t mind the odd looks, or the scratches.
If you’ve ever owned a cat, then when you dart a quick glance at my hands and see that they’re all scratched to hell, particularly around the tops of the wrist and sides—you’ll probably nod your head sympathetically and understand.

Or maybe you’ll think I’m emo.

Truth is cats between the ages of six – one years of age (generally) go through what is politely known by their owners as “terrible twos.” Good luck attempting to now pet your once cuddly bundle of joy without being bitten or clawed, good luck getting her down from the curtains, good luck I say. Kitty sometimes will enjoy seeing how hard she can bite before the water bottle comes out or the emphatic attempt to teach her between play biting and bad biting.

Snot holds no power over me.
Eye goobers, nose goobers, close up encounters at night sniffing my face for whichever reason and then sneezing all over it. Cat-colds with double the snot-sneezy-love, whatever the form I’ve pretty much just accepted my lot in life and understood that snot is part of it.

I have accepted that my head makes a great springboard.
I’ve adjusted to being woken up by a deceptively small, supposedly dainty creature with all four paws on my head suddenly doubling her usual weight for reasons that defy logic; only when standing on my head. I’ve also stopped bolting upright in bed from being jostled out of a dead sleep from it, and can usually return to rest without my heart pounding out my chest.

Why, however, my skull is such a great springboard to get to the headboard of the bed I shall never know.

My feet are toys.
I never really understood how wonderfully sensitive my feet were until a pair of incisors made for tearing flesh from bone were playfully wrapped around the tender fleshy part of toes, or claws were lovingly sunk into the top of my foot at six in the morning while I am blearily attempting to let my bladder have its freedom.

There’s nothing cuter than having seven pounds of sleek black dart for the bottoms of my stumbling feet in pre-morning darkness on my way to the bathroom. Really, I love it.

Animals have gas, Shawn has gas. What sense of smell?
Between Shawn and the cat, I’m not sure whose ass is worse. At least Flora is cute.


And despite it all I wouldn’t trade her for any other. She’s frustrating, she breaks things, steals my socks, yowls at four in the morning, sits on my head, chews my toes, farts and stares at me like it’s my fault, and has rotten breath. But I love her to bits. It’s a shame more people can’t apply that sort of thing to their lives and their relationships within it.



**And today in the mail, came a TV wall mount. While I like the idea, I some how don't think that's the gift in mind. Maybe tomorrow, eh?

Shaving an eighteen pound near feral cat: jesus christ ow that was my wrist.

Shaving the eighteen pound near feral cat's butt because you feel sorry for her: holy fucking shit, dig the teeth out of my hand, please.

Knowing that it must help because she can't lick her own damn ass to clean it and she's probably feeling better already and god damn blogging about it?

Priceless.

God, my life is so Hollywood right now.

Or: Further proof I may need medication. Either way, I think this video also shows I have too much spare time on my hands.

"Look, I'm taking a shit. I'll feed you when I'm done."

"Don't puke on the carpet, puke on the linoleum."

"Whews a big pwedatow. Yew a big kitty. Yes yew is. Ah-wew-wew."

"Next time, could you not drag your shit all over the carpet?"

"Thank you for the I-just-licked-my-ass-kisses."

"Mffdsdmm, frrrrmfssh." - As the cat lays on my face.

"Yes, yes. I'll be out just as soon as I'm done scooping your shit."

"Mew mew? Meow mew merow?"