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 )

We take Raven to the vet again today.

Pretty much for the same reason we took her the last time. She has these odd bumps--they grow, and when they grow from just a bump they end up looking just like little brains. Tightly coiled bundles of spirals and hoops that are her skin, and they begin to loosen and break as they grow larger. If we aren't careful when we pet her, they break apart. We know they're skin because when they break on their own, they bleed and scab.

When we brought her to the vet the last time, they took a sample of a lump on her butt and a sample of one of the 'brains' as I like to call it. The vet seemed completely nonchalant, and when they called us a week later to tell us things were fine--they still were.

So (back then) we brought her in, they shaved nearly her entire back and burned off what they could. She seemed like a different cat after that. More energetic and happy.

We're bringing her back because all the little ones they couldn't get before, have regrown. All the hair they shaved off hasn't grown back. At all. Not a single bit. She's been on a strict diet to lose weight for a year, and I don't think she's losing it.

I don't know about you, but if I were covered in bumps and scabs I'd be a might uncomfortable, and that's what we're worried about. We'd like to see her bump-less, but these things keep cropping up. Again, the Vet seems pretty casual about it, but the comfort of our cat, especially at this age, is most important.

It's a good thing Raven doesn't care what she looks like. I'm pretty sure there's going to be more shaving involved in her future.

--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.

Today I went to Turkey Creek Sanctuary after watching Prince Caspian.

Possibly one of the worst ideas yet because it was approximately Satan's asshole hot outside and after twenty minutes in the sun I wished I was dead.

I love Florida in the summer!

I will give one thing to Florida, it's so very, very green when it wants to be. Even in the middle of a fire haphazard where at any moment everything could burst into flames; there's Florida, all cheery and green anyway. "DUDE. WE LOVE HOT!"

At any rate, while we were there Shawn rescued a turtle that was wandering across the road to go eat and forgot to check both ways so we picked it up. While we were carrying it he/she seemed pretty laid back about the whole floating-through-the-air thing and was even doing this lazy ehn-ehn flap of his legs half-heartedly until we set him/her down. Soon as we set him/her down him/her actually moved pretty fast to get out of there.


When we got home we cleaned out hamster cages (which we just finished up) and naturally, the best thing to do with a hamster while cleaning out it's cage is to put it in the safest place in the world.


My rack.

How was your day today?

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.

Here are a few more pics of our, as yet, unnamed hammies.












Squeeeeeeeeeak! I am now off to bed because I am loopey tired.

Did you know that April 10th is ASPCA Day?

No? Let's find out what the ASPCA day says about it!

ASPCA website says:

"On Thursday, April 10, cities all over the country will be going orange to celebrate the ASPCA’s victories on behalf of animals and the joy they bring to pet parents everywhere. Lend us your voice on April 10 by dressing yourself, your kids, your pet—even your school or company!—in ASPCA orange, and show the world you support the ASPCA and the pets we protect."

Sounds pretty damn good to me. I don't think I have anything orange, however. I think Shawn might have an awful Hawaiian shirt. I'll have to drum up something! Won't you wear orange on April 10th for me? Won't you help speak for those who don't have a voice?

If not, do it for Nugget:


EDIT: APRITH? I ORIGINALLY HAD APRITH IN THE TITLE. WHAT THE HELL IS AN APRITH?

This afternoon while attempting to capture the elusive Raven Meow (which I managed to capture, but I'll worry about posting another video tomorrow instead of flooding your friends list tonight) I managed to catch Nugget giving kisses to himself.

This is recorded with my Fujifilm S700 camera instead of my webcam :) For those of you with no clue as to what I am going on about, Nugget is our cockatiel. :D

To help soften the bad news of my previous post, I'd like to offer you another home brew video from your's truly, The Melonator.



It’s often near impossible to get the two of our cats to occupy the same space. Raven thinks Flora is stupid and Flora thinks Raven is a toy made to amuse her–and then often gets frustrated when said toy doesn’t do its job.

Yesterday, the two of them were together on our awful, ancient, worn down mystery color carpet yesterday–so I caught them with a little video.

I think the only thing I really caught is my own dumb on film. Please enjoy me making a fool of myself anyway!