BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Cat Instructions

My annual trek to Maine draws nearer and nearer.  I'm half excited, but also kind of anxious about my cats and their care.  My mom always had very specific and particular care instructions for her cats.  And the cats have kind of grown accustom to how things are.  Yes, they are probably spoiled.  But in defense of that, they were super important to my mom.  She used to refer to the cats as her "babies".  She loved them and always worried sick each time she was in the hospital.

So, on her behalf, I now worry about them.  Usually I'm not away from home for that long of a time period.  At most I'll be gone some part of the day, or evening.  But I always make sure they are fed and have fresh water.  It's tough to leave them in the care of someone else.  I've done it before.  A couple years ago when my mom had her hip replacement we had someone come to the house and tend to the cats while I was in Maine.  I'm starting the process of finding a pet sitter, or various pet sitters that can take turns.  If anyone knows a cat lover out there that wants the job of a house/pet sitter for a couple weeks in June, let me know!  These are very particular but friendly cats.  The steps/instructions are somewhat more than just making sure they have water and dry food, but... They aren't TOO bad.

Actually, I'll go over them now.  Why not?

Okay, so here's my pet care list.

{MEET THE CATS... AND TURTLE}

Now, there are four cats.

Curio - She's smaller than her sisters, but not as small as Faith.  She's a gray/striped black cat with some white around her neck and feet.  She'll stick her paw out at you like she's going to shake your hand and then meow.  She just wants to be pet.  That's her... "Please pet me now" move.  Sometimes she poops outside of the litter box if it's not changed often enough to her standards.  She's a cat with some class and attitude.  A little bit of cat classitude if you will.

Misty - She's the biggest of the pack/colony.  She's a big old ball of white fluff.  Her big eyes will look at you with longing and you'll just melt with a big old awwww.  She does this double meow thing where when she wants to sit on your lap or wants you to pet her... She'll say "meow meow" really quick.  I'm almost positive she's saying "night night".  My mom used to carry her upstairs when she would go to bed.  My mom would find Misty wherever she was downstairs and she'd say "Come on Misty.  Want to go night night?"  And then the cat would go "meow meow" back at her, and my mom would pick her up and take her upstairs.  The other cats would follow and they would all sleep on her bed.  Now they sleep on mine instead.  Misty has this funny quirky personality where she kind of the clumsy lovable type.  Sometimes she just falls over and then just starts purring and stretches out.

Fluff - Marshmallow Fluff to be formal about it, is Misty's biological sister.  Though all these cats are sisters, Misty and Fluff are actually from the same litter.  She's a slightly smaller version of her sister, but almost as much fluff... Hence the name.  She's a bit of a princess.  Sometimes she'll come up to you to be pet, but when you go to pet her, she'll walk away.  "Touch me!  Don't touch me.  Touch me!  Don't touch me."  She likes to be pet very slowly and very daintily.  If you don't do it right, she'll walk away.  Then she'll come back again and be like, "Okay... Are you ready to try this again and pet me exactly the way I prefer to be pet?  Or do I have to walk away on you again?"  This is also the same cat that paws at my face each morning after my alarm clock goes off, to get me to wake up when I snooze my alarm instead of getting up.

Faith - This is the baby of the group.  She's about two years old I believe.  The others are closer to thirteen or fourteen.  She gives the other cats a run for their money.  This is why my mom adopted her.  She wanted to have a young spry one to chase the other ones around and keep them fit.  And she certainly does!  She's almost a bully sometimes and I have to break it up.  She's a bit of a chewer too...  I'm not certain if maybe she's teething or something?  She just will try and chew on random things.  And you have to say... "No Faith.  Faith!  No more."  And she'll say... Faith No More!  I like that band.  And she'll continue her misbehavin'.  But all in all she's a good cat.  Careful though, she's a licker!  She licks EVERYTHING.  And everyone.  I don't know why she does this.  Sometimes she'll be on my lap and just start trying to lick my hands as I type.  A rambunctious little licker.

Now finally there's the turtle.

Squirt -  This little fellow is a Red Eared Slider.  My college girlfriend bought me him off another resident on her hall as a gift.  Apparently the other resident won him at a fair but didn't want to keep it.  Squirt was supposed to stay the same size, that's what the fair game booth attendant told the other resident when she won him and so that's what my girlfriend at the time told me.  Nope.  He's like... Ten times bigger now.  He's about fifteen years old now.  Which is crazy.  But also neat.  He just swims around in his tank and sometimes he goes up on the rock and basks in the sunlight.

Okay, that brings me to the care part.

{FEEDING AND WATERING}

FIRST OFF, there is always water.  The cats have three watering bowls.  Number one is in the kitchen right beside the dry food.  Number two is out on the living room coffee table with the light on it.  That's a smaller bowl mostly for Misty because she likes to drink out of that little bowl.  The third is upstairs in the master bedroom which is where my mom's room was, but I've moved a couple things around and it's mostly kind of just a guest room now.  I'm still in the process of cleaning out her dressers and closet.  I'll get to it eventually when I feel ready.  It's like I'll disconnect her cell when I feel ready to do that as well.  I'm still paying the monthly bill and it just sits on my desk in my room.  I guess maybe I just keep thinking that one night I might just want to text her so bad and I don't want to text or call some random person that gets the number after it's disconnected and have to explain myself.

Okay, so that's the cat water.

Now... what I usually do is I have dry food down at all times.  It's al little complicated because I mix three different types.  It seems to be working out.  Maybe you're not supposed to mix, but my mom had been the one to care for them so as far as the cats diet, I haven't made any changes.  If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears.

So all four cats have constant dry food.  I buy all the dry and wet food from the Pet Valu store down the street.  All of the food I feed the cats is Performatrin brand Ultra cat food which is the Pet Valu brand.

The dry food is a mix of: Lamb and brown rice, potato and salmon, and healthy weight.

I combine about a third of each one of those dry foods and mix that in a small plastic container then I pour the shaken mix into the bigger bowl.  The cats usually come running and they will take turns having a few nibbles each.

Next is the wet food.  Now, there are two different types.  Curio and Fluff get the ocean whitefish flavor. They won't eat any other flavor.  So, I say hey, if you like it and that's your thing... You can have it.

Misty is supposed to be trying to lose some weight.  So she gets the turkey flavor which is weight control food.

For the wet food amounts, they each get an eighth of a can in the morning and an eighth in the evening.  Usually breakfast is served when I wake up before work, and dinner is served when I get home.  Sometimes I go to yoga after work, or on a run or something like that, so they won't get fed until later.  They don't seem to mind and they still assemble in the kitchen as soon as I walk in the door.

Faith gets no wet food.  She's always been only dry food.  I asked the vet and they said it's okay not to give her wet food.  She's stolen a bite or two out of the other cats bowls though.  But that's fine.  She doesn't seem to beg or anything.  She just kind of will eat it out of curiosity it seems.

Oh!  This brings me to how they get fed their wet food.  SO what I do is I setup the bowls, after washing them, on the counter and put the food in all three.  I make sure to wash the bowls well so as to remove any little bits of old food still stuck to them.  Then I put down all three bowls at the same time.  Now Misty always finishes first.  She just wolfs it down.  Then she'll wait for the other two to finish.  Sometimes Fluff or Curio will walk away without finishing all of their food.  Misty then licks each bowl clean.  Then she'll go nibble dry food too.  Sometimes I pick the dry food up for a little while.  My mom used to do this.

Now, Fluff will sometimes puke so she needs cat lax.  This is due to cat hair getting stuck.  I try to keep both the big white cats groomed.  I think what happens is they lick one another and of course groom themselves and the cat hair builds up.  Then... you know the drill, it's time to clean up puke.  Usually a small dab of cat lax on her fur is good and then she'll lick it off.  Fluff definitely seems to have the most issues related to the cat hair puke thing.  I try to catch her AFTER she's done eating.  Otherwise it's a game of chase through the house.  Eventually she gets tired.  She's actually missing half a lung that was removed because of a benign tumor.  But she still can out run in the short sprint category.

{LITTER AND MEDS}

Litter is a hot mess.  I try to keep it tidy but... It's a never ending battle.  Curio poops outside of the box fairly often.  I change and scoop.

What I do is I have four boxes.  Three of them are downstairs.  One upstairs.  The upstairs box is taken downstairs and fully emptied into a double bagged kitchen size trash bag inside a bucket.  After two changing the trash bag is taken out of the bucket and tied off and placed in the big trashcan outside.  I generally do a litter change every two to three days.  The empty litter box is then placed in the downstairs row at the far left and the boxes are rotated right.  The far right box goes upstairs.  The previously upstairs, now far left box gets brand new litter.  All boxes are scooped into the trash bag lined bucket.

Now the meds are kind of tricky.  Curio and Fluff are the only two to get meds.  Curio gets a green round pill every night with dinner.  It's metronidazole.  It's for her inflamed bowels.  She used to have runny poop.  SO she gets the green pill med every night.  I addition to that Curio also gets a small half of a white pill every other night.  That's Prednisone.  Both are for her poop.  I know, kind of gross.  But hey... it works.

Fluff gets a tiny little Prednisone pill half too.  Now, each one gets half a pill of that every other day.

I give them the pill right as they are eating, let them start to eat, then you have to gently pull them away from the food, tilt their head way back, and put the pill in the back of the throat.  They will swallow it immediately.  Then you can let them get back to eating.  They usually take the pills better that way because they want to get back to eating their wet food.

The vet has taken them down from higher doses.  He's trying to take them down more until he takes them off it entirely.  I think the meds were supposed to be a temporary thing but because of my mom's health issues and all the constant hospital visits things were miscommunicated or vet appointments were missed and they stayed on them longer than anticipated.

For now, that's the med situation.

{TURTLE CARE}

Finally, turtle gets ten pellets in the morning of turtle food and ten in the evening.  It's just turtle food.  The brand isn't a big deal.  I just buy whatever the Pet Valu place has.  I turn the light off at night and on in the morning.  Turtle water usually needs to be topped off every few days.  I keep the water just below the top of the rock.  I change the water usually weekly and the filter every other week.

{FINAL CARE INSTRUCTIONS}

Per my mom's instructions via text each time my mom would go into the hospital and I'd be in charge of caring for the cats... "Make sure to give the kitties extra love and kisses and pet them lots for me and tell my babies that I miss them and I'll be home soon."

So these are my instructions to the person that I get to cat sit/turtle sit for me while I'm in Maine,