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ProfessorTomoe

Loudmouth's Journey Inside

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Mrs. Prof managed to get Loudmouth to eat one of the Fancy Feast Broths tonight:

large.LoudmouthBroth_20170907_01a.jpg

At least we're sure now he's got some liquid and some nutrition inside him, even if he isn't feeling top notch. He's now napping back in the "blue room" (i.e., a room with a blue-covered bed that makes the room look blue—used to be my son's room). As soon as she goes to bed, he'll follow her.

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@CritterKeeper, Loudmouth is in need of nail trimming. Unfortunately, he won't let us pick him up and hold him long enough to trim his nails. Holding onto him is like holding onto a python. We're going to need a professional to do it.

My question is, will we have to go to a vet due to his FeLV+ status? Will a vet even get near him and trim his nails? What's the protocol here?

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Well, we managed to get the gravy part of a can of Friskies Turkey with Extra Gravy into Loudmouth this morning. Of course, the meat was left behind. Reminds me of a little kid who eats his mashed potatoes & gravy but won't touch the goulash (e.g., me, age 6). I just hope two things: 1] that there's some nutrition in the gravy, and 2] that he keeps it down. There were no barfing incidents yesterday, which was a blessing.

He felt like he might have been running a bit of a fever yesterday. He's not so warm this morning.

Mrs. Prof is working here for a couple of hours before going up to the pet adoption center to take delivery of and assemble a new set of stainless steel kennels. With her awake and present, he's not glued to my side like he was yesterday. I wonder if that'll change when she leaves. Kind of hope it will, because it was a real treat to have him as a companion yesterday. God, I wish he wasn't sick. He doesn't deserve it—he's too much of a loving cat.

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8 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

@CritterKeeper, Loudmouth is in need of nail trimming. Unfortunately, he won't let us pick him up and hold him long enough to trim his nails. Holding onto him is like holding onto a python. We're going to need a professional to do it.

My question is, will we have to go to a vet due to his FeLV+ status? Will a vet even get near him and trim his nails? What's the protocol here?

FeLV requires close contact for transmission, bite wounds or shared food and water dishes or mutual grooming.  As long as they don't put him in the same cage as another cat, and practice basic sanitation of cleaning dishes between cats, there's no danger to any other cats there from him.  Plus, adult cats are pretty resistant to it; it's mostly kittens or elderly cats who are at risk.

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3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

FeLV requires close contact for transmission, bite wounds or shared food and water dishes or mutual grooming.  As long as they don't put him in the same cage as another cat, and practice basic sanitation of cleaning dishes between cats, there's no danger to any other cats there from him.  Plus, adult cats are pretty resistant to it; it's mostly kittens or elderly cats who are at risk.

So, a vet will trim his nails?

(BTW, he's asleep to the left of me again. He's much less warm today than he was yesterday. I suspect he had a fever, and that it's gone down.)

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32 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

So, a vet will trim his nails?

No reason not to.  Other than they might recommend bloodwork if you think he's not feeling well.  A groomer should be willing to trim his nails, too.

32 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

(BTW, he's asleep to the left of me again. He's much less warm today than he was yesterday. I suspect he had a fever, and that it's gone down.)

Possible, but it's notoriously difficult for humans to judge whether pets have a fever or not, because their normal body temperature is higher than ours.  They always feel "too warm" to us, so it's hard to judge the difference between "a bit too warm" and "just a little bit more too warm."

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I just got Loudmouth to eat dry food again for what I *think* is the first time since Wednesday. I guided him back to his feeding room (no longer the cat room—he doesn't live there anymore) and got him to eat a few bites of EVO dry. It's early (6:15am), so the food has been sitting out for about 8 hours. I hope that a] that won't affect him, b] he won't overindulge, and c] he won't get sick. He needs the nutrition right now. I mean, he's doing better, but it's all been done on gravy and broth. He needs some regular food for the full nutritional package.

EDIT: It seems to have perked him up a bit. Now, he's messing with Mrs. Prof, wanting attention in the master bedroom, and generally trying to get me to follow him all over the place. I don't know what he wants me to do, but it's not a long-term petting session. He might want to play, but I'm not doing that so soon after he ate. I don't want to see his breakfast on the floor, if you get my drift.

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Okay, that was a STUNNING failure. Barely 45 minutes after eating the dry food, everything in Loudmouth's stomach came up. Looks like it might have gone past his stomach as well. He needs to see a vet. I'm starting to wonder if he's got a blockage.

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Well, he may be sick, but he's not acting like it. He's doing his affectionate cat routine, jumping up on the sofa and wanting attention. This time he jumped off, but I figured I could get him back up if I showed him his cat brush (he loves to be brushed (both do, so much that they have their own brushes)). Worked like a charm. He jumped back up and let me brush him. Halfway through the session, he started kneading my left leg with his paws—something he's only started since Thursday and something that I feel is a real indication of trust. (He forgives me for making him eat the dry food.) The kneading transitioned into a sitting position, so for the last quarter of the brushing, I had a lap cat!

That's something I never get from Baker: he only does that with Mrs. Prof, and again, brushing is involved. :P

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Loudmouth barfed again overnight. Woke up Mrs. Prof, he did. Sigh.

I told her we've got to get him to a vet, but she's engrossed with the kennel project (which must be finished today). She says she's "thinking about it." I don't know what else it's going to take to get him there.

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Breakfast time for Loudmouth. We'd given Loudmouth nothing but wet food, and that seemed to make Baker a bit snitty. After Baker made a good dent in his own food, he tried to go in to Loudmouth's room and poach his wet food. I got tired of chasing him away and figured that Loudmouth hadn't done anything wrong, so instead of closing Loudmouth's door, I closed Baker in the master bedroom for a couple of minutes until Loudmouth could finish. It was literally only 2 or 3 minutes, but it pissed Baker off to no end. Sure thing, when I did let him out, first thing he did was make a bee line for Loudmouth's food. You could see him slump like a human's shoulders would slump in disappointment when he realized that all of the gravy from the wet food was gone.

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7 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I got tired of chasing him away and figured that Loudmouth hadn't done anything wrong, so instead of closing Loudmouth's door, I closed Baker in the master bedroom for a couple of minutes until Loudmouth could finish.

Kitty jail! :icon_eek:

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3 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Loudmouth's back from the vet. The verdict: a hairball in the small intestines. Mrs. Prof's been given a lubricant for Loudmouth to ingest for the rest of the week. I asked her if it was 10w40. She ignored me.

It was probably Energon. When his treatment is finished, Loudmouth will be able to transform into a Formula One racing car.

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Just now, The Old Hack said:

Nah. We're most likely looking at a Ferrari. Or in case he doesn't go Formula One, a Lamborghini Countach.

Augh! Ferrari! No. He's an American kitty. At least give him the honor of being a Haas or a Ford GT40. :D

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2 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Augh! Ferrari! No. He's an American kitty. At least give him the honor of being a Haas or a Ford GT40. :D

American? All right then. How about a Ford Cougar? Closest I can think of when it comes to feline-based American cars.

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9 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

American? All right then. How about a Ford Cougar? Closest I can think of when it comes to feline-based American cars.

Ah, sadly, Mercury made the Cougar in the United States, and Mercury no longer exists. I'm not sure if there are any American manufacturers left who make a feline-based car. No, GT40 is good enough—it's got those low, stalking, panther-like lines that helped it win Le Mans again in 2016.

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More photos. The trip to the vet was not much fun for Loudmouth. He tried to hide under Mrs. Prof's arm at first:

large.MrsProf_20170911_01a.jpg

He had his nails clipped while he was there—possibly for the first time ever, in addition to the exam and the hairball lubricant administration. He was quite drawn out after he got home:

large.Loudmouth_20170911_02a.jpg

And another angle :

large.Loudmouth_20170911_01a.jpg

Even more remarkable about the two pictures above is that the bed is Baker's. Baker sat on top of his climbing boxes and let Loudmouth commandeer them.

While I was typing this, Loudmouth got sick again. I cleaned up after him, but couldn't tell if there was any hair in the output. Right now, he's sitting to my right, leaning on Baker's pillow across the sectional. I wish I could make him feel better faster.

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5 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Loudmouth's back from the vet. The verdict: a hairball in the small intestines. Mrs. Prof's been given a lubricant for Loudmouth to ingest for the rest of the week. I asked her if it was 10w40. She ignored me.

WD40. Redneck's toolkit: if it doesn't move and should, WD40; if it does move and shouldn't, duct tape.

(Of course, the thing to remember is that WD40 is NOT a lubricant. It's a special-purpose cleaner. It can sometimes loosen things up so they can move, but it won't keep them loose and moving - for that you need a dab of 3-in-1 oil. Or a dusting of graphite.)

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WD40. Water Displacer formula #40. I got taught that when I tried to drive an old Volvo through a low water crossing and up a hill. Stalled halfway up. One of the neighbors in my rural county (Kyle, south of Austin) sprayed the inside of my distributor cap with WD40, got me going again, and told me the story about how the inventor went through 39 formulas before he hit the right one.

On the short remaining drive back to my house (a double-wide mobile home in the late 80s/early 90s—I have no humility), I saw two kids carrying the biggest crawdad I'd ever seen. Each had a claw—it was that big. Now, catch about three dozen more like that and you've got dinner.

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Loudmouth ate dinner. It seems to have stayed down. I'm not going to go hunting through the house at 1:45 in the morning for cat barf, anyway.

I've told Mrs. Prof that we need to invest in a hairball-reducing food for Loudmouth, since he sheds everywhere. @CritterKeeper, can you provide some suggestions? I don't think EVO makes an anti-hairball formula.

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