Boots Update

I think he’s better. Isn’t he such a pretty kitty? Thank you all for your helpful tips, for the list of foods I should try and for sharing your cat knowledge. I do love this cat but I’m still not a cat person. Boots is just a really special, sweet, loving kitty.

I talked to the vet tech this morning and she said it was probably pretty stressful for him last week – the same thing most of y’all told me. She said if he wasn’t eating and was still throwing up by Monday, we should bring him back. She also told me to leave his dry food out but I could give him small amounts (half teaspoons) of canned cat food every few hours and see if he seemed ok with that.

We went to town, got several different flavors of the cat food she recommended, as well as a different dry that is low ash content and formulated for hairballs.

Today was the day I was supposed to give him the Laxatone for hairballs (twice a week). The vet said to put a drop on his upper lip. I didn’t even know cats had lips but I found them. He wasn’t real happy about me doing that. I’m not sure if he liked the taste or just wanted it off his lip but he licked it right off.

I gave him the half teaspoon of canned food and he gobbled it up. I waited a couple of hours and gave him another half teaspoon and he gobbled that up. Tonight I gave him about a teaspoon. He looked at it and walked away.

We sat for about an hour this morning and I rushed him. We did it again this afternoon. I think I could brush him all day and never get all the hair. I use the Furminator for the undercoat. The Furminator does a good job of getting the undercoat but it kinda “loses” that fur on top of the other hair . . doesn’t do a great job of picking it up, so I go over it all with the Safari cat brush. I really like that one.

I asked the vet tech about the dandruff and she said it was probably because (1) He was used to being brushed several times a day and then last week, he wasn’t brushed at all so me starting to brush him again is just causing the skin, that tends to be dry in the summer anyway, to flake. She told me I could put a few drops of olive oil on his food a couple of times a week if I wanted to but the Laxatone has some amount of oil in it and that may solve the problem. She thinks me brushing him every day, next week his skin should be better.

I think he ate enough today that I’m not terribly worried about him. He may have eaten some of the dry food also .. his food is in a container that puts more out as he eats it so it’s hard for me to know what he ate.

We bought new dry food today in case he’s tired of what he’s been eating. Tomorrow I’ll put new food in a bowl and I’ll be able to judge if he eats any of that.

I’m happy he didn’t throw up today. He does seem to be plenty happy and energetic. Vince played with him a while and also commented that he doesn’t seem to feel bad. I believe he definitely has a hairball problem so that’s what I’m going to concentrate on.