The Care and Feeding of an old cat.

Once upon a time, Rodthecarguy worked at Upper Valley Disposal (back in 2003) and one day found a tortoise shell cat crying at the front door of the office.  This cat was no kitten, and had obviously been someone's pet.  The office staff and Rod made up flyers and put them around hoping to find the owners of this golden eyed elderly tortoiseshell girl kitty, to no avail.  Finally, Rod volunteered to bring her home to (the) Coombsville Road (Cat Ranch).  WE took her into our vet (the world's greatest vet, by the way) for a check up and he told us she was likely 14  years old or maybe older.  WE figured that she had belonged to an old person in St. helena who had died and had kids (or grandkids) that did not want to deal with an elderly cat, so just dumped her at NVD.  For about three years Annie (as we called her after Little Orphan Annie) lived in the mezzanine above Rodthecarguy's shop.  When Jon and Tova came from Norway the second time and moved into an RV by the shop (a story in itself) they moved Annie in with them.until she became so weak she could not get into and out of the litterbox.  When we took her to the vet expecting to be told she was dying of old age,  he told us she was so flea infested that she had become anemic.  Needless to say, the days of living in the (flea infested) RV with Jon and Tova came to an end.  With treatment, she improved  immensely. When it became apparent that she could no longer navigate the stairs in the shop, we brought her into the house where she lived in the corner of our living room for another two years or so.  During the remodel of the house, a second story attic was added, and Annie moved into the attic.  She has since moved into my office, with a heating pad in her bed.

Annie is now ancient.  If she was 14 in 2003, she is 21 now.  She has cataracts in both eyes, a grey muzzle, and terrible arthritis, causing her to walk with a stiff-legged swaying gait and has increased the howling episodes  she has always treated us with exponentially.  She no longer grooms herself, which means we must groom her.  This involves using a wire brush to remove such prodigious amounts of fur we are always shocked that she is not bald at the end of the process.  It also involves cutting her toenails, which will curl under themselves if we don't cut them, and dig into the pads of her paws.

A trip to the vet is an amazing ordeal.  First brushing to get as many of the easiest mats out as possible, then a bath (Annie  behaves quite well during her baths in the laundry room sink, except that sometimes she gets so wound up by all that warm water that she poops right in the sink), then a blow dry and more brushing.  This is because we can't very well take her to the vet in her normal disheveled, derelict condition. Not only does she not groom herself, she eats very messily and tends to have food stuck in her whiskers kind of like a toddler just learning to use a spoon.   But she DOES have a heart appetite and uses her litterbox (sometimes she forgets she is not done pooping before she gets out of the litterbox, though. The vet says she is amazingly healthy for such an old cat.  I do feed her the pricey food and break a capsule of Cosaquin into it for her arthritis every morning. She has to take her meds just like I do!

In anticipation of a trip to the vet tomorrow to renew her pain meds prescription, the beauty treatment is now underway.  One holds her up while the other attacks the mats on her tummy with a wire brush or the mat-busting steel comb.  During this process which I was holding her today, she sunk her teeth into the pad of my left hand under my thumb big time.  I think I howled as loud as she does.  Blood was drawn, and Rod took over holding duties while I brushed.  I now have two vampire-like puncture wounds in my hand, and we are giving Annie a break before her bath.

Such are the joys and tribulations of owning an ancient cat.

Here is Annie on her (heated) cushion in my office