Sick Ziggy

Ziggy got beat up pretty badly by something the other day. When she came in Friday night for dinner, she was all sorts of messed up. Her eye, especially, was pretty gross, but she also had bloody spots all over her ear as well... She wasn't acting herself and didn't want to eat. And she wasn't yelling at any of us (very not herself!).

We think it may have been a "Mockingbird" that attacked her, but we're not sure. Ziggy likes to climb trees and there have been a lot of those birds around lately (and they've been making nests). Those birds have been known to be pretty vicious to cats in the past, especially when their nests are threatened, so it seems fairly likely. Also, we interrogated the other cats in the area about the incident and since none of them were scuffed up, we think they're in the clear. If Ziggy had been in a fight with another cat, she would have messed them up too, you know?

We've been trying to treat Ziggy's eye with an antibacterial cat eye ointment that we got. We think it's helping a little. The swelling has gone down and she's no longer pussing green out her eye. We've been trying our best to keep the area clean. It's still very sore-looking and she's still very squinty (as you can see from the pic above) and it's still leaky (but clear fluids now!), but it isn't all swollen and totally nasty any more.

However, her appetite is still down (though she did eat a little more today than she did Friday or Saturday) and she's been very cold. She's also been making a burbling sound and has a very "wet" cough. We weren't sure she was going to make it through the night last night. We've been keeping her inside and have been trying our best to make sure she gets a little water & wet food into her and we even wrapped her in a towel to try to keep her body-heat up.

Our vet is closed on the weekends, so we've been having to wait it out a bit. We're going to call tomorrow and see if they can squeeze her in. They were very helpful when Robert was ill last October. Fortunately, my parents were kind enough to give me an advance on the money I earn from fixing their bathroom (which is looking great, by the way; Ramiro saw it in person for the first time today and was impressed). I just hope it's enough. :( I accept PayPal donations...

Please pray for our baby girl.
Hopefully I'll have happy updates soon.

--Lauren*

Moms & Babies

Hey, Everyone!

We've been seeing Ziggy's Mom around a lot lately. She's looking really good! Actually, she looks the best she ever has. Not having kittens every other week seems to be agreeing with her.We've also seen Robert's Mom hanging around a lot more lately too. Like I said in my last post, her nips are all stretched out, so she's obviously had that last batch of kittens somewhere. Anyway, she's been hanging out a lot lately and she's looking a bit "plump" again. *groan* We're hoping we can catch her and take her to FixNation sometime soon. Anyway, here's a picture of what she looks like. It's from August of last year. Robert's in the picture too, as you can see. He was such a silly kitten.
Robert and Ziggy are both doing well too. We bought them new collars. This is Robert's third collar and Ziggy's second. We were getting them the cheap collars and they kept breaking and getting lost, so we finally shelled out a couple bucks more and got them something a little nicer ($6.99 each). So far, so good. We also got them tags. They have their names on one side and Ramiro & my phone numbers on the other. They look very nice. We had a little trouble with fraying at first because we had to cut the collars to fit (which is what they told us to do at the pet store), but once we lit the ends on fire (OFF of the cats, of course!!!) the fraying stopped. :)They look a bit like a yin-yang when they sleep together, don't they? And Ringo has been doing pretty well too, for the most part. He's been sleeping a little more in this hot weather, but it has also made him a bit more mellow. He's usually a bit grumpy, especially when it comes to Robert (Robert's rambunctious antics tend to bother the old man), but today he let Robert sleep on the bed with him. I wasn't there at the time, but Ramiro took this picture for me to see:And where was I, you ask, when cute cat sleeping things were going on? Well, I was at my parents' house working on their bathroom again. And, while I was there, a lil baby birdie flew into their glass door. Here's a picture of my mom holding him/her:The birdie splatted into the window and then landed right in front of Dorian. Dor-Dor was about to eat him, but Mom was right there and scooped him up. The poor bird was pretty addled, but Mom took care of it until it calmed down and then she let it loose again. It flew away, so I guess it must have been all right.

Anyway, I have to go cook dinner now.

Until next time!

--Lauren*