Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Catching Up...

So, on September 1 we drove up to Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin.  My daughter, son-in-law and grandson, Cody, followed us in their car.  Before we left, we went to Pet Smart to get a larger travel cage for Sassy.  She was much too big to spend the whole trip in our cat carrier and we were much too uncertain about her to let her loose in the car.  We found a largish dog kennel and my husband adapted it to our needs.  He added a shelf in it where we attached her food and water.  We placed her cat box under the shelf and on the other end, we added a cubby (a soft enclosed cat bed) and a soft blanket.  On the trip up she spent some of the time hiding in the cat box and some of the time on the shelf.  On the trip back, she slept in the cubby.  On the trip up she seemed nervous and obviously disliked the cage but was quiet about it.  On the trip back she was very relaxed so we know she will be a good traveler.  But, (and there always seems to be a but, doesn't there?) she is still having the bathroom problems.  She has used my good chair in the family room as a cat box four different times but in Wisconsin she was good as gold.  And when we took the chair cushion to the cleaners again and I borrowed the couch cushion, she used the spot the missing cushion was taken from as a cat box.  The only thing we did differently in Wisconsin is clean the cat box several times a day because we stay in a small cabin.  At home we clean the cat box every other day.  After reading up on the Internet, we put down a second box and we're cleaning each box twice a day and sometimes more often.  We're at a loss as to what to do, we've grown fond of her in the short time we've had her.  She's very trusting and affectionate.  She spends the day in my craft room and follows me everywhere.  We fed her nasty medicine and squirted stuff in her eyes and she allowed us to do it with good grace.  She purrs all the time and loves playing with the toys we accumulated for our Himalayan.    We've talked about her last owners maybe throwing her out because of her bathroom habits.  We don't know how she came to be on the street but no one came looking for her and she's been spayed and declawed so someone put some money into her.  As you can see, she's very relaxed and has adopted this corner of my room as her own.  She lays right in front of my Cameo which makes it hard for me to use it but I'm not complaining.   As a precaution we've covered all the furniture in the family room with waterproof covers and closed off rooms.  We'll see what happens.  I can't imagine getting rid of her so we'll just have to work through these issues.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be thrilled to hear them.

While we were in Wisconsin, I worked on projects relating to the big craft sale coming up in October.  I created sets of note cards that I just finished packaging.  I plan to make book markers and tags for the sale next.  My cards have all been packaged and labeled and organized - a huge job.  We're home until October 2nd when we leave for Glen Rose, Texas and Fossil Rim.  I hope wherever you are the weather is perfect and your paper projects inspired.

3 comments:

  1. I'm assuming that since there was no problem while you traveled that you have already determined that it has to be something in her environment (your house) that she is reacting to. That's assuming that that is the only difference (though a mighty big one) during that time period. It might be something easy like the water she's drinking to something bigger like chemicals in the rugs, fabrics or whatever in the house. Not much help but good luck. She really looks like a big beautiful cat.

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  2. Sassy looks adorable sleeping like that, Cindy. Is there any chance that she's using the chair for a catbox when she's upset or mad at you? We had a little dog that would do that to us. He never pottied in the house any other time. But if he got upset or mad at us he'd potty on the same chair every time. Like Sassy, he was also a pet who was adopted after being rescued. We kept the chair protected until he had been with us long enough to handle his emotions better and stop acting out.

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  3. Cats are very fastidious - cleaning the potty boxes more often should help.

    There is a product called "Dumb Cat", (bad name for it) that is an anti-marking & cat spray remover. We used it when we adopted a couple of our cats along the way. They don't like the scent & use the potty box, instead.

    I've also used just plain old Lysol spray, too.

    Hopefully Sassy will adjust & relax for you.

    D :)

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