Friday, January 18th - Day 1

I'm so frustrated I could cry.  Thursday, Sassy made a mess on my chair.  It was really watery, there's wasn't a lot, and perhaps could have been an accident.  I cleaned up the chair and placed a layer of waterproof pad, a layer of an old blanket (assuming she really likes to poop on the pad) and a layer of  newspaper on the chair.  Later that day she pooped on the newspaper, again, more on the watery side.  Carl put her back in the laundry room.  When I went to check on her an hour later, I found she'd also made a mess of her backside, so up to the sink.  I got out the blow dryer (first time I've ever used it on her) and she just laid down and let me dry her, leading me to believe she's been through that before.

She spent the afternoon in the laundry room and was only let out when we had dinner (which we ate on TV trays in the family room so we could be with her - this might be a new tradition).  I went to bed at 8:30 and Carl put her back in the laundry room when he went to bed.  Our new rule is she isn't out of the laundry room unless we are right there to babysit.  No trusting her to be good.  And we've closed off the spare bedroom so we can see her all the time.

This morning she had made a huge mess in the laundry room - all over her cat box and the pad underneath it.  In cleaning the pad, I discovered a ton of hair mixed in with the poop.  As far as we know, she's only coughed up one hairball since we've had her.  And since she's always grooming herself and she has long hair, it stands to reason she's been ingesting lots of hair.  So, I suppose it stands to reason that hair has been somewhere.  The diarrhea could be a symptom of hair in her digestive track - liquid can bypass it but solids can't.  We started giving her the Vet's Best Hairball Relief just a few days ago and this elimination might be a result of that.  I've cut the pills down to one a day - 1/2 in the morning and 1/2 in the evening instead of two pills a day.  Eventually she will get all cleaned out but for the foreseeable future, she's still living in the laundry room unless we are right next to her.  This is Day 1 of laundry room confinement.