Sunday, January 6, 2013

Sassy takes over the family room...

Sunday - 12:02 pm - Day 10 - after being trapped in our family room with Sassy for most of 10 days, I've left her to return to my craft room on the top floor.  Carl checks on her every once in a while - he just has to lean around the corner because his office is on the same floor.  I have to traverse two levels to see her.  On my last visit, I noticed she had peed in the litter box with no 'hand' or 'paw' holding.  

Sunday - 7:46 am - Day 10 - Sassy's appetite has returned.  This morning she not only ate a tablespoon of Fancy Feast but she was dancing in place waiting for me to set it down.  I shake her dry food flat so I can tell if she's eating it and she's eaten very little.  Nothing in the cat box from last night.  We believe the Prozac has dampened her appetite until she's not eating enough to get rid of any of it.

Saturday - 11:40 - we were packing up Christmas decorations in the family room and I noticed her 'running' into the bathroom.  A peak around the corner a few minutes later caught her in the box pooping.  We're not ready to give her the run of the house but we're encouraged.  This is the 9th day without an accident.

Saturday - 9:04 am - Sassy was doing the pee pee dance and being very vocal.  She ran over to the temporary door so I walked into the bathroom and called her.  She ran right in behind me and I gently closed the door, turned on the light and sat down on the toilet seat.  She promptly jumped into her litter box and proceeded to pee.  What a good girl.  I opened the door and she ran right out.  This is much like potty-training a 2 year old.

Saturday - still having trouble with elimination.  She hasn't used the litter box since early Friday morning.  She did eat a tablespoon of Blue Salmon this morning.  Until I call the vet, I won't be giving her any more Prozac so she's a little more peppy this morning.  I have things to do in the house so for the first time I will allow her out in the family room without a chaperone; I will check on her every half an hour or so.  Hope to talk to the vet's office Monday.

Thursday (7th day on Prozac) - Sassy slept almost all day yesterday.  It seems she only moved to change positions or sleeping spots.  She also didn't use her cat box at all after nine a.m.  This morning it was evident she had had a bout of diarrhea during the night but used her litter box.  And she managed to get it on her fur and the floor and the toilet seat.  So, we cleaned both her and the bathroom up.  Poor girl, every time we pick her up we are shoving a pill into her or turning her upside down and spraying her with water or locking her in the bathroom.  While I dried her off, she was purring but it could have been "I'm stressed, therefore I purr" instead of "I'm so relaxed I'm purring".  About ten minutes after I put her down on the floor she was doing the freak-out thing again, digging in her chair and yowling so I picked her up and put her in the bathroom for twenty minutes and sure enough, she had another go at the runny stuff and sure enough, she got it on her (the hazards of having so much fur).  We cleaned her up once again and she's now settled down in my chair while I wash towels.  We plan to trim the fur around her rear this afternoon, certainly not looking forward to that although we have clippers and it shouldn't take long.  I continue to wake up at three or four in the morning wondering if today is the breakthrough day.

Wednesday - Sassy went into the bathroom last night around ten pm and was out this morning by six.  She had peed in the litter box but there was no solid waste.  She was in the habit of eliminating solid waste before 9:00 am on the waterproof pad in the living room so we keep a close watch on her early in the morning.  Nothing yet and she's sleeping in Carl's chair.  I did some research about Kitty Prozac again this morning to check for side effects.  The ones I found that applied to her so far are:  excessive vocalization, lethargy, a bit of aggression (she acts like she wants to bite us when we pick her up but she actually hasn't hurt us), gastrointestinal upset (we quit feeding her wet food because for a while she was throwing it up), and lack of appetite (she isn't inhaling her treats as she used to do.  I also discovered that all the sites I visited said it will take from 14 to 30 days to notice an improvement in whatever symptoms the prozac was given for.  Since this is just our 6th day, we have a ways to go.  The trouble with kitty prison is one of us has to be in prison with her.

Tuesday - This is our 5th day of confining Sassy.  Except for a short time in the cage, she has mostly been free in the family room during the day and locked in the bathroom at night.  Yesterday while we went shopping, we put her in the cage and found her sleeping in the cat box when we got back.  Nobody wants to hold a stinky kitty so we haven't put her back in the cage (her plan, no doubt).

She hasn't tried to get out of the family room for several days now.  Today is January 1st and this morning she got a little fruity.  She got up on her chair and dug into the cushion frantically (good thing she doesn't have claws), she ran to the "door" and cried loudly, back to her chair, down the hall and back to the door, she looked distressed and it suddenly occurred to me she was trying to get to the rug/boxes in the living room.  I scooped her up and locked her in her bathroom for half an hour and sure enough, when I opened the door, she had pooped in her litter box.  We were worried for a couple of days because we hadn't seen any evidence of peeing in her litter box, but this morning we had lots of liquid so maybe she held it for a day.  Today is the first day she hadn't pooped before we opened the door in the morning.  We usually get up about six, give or take, grab her for her pill and then give her a treat - wet food or cat treats, sometimes tuna.  We want the pill experience (which she really hates) to be associated with something good.  By the time we open the door, she's already got solid waste in the box.  This morning she didn't.  It's the first time she actually had to go while she was free.  It's encouraging that she didn't find a corner to squat in before I knew what she was doing.  That's why it's so important someone watch her all the time.  My card-making is certainly suffering.  And Carl babysits while I cook or clean (not doing a lot of that).

I'm waiting for the day she will just walk into the bathroom and do her job without a fuss.  When she's done that for a few weeks, we will let her into part of the rest of the house with supervision.  And when we're sure she's going to be good, we'll let her go.

In the meantime, she seems to be taking prison well. (Hard time in the big house.)

The only difference I've noticed is she seems to sleep a lot more and is way more vocal than she used to be, she's very loud and 'talks' more.  She even 'talks' in her sleep which is way weird, I've never heard that before.

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