Category: Cats

Shaved Dash

I took Dash in to the vet today for a dental cleaning and to get a lion cut for summer.

The teeth cleaning apparently went well, though Dash hasn’t been much inclined to let me see into his mouth. They had to pull an incisor that he’d fractured, but the only follow-up instruction for that was to dampen the dry cat food to soften it for him and even that was qualified by a warning that cats don’t really chew with their front teeth so he might not be interested. I tried that, but he apparently wasn’t hurting enough to care – he ate a few pieces of damp food then went right on to the dry food in the other bowl. Talore on the other hand seems to prefer the damp food. The general follow-up task I got is to give him twice-daily doses of an oral antibacterial solution. So far I’ve managed to give him a little over half of one dose and I have no idea how I’m going to pin him down to give him more. I suspect I’ll be wrapping him in a towel to hold him still.

The lion cut seems to be helping immensely in terms of him not being overheated. When I first brought him in he walked over to the air vent to lay down on it like usual, then decided that wasn’t comfortable any more. He’s been rather more active than he was before the hair cut, so I’m deeming it a success in terms of making him more comfortable for summer.

The issue now is that Talore is convinced I brought home a completely different cat and that he doesn’t belong here.
Lion Cut
This is the closest Talore has willingly gone to Dash, and that’s only because he was distracted by food so she could sneak up on him to sniff at him. I suspect he still smells like the vet, and I’m really hoping that once that smell wears off she’ll accept him again. For now she’s just growling when he gets close and swatting him if he ignores that, but since he’s comfortable around her (despite the opposite not currently being true) he’s walked right up and tried to rub on her several times. This picture was taken before Talore decided she liked the dampened cat food and started defending it…

Before and after pictures:
Before 1After 1

Before 2After 2

They also trimmed his claws, which isn’t something I’m at all used to. Now when I pick him up he can’t latch onto the carpet, and I can even hold him for more than a few seconds without him clawing his way free because his claws are so dull now I can ignore them (helpful when trying to medicate him). Since she’s being so hostile I trimmed Talore’s front claws too, though she didn’t want to sit still so I didn’t get them nearly as well blunted as the vet did for Dash.

First Vet Trip of the Year

Dash got to go to the vet today. He was thrilled… to get home again. He’s doing fine, is freshly vaccinated, and weighs 11.7 pounds. He also will be going back sometime after my vacation to get his teeth cleaned and probably to be shaved, though that depends on how he’s taking the heat at the end of June.

Since it was a nice day I spent some time outside after I got home from work. Talore joined me so she could nibble on plants.
Nom

She hasn’t thrown all the grass she ate back up yet so I’m still keeping a close eye on her.

Long Weekend Project

Since this was a long weekend and the weather was great I spent a good bit of time working on my yard. The only problem here is that it’s still a nice day so instead of writing much I’m going to finish vacuuming up all the dirt I tracked in and go read outside for a while.

Edging

I re-edged the flowerbed by the fence in brick, despite the best efforts of the lilac to block me. For that matter, the lilac was the reason the old edging was coming up since the lilac was growing sprouts on both sides of it pushing it out of the way.
Fence Flowerbed Edging

I also edged both sides of the path to the gate in preparation for re-doing the path (paving stones in for spacing).
Path Edging

This is why I put in deeper edging in front of the lilac – I don’t really want it putting up sprouts everywhere. This was under the plastic that lined the bottom of the path.
Lilac Sprouts

Cats

This is Talore pretending that she’s not over in that corner so she can try to jump the 6 ft fence to the neighbor’s yard. And of course the camera focused on the pile of bricks, oh well. I never got a picture of her preparing to jump because the only reason she didn’t was that every time I saw her going for it I got up to go stop her.
Not trying to jump the fence (honest)

Talore resigned to settling down in her usual spot to eat grass since I won’t let her out of the yard.
Talore finding her spot

Dash in my spot.
The best spot around, mine

Talore kept trying to jump the fences – either one would do. At least she’s hit the end of her leash enough times that she’s very cautious about jumping when she’s got the harness on so I have time to catch her. Also, both cats were really interested when I had the gate open – they kept trying to sneak past me.

Path

The path with edging and the lower retaining stones in place:
Before

Perfect width for the weedblock fabric (in the hope that it will actually keep plants from growing in the gravel).
Weedblock fabric down

The step is in. Not perfect, but at least since it’s set with gravel it’s not likely to settle much when it rains (I hope, still waiting to confirm that).
Step Complete

Started filling in/leveling the path with gravel.
Loose Gravel

Paving stones down, they fit pretty well (lengthwise, I’d measured width as I went).
Paved

You could almost be forgiven for thinking I know what I’m doing with how well it turned out. Though now that I look at the picture closer it doesn’t look level, I may have to go back out with more gravel to fill in the right side.
Paved from the gate

I still need to clean up around the path so I can finish the edges of it – the flowerbed by the fence will be shortened at some point, then I’ll put in a landscaping stone to keep the path edged in and to support the retaining edge of that flowerbed. I also need to figure out what I’m doing with the big flowerbed. I’m tempted to cut it off as far as I edged it since there’s so much gravel in that edge of it, but that’ll be another weekend.