Category Archives: animals & pets

meet the neighbour

27 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, home

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I’ve come across this beauty a couple of times coming up the stairs – she seems to have free rein of the building. And yesterday I found her out on my terrace! Since her terrace has “kitteh protection” along the side I can only guess that she made her way over via the roof. Clearly her owner has no qualms about letting her go wherever she likes, and it looks like she’s made it to a healthy age without falling… but I still don’t think I’d like to let Loki out on the terrace just in case.

Isn’t she gorgeous? I don’t know if you can tell from the photos but she is enormous – longer, taller and chunkier than Loki. I’d say her head is half again as large as his.  And she’s super friendly. As are all the neighbours I’ve met here so far (all but two). I’m dying to know her name – think I’ll go and introduce myself to her human to find out.

it really tied the room together…

24 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, change, home

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I mean, doesn’t it??

Some of you may remember my wonderful trip to Tangier & Asilah with Susan (aka Pipocas) and this pretty berber rug that I’d bartered for at the medina in Asilah, which ended up hanging on my wall at the old place.

You may also recall that I’ve always said I prefer marble floors over wood parquet – because I do – but as I’d been living with wood floors for so long my minimalist style of furnishing became very simple and, well, mostly white, which worked quite well against vanilla & ochre walls and wood floors. But white furniture with grey-white marble and pale stone-coloured walls seems to be calling out for a bit of colour. And so I tried the rug on the floor yesterday and you can see for yourself! It looked fab and, to quote the Big Lebowski, really tied the room together. I use the past tense because as soon as Loki woke up from his siesta he made a beeline for the rug and proceeded to shred it to shreds. I rescued it before too much damage was done and guess it’ll be going up on a wall soon. Think it’s time for a more colourful sofa cover…

kitteh protection

13 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, home

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Ever since I’ve had balconies I’ve always put plastic mesh across them to keep the cats from jumping or accidently falling to their deaths. Of course this didn’t used to stop Sunny from jumping up and perching on the balcony railing (which always gave me a mild heart attack) so when I got Loki I put up even more protection to make sure he wouldn’t go over the top chasing a bird or a fly.

I left all that stuff when I moved because I have different sized balconies in the new casa az. Instead of six narrow ones I have two wider double balconies (it’s like having four, but they’re joined – as you can see here). You can also see that it would be quite a fall. But my question is… do you think I need so much protection here? I’ve put some mesh up on the sides of the balconies because there are small ledges leading off them that might be tempting to a certain orange stripey cat. But the bars are a bit closer together than at the old place and they have all that squiggly doodad stuff going on, which would make it very difficult for them to accidently fall off. I know I don’t need to put that angled stuff up again, but do you think I should extend the plastic mesh to cover the entire balcony?

My friend Flor thinks I’m not giving my cats enough credit for being intelligent enough not to leap into the unknown, but since both Lua and Sunny fell off my terrace when I first came to Sevilla – and also my vet told me that cats fall off rooftops and balconies all the time – I tend to err on the side of caution. I’m not that concerned about Azar because I think his leaping days are long over, but Loki is far too curious and also far from clever. I can imagine him going “what the…?” before plummeting to his death. Anyhow, just thinking about balcony safety at the moment. The terraza will pose a whole other set of safety issues, but that is something to think about at a later date.

feline design

07 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, home

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It’s tempting…

Came across this today when I should have been working. The reason it would be ideal is because my new bathroom is eensy, almost an afterthought fit in under the stairs, and this would make it possible to have the cat box somewhere else. Though I’ve never tried enclosed cat boxes – I kind of think it would be unpleasant for the cat if the sand is anything less than pristine – and anyhow, it’s a bit silly. But the bathroom really needs some help.

Which room are you least happy with in your home?

pobrecito…

13 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in animals & pets, cats, health & happiness

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Here is Azar sporting a rather punkish look after his visit to the vet’s last week. It took several tries on both legs to get enough blood out of him to do the tests, mi pobrecito, and a partial analysis done at the vet’s showed that his urea was a bit high and his glucose a bit low. Then this week Yolanda called me with the lab results and everything came back normal (?!), and so she recommended I bring Azar in again for another blood test as a control.

But just look at him. I thought it was too much and too soon to put him through all that again. Meanwhile, his two main remaining “symptoms” were lack of appetite and not pooping much, and Yolanda also suggested that we do an ultrasound in case he has a “tumorcita” that’s blocking him up. Yikes!

Another option was, since his temperature was also low when taken two days in a row last week, that he might have a low-grade infection going on so perhaps a few days on antibiotics would help. And so – at least for the moment – that’s the option I’ve gone with.

I don’t know if this is a direct result of the antibiotics or just coincidence, but the day after he started on the meds he really perked up, though he still wouldn’t eat much and had to be “spoon fed” (well, I use a syringe and squirt the stuff in, but spoon fed sounds nicer than force fed, and he actually seems to almost enjoy the process). Then – oh joy, oh bliss! – he had a big healthy dump  on Tuesday without crying or complaining in the box, and another one yesterday. And this morning he actually ate some of his purée on his own. So if he continues to improve I may leave doing another blood test for a couple of months, which I think will give us a better idea of any changes in his general health. This really is like his “mystery illness” of last winter except this time the spoon feeding started sooner so he didn’t get quite so floppy. The cause of last year’s malaise was never discovered, so who knows what will happen this time. But for for the moment Azar appears to be on the mend and apparently doesn’t have any kidney problems. Happy.