Goodbye Haji Baba

Haji Baba

Prince of Cats

August 1st, 1996 - February 6th, 2012

I Love You

Haji VS The Fence

On Monday, my sweet Haji B tried to jump over our 6ft wood fence. Normally he jumps onto a trash can and then over but the trash cans weren't there that day and he's made the jump from the ground before. When he was younger, he would have sailed over the fence without a problem. As he's gotten older, he's had to scramble a little to make it over the top, but he did it. This time, he got his foot stuck in between two of the wooden slats and hung by his paw for up to an hour before he was discovered.

I arrived home at 5:30pm and he was in the house. Sometime between 5:30 and when we found him at 6:30pm, he got stuck. I was able to free his foot and he didn't appear to be in any pain but when he tried to walk on it, the joint knuckled under him and wouldn't support his weight. I immediately took him to the vet and had some x-rays done, which (luckily? unluckily?) didn't show any readily visible breaks, although feline metacarpals are so tiny it can be difficult to tell. Since it's not broken but it can't support his weight, both the vet and I believe he has nerve damage.

Haji's original bandage

The vet originally put him in a soft but thick bandage and asked us to come back in 10 days. Unfortunately, it was too soft and bent at the joint so we had to go in tonight for a splint. He's on pain medication for nerve pain twice a day and because both casts are cumbersome, he has to be cared for like an infant. He has to be fed, watered, pottied, medicated, washed and put to bed. If he wants o change positions we have to move him. Needless to say, it's doing nothing to improve his ego or dignity but he's taking it like a champ.

Nerve damage typically takes between 8-10 months to heal so we're looking at some hard core rehab once his new splint comes off. I'm looking into acupuncture and supplements to see if there's anything I can do to stimulate nerve healing and give him an edge in the healing process. He seems bound and determined to walk on it so I think we're both willing to put in the work.

Haji enjoying a nice swaddle with his new light saber

Happy 15th Birthday Haji

Oh my god, I can NOT believe that my Haji Baba is 15 years old. It feels like only a short time ago that I was picking him out of a litter in the back of a dress shop. He was a one of a kind kitten who has grown into the most unique cat, my constant, loyal companion. He is the first animal that was adopted to be mine and he will always be my baby no matter how old and grumpy he gets.

Happy Birthday Haji, my incorrigible, brilliant, beautiful boy. My heart is not complete without you and I will love you for forever. 

<3 <3 <3

Mom Ears Come Standard On My Model

I'm not exactly sure what it is that makes parents able to hear their child sniffle from across the house, cough from their neighbor's backyard and catch the soft intake of breath that precludes a nice big crying fit. My guess is its a delicious cocktail of biology; genetics with a little natural instinct thrown in to ensure the continuation of the species. However, I'm beginning to think that there's also quite a bit of learned behavior thrown in there. I know I don't have children yet but have cared for them long enough to pick up the first whimper that says they're waking up from a nap or the first breath through a rapidly stuffing nose that heralds the arrival of a cold. Since I'm not sleep deprived like their lucky parents are, it's even easier to pick up on their cues. I thought this was a mostly human interaction, that it was natural to be attuned to the discomfort of tiny humans but it also appears to extend to furry babies as well.  Exhibit: Haji.

As you know, Haji has asthma and has been slightly prone to throwing up because of his coughing. Over just a few throw up incidents, the one in which he threw up on the bed, and another where we caught him making the hacking sound just in time to move him, I have developed surprisingly reliable mom ears for the  sound of my kitty feeling ill. This morning I woke up in the wee hours after hearing a single hack and was able to move Haji off the bed and onto something much more washable and give him some love. Thinking back, the same is true of the scratching sound he makes before he pees on my shoes/pants/purse but it's certainly not so reliable as to wake me from sleep to put him outside, probably because he's not actually ill, just incredibly annoying.

Fear has also trained me to hear the sound of Button's bell when she moves outside her designated area of the house. My sister's cat Devlin once led my indoor kitty Button underneath the house and left her paralyzed with fear in a corner for days while E and I drove home from Oregon in the middle of the night and then frantically searched the crawl space for her. It took us days to find her since she was in a part of the crawl space I couldn't fit into and I had peppered the neighborhood with missing posters by the time we were able to get her out. While I'm not sure if I'd hear her moving outside her space in my sleep, I can't go to sleep without making sure the baby gate to her room is closed.

What about you guys? Anyone else have mom ears come standard on their model?

Mr. Pisser In The House

From previous posts, everyone knows I have a cat named Haji. I am pretty much out of ideas when it comes to this particular feline and could really use some help. He's always been a vindictive peer, peeing on shoes and luggage when you go on vacation, making sure to go right in front of you so you can see how angry he is. This I can handle since it has a clear cause and I already feel guilty about it anyway. The problem is that lately, he's been peeing inside the house ALL THE TIME. He's been to the vet, had two urine samples taken and according to them does not have crystals or a UTI. He's not peeing in one place or even one room so there's no way to predict where he'll go. Last night in a move that has me fully believing he understands the concept of irony, he peed on the clorox wipes. This morning it was the vase in the living room. A few days ago the treadmill in the living room got the royal wash. He's been known to pee if he wants chicken and you provide beef.

I can't see any clear reason for this behavior. No new animals have been introduced to our house or the neighborhood. He has a dog door he can go out to pee outside or we're happy to open the front door for him whenever he walks up to it. He has two big litter boxes inside including one in my room where he spends the most time. This new peeing has him ignoring the litter boxes entirely and instead of going outside he seems to leave the bedroom (sometimes, last night he peed in the bedroom), pick a spot to pee, and then come back to bed. He can jump and run and has no problem getting inside or out, he's choosing to pee inside and be a dick. And he'll do it right in front of my face. It's not even spraying vs peeing since he'll squat if he wants to pee on something on the floor and stand if he wants to pee on something upright. He's just that much of an asshole.

To complicate things, it's really cold outside and given his asthma I don't feel comfortable throwing him out. I've done it a few times but he sits by the door and waits to come back in and then pees on something anyway. Mostly he just wants to sleep on his perch in the warm and I want to let him as long as I can be sure I won't be stepping in any puddles. Does anyone else have a problem pee-er with no apparent preference for pee place? If I knew where he wanted to go I could put down foil or sticky paper or spikey plastic or something to deter him but there's no way to guess. We already spray him with a water bottle if he looks like he's about to go. We need some new ideas!