Sunday, December 26, 2009

Stella was spayed this morning, and I picked her up at 4:30. I put pillows all around my bed, put a soft towel under the desk lamp and set a cozy, warm spot for her to recuperate. She was restless, though, coming out of the carrier as soon as I'd opened it (which I'd put under the desk close to the baseboard heater in case she wanted to stay there). She staggered around the bedroom, falling over and unable to maintain her balance most of the time. She finally settled on the bed under the lamp.

She urinated at 6:45; I'll wait until she's moving about better before I offer her food. There's water here next to her litterbox.

The vet had said that she was somewhere between 1 and 1-1/2 years old, no more. I've given Elizabeth a new writeup plus some better photos of her for the website.

December 22, 2009

Phoned Killarney Animal Hospital to see how Stella is. She's off in a quiet area, getting lots of attention, and she's not bellowing. But Jessie, the tech, said she expects Stella will be there for another 2 weeks - her uterus is still engorged with blood - now, how they know this I can't imagine! But better they err on the side of caution, instead of spaying her under extremely risky circumstances.

Saturday, December 19

Stella went into full-blown heat Wednesday night - now I remember what it's like! It's not just vocalizing but very loud bellowing plus a lot of extremely suggestive posturizing. She wasn't too bad Wednesday and Thursday nights, but she woke me off and on all through last night. I hope she'll settle down tonight, having been in heat 3 days.

Buster and Boo were adopted by a really nice couple yesterday. Thank God they went together!

I talked to Jessie at Killarney vet, and she said that a heat cycle for a female cat takes about a week to get fully going, then lasts a week in the full-blown phase, and then it's another week before everything settles down again. Omygosh!! Jessie said it could take less time if Stella was uncomfortable - i.e., no one petted or cuddled her and she was put in a cool room. I then decided to get Elizabeth's take on whether it was kinder for me to take Stella to the vet now, so that she'd be really uncomfortable for awhile and thereby get spayed sooner rather than later. Elizabeth said her opinion was that it would indeed be the kindest thing to do: Stella's clearly miserable and anything to get her out of this state in the shortest amount of time would be best for her. So off we went and Stella was left at the vet.

December 15, 2009

Where's this past month gone?? I learned today that VOKRA has a one-month return policy if a cat doesn't work out (say the resident cat and the adopted one don't get along at all). Elizabeth says that you should know by two weeks whether or not they're a good match.

I also learned that a nursing mother has to have stopped nursing for 2 weeks before she can be spayed. And of course she can't be in heat, because there's a big risk of blood loss during the surgery. Also a male kitten at 15 weeks can impregnate his nursing mother.

The bottom line is I need to separate Stella from her kittens soon, because she's showing symptoms of going in and out of heat while she still nurses Boo and Buster. (Chico was adopted on the 13th by a young couple.) A woman will be coming to see Buster this afternoon. I hate to see "the twins" split up, but Elizabeth says they often make out fine.

December 8th: All cats were given their second dose of Revolution today: Michelle came and put a number of drops on the backs of their necks. She suspected she'd put too much on mom and said Stella may lose some fur on her neck as a result. Her fur there did actually go white and stiff over the next couple of days, but there wasn't any visible fur loss.