Animals
October 7, 2019
Where do I start with this day? I woke up to discover the back door was wide open. James said he thought he’d checked the lock but it sticks sometimes so it must have just come open in the night. I got JW off to school and took Brian for a walk, James left for work and I went to my AWCA meeting. I got home around 2:00 and took Brian for another walk. I was a little surprised he didn’t do any business because he’s had diarrhea for two days ever since he went on a hunger strike in protest of his elimination diet and flat out stopped eating his allergy food so we fed him his old food. He’s been on the elimination diet for the past 8 weeks because he’s itching. He’s still itching. It’s not the food.
The fact that he stopped eating was cause for concern because last week he had a terrible accident. While walking at our canal, a kid threw a ball into the water and Brian jumped in to get it and got hung up on a rope that was mooring a boat to the canal. It was absolutely horrible. He was hanging on the rope yelping in pain and fear and I had to jump into the canal and wrestle him off the rope and then we both had to get out of the canal which was not easy and what made matters worse were the people who were standing there watching it all and not helping. I was worried he was seriously injured. He walked home fine though and didn’t seem tender on his belly where the rope was suspending him.
The next day my cousin Ruth and her family arrived for a short visit and we took a walk in Vondelpark. Brian ran all through the park like his usual happy self and seemed totally fine, but that night he suddenly had trouble getting up and it seemed like his back leg was bothering him but then he seemed totally fine again right after. We were keeping a close eye on him and decided to keep him on his leash and only do short walks for a while and let him rest and heal. He was fine for 3 days. So when he abruptly stopped eating his food two days ago I really got worried and wondered about internal injuries.
I planned to take him to the vet, but then I had the idea to give him his old food to see if he’d eat that and he gobbled it up like absolutely nothing was wrong and then when it was dinner time, he did his usual feed-me-dance and carried on until I fed him again. I offered him the allergy food and he snubbed it but when I offered him his old food (salmon and chicken!) he devoured it. So basically he was just being a stubborn bastard and he wanted his old food and had decided that this elimination diet was bullshit and he wasn’t putting up with that nonsense any more. But then he had the worst gas I’ve ever smelled in my life and I knew we were in for something unpleasant. We took him on frequent walks knowing what was coming next. You get the point. I picked the rugs up just in case.
This brings us back to today when I got home from my AWCA meeting and was surprised Brian still didn’t poop on his second walk of the day. I should have known. I think I did on some level. You know what’s coming. But before I get there, there’s more.
I went upstairs and got the laundry off the drying rack and put it away in James Wilson’s room, and as I turned the corner in the hallway, a black and white tuxedo cat walked out of my bedroom. I gasped loudly and said “Who are you??” I don’t know how or when that cat got in the house, but it was now 3:13 in the afternoon so he’d been there a while. I suspect he got in sometime during the night when the back door was left open. I quickly went downstairs and corralled Brian and Kitty into the living room and closed them in, then coaxed Tuxedo down the stairs and out the front door. But then I heard him meowling loudly all up and down the street and I realized he was probably lost and needed to go out the back door, not the front. I went back outside and he ran up to me like we were best friends and I told him to follow me around the block and he did! We turned the corner and he confirmed my suspicions because he ran into the lot that’s under construction and tried to get through but the brick wall that’s going up is now too high and there was no way for him to climb it. I told him to come back out of there, and again he listened, and we walked around the corner together to see if we could find his house or at least someone who recognized him. We peered into some windows, but no one was home and we didn’t want to get arrested so we went back to my place. I told him to wait outside while I got the other pets back into the dining room, then I led him through the house out to the garden and I haven’t heard a word out of him since, so I assume he found his house.
As I was walking through the kitchen past the basement I thought I detected a foul odor. Figuring Tuxedo had pissed in the basement I went downstairs to check it out and decided to change the kitty litter while I was down there. That’s when I saw it. So much diarrhea I can’t even begin to describe it, and I won’t. Suffice it to say, it was epic and not well contained. I sent James 10 furious and frantic texts and began to clean it up. I threw away many fine textiles. I gagged a lot and I cursed the lack of bleach in this country. I did the best I could, but the matter needs professional attention.
I have an enormous headache and a queasy stomach.
I found a stray Solpadeine in the medicine bin and I took it. I would like for it to start working now.
