16 posts tagged “cat”
Speaking of cats, our own Tasha continues to adjust to life with half as many teeth. {Actually, that's not literally true since the upper and lower jaws of the feline have differing tooth counts. Hopefully you get the point anyway.} She did have a rather messy problem Wednesday, however, as her tummy reacted violently, possibly to a change in her wet food diet. We went from one brand to another of canned foods hoping to find something that she liked better. The day of the switch she began, well let's say, returning the food after eagerly consuming it. If you think cat food looks bad coming from the can, you should see it coming back from the cat! I stopped feeding to give her stomach a rest, gave her an "extra" dose of her stomach med in case she missed one or needed a bit more, and went to bed. Next morning I cautiously offered her a few morsels of her favorite dry kibble. Dr. B. had said Tasha would adjust to her inability to crunch the pellets by swallowing them whole. I watched her closely as she first tried to bite a piece of food, then swallowed it. She quickly learned she could only lick up the bits and gulp 'em down. Once she finished the small meal I watched for, er, returns. None! A full day later we've returned to feeding kibble, Tasha's happily holding on to her food, and (for better or worse) she's likely going to regain some of the weight she lost in the entire dental ordeal. I'm purring.
She Who Must Be Obeyed recently purchased a dandy new camera in the Panasonic Lumix line -- a series of digital wonders that have Leica glass in them and produce excellent photos. That meant she no longer needed her Canon PowerShot A650 IS and she's letting me have it. I must say it will have to do a truly excellent job to make me want to replace my old Fuji FinePix S7000. Then again, the A650 is quite a bit smaller than the FinePix and I can more easily take it with me more places. So I'm giving it a go.
Just to get a feel for it I shot a few pictures of Tasha on her cat tree perch watching birds. There's apparently a robin's nest in the shrubbery beneath the window and the cat is tracking the birds' comings and goings.
I'm not used to cameras making all settings automatically, including ISO, but I haven't turned that feature off just yet. For this picture, recorded in dim early morning light, the camera shot at ISO 640, 1/60 sec., at f/2.8. Focal length is quite short so vertical lines are distorted and close inspection reveals quite a lot of digital noise in the image. Overall the picture isn't as sharp as I'd like, perhaps because the aperture is wide open.
I think I'll carry it around today and see how it goes. I know it's better than my cell phone camera and it's better than none at all for those times when you wish you had a camera.
We hoped and believed today's visit to the veterinarian for teeth cleaning would be easy for Tasha. No, it wasn't simple or easy for poor Tasha! Dr. B. called in the early afternoon to tell me that our cat had 14 tooth/root extractions -- all of the teeth from her upper jaw not including the "canines." Tooth after tooth was found to be diseased --neck lesions-- and in need of removal, surprising even Dr. B.The procedure took an hour and a half. I picked up our poor kitty several hours later and received a take-home bag full of pain killers and antibiotics. Tasha seemed alert and eager to get home when I picked her up but, once home, she calmed down and was obviously under the influence of the anesthetics. She'll be on a follow-up course of pain medication for several days along with the antibiotic to mop up the nasty tooth-killing bacteria; also a soft-food diet. This one really sneaked up on all of us and I feel bad about the whole thing, though it's not like we don't give Tasha good medical care. Dr. B. says with that much previously wrong in Tasha's mouth, it's likely she was fairly sore there and, once healed, she should feel better than she did before the extractions. At this hour the cat continues to recover even running up the stairs to our second floor. She has also had a small meal. She's looking more like our little gray friend and we're glad of that.
Turning my back on the mess, I photographed Her lovely garden. There were more spectacular flowers in the garden this morning, but this pale yellow bloom caught my eye. I'm taking the day off as my July 4th holiday comp. time which will allow me to tend to Tasha who will be going in for teeth cleaning at the vet's shortly. Vets give cats general anesthesia when cleaning their teeth. With all those needle-sharp teeth contained within a ball of claws, muscle, and fury I can't say as I blame them!
It was another beautiful day today. This time, however, for the first time in weeks the temperature went above freezing -- the thaw has begun.
Everywhere I looked the snow has begun to compact and has a mottled or dimpled surface. Icicles are dripping and some are beginning to fall from their perches high above the ground.
I spent most of the day in my office: duty called. So I sadly missed out on hiking in the snowy woods, along icy steams, and letting the sunlight fall on my face. There's some hope I'll get to do some of that this weekend. I'd really hate to miss out on a beautiful, comfortable winter's day.
Standing on the landing with the window open, taking photos of dripping icicles against a blue sky, I turned to discover I was being watched. Tasha was sitting quietly at the top of the stairs in perfect light. She posed and I made a new portrait of her -- the best I've ever got of that cat.
Yeah, I took vacation days this week. Some may feel time off was wasted on the kind of weather we received overnight and most of the day today... heavy snowfall. Not me. I was perfectly happy to sit in my warm home office working on my publishing project and not needing to drive anywhere. I don't know just how much snow we received --it hasn't fully stopped yet-- but it was a lot... possibly a foot. She Who Must Be Obeyed stayed home from work and we took turns venturing into the weather to dig out our sidewalk and drive, perhaps not keeping up with the storm so much as keeping it from totally burying us. Around 3:00, after finishing my turn, I shot a few photos. These aren't beauty shots, but help illustrate that we have not much space into which to push or pile additional snow... it hasn't melted this month!
The observer's blind(s)
A cat's duties include the need to keep track of many things both inside her house and in the world beyond. Below, Tasha watches for marauding chipmunks, goldfinches, and other threats.
Good news came in the form of an email yesterday. "Howie," the homeless house cat I encountered during a weekend stay in Cincinnati a couple of months back, has been adopted. The cat rescue person who picked him up, took him to the vet, and then provided a foster home, adopted him out to a nice couple last Friday. There are some awfully good people out there. Thanks, Afshan and company. You're angels!
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