What Do You Put Up With From/Do For Your Pets?
1) A couple of years ago my oldest cat was diagnosed with diabetes. She's 13 and overweight. She gets two injections of insulin a day at 12 hour intervals and eats a prescription cat food. Don't get me wrong. If she were in discomfort, I'd put her down. But she's not. She's fat and happy--except twice a day when she acts like I'm killing her when I give her her shots.
2) My wife and I have an umbrella cockatoo who refuses to eat the kinds of foods that umbrellas are supposed to eat. They're supposed to eat nuts and grains and seeds and a kind of granola with peanut butter. She'll have none of it. Mac and Cheese for dinner. Peas or mixed veggies for breakfast. And pizza. And french fries. And noodles. And chicken. And whatever we happen to be eating. And lord have mercy french onion dip.
3) My mother has a dachshund who, about 6 years ago, required a very expensive (thousands of dollars) surgery on his back. They did it.
4) A good friend of mine spent over $1000 reconstructing a kitten's broken legs after he accidentally sat on it. As his wife put it, "If it'd been his by a car that would've been one thing. We'd have put it down. But he SAT ON IT."
So what about you? What do you do for your pets?
2) My wife and I have an umbrella cockatoo who refuses to eat the kinds of foods that umbrellas are supposed to eat. They're supposed to eat nuts and grains and seeds and a kind of granola with peanut butter. She'll have none of it. Mac and Cheese for dinner. Peas or mixed veggies for breakfast. And pizza. And french fries. And noodles. And chicken. And whatever we happen to be eating. And lord have mercy french onion dip.
3) My mother has a dachshund who, about 6 years ago, required a very expensive (thousands of dollars) surgery on his back. They did it.
4) A good friend of mine spent over $1000 reconstructing a kitten's broken legs after he accidentally sat on it. As his wife put it, "If it'd been his by a car that would've been one thing. We'd have put it down. But he SAT ON IT."
So what about you? What do you do for your pets?
Comments
Our cat is a total nut who has a ton of energy and always needs to interact. He used to try to climb walls, bookcases and cabinets. Even if there was no way he could grip the wall, he would still try to jump up and dig his nails right into the wood. If he couldn't get up it, he'd sit there and yell. If no one came to help him up, he'd come find us and yell. If we were sleeping, he'd stand on one of us and yell.
Finally we just decided to staple carpet to those areas he really likes to climb, particularly allowing him to reach high up sleeping areas (which are also carpeted). We just moved and are still in the process of finding out where he wants carpet in the new place, but so far we think we've been able to do it pretty tastefully and without it being very noticable.
Every once in a while he'll go through a phase where he yells for breakfast while we are still asleep. He'll go on for a half hour or so if we don't do anything. The awful thing is that he almost always has food in his bowl, but apparently he just wants us there for when he starts eating.
We've tried putting mineral oil in her food and all kinds of things but it still happens. Last time we didn't take her to the vet and let her do all the work but then she ripped herself so we dealt with bloody stool along with the "Are we doing the right thing?" kind of questions.
This cat is 12 going on 13. I'm not sure she'll make 14 but we'll take care of her as long as she isn't suffering. We won't put her down for monetary reasons (even though we've easily spent $2K on her in the last year in vet bills).
The hay is for eating, not litter, (just in case you were thinking that), and is supposed to stay in a box, but kind of gets spread around pretty quickly.