The Miller Place

Friday Felines

Jade, Clarence, Ginger, Precious, Moki, and Samantha

An offer extended and accepted.

Hanging out.

michael :: Nov.14.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Friday Felines

More pictures of the cats adopted by three of us where I work, at the Clemson University Research Foundation Information Technology Center.

ITC (Itsy) is solid grey, Lucas is a white and grey tabby.

ITC was the first to show up hungry but took the longest to catch. Both have now been caught, neutered, vaccinated, treated with Revolution for fleas and released.

Lucas is a complete attention hound. He’s always nearby, easy to pick up and handle, and not at all shy. He’s also jealous and always interferes when we try to give ITC attention. We have to tag-team, with one person keeping Lucus occupied while another works with ITC.

ITC is still shy and while you can get very close - even get him to touch his nose to a fingertip - he won’t let you pet him. Yet.

michael :: Oct.17.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: 3 Comments »

Friday Felines

Ginger, Precious, Samantha, Moki, and Clarence

michael :: Oct.10.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Friday Cat Blogging

Ladies of leisure

Precious, Ginger, and Samantha in their living room

michael :: Oct.03.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: 1 Comment »

Friday Cat Blogging

Cat Fu with Ginger and Clarence.

michael :: Sep.12.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Friday Cat Blogging

Ginger, Clarence, and Moki.

michael :: Sep.05.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Lucas: a new addition to our workplace

For several weeks now, people where I work (Information Technology Center, or ITC) have been feeding two cats. One, ITC (for him, pronounced Itsy) is mostly solid gray with some white. The other, Lucas, is a white and gray tabby. Since we’ve essentially adopted them, both need to be neutered and vaccinated.

Lucas started limping yesterday from an apparent bite wound, so it was time. A coworker captured Lucas after lunch today and I took him home to give him some quiet before his appointment with our family vet for treatment. A few pictures taken as he waited for his big trip:

He was anesthetized, tested (negative) for Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids, given a long-lasting antibiotic for the bite on his front forearm, neutered, de-loused (a few fleas only) and given Revolution. He is coming out of anesthesia now.

We will pick him up early in the morning and bring him back to ITC for immediate release. He did extremely well.

Update, next morning:

My wife picked him up from the vet yesterday morning and brought him to ITC in our regular carrier instead of the trap. It has the usual access door but I wanted to try picking him up, so I undid the fasteners and sort of reached in (he was popping out too) and was able to do just that: pick him up and hold him. He was a little squirmy but purring loudly too. I held, petted and talked to him while a coworker went looking for a food bowl. When she came back, we dumped a Little Friskies can of tuna flavor in it and I set him down in front of that. He started eating immediately and purring while I was petting, no more restraint. I decided to step back and Lucas left the bowl soon after. I think he got nervous with the people around, plus Itsy (the other cat) got a whiff of that smell and wanted some too. But soon Lucas was back to it and getting petted again. He still left food in the bowl - too much excitement going on, and Itsy did get his turn.

I saw Lucas laying on the grass later in the day looking like he owned the place. A couple of people mentioned that he and Itsy got into a tussle though. Hopefully it was the usual pecking order stuff. Next week we’re going to try to capture Itsy and give him the same treatment. Maybe with both of them neutered and well fed, they’ll get along better. If not, we’ll have to place one… somewhere, with someone.

Outdoor-only cats, especially in a setting like this, seem destined for trouble. Even our cats, when they were indoor/outdoor cats, racked up repeated vet bills for bites and were at risk from dogs and coyotes). For these building-cats though, we’re giving them something better than they had (starvation and no vet care). We’ll cross whatever bridges we come to when we get there.

michael :: Sep.04.2008 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Friday Cat Blogging

Ginger and Clarence

millerhome :: Feb.24.2006 :: Cats, Gallery :: 1 Comment »

Sporadic Cat Blogging

It’s been a long time since I did any cat blogging. I can’t promise what I didn’t deliver before (regular cat blogging), but with five cats, there’s usually something going on… Take Wednesday. Please.

Sammi Two-Stitches

millerhome :: Feb.18.2006 :: Cats, Gallery :: 1 Comment »

Friday Cat Blogging: Sammi Two-Stitches

Shortly after I got home from dropping my wife off at the airport Wednesday evening, I found Samantha. Or perhaps she found me. She had a slice on the outer edge of her ear, with a piece hanging on and flopping around. I have no idea what happened and though I first saw her inside, we have a pet door. There is no way to know and she’s not telling. None of our other cats have a mark on ‘em, and they’re not likely suspects.

An emergency visit to the vet’s and she’s … not gonna be quite as good as new, but close. He was able to connect most of it back but had to cut off the thinnest part and cauterize the tip (of the reattached slice). She will have a noticably altered ear.

She’s doing better than I would be. She’s not bothering it at all, the wound is staying clean, and she acts like it doesn’t hurt. I’m not so sure but she’s doing the prairie-dog thing where she head-butts my hand as I reach down to her and she’s soaking up the extra attention. She wants outside like always. Two more days and then we’ll see.

The pet door has been locked since she got home with all five cats inside and under supervision. If she can’t go out, nobody can! Hardly any sparks, but a lot of whining…

She goes back in a week to get the stitches removed.

michael :: Feb.17.2006 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Toonces, R.I.P.

A loyal friend for over 14 years.

Toonces has been a champ for a long time now, but diabetes and renal failure have been progressively wearing him down - both physically and mentally. With a long, slow cronic disease, there will never be an obvious no-choice time, but bad times will increase and good times will fade away. When the balance is permanently tipped…

Last night, Kathy picked him up from the lower landing and brought him upstairs. When she set him down to walk, his back legs gave out. He wasn’t able to get up and stay up, and he just laid down with a heavy sigh. We took him to the vet’s. Dr. Tope was still there at 8:30pm. We were able to go in back with him as he checked Toonces out. He was dehydrated and possibly hypoglycemic. While Dr. Tope administered fluids and offerred Toonces food (which he accepted graciously while standing there wobbly and hooked up to an IV), we talked.

Dr. Tope said Toonces has been getting tired, especially in the last few weeks (he went in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for rehydration by IV). Dr. Tope felt Toonces was becoming clinically depressed. Kathy and I have both seen it too, the more so since we knew how little time was left and we made the most of it. We talked about it and decided to bring Toonces home.

Today, he got to eat as often and as much as he wanted. I spent time with him on the couch again. This evening, Dr. Tope came to the house at our request to put Toonces to sleep humanely and in familiar surroundings.

I already miss him.

millerhome :: Dec.01.2005 :: Cats, Gallery :: 9 Comments »

At the Chipmunk Hole

Sammi stays focused on the chipmunk hole while Moki washes and Precious watches.

michael :: Feb.04.2005 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

Christmas with Toonces

michael :: Dec.25.2004 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »

New Cat Blogging

Ginger is the latest addition to the Miller household.

She’s about two years old and had been at one of our local vet’s for more than a month. They told me most people didn’t even notice her, and when they did, they hardly gave her a second glance. I was there for another reason, and got to know her while waiting (who doesn’t at a vet’s office?) Honestly, with four cats already, I knew better than to take on another responsibility. Unilaterally, anyways. I was about to leave without her when my wife dropped in to see how things were going: she saw the cat, picked her up, and that was it. All she needed from me was a nod of agreement. By the time I did leave, Kathy was signing adoption papers.

Ginger was spayed yesterday, so she’s not real happy right now. She has been out and about a few times, but she goes back to the pet carrier for security. So far, the only thing that really gets her worked up is seeing another cat. Each of our other four cats have seen her, been hissed at, and decided they had other, more important matters to attend to.

I’ve posted pictures under Cats.

michael :: May.05.2004 :: Cats, Gallery :: No Comments »