Who Knew?

I'm sitting here at my desk. It's 102°F outside. It's a bit warm in the house even with the A/C on, but none of that matters. All I can think about is Chester.

I just went to Dr. Larry's to visit Chester. It was quiet there today. The usual sounds of construction were thankfully absent. There weren't any clients. The mad rush had just ended. I wasn't sure I wanted to know how Chester was doing, but there I was, anyway. Lauren, one of the very nice lady-Vet techs, smiled when she spoke of how Chester was doing. I couldn't wait to see him.

Over night Chester had made some sort of great improvement. No longer laying down and eating out of the side of his mouth-he was sitting up and eating furiously. He was sleeping, not like a damp rag, spread out on a table, but curled up as any normal cat might do. Not only that, but when she brought him out for us to visit, I gasped when I saw him. He was standing on all fours!

©2010 Robin AF Olson. Chester looks like a cat again. Hurrah!

Chester is still weak. It's to be expected, but he was UP and reacting to being petted. He was looking around and appeared to be much perkier than even the day before.

I was simply, astonished.

©2010 Robin AF Olson. Chester gets a bit of help to keep him steady as they take his weight for the day.

I bought Chester a catnip mousy toy. This catnip is REALLY strong and there isn't a lot available to purchase. I felt lucky to get some. I wanted to see if Chester would react to it at all; another way to gauge how he's doing.

I should have brought him a napkin because once he got a whiff of the catnip he started to drool a bit! It was clear he liked it very much. Seeing him do something, so completely normal, something I would never think twice about seeing, was truly remarkable. This cat is a cat again!

©2010 Robin AF Olson. Chester digs his catnip mousy toy.

While Chester was rubbing against his mousy, Sam, Lauren and I petted him. His coat feels much cleaner and softer. Though he is still quit thin, he appears to have gained some weight. His eyes were almost zombie-like on Saturday and now they react in a more normal way. It was a blessing to witness this transformation.

©2010 Robin AF Olson. A little bit stoned from the catnip (the tail of the mousy is under his arm), Chester enjoys his pets.

I spoke with Dr. M., who works with Dr. Larry. She was also very impressed with Chester's improvements. I asked if he was going home tomorrow and I think there is a good chance of that happening. It's not for me to discuss or decide-that's up to his family. I might give him one more day of Vet care since traveling in this terrible heat might be very hard on him, but again...that is out of my hands. One way or the other, I think Chester will be home one day soon (KNOCK WOOD, no jinxing here!)

©2010 Robin AF Olson. Chester, you ARE amazing!

We had a nice visit with Chester. It may be our last before he leaves for home. I told him I loved him and that I was proud of him for doing so well and to keep up the good work. I could tell that he was getting tired and needed to rest more. He probably has a long recovery period yet to go.

©2010 Robin AF Olson. Chester loves the attention from his new friends, as he thinks of home and his family who are waiting to see him.

It dawned on me just as we left-that Chester has been receiving Vet care for almost as long as he was lost in the woods. In my minds' eye, I can still see his face, the eyes dark, his body unmoving, under that fallen tree, perfectly blended in with the dead leaves he was about to become part of, forever. For the rest of my life, I will never forget rescuing Chester and his remarkable recovery. There are so few things to be happy about these days. For once, it's nice to take a moment and have something to smile about.

Chester is out of the woods, in more ways than one.

Writing on 2 hours of sleep may not be the smartest thing I've ever done, but this story needs to break right NOW!!!

A few days ago I got an email from Diane, who runs a local rescue group alerting me to the fact that a 19 year old cat named, Chester had been lost in the woods by the local diner. The family hails from Maine and for reasons that are not clear to me, somehow Chester, who wore a collar and leash, got out of the car while the family was eating their meal. When they got back to the car, Chester was gone.

From Chester's "LOST" Flyer.

There's a lot of very dense brush around the diner and beyond that there are thick woods. I-84 passes one side of it.

It's been a common dumping ground for cats, garbage, beer cans and other debris. It's not where you'd want to take a walk alone late a night-not that it's "that" dangerous, but...the diner is open 24/7 so all sorts of folks stop by and many of them are just passing through the state.

We also have foxes and coyotes here-an occasional bear. There are lots of good reasons to find this geriatric cat as soon as possible. This morning, the temperatures were going to rise into the low 90's and today is slated to be very humid, too. Chester has been missing since June 28, 2010 and the run of cooler, drier weather is done.

We had our uber-trapper, Karlyn, working the case, along with Barb a really nice lady with another rescue group. We were all doing what we could to find Chester, along with another cat, Cowboy, who is also gone missing, too. His family is from VA and has been looking for him for over a week.

Karlyn set up a feeding station to see if she could tell if there were cats coming to it. Then she'd set humane traps to get the cats at the feeding station. We set up a wildlife camera but caught nothing the first day. We were going to buy another camera today, but something inside me was grinding. I kept feeling like I HAD to go look for Chester again. The last time I was ill prepared, stupidly wearing sandals which prevented me from looking too far into the woods.

I didn't sleep last night. Finally at 6:00 AM I got up, covered myself with bug repellant, put on heavy clothes to protect me from ticks. I put a feliway wipe in my pocket along with some dry food and a can of very wet food and some water. I know there's no scientific proof, but all that stuff didn't matter. I almost felt pushed to get out of the house as soon as I could. I could have left in my PJ's and slippers. I didn't care what I had on me. I just had to GO.

As I pulled up to the diner, the sun was getting stronger. It was barely 7AM. I started to think that all I should look for was a sign of the leash and the collar, so at least I would know if the cat had gotten out of it or if he was still attached to it and had maybe passed away. I tried to prepare myself to see a dead cat-the last thing I would ever want to see, but I had to be tough and just get out there.

There were some creepy cars in the back of the parking lot, so I opted to walk the perimeter and just look into the brush. I couldn't get over how dense the brush was so close to the edge of the parking lot. There's a path that leads to a dried out stream, off one of the corners of the lot. A big SUV/pickup thing was blocking it. I didn't want to go near it. It gave me the creeps.

Instead I found another place to enter the woods by one of the dumpsters. I walked down a short incline and walked along the dried river bed since it was just about the only place that was clear of thorny brush. I called to Chester, waited, listened. I could hear the traffic from the highway. A bird flew over my head. A branch fell onto the ground. I thought I heard something else...a cry?

I felt like I just had to walk in a particular direction. I saw a big tree, some of it had fallen down. Under one of the large limbs, I thought I saw a FACE. I was about 40 feet away? Was it the morning light playing a trick on my eyes? I called out to Chester. Nothing. I got closer. The thing wasn't moving. I thought that maybe it was a fox. We'd heard one a few nights ago when we were last there. I took a few steps closer, then I realized...it was CHESTER!!!!!!!!

I pushed through the brush, which was much more sparse, thankfully, and ran over to Chester. I could see his lead caught up in some debris. He wasn't moving. I thought he was gone. I started to talk to him as I broke apart the branches to free up his chain. He moved a tiny bit. I reached under the tree to pick him up. He was very limp, but alive.

As I ran back to the parking lot I kept talking to Chester, telling him it was going to be ok. He didn't move, which made it easier to get him to my car, but made me more worried that he was going to die in my arms.

Chester just moments after I got him into the back of the car.

It was only 7am, but I called Karlyn anyway. I breathlessly told her I found Chester!!! She said she would be right there. I opened some food and rubbed some water on his mouth. Chester was clearly well out of it, but for a moment he furiously lapped at a little bit of canned food.

Karlyn arrived. I emailed Super-Deb, hoping she would be into work early so I could get Chester over to her. SD called and said it would be 9am before anyone would see Chester. Too late. I needed to move him to a Vet-whoever was open. I didn't care. Karlyn helped me get Chester into my carrier and gave me a towel for him to lie on. I got the car going and drove as fast as I dared to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Danbury.

It was a long 15 minute drive, but they were expecting us, thanks to Karlyn's call. They took Chester and I waited. Then they told me his condition was "iffy" and that they could not get a pulse on his limbs but his heart sounded surprisingly good. His BUN was high, his potassium was good, but his sodium was high. Obviously, his kidneys are not in a good place. Chester was not 19. Turns out he is 21! That this cat was even breathing after almost 5 days of no food or water, is amazing.

I called Chester's family and gave them the good news wakeup call. They know where he is now and they know he won't die alone in the woods or by the claws of a predator. I gave him a hug and kiss and told him he was a good boy and that he would be ok. I hope I didn't lie to him, but it's out of my hands.

Chester. Out of the woods and safe, at last.

I hope Chester has a few lives left. I hope his family will be willing to pay for his care. It's going to be expensive if The Animal Emergency Clinic keeps him for the weekend. Right now I'm paying for it, but this isn't a time to fuss about money. It's a a time to pray or send good vibes or just think kindly about a very old kitty who lost his way and who was very lucky this crazy cat lady had his back.

Come'on Chester. You can do it! We're rooting for you!

Imagine trying to take a photo with your iPhone, it's dark in the room, so you have to hold still. You're trying not to squeal;“OH MY GOD!” and you need to be mindful that one false move could get you bitten or scratched.

Late tonight, I brought Candy some food. She picked at it a bit and hissed. I decided to try the toothbrush on her again. This time I just kept brushing her as much as I could. Within a few moments, she stopped protesting and started to come up to the front of the crate, where I was sitting with my legs crossed (and falling asleep).

She could not get enough. She sat in her litter pan, then suddenly rolled on her back, exposing her tummy. I brushed her tummy. She LOVED it. She got up, faced me and it was clear she wanted me to brush her face, so I did. She was clearly in dire need of being touched-and though this is not a big surprise, that she would change in a heartbeat really put a knot in my throat. I did not expect this so soon.

I got greedy. When Candy had her back turned to me, I ran one finger down her back. She didn't hiss. I kept brushing. She turned again. She had left the crate and was next to me. I petted her briefly with my entire hand. She was fine with it. No hissing!!! I didn't want to push my luck, since I was bare handed, so I went back to focusing on brushing her, while I gently coaxed her back into the crate. I can't risk having her get loose in the foster room right now.

You can see the blue-green handle of the toothbrush. Candy has her head on my knee. She is SMILING!

I felt pretty choked up and that would have been a big enough breakthrough for me for one day, but Candy wasn't done.

She purred. Not for long and not very loudly, but she PURRED!

I didn't want to overdue it, so I slowly stopped brushing Candy. She hissed and went back to the rear of the crate. I showed her the brush and she came all the way to the front and clearly wanted more. I brushed her a bit, but soon left her for the night. I wanted to end our visit on a good note. It would be too easy to have her regress. Today we had some very big changes in a small amount of time. She did great and I'm very proud of her!

It was as if she finally got what she really wanted from me and now that she knows she can get it, perhaps the rest of this journey will feature fewer hisses and more purrs?

Yesterday I was asked to take a fractious feral kitten in to foster to see if I could socialize her. I was told to think “Tweetie” as far as her friendliness factor was concerned. If you recall, Tweetie was a fear-biter and it was fairly certain he would have to be released back to the woods if I couldn't socialize him. It's one thing to take a kitten into foster and get it ready for a family, but when it's nasty to start with there's the added pressure of trying to get a good result, but not having much time to do it in.

Here's Candytuft. Okay, where is she?

Last month I attended the NEFHS Conference where I learned about a new program being developed that quickly turns kittens around from being nasty to nice. It's called ”Fearful 2 Friendly”

What's amazing about this program is that within a few HOURS you can turn a kitten around IF you follow their rules. Okay, so I took one class. I didn't buy their DVD (because if you read my previous post about it you know that there were some “creative”-aka, annoying problems with the soundtrack that caused me to think twice about PAYING to hear it all over again).

I decided I'd give it a try from memory. Basically, you lock the kitten up, alone. Don't give it anywhere to hide. Then, SLOWLY take a step towards the cage and wait until the cat shows you a sign that is positive. Maybe it blinks or puts its' head down or even doesn't hiss or flick the tail. Any small sign, then leave the room. This is what the cat wants but you only do it when the cat is doing a behavior that is POSITIVE. It's like playing “red light, green light.” If the cat hisses you wait until it stops and does a good behavior.

Oh, there she is! What a cutie. Too bad she hates my guts right now. I'm going to put her in the dog crate. She will not like this, but so be it.

After awhile you end up getting closer to the cage and the cat does NOT react. If it does you have to take some steps back and re-apporach the cage. In time you'll touch the cage. If that works, then leave again. Keep leaving after each progress and positive reaction from the cat. Eventually you'll be able to open the crate without any reaction.

The big kicker is to use a brush at the end of a pole that's about 12-18 inches long. Let the cat warm up to the brush FIRST. The first time you touch the cat, it should be with the brush. The kittens seem to react very passionately about being touched that way. Once you get them going, it's easy to sneak your hand in there, but this is based on a vertical cage (so you can access it at your full height standing). My dog crate is on the floor and not sure I will be able to get in the cage without freaking out the kitten.

Bottom line-you don't want to grab the kitten or use food as bait to build confidence. You train the cat that you will do what it wants when it does positive things, not hiss or growl and such.

Candytuft is the name of a flower! Who knew? Not me. She's adorable as can be. I want to give her a big kiss, but I want to keep my lips so I'll wait and hope that some day I will be able to tell you about how I can hold her and pet her and give her all the love she wants.

So today I began. I got as far as to touch the cage and she did well overall. I only had to re-start once. Blitzen keeps trying to get into the room with me, so I have to lock him up while I do the training. Since it's just the first day, I'll give it another try tomorrow. Candy just got here and I don't want to overdo it. I feel silly taking a step, waiting, getting the result, then leaving the room. I count out 30 to 60 seconds and I go back in and do it again. I sure hope this works because I feel like Candy is wondering what the heck this silly human is up to.

Good question. Not sure I know the answer.

Understanding what results to expect when utilizing Homeopathy, is definitely something I'm learning. It's different from seeing Dr. Larry. With him, I would expect him to prescribe a shot or pill, etc., then within a specific amount of time, I'd expect results. I'd also end up effecting Gracie in ways none of us would intend. For instance, if I'd caved in and told Dr. Larry to give her steroids, she's be looking very nice right now, but internally, I would have done damage to her that might not manifest right away. They call steroids “the silver bullet” for a good reason. They work great for lots of reasons, but there's a price to pay, which includes potentially causing a whole slew of immune related problems and worse, which end up shortening the life span of the cat. For a geriatric cat in poor health, steroids can give them comfort and help them find their appetite during their final days. In a young cat, I would avoid it if at all possible. Each situation is different and you need to discuss using steroids on your cat with your Vet.

I just got back from visiting Dr. Hermans. We had a good conversation, then she examined Gracie. Firstly, Gracie's nasty self-mutilation IS HEALING NICELY! I was only able to apply some calendula based first aid cream to her twice, along with some bitter apple around the site of the injury. Since she was healing with little help from me, that's actually a good sign that she's STOPPED chewing on herself.

We also discussed diet. Gracie may not be tolerating the food I changed the cats over to. They all go crazy eating it, but Gracie wants it too and she can't have it so she won't eat or she'll wait and try to get some scraps off another plate. This doesn't work since there usually are NO scraps left. Now I've been given the OK to open up the choices of food I give her, which should help inspire her to eat more consistently. Juggling what to feed 8 cats is a pain in the ass. Dr. H said there is “no such thing as feeding all cats in a multi-cat household, the same food.” It's a “Holy Grail” that can't be reached if your cats are of such varying ages and from different backgrounds. Gee, I didn't have enough to feel bad about! Ugh.

So back to the food drawing board. Hopefully, I will get this figured out. The math involved in all of this “how many ozs of food/how many lbs of cat” is driving me nuts. We have a bit over 100 lbs of cat, but each one gets a different amount of food. I can't feed them all the same amount because it's too costly and I don't want the cats to get fat.

We spoke, again, about re-homing Gracie. Dr. Larry feels it's time for me to do that and Dr. H says, “No. Not right now.” The problem here is my expectations, more than anything else. I'm used to a quick fix. Homeopathy doesn't work quickly-espeically for something like dermatitis. It's going to be up and down over a long period of time. There are no guarantees, either. This may not work, but we haven't given it long enough and Dr. H does see signs that Gracie IS responding to treatment. If she was in bad shape, she'd have kept on chewing her leg. She may have had a flare up. Hard to say. I can't imagine finding a home for her with no other cats or dogs, where the new owner would not give her steroids for her skin or who would feed raw and follow her health needs. It's just not going to happen. Crossing fingers: I will get her back in good shape one day and prove Dr. Larry wrong. Gracie can stay here and be happy AND healthy!

Bottom line is that I need to give Gracie more alone time-which I've been doing the past few nights and we're going to adjust the treatment she's getting and give that to her more often and she how she does. She won't be getting acupuncture just yet. Apparently it does not go well with Homeopathy! We can only do one thing at a time. Who knew?

Dawn breaks for me at 5:45AM with the melodious strains of vomiting cats. I rise, stumble down the hallway and mop up the mess. Thinking I cleaned it all up, I head down stairs to check my email only to find out by stepping barefoot into another puddle, that I missed some. Fortunately, I didn't go back to bed after I cleaned off my foot. My cellphone rang at 7:15AM. It was a local reporter with our NBC affiliate calling to tell me that they wanted to send a crew over, TODAY (instead of tomorrow, as I planned) and that “the sooner the better” would be good.

Okay. The store doesn't even OPEN until 10AM and I needed to get Sally Sox and her kittens to the store ASAP! I didn't dare call anyone that early, so I sent out emails right away, then began to wait nervously until I could call them guilt-free.

My Director jumped in to help me make calls. I flew over to Southbury Printing (thanks guys for getting everything done in time!) to pick up the flyers and banner, got back to Your Healthy Pet and got everything set up and ready to go. Thankfully, Sally's foster mom brought the cats. I got it done by 11 AM!

I'm very pleased with how the banner came out!

Inside Your Healthy Pet with everything set up.

I called the Newsroom to let them know we were all set. Ha ha ha! Another story bumped us, so they said we'd have to wait a bit and they would call me back to let me know when they would arrive. Okay, deep breath. Good chance to take some pictures of the kitties and try to calm down.

This is Caruso at 8 weeks.

Mimi with her siblings.

The excitement of waiting around was too much on the kittens. Meanwhile the humans were fussing around the store. Of course, today was the day for the surprise inspection by the Fire Marshall of Newtown! While the Owner's of YHP were moving things around and looking panicked, I tried to think about what I would say if interviewed. I wanted to be clever and interesting, prepared and smart. I knew they would cut down whatever I said to a sentence or two, if even. I hoped I wouldn't screw it all up.

About 90 minutes passed. The Fire Marshall left. Debbie, the foster mama, mentioned she hadn't fed the cats at all that day. Smart move, so the kitties don't need the litter pan, but...they were so hungry, we decided to feed them. I guess they were hungry because they wiped out their food in seconds. I began to imagine kittens pooping while the cameraman was there, but what could I do?

I was jonesing for some tea. Getting up after 4 hours of sleep was starting to hit me. As the cats washed their faces and resumed napping, I started to fantasize about caffeine and or sleeping on the floor behind the counter. Maybe they could shoot the segment without me? What had I gotten myself into?

Finally! The camera man arrives! His name is Trevor and he was very nice and friendly. I expected an uptight snob for some reason. He was neither. He told me how it would go. I helped him set up the shots to establish the story, which I think he appreciated. Being an Art Director for over 20 years came in handy, so did naturally being bossy.

Trevor shot a lot of video. Somehow we managed to wrangle Caruso and Sally Sox into letting me brush them on camera. We used some bonito flakes as a treat, hidden next to a clump of cat fur to keep Sally Sox in place. In my mind's eye I imagined how every shot would play out, but the last segment was going to be the interview and I was the only one on camera.

Trevor told me to look at him, relax and not look at the camera. Ha ha ha. Easier said than done. He said I could stop and start again if I felt I needed to-and which I did. I was so amped up I talked fast, but I think that in the end, I hoped it would come out as being passionate. Either that or I was going to look like a doofus.

The NBC-30 News is broadcast at 5:00pm, 5:30pm and 6:00pm. Our segment was at 6:00pm. I was shaking and light-headed by the time it came on. I saw myself and heard myself talking. I burst into hysterical laughter! Was that REALLY ME? My goodness I looked like a baby seal with no neck. Overall, the bits without me in it did go well, but honestly, I love to be in front of a group teaching or training, but not this..oh no. I definitely have new admiration for people who can be calm on camera (and who have a sleek “Audrey Hepburn” neck).

I'll try to get a copy of the segment to post here. Until then, here I am in my full doofus-where-is-your-neck glory.

So that was great. Cough, cough. Now we wait and see what happens next. Will get get a TON of fur to ship to Matter of Trust? or just an embarrassing lump that we'll secretly just throw out for being inadequate?

I don't have time to worry. Apparently, I'm too busy being famous. I was also in the Danbury News-Times today, too! Gosh, fame. I'm so important that I can't even keep up with all the press I'm getting!

I swiped this photo off the DNT web site, so it's THEIR photo and they get the credit. See link above for more...

Nicky looks completely confused, while I'm just trying to look hot. FAIL!

It's 7:45PM. The day flew by. How will I face tomorrow without being on camera or having reporters asking to quote what I say? At least I have cat vomit to look forward to. That's the one thing I can pretty much count on after the studio lights dim and the reporters drive off to bear witness to the next “breaking” story.

Looks like our good friend, Sockington made the headlines again. Fortunately it was not due to having many secret Mistresses. Socks was at it again, being featured for his Twitter follower-prowess, which is now at over 1.5 MILLION! Socks is so big, he caught the attention of THE People Magazine-May 17th issue, page 152! Are we proud of you, Socks, well, DUH, of course!

Would we be AS proud of you if PeoplePets didn't do an additional article about you called: “The 5 Things You Didn't Know About Sockington?” (that happened to include our former foster, Tweetie?) Well, yesssssss, yes. Of course!

See point number 2, above. Thank you to Helin Jung, my charming friend at PeoplePets for including Tweetie and moreso for declaring aloud that I'm a comedian to the general public! Maybe I can get a booking doing a “stand up comedy, socializing feral cats world tour,” next?

Who knows what's next? I know that Tweetie is doing well, hogging the food at meal time so he has to be separated from Socks and Penny Cat and that otherwise he's getting along well with his “Dad.” Of course what PennyCat thinks in another story.

Oh and WELCOME People Pets readers! I forgot my manners. Hope you'll come back and visit again, soon!

I promise. No more creepy close up shots of my feet! (see below a few posts..wait, no, don't look).

I hope everyone has started brushing their cats or giving summer buzz cuts to their doggies-then SAVING ALL THAT FUR!

This morning I got a reply from Matter of Trust with a link to a video on how to make a hair boom that will absorb oil. It's pretty simple. You just need a lot of hair/fur and some used/or new pantyhose!

You don't have to make a hair boom to help the efforts to clean up the gulf, you just need to start saving hair. I haven't gotten my instructional email on how they want it shipped, but I did see them using cardboard boxes (duh!) and a plastic bag insert that was used to contain the hair/fur. I'll post more info. as soon as I get it.

In the meantime, check out this helpful video!

Get out your brushes, gang, the wildlife of the Gulf Coast region need our help!

Did you know that human hair and pet fur is GREAT at absorbing OIL? There's a non-profit organization, called Matter of Trust. They collect hair from salons, pet hair from shelters, rescues, schools, individuals-anyone who's got HAIR! They create hair filled "booms" using ladies nylon pantyhose, then drop them onto oil spills and the hair does the rest!

Photo by Matter of Trust

What a simple and wonderful way to help with this tragedy in the Gulf!

Here's the info from their web site:

Everyone can take part!
No matter where you are. No matter if you're with a salon or groomer or if you're a volunteer.

First, please SIGN UP to their Excess Access program. It's FREE and FAST.
It is their mass donation matching database system.

They cannot give out addresses for where to send hair, fur and nylons unless you are signed up, because as the spill moves so do the recipient sites and we don't want any boxes returned to you. And they don't want any boxes coming there after the spill.

START BRUSHING, GANG! LET'S SEE SOME PHOTOS OF THE CLIPPINGS BEFORE YOU SEND THEM OUT! Best pile of fur photo will be featured here and on our Facebook fan page!

I want to see at least 100 times better than this:

This is a bit of Nicky, Nora, Bob & Spencer, but I know I can do bigger and better (without the cats going bald!)

Get to it and PLEASE pass this info along to your friends! You can also visit Matter of Trust on FACEBOOK.

There's nothing like the glow of the Northern Lights as they dance across the arctic sky. If you ever get a chance to witness this amazing phenomena, you should. You'll never forget the sight. They're not easy to photograph, which is why I wanted to share these photos with you.

There's nothing like the glow of...

But wait, what's that, you say? This is not an image of the aurora borealis? Is this an all-too-familiar sight?

Yes, sports fans, this is cat pee, phosphorescing under the glow of a black light. It's located ACROSS the end of my hallway, right next to the door where the foster cats are housed. Makes sense that my resident cats would show me their disappointment in my choosing to bring yet more cats into the house by marking their territory right next to the offending room.

But what's this, you ask?

Notice the spray, then the dribbly puddle on the floor. Someone was ANGRY. It wasn't me. That's all I know. I can't aim that well.

This would be near the landing to the second floor. Any cat that passes this spot will know that one cat has deemed any point past belongs to HER. I'm fairly sure this was done by Petunia, who of all my cats, is my biggest pain in the ass. She is high strung and nervous. Lately she's decided she wants to own the bedroom. This is her warning to others. I would have preferred that she simply issue a memo to everyone via email, than urinate on the wall.

I wonder what Jay & Grant on Ghost Hunters would make of this?

Difficult to see, but this area of the wall near our master bath was covered with cat markings. Am I without any sense of smell? Surely not. I made the mistake of thinking I smelled pee just ONCE, then going on a mission to see where the offense had occurred. To my dismay, across a majority of my bedroom and second floor hallway the walls were marked.

Anyone who has to deal with this, knows it's a nightmare to diagnose, YES, diagnose and a nightmare to stop. In my next post, I'm going to talk about ways to figure out what is going on and how to clean it up.

I haven't checked the first floor of my house yet. I'm too scared. For now I'm re-checking the second floor every night to determine if this is ongoing or if it happened a long time ago and I only just found it.

Maybe I should start a gallery of art photos of cat peed walls? It's unique! At least it would help bring in a few dollars so I can afford to load up on a prescription of Xanax and scented candles for myself.