Monkeys: Business as usual

Okay, so people have been nagging me about wanting to know what the monkeys have been up to lately. Be prepared for a lot of info! :-)

Johnny & Simon have been good little troopers with handling lots of changes in their environment and routine.

1. They spent 5 days alone over Thanksgiving with a daily check-in by one of my classmates.

2. Three days after we got back, we picked up foster cat Daisy, who stayed till mid-December.

3. Two days after Daisy was adopted (great home, by the way), we had a visit from mother/father/brother-in-law.

4. Two days after the in-laws left, J&S got to spend another 5 days alone with a pet-sitter once a day while we were in Minnesota.

5. After we got back from MN, they had to put up with me hanging around the house constantly for 2 more weeks until my spring semester started.

6. Finally, a period of relative calm! That is, until...

7. Lucy arrived for a visit in late February.

8. Two weeks of peace, and then....

9. Dad arrived for a visit this past week!

The cats act a little put-out when their routine is disrupted - especially when somebody else is staying in the house. With all of our human guests, as well as foster cat Daisy, J&S have been kicked out of "their" bedroom (the guest bedroom) where they like to lounge on the bed in the sun, sleep at night, and hide in the box springs. They are thus relegated to snoozing on the couch downstairs. (Yep, it's a pretty rough life.)

Simon went to the VTH in early January for a rabies vaccine. He was such a good boy - he is quiet in the car, doesn't protest the carrier, cooperates for his exam, and even tolerated me stopping for gas, groceries, and to return a DVD on our way home. I felt it was nice to give him a bit of a respite and remind him that it isn't EVERY time that he goes in his carrier in the car that he has to stay at the VTH for the entire day and get needles poked in him and be knocked out and feel loopy for the whole afternoon.

In late February, Simon got to make his "therapy cat" debut at a Fort Collins nursing home. I honestly had no idea how he would do - I thought he would be ok but was entirely prepared for the possibility that he would totally flip out.

In the end, he tolerated it. I don't know that he really enjoyed being there, but we had no hissing, scratching, growling, biting, etc., he came out of his carrier willingly, didn't try to get off his harness/leash, and didn't try to run away after the first couple minutes. There was only 1 other cat there and no dogs, so that wasn't an issue. I held him in my arms for the residents to pet, and when he got antsy, I let him walk around on his own on his leash. I'll probably bring him back again when they do their next visit, and hopefully he'll be even better on the second visit.

Yesterday, I brought Johnny to the VTH for his annual exam and vaccines. He got to have both a rabies and an FVRCP, and he got dewormed and had a chemistry panel and CBC and got sent home with a sterile sample container to bring back a fecal sample -- all courtesy of a new "pet wellness plan" the VTH is offering, which is normally $99/year ($59 with my vet student discount) and included the exam/vaccines/deworming/fecal and I still get my 40% discount on the bloodwork which I was going to do anyway. Plus if I bring him in any time in the next 12 months, he gets additional discounts on his exams and more bloodwork/fecals if he needs them.

It's been a year and a half since I brought Johnny to the VTH (a year since I brought him to a local Windsor clinic for shots), and I guess I have just been bringing Simon so many times that I forgot what a wuss Johnny is.

First of all, Johnny doesn't like riding in the car. (Actually, to clarify, he doesn't like riding in the car on the way to the vet.) He meowed pretty much constantly for the entire 35 minute drive (or at least I assume he did - I turned up the radio so I wouldn't have to listen to him).

We got to the VTH a little early for his appointment, and community practice was running late, so we sat in the lobby for about 20 minutes before they called us. (I am used to this, fortunately, so knew to bring a book.) But poor Johnny was just totally freaked out, and was shivering (nervous shivers) so hard that he was shaking his carrier on the bench next to me. Poor little dude!

He was mildly reluctant to exit his carrier once we got into an exam room, and didn't want me to hold him -- he preferred to pace around the room and check things out. He was a little squirmy for his exam, but nothing too terrible. Amazingly, he even tolerated a rectal temperature (for the most part)!

After the senior student got his history and did his physical, she took him back to the community practice rounds room to consult with the clinician, get his blood, and vaccinate him. She told me it would be "about 20 minutes," to which I thought, "Ha!" and said, "Okay, I'll be in the lobby."

Forty-five minutes later, Johnny was back, and not looking much happier. As predicted, his blood draw was pretty much a repeat performance of his last bloodwork 18 months ago -- no aggression but lots of squirming and knocking the needle out of his vein at the last minute, multiple veins used, and a nice hematoma on his leg from wriggling around. He really doesn't like to be restrained. At least this time I knew to warn them in advance to watch out for his anal glands.

Poor Johnny finally figured out how to get under the towel in his carrier and buried his face there for the remainder of our visit and checking out.

He was remarkably happier on the car ride home - perked up, not a peep out of him, and gave his shaved neck as thorough a bath as he could physically manage before settling in for a nap. Simon also saw to it that Johnny received a thorough bath once he got home.

So everybody is vaccinated, as healthy as they usually are, and back to a normal routine for awhile. Simon doesn't go in to donate blood until late April. Lord willing, Johnny doesn't have to go in again till next spring. We aren't expecting more houseguests for two or possibly one more month.

That means they can get back into their usual routine of kicking litter all over the place, pulling dish towels up the stairs every night, shredding toilet paper when they're bored during the day, and generally being annoying, albeit charming and loveable, little cats.