I love my cats, but...

[cjsmith]

It must have been Duchess horking last night, because while I was out at dinner Little Girl threw up in the pile of cat toys and just now Jackie let loose all over a brand-new jigsaw puzzle. While I ran to clean that, Jackie also got the hallway in two places and the carpet once. (This leaves about eight more to go for her normal pattern. Most of those will be small.)

I am officially tired of this.

Um, this should go without saying, but please don't give advice unless you know my cats or their environment. If you do, though, I'm listening.

Comments

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how much I want to be silly and catty right now, but oddly enough, no cat puke jokes are coming to mind.

So I shall close this comment with a murmur of durn it for you and shout of BOOGERS!

Because boogers are inherently funny.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that Casey and Andy haven't invented some sort of Stop Cat Barf o-matic. Though it would probably result in your house catching on fire.

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

At least there are no shrew parts in your cats' vomit.

[platypus]

I can't help, but you can borrow my icon :P

I'm very lucky -- Moly and Toeffe only rarely throw up. I've no idea how a cat who grooms as obsessively as Moly avoids having hairballs.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

True dat! My sympathies on that score!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If it resulted in THEIR house catching on fire it would be kind of funny.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

CAT boogers! I suppose even those are inherently funnier than cat bile.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Excellent icon! That would be a good crankyshorts icon as well. :-)

I've never before had seriously pukey cats. My twenty-one-year-old groomed like crazy and almost never puked. Dizzy and Critter and Pirate very rarely threw up. These three though, Jackie in particular -- yikes! It's enough to make a person get goldfish instead.

[perfect-autumn.livejournal.com]

Ahh, cat vomit. How we struggle as well.

Simba vomits almost daily. I'm convinced he's anorexic. The vets have no more suggestions left.

I have nothing useful to say, just um... yeah, me too. Sucks. Good luck.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

What sorts of things did your vet suggest? Mine hasn't been very helpful. I'm switching soon, so maybe I'll get some good info from the next one.

Good luck with Simba. Hope he is like mine seem to be: pukey but otherwise just fine.

[perfect-autumn.livejournal.com]

Yup, he's fine otherwise.

His main issue is he eats too much, too fast. He gets excited and forgets to chew. He'll gobble down a whole bowl of food, unchewed, in like... two minutes. We've gone to several small feedings a day, which a timed auto opening food bowl helps b/c I don't have to be here to feed him every three hours. Switching to all natural and organic foods helped too.

Also, we got rid of all our flowers and got just herbs for the porch, so no more leaf bits on my carpet.

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

Smokey tends to be pukey sometimes.

You know you've gotten kinda laid back about it when one cat pukes, and you have the "oh damn!" reaction, and then another one rushes over and starts to eat it, and you think "oh cool, I won't have to clean it up, at least not all of it!" and then finally, when THAT cat immediately rejects it and you think "oh great ... twice cooked barf ... just what I wanted to clean up!"

This vignette brought to you by Smokey and Scampi, in that order.

And sorry... that was a gross story, I know!

[sharya.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain.

LoL The way you described it, it almost sounds like the cats are sympathy puking with each other :P

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I never claimed to know the cats we had when I was younger, much less anyone else's. :-)

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that is annoying. I'm assuming she horked on the puzzle pieces themselves, not just on the box?

[dizzdvl.livejournal.com]

Time to start the horking shuffle. Walk around with a newspaper or a towel and watch your kitties walk backwards!

I've never figured out a way to stop my kitty from puking, but the only way I find it is to step in it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I've looked at those timed food bowls for a long time, but I've never actually taken the plunge. How has it worked for you? Has the mechanism held up well?

We had one of those automatic self-scooping litter boxes once, and that was a complete disaster. The little wire going from the "brains" to the "scoop" kept breaking.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

OH YES! If one of them pukes and it's really not very digested, I tend to wait a few minutes to see who else might be hungry. Disgusting, I know, but it sure is easier to clean up the residue than to clean up the whole pile!

You might enjoy this comic.

[perfect-autumn.livejournal.com]

Ours is probably one of the more exspensive ones, but we've had it for a few months now and it works perfect. It's got two bowls side by side, and you can set them to anywhere from 1-48 hours. The little clock ticks around and when it clicks to the open spot, the lid just springs open.

It's from Petsafe Training Systems. It takes one double A battery, and while it took the kids a day or two to adjust to it. They have no problems now, and know the little "pop" noise of the lid opening means there's food now.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It's crazy, isn't it? Jackie at least had a hairball. Maybe they all coordinate the timing of their hairballs just to make me go nuts.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* Good point, there. (I just wanted to discourage slightly the "Have You Tried Plugging It In?" contingent.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Of course. Once a puzzle piece has gotten wet it's really never the same. I did catch it quickly, though, so if I wanted to I could do this puzzle again.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

BWAHA! I do this with Jackie when she's in one of her rounds of a dozen. (She runs away from herself, though, so it's just as entertaining without me.) As soon as she backs herself into a room with linoleum I shut her in there until she's done.

It is rather unfortunate that the stuff is carpet-colored, isn't it? Maybe I need bright blue carpets.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh excellent! I wouldn't be surprised if eating too fast is my kitties' problem some of the time. A lot of the time they have hairballs, but occasionally they don't, and those times might be eating too fast. I'm rationing their food; when it hits the bowl they're hungry. This might be something worth trying.

[perfect-autumn.livejournal.com]

They make a few hairball formula foods... have you tried any yet?