Vet Trip Results
The girls had a good vet trip today. They both fairly healthy, though they both had some stuff in their right ear and Julie’s right eye was red and I have to put a gel in it twice a day for a week. They both have to take some drops once a day that acts to get rid of common stomach parasites, even though both their poop samples were good. Julie weighed 1.4 pounds and Shelly weighed 1.2 (not surprising given how little Shelly eats compared to Julie).
The vet decided she wanted to wait a week to give their vaccines, especially because they might have upper respiratory infections (i.e. colds) and because of how young they are.
Both cats were quite unhappy on the ride to and from the vet, though I was surprised that Shelly was the much louder crier. They were both fairly docile with the vet and nurse, though Shelly was much, much unhappier when they took her temperature and poop sample. I can’t say that I blame her; I would yell if somebody tried to stick a thermometer in my butt for a minute.
The cutest moment at the vet was when the vet was trying to check Shelly’s heartbeat. Shelly’s loves to petted and touches and will purr at the drop of a hat, so the moment the vet put her hand on her she started purring so much the vet couldn’t hear her heart! The vet had to dab a cotton swab will rubbing alcohol and put it in front of her noise to make her stop long purring.
One of the things I had been concerned about was the girls’ eating habits, namely that they were mostly (especially Shelly) ignoring the dry food and not drinking much water. The vet said that she felt there was nothing wrong with the cats eating wet food, that it was just a bit more work for the owner. She recommended that, for now, to mainly give them wet food because its more important that they eat to growth while kittens and that I should worry about changing them to dry food later when there is less risk of dehydration. She also suggested trying setting up three bowls, one with dry, one with wet, and one with moistened dry food, though she said she hadn’t known many cats that would eat moistened food.
An interesting thing about the visits is that I think the stress of it all took a lot out of them because they were very quiet and sleepy after their examinations and both went to sleep almost immediately when we got home. Now if only they had been like that for the trip home ;-).
An interesting tip that the vet gave me was to use a toss a bundle of socks at the kittens if they’re doing something bad, instead of using a spray bottle. She recommended that because it’s less mess and has the same effect. Now if only I could figure out a way to get them to not hide behind the entertainment stand (which is both spray bottle- and sock bundle-proof).
