Thinking outside the litter box; Roger that.

[simple_gifts]

Last summer, tan stray cat shows up @ my friends house looking a little thin. She starts feeding it and soon he shows up for regular meals banging on the sliding glass door for entry.

The cat has a great cat attitute. My friend has a 14 year old labrador, a bit tired and clumsy and the cat walks in thru the sliding door, right by the labrador in a "pard me, scuse me, pard me, just getting some chow here"; he eats and departs. He gets the name Roger. Certainly not a lap cat, can't be handled but agreeable nonetheless.

Cold nights Roger shows up and decides the laundry basket on the dryer is where he's hanging for the evening.

Last night, stop by and my friend and her son say Roger is wandering around meowing and falling over. I start playing with him, and he seem 100% different, not better, but different. Thinking maybe he got hit by a car and is hurting since he is responding oddly and legs are shaking.

Recover my cat carrier from my house, put the cat in it and drive 17 miles the 24hr catmergency center figuring the worst and start filling out the paperwork.

Cat history; dunno.
Cat age; dunno,
Cat breed; dunno;
Cat sex; um um um. Oh wait....

Vet takes a quick once over and call my friend and ask if anyone ever "checked" if he should be named Roger. Nope. Vet says "definitely a girl" I get some tests done, some shots and some birds and bees speech from the vet.

I feel like a total idiot indicating I was just occasionally interfacing with the cat and really didn't think much about it.

Drove back to my friend's house around 10pm, happy that it worked out well; will be scheduling fixing that situation and will be chuckling for years about this.

-T

 

[AandPDan]

How's "Roger" today.

Been there. As a kid our first cat was named "Ralph." Yup, turned out to be a she.

Had that name for 14 years though...

 

[NHGUY]

Could be kidney failure.Very common.The cat will get confused,weak,lethargic and eventually keel over for good.

 

[joaks]

I had a duck named "Doug" when I was little. Again, a girl.
My sister has a rabbit and she keeps changing what gender she thinks it is. Its either "Holly" or "Ollie" depending on what she thinks it is. Then again my BIL has a femaile dog named "Ranger". On well.

Antifreeze posioning regarding Roger?

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

Been there. As a kid our first cat was named "Ralph."


Hey! I had a cat named Ralph too.

Vet said the rapid mood switches is probably because she is in heat. By "falling over" i meant she would lie down and writh on the floor. Vet said she is in great shape and keep her indoors until i can get her fixed.

 

[AandPDan]

Glad she's OK.

 

[dave123]

If it was a calico then you would be a real idiot.

 

[Rick in PA]

But think how cute mama cat and her little bundles of joy would look all curled up in your friend's laundry basket on the dryer...

Ah, we've all had some situation similar to that, thanks for the chuckle.

 

[tom slick]

My sister had a cat named Joe until it had kittens. Then it was named Jo.

 

[zerosoma]

Bahahahaha. We have three cats and when we moved into our house there were three additional outside cats that kind of became our "pets". They are totally feral, well - except for the mama - she had two babies that are full grown now and was preggo, had three kittens shortly after we moved in. We got rid of "mama" to some folks as well as two of the kittens. We kept one and named him "Benji". We'd occasionally call him by his full name when he was on the table - "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT!!"

Turns out as he got to be about 6 months old we noticed no balls. Yeah, was a she. Couldn't afford to fix "her" so we gave her to my in-laws for an outside cat. She was happy as ever and climbed a 25 foot evergreen tree and hung out there for awhile.

All three of our outside cats (which we aim to get rid of soon) are girls. Well, that was until we found the black one jumping on the striped one. Not so much a girl apparently. This spring we'll trap them and give them to the humane society or find a farm for them. We give them scraps outside of food we don't eat. Again - our inside cats get royal treatment...the outside cats get what's left over.

 

[zerosoma]

Originally Posted By: dave123
If it was a calico then you would be a real idiot.


LOL

well, some people don't know the difference...

 

[simple_gifts]

Update on this: Roger is now a permanent resident of my home. Got her spayed earlier this week (after many sleepless nights), rabies, distempter. Seems she has a microbial GI infection; got anti-b's to handle that too.

"Roger" will be the name the vet and some others use to address her, but people around my workplace keep asking how "Eartha Katt" is, a name selected by a different friend of mine.

After a few years of being catless, I'm getting back into the joy of having a ball of fur sleeping on my chest, between my outstretched legs or, with this one, sleeping under the covers after "nosing" her way under the blanket.

She's earning her keep, as my house is 120+ years old and I actually am just sharing it with some other animals. Roger has expertly polished 2 mice off already with no fanfare.

-Thomas.

I'll try to get some shots of her in the next week or so.

 

[04SE]

Thumbs up for rescuing the kitty! I would do anything for my two guys, they are SPOILED.

 

[Benzadmiral]

The late great Marie-Antoinette, a long-haired black cat, was intelligent and adaptable, very affectionate, and learned to walk on a lead with a harness. Linda adopted her in '94 from a classmate at law school. Marie had visits to one local vet here on occasion.

Flash forward to 1998, when Linda and Marie came up to live with me in Denver. I noticed Marie was having trouble urinating. I'd seen that on one or two male cats, never on a female; but I hurried her to my vet anyway.

Verdict: "Marie-Antoinette's a boy!"

Apparently some parts of her male equipment never made themselves, uh, known. It's a little hard for a lay person to spot things like that on a cat with such thick black fur on the hindquarters. No, what amazes me to this day is that the vet who saw Marie for more than 10 years either never noticed the, uh, different equipment; or never bothered to tell Linda!

We never bothered to change her name. What would we have called her -- Murray Antoinette? And we still say "she" and "her." Clearly Marie's favorite songs (if she'd been human) would have been "I Enjoy Being a Girl" and "I Feel Pretty."

Maybe she was just saving up for The Big Surgery. . . .