well here's the real story

Well I mean I know that, but i should have seen this coming and prevented it. I knew that if that customer ever bounced a check or didn't pay i was in big trouble. I shouldn't have even taken him. i mean it's a pretty basic rule that you don't put yourself in a position where any one customer flaking out can bring down your whole business, but that's exactly what I did.

Anyway, the news isn't good with the cats. They still aren't improving. Doesn't this seem to have taken too long?

The cats still no improvement....they seem lost without you.

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I need some advice. She just sent me this

I keep leaving food whereever they go. I put a dish of tuna in front of Tinker who was hiding in a corner of the garage....and I looked a couple minutes later to see if she was eating and she had turned her back on it. It looked like Wilbur had "maybe" eaten a tablespoon of dryfood from a dish I had sat near him last night.... The only way I could know for sure is to keep the two of them in the utility room full time, but I don't want them to feel trrapped there. I kept them in there for the first day or two....but within just a short time of opening the cat door into the garage...they had their heads sticking out there and chose to come out. So, it seemed they felt more comfortable in a bigger space, with more places to hide. Not sure what to do tonight...if I should try leaving them in there again....or what. The only other cats I have on their side now, is the two kittens who would never bother them at all. The other 8 cats are all being kept on the other side of the garage...and wondering why. I don't want to let them over and totally freak Wilbur and Tinker out any more. Maybe it will just take time....but I do hope they are eating. Think I should force feed them?

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it's been 4 days. should I have her force feed them? This is just getting worse. if they don't start eating they're going to end up getting sick.

Is she spending some time alone with them so they can get used to her voice etc... I know it's hard when she has so many other cats, but they sound so alone

I can't give you any advice on force feeding them... maybe she should contact the rescue's vet....

Do they have an absolute favorite, just-can't-keep-themselves-from-eating-it food? Maybe seek some advice on the stay and feral board -since those folks have had loads of experience getting frightened feral cats to eat.

One suggestion I saw was Gerber stage 2 chicken or beef baby food....

Is she feeding them the same food they've been eating? They've been through enough stress without changing their food as well. I don't know what to tell you about force feeding, especially when she's not sure whether they've actually eaten anything. Can she keep them completely separate from the other cats for at least 24 hours to see if anything is gone from their food dishes?

This has to be so hard for you. Have you found a place to live where you can get your kitties back soon?

Lovely. here's the email i just got.

I have a rescue group here in AZ that travels to Missouri all the time to pick up dogs. They will be able to transport them to Missouri. I am still waiting on finding out what town they go to and when the next time they are going is.

Can you work with that group to get them transported from Missouri to Arkansas? We need to get them out of Karen's garage as the stress is too much for them there.

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OK so i need to figure out how to get them from missouri to here. depending on where in missouri it might not be THAT far.

Crossing fingers. there is a rescue group here called Guardian Angels Cat Rescue that i could at least send them to, and visit them to help them calm down. I've convinced my mother to let them stay here, locked in my room, for a couple weeks. I don't think it'll bug her asthma, i'm praying at least. The problem is, the HVAC intake is also in this room, so any dander is going to be sucked up and blown through the whole place. lol

My God, I'm so excited i am going to see them soon.

If you're lucky, it will be Springfield, MO, which is straight north of you!

Oh my goodness...now I'm so excited for you! I've been following this thread and hoping you'd have your babies back soon. Plenty of that everything goes quickly and smoothly.

Oh, that is such good news!!! Can you get your mom a HEPA filtering machine for the house or her bedroom? Don't know the cost, but it would help. You know, an air purifier...

She said that she heard wilbur eating a little. then she put some tuna in the condo tinker was hiding in and she ate it.

Wilbur won't eat tuna. he doesn't like it. but tinker loves it.

So i'm just hoping they stay strong enough to make the trip

Excellent news! The sooner you get them back with you the better for all of you, because it must be horrible knowing their stressed.

I hate it when i see Rosie stress at the vets

It's just heartbreaking knowing how sad and scared they are.

I keep getting excited, then really bummed because they don't realize things are changing, and they're going to be PETRIFIED during the trip.

I need to find a way to get them from Misourri to Hot Springs too. so it's not 'over' yet. I've got work to do.

I'm still using my mom's little computer, but my stuff should be arriving tomorrow. So i'll have all my resources back and should be in good shape.

As long as they're eating I'm feeling better. even if it's out of pure starvation, they need some strength so they can handle the trip.

Originally Posted by BabyWukong

Oh dear... With cats that stressed, its important to monitor exactly how much food they are getting, even to the extent of counting the number of kibbles put into their bowl and counting it after a few hours. Caregivers must also step in quickly if the cat has not been eating for too long.

I know you said this lady is experienced, but I'm not sure if she's dealt with cats that just won't eat? I'm sorry to add to your worry, I'm sure reading this isn't making you feel any better.

Its a very good thing that Tinker can be tempted by tuna, and that she's eating it. You mentioned that Wilbur doesn't like tuna. What does he like then? Will boiled chicken do?

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Well, I think they're ok. she said she could start force feeding them if needed. I think it'll be short time now. Wilbur gets neutered monday so he'll probably appreciate the rest, then be scared to death when they start driving them. Tinker is weaker and she's the one i worry about. she's so delicate. But I think she'll be OK.

Short update.

I got my packages. whew!

unpacked the box I packed my PC in. no problem. unpacked the monitor (big) no problem. Put them up, turned on the PC. whu oh. It wouldn't run for more than about 30 seconds then power off. crap....

Remove and re-seat all peripherals and power cords. During that time I noticed the CPU had become a little loose. There are 4 clips that push then turn to hold the heatsink on the CPU. IN today's computers if that heatsink isn't PERFECTLY pressed up against the CPU it will instantly overheat. So that's what was happening. Thankfully they have a failsafe that shuts them down if they get too hot (the motherboard does).

So i repaired that. removed and re-seated the CPU. Now it boots and doesn't die! YAY!

Wups, one more problem. For redundancy of hardware I have the following:

System drive RAID1 (mirrored. meaning two drives writing the exact same data)
Data drives (4) RAID5 (striped with parity to protect from disc failure).

Well the RAID controller wasn't loading.. ugh... Then I noticedd that somehow, during the move the CMOS had been reset. Whew. ok. Go into the BIOS and change things around. IN the RAID configuraiton you have to choose which drives to enable for the RAID. I have 6 drives total. SATA1 is the system drive SATA3-6 are the RAID array. I enabled them all.

Reboot and the RAID controller popus up, yay! Wait.... uh oh.

"RAID degraded, check BIOS". oh no..... I go in and look. sure enough, there is only 3 drives showing in the array when there should be 4.

Just on an off chance, i decide to reboot, go back into the main BIOS and look at the RAID setttings. Sure enough, i had missed one of the SATA drives. SATA6 was not enabled. So I enabled it.

Reboot, and holy crud, after all that worry (because if had lost the array and couldn't rebuild it i'd have lost over 700GB of data) it pops up, boots and loads fine. The only collateral damage is I lost my overclock settings, but I can do those again later.

yay!

I am not sure what all that stuff you wrote was about, but I assume it has something to do with your computer Honestly, I am glad that you, Tink, and Wilbur will be reunited sooner than you thought. Hope things keep moving in this positive manner for all of you!!!

He's speaking Geek.

And it's all Geek to me.

But I think he said, "The big brown truck borked my confuser, but I fixeded it."

Originally Posted by mrblanche

He's speaking Geek.

And it's all Geek to me.

But I think he said, "The big brown truck broked my confuser, but I fixeded it."

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Thank you for the translation, Mike.