Hi there everyone!
I stumbled into your forums by chance while browsing articles on feline health and behavior. Reading through the threads here has granted me some much needed comfort and answers to questions that have been troubling me of late--many thanks to all of you for developing such a helpful, supportive forum!
I currently live with two very different kitty cats. Samantha, my sister-kitty, is a Russian Blue who just turned eighteen years old--"geriatric" by kitty standards, I've come to learn. My family adopted her as a kitten when I was only seven years old, and we've quite literally grown up together. She used to hunt frogs and sparrows in her younger days and was horrible at bringing live animals into the house and letting them loose for us to chase down. She's always been a quiet, patient kitty cat, and has become more and more sedate as the years go by, although she still reverts to very kitten-ish behavior at the smell of roasted turkey breast or fast-food chicken fingers. Although she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a few years ago and has been undergoing treatment with methimazole, I'm beginning to observe more and more signs of her age and declining health, some of which have become especially pronounced over the last few weeks--I fear that despite our vet's best efforts, we may need to make a very difficult decision in the next month or so.
Many thanks to the members with older pets who've shared their stories here, they've been very comforting.
Our other kitty is Sable, our baby-cat adopted from a local animal rescue society just after New Year's. She's very handsome, mostly black with three white patches on her chest, breast, and tummy--like a little black twinkie! She'll be five months old next Saturday, and is just losing the last of her baby teeth (I'd never thought about other animals' baby teeth until we met her!). I've never met a feline with so much personality and attitude, the total opposite of our laid-back Sammy. She's incredibly energetic and is obsessed with exploring--just this week she managed to work her way back behind our TV set in the entertainment center, and broke one of the fake logs in the fireplace apparently trying to sniff at the chimney flue(sp?). If she finds a place she can't reach or fit into, she'll sit and stare at it with her little ears twitching and what we've come to identify as her "frustrated" meow. She also has a terrible habit of waking us up at 3-4am every morning by chewing our hair and biting our chins.
Forgive my rambling!
I'll leave it at that for now. I look forward to meeting all of you!
I stumbled into your forums by chance while browsing articles on feline health and behavior. Reading through the threads here has granted me some much needed comfort and answers to questions that have been troubling me of late--many thanks to all of you for developing such a helpful, supportive forum!
I currently live with two very different kitty cats. Samantha, my sister-kitty, is a Russian Blue who just turned eighteen years old--"geriatric" by kitty standards, I've come to learn. My family adopted her as a kitten when I was only seven years old, and we've quite literally grown up together. She used to hunt frogs and sparrows in her younger days and was horrible at bringing live animals into the house and letting them loose for us to chase down. She's always been a quiet, patient kitty cat, and has become more and more sedate as the years go by, although she still reverts to very kitten-ish behavior at the smell of roasted turkey breast or fast-food chicken fingers. Although she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a few years ago and has been undergoing treatment with methimazole, I'm beginning to observe more and more signs of her age and declining health, some of which have become especially pronounced over the last few weeks--I fear that despite our vet's best efforts, we may need to make a very difficult decision in the next month or so.
Our other kitty is Sable, our baby-cat adopted from a local animal rescue society just after New Year's. She's very handsome, mostly black with three white patches on her chest, breast, and tummy--like a little black twinkie! She'll be five months old next Saturday, and is just losing the last of her baby teeth (I'd never thought about other animals' baby teeth until we met her!). I've never met a feline with so much personality and attitude, the total opposite of our laid-back Sammy. She's incredibly energetic and is obsessed with exploring--just this week she managed to work her way back behind our TV set in the entertainment center, and broke one of the fake logs in the fireplace apparently trying to sniff at the chimney flue(sp?). If she finds a place she can't reach or fit into, she'll sit and stare at it with her little ears twitching and what we've come to identify as her "frustrated" meow. She also has a terrible habit of waking us up at 3-4am every morning by chewing our hair and biting our chins.
Forgive my rambling!
