Cat Goes To The Vet

Last week, we took Cat to Dr. Solano for a general checkup and vacinations. As far as we know, he has never had vacinations. We know nothing of his history because he just appeared one day at our house over a year ago.He was unneutered so we had that done shortly after he appeared. It was our intention to find a permanent home for him but - hah! - of course he had other ideas. So, since it appears a cat now owns us we decided he needed a checkup.

Dr. Solano is an excellent vet here in Atenas. His telephone numbers are 2446-6646 and 2446-6068. He also has a cell phone: 8995-8585 and email: veterinariadrsolano@gmail.com. His office is located 100 meters east of the ICE office (ICE being the acryonm for Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - the Costa Rican government run electricity and telecommunications services provider).

Cat (the name that has stuck) was very unhappy in the carrier and the short taxi ride but was a good boy while being examined by Dr. Solano and his assistants. This is a cat that is outside all day, hunting and lolling around in the grass/dirt so he had fleas and no doubt worms. He stays inside at night. He needs to lose some weight so we have him on a calorie reduced diet now. Dr. Solano said Cat is built larger then most Costa Rica cats.

The treatment Cat received was: deworming, flea treatment (Frontline Plus, I think, or similar), Felocell and Leukocell shots, and feces exam. The total cost, including the consultation, was 48,050 colones - about 96.00 USD. We also bought 1.5 kg of weight reduction kibble for 9850 colones (19.00 USD) and a product to spray on furniture to kill any fleas. Pet food in Costa Rica is pricy because it is imported.

Here is the dewormed and flealess version of Cat:

 

 

Caught in the Act

Our cat, named Cat, is notorious for tossing things off counters and tabletops. Nothing that weighs less then a pound is safe from him. We can hear him in the middle of the night - crash! It's a bit of a problem because it wakes us up.

Today, I got photographic evidence of the furry culprit.

Having moved a calculator and two watches to the edge of the table, they are seconds away from being swept to the floor by Cat.

 

And here he is with the fallen watches, one of which was in his mouth seconds earlier. Oh, that's our machete on the chair rungs.

 

Fostering a Cat

Here is Oro (Spanish for "gold"). I gave him that temporary name because his eyes are golden hued and he has golden tail and facial hair. I say "temporary" because he is up for adoption and his new "forever" guardians can rename him if they wish.

Oro, so relaxed now.

 

He showed up in our neighborhood a few weeks ago, either lost or abandoned. We ignored him, hoping he would find his way home. Of course, he never left. Our neighbor Rose Mary saw him eating bread crumbs from their bird feeder so he must have been very hungry. She started to feed him and then we took over that task. We are going to have him neutered very soon and hope to find him a good home.

His wonderful personality has emerged now that he has regular food and feels safe. He is very affectionate and cuddly. We think he is young, perhaps a year old. Oro was obviously an outdoor cat and he still feels more secure being outside then in the house - although he has started to explore around inside our house. In our tropical climate, he is perfectly fine being outdoors as long as he has shelter from the rain. This also means we don't need to have an indoor litter box.

After our old cat, Genny, passed on (I have written about her here on this blog) we made the firm decision not to have any more pets. We are serious about this which is why Oro is up for adoption.

Oro loves my hammock and will jump right in it with me. He's also gone solo. Here he is dreaming of his new home:

 

Oro, Costa Rican Cat from Diana Miskell Turlock on Vimeo

 

Where Is a Cat When You Need One?

I was lying in my hammock about half an hour ago, swinging back and forth and reading John Lescroart's book, "The Suspect" (excellent).

Out of the corner of one eye, I saw a little creature running into our house. We keep the front and back doors open all day for the lovely breezes but they are not screened.

At first I thought it was a little lizard but this one was round, furry and brown haired, with a tail. It seemed too small for a rat but ....

"Lance, shut all the doors to the other rooms", meaning especially "shut the door to our bedroom!". I don't know if this creature has left the premises or not.

Barney and Goobio, get down here now! We need a rat sniffing cat pronto! So much for sound sleep tonight.

 

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Jungle Cat

Besides blogging about our life here in Costa Rica, I also paint - specializing in portraits of cattle and horses. Now and again I will do a dog or a cat.

You can see my work here. My latest painting is of Cleo, the Abyssinian cat, owned by our Canadian friends, Diane and John. Cleo came with them when they moved to Costa Rica. This painting is a gift to them to say thanks for all the help they have given us since we moved here.

In creating the painting, I wanted Cleo as the main focus of course, with special emphasis on her fabulous eyes. For the background, my inspiration came from the style of Henri Rousseau. I also wanted lots of colour, representing the many beautiful colours that exist in nature here.

The plant shapes in my painting came from my own imagination.

Cleo, Jungle Cat

 

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Dogs and Cats

We arrived in Costa Rica with just one animal, a cat named Genny. Since living here in Vista Atenas, we and our neighbours seemed to have acquired more animals without any effort at all. They move in and out of our lives.

There is Barney, whom I have written about in previous blog posts. Then there is Scruffy, the dog who appeared from nowhere and has adopted all of us.

This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon at our casa:

Genny

 

Scruffy the Dog and Barney the Cat

Scruffy the dog appeared today wearing a lovely collar bought for him by our neighbours.

Barney the cat just sleeps all day long on our patio chairs or at our neighbour's house. All three animals get along fine, except Barney will give Scruffy warning hisses now and then and sometimes Genny and Barney smack each other in the face.

 

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Barney the Cat Update

Barney - Pre-Nutcracker

I've written previously about Barney the Cat and our attempts to get him to the vet and neutered.

Well, it's probably happening right now as I write this! Neighbors Rose Mary and Tony, co-caretakers of Barney along with us, phoned me earlier today to say Barney was at the vet. They used a cat trap to get him - a wise decision after the way he broke out of our airline approved cat carrier.

Apparently, he was plenty mad - and became even angrier when his cage was set down on the floor at the vet's and a puppy gamboled up to the cage to have a sniff. He comes home tomorrow and I'll tell you how he reacts when let out of the cage.

Barney Don't Need No Stinkin' Street Signs!

This is Barney, a young unneutered male cat who showed up at our house about four or five months ago. He was also visiting neighbors, in particular Tony and Rosemary. We named him Barney the Barn Cat because he's welcome to stay around outside, but we are not turning him into an indoor pet cat. With the year 'round good weather we experience, he does fine outdoors.

Barney and Genny became instant friends. Barney has a very loud voice and doesn't enjoy being petted or touched very much - perhaps being unneutered makes him more aggressive. He was on the thin side so we started feeding him whenever he showed up. He would hang around for a while, then go on his way.

We decided to do him a favor and have him neutered, inoculated and treated for anything else, like ticks or worms. We started feeding him inside Genny's airline carrier and eventually he was comfortable eating in there.

Two months ago, when we had the use of a vehicle, Lance shut the door on the carrier, loaded Barney into the car and off they went to Atenas and the vet. Right outside the vet's office, as Lance was unloading the carrier, Barney made a break for it and escaped thru the bottom half of the carrier's door. Either it wasn't secured or he somehow opened it and the space he escaped through was quite small. He was last seen running down one of Atena's streets. Lance felt terrible about it, of course, and we've always wondered what Barney's fate had been. There are so many dogs in Atenas, many running loose.

Whose face was staring through the glass patio door this morning? Barney's of course. Like any Costa Rican, he didn't need street signs to navigate his way back from Atenas, two to three miles away, to our house in Vista Atenas. It took him two months.

He looks pretty good considering. We are going to try again to get him neutered. If we can get him in the carrier, Tony and Rosemary will drive him to the vet and we'll split the cost of his treatments.

Oh My Gawd! It's May!

This is zero month, the month we leave, no more sitting around saying "when we go to Costa Rica" - because we really are going there this month.

So much has been happening. A lovely young couple with a toddler have rented the house we have been leasing. Genny our cat had a wellness exam last week, plus a chip inserted, rabies shot and one of her innoculations. She goes back on May 9th for a couple of more tests and another innoculation. We are liaising with her vet, World Pet Travel and Veterinarios Asociados in San Jose, Costa Rica, where Genny will be boarding until we find our long term accommodations.

I'm now down to packing the last few storage bins and my paintings. We went to Rona this morning and bought pipe insulation tubes. They are perfect for putting around the edges of paintings to protect them from damage.

Here are some photos of Genny helping me pack today, the paintings I need to pack and the insulation tubes around some paintings.

Tuffy Does Toronto!!!

It's official - Tuffy, the cat who moved herself into our home, has been adopted by my niece in Toronto and will be boarding Air Canada on April 21st.

We'll miss her - and her snoring, ability to catch cheese squares in her paws, loud voice, loud purring and her pretty, pretty face. But we are very happy she is going to an excellent forever home.

We bought an airline approved carrier and it's all set up. I watched a video on You Tube about how to prepare it - layers of newspaper, covered by layers of those puppy training absorbent pads, with a final layer of a soft blanket. I'll be attaching plasticized info sheets and a bag of kibble.

We'll freeze water in one of the feeding cups the night before so it will melt slowly and she'll have water.

Tuffy appeared out of nowhere - just showed up on our patio last summer, meowing. She looked scared but hung around and gradually moved in. She has a partial ear tattoo that only tells us where she was spayed. Between my sister and me, we distributed 100 lost cat flyers in our neighborhood and nobody called. We had her scanned for a chip but she doesn't have one.

Here's some pictures of the carrier when we first brought it home, Tuffy (tabby) and Genny (our cat, black). I put catnip inside it initially to get them interested. Genny has taken to having her afternoon naps inside it.

Orchids Go To New Home

My orchid collection left today - and they have gone to the perfect home. Jennifer took them all - she already has orchids - and a parrot - and a cat - and a dog. Her husband was quite cheerful about all these new additions although we heard a few mutterings about "hoarding". You can never have too many orchids.

Here's something rather amazing - an immature orchid I bought at a show about 5 or 6 years ago finally bloomed a couple of weeks ago so at last I got to see the result - it is spectacular.

It's a weight off my mind knowing my orquideas are right where they should be now.

Here is a photo of the Blc (brassiolaleocattleya - hope I have spelled that right) flower:

Genny Update

Looks like Genny will be good to go next spring. Her tests showed the infection had reached her kidneys and caused a bit of damage there. It appears the infection is on it's way out and she is scheduled for another ultrasound in a month.

Her belly was shaved so she's not fond of going out in the wet grass right now. She's an indoor kitty but does like to explore the garden on nice days. It was sort of funny when she got home last week after her tests. The sedatives had caused her pupils to expand so she looked exceptionally bright but couldn't see very well - she kept missing her food in her bowl.

Just Slogging Along and Downsizing

The more stuff I take to the various charity shops, the more stuff I seem to find in the house. All our Christmas items are on Craigs List and I've had a few calls but no buyers. It's a real deal: $100 will get you a 6 foot tree with stand and carrying bag, tree and outdoor LED lights, ornaments for the tree that are really nice, a bag of wrapping paper and gift bags, and assorted decorations for table tops. One of my favorites is a fabric white swan with a wreath around his neck.

Genny the cat has been spending inordinate amounts of time at her vet. Routine blood tests before her dental cleaning showed a UT infection and blood in her urine. Antibiotics have cleared up the infection but the blood remains. This coming Friday she is booked for ultrasound and x-rays on bladder and kidneys to find out what might be going on. Could be a stone and that can be removed, but kidney problems are more difficult to treat. She is ten years old now and hardly sick a day in her life.

I spend a lot of time reading Costa Rican blogs and have started reading A.M. Costa Rica, an English language on-line newspaper. Their rainy season this year has been so bad. It should be ending soon, everyone hopes.

Kitty Packs Her Bags

Yesterday, I hauled our two huge pieces of luggage out of the garage and into the house, with the intention of cleaning the cobwebs off them and storing them in the storage area under the stairs.

I bought this luggage back when one could haul tons of luggage on a plane and when I used to pack all my  clothes and shoes for a ten day trip to Ottawa. Those days are over but they will be perfect for our move to Costa Rica.

Genny agrees with me too - here she is examining them and wondering if there is room for her. There will be room for her, of course, but in her airline approved carrier - something else I will be looking into during the coming months.

August 1, 2010

We made an executive decision today - January, 2011, will be the month we go to Costa Rica. So now I'm writing a large do-to list: look into Etsy to see if that is a viable place to sell some paintings because that would be better than putting them in storage; hold a garage sale in September; try to find out who owns the little tabby cat that moved in with us uninvited about a year ago (she has a tattoo); list some more stuff on Craigslist; etc., etc., etc.

Well, I'm tired thinking of it all.